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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
An author's interpratation is no more or less valid than that of the audience.
Any amount of complexity means the author and the audience nor necessarely seeing eye-to-eye, and Thanos is a fairly complex character.
Yeah, I think that was less "Thanos is lying when he says that he cares about saving the universe, he's really just a petty bitch who can't let go of a grudge" and more "Thanos does genuinely believe in what he says, but there's a part of him deep in his subconscious that really just wants to prove that he was right and have validation".
Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Feb 5th 2019 at 4:54:20 AM
Honestly, I think people who insist on seeing Thanos as the one-dimensional, pure evil Space Nazi are just as deluded as people who try to insist that he has a reasonable goal and motivation.
He is neither a pure Well-Intentioned Extremist, nor is he pure evil. That is the beauty of his character. He doesn't fit in either of these boxes.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianI think he definitely considers himself a Well-Intentioned Extremist, at least.
Except when he wipes out the Dwarves and the Asgardians...and Gamora's people...and probably Xandar....
One Strip! One Strip!Thanos is a man of contradictions, double standards, & self-justifications........ which makes him pretty damn human.
He cares for his children but he despises Nebula, he believes himself a man of honor but his actions toward the dwarves speaks otherwise, he wants to save the universe but his methods of doing so involves mass murder & conquering, he stated he’s allied with a group of fellow believes but those groups included mindless monsters, people he’s brow-bested into serving him, & savage killers he’s indoctrinated since childhood.
He is a man of many qualities, self-delusion being the primary one of them.
Edited by slimcoder on Feb 5th 2019 at 4:06:00 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."My point was that I think its kinda weird to see how some people seem hellbent on trying to deny that Thanos, no matter how irredeemably evil he is, has some clear-cut redeeming features. Hell, I once even saw somebody deny that he was grieving for Gamora....when there really isn't ANY logical base to deny that whatsoever.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianUm, reading the rest of your post it seems quite clear that Death in fact does not want Thanos running around killing people in her name.
Edited by windleopard on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:13:01 AM
Honestly, at this point I have seen more people complaining about people supposedly agreeing with Thanos than seeing anyone *actually unironically* agreeing with Thanos. I'm not even sure these people exist. No one in this thread is actually saying that they are agreeing with Thanos.
You can think that a villain is a nuanced character with layers and see where they are coming from, but still at the same time agree that they are a dangerous maniac whose philosophy is flawed and who absolutely needs to be stopped. This isn't mind-blowing.
Edited by Nightwire on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:15:17 AM
Yes, I know that stupid people exist on the internet. But that also means that we should call out something when it fans the fuel of their stupidity. I have no doubt that there are people who consider Thanos to be completely right (and not in that Reddit "Thanos was totally right" way) and I just think that Infinity War needed something a bit more to refute his argument — even just a scene of him not caring about any evidence proving him wrong or whatever — something to show that even if Thanos is sympathetic, he is still completely and utterly wrong. (And no, there is no such scene in the film.)
Edited by alliterator on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:22:53 AM
Hardly. Even that IMO doesn't go deeply enough into the inner workings of how and why Thanos is wrong and what he could do differently. Not even any real mention of an alternative like attempting to just make more resources.
Self-serious autistic trans gal who loves rock/metal and animation with all her heart. (she/her)People may walk away from any film convinced the villain was right, but what matters is if the text provides enough to prove that the film does not share the same conclusion. Black Panther shows Killmonger was wrong. The Dark Knight shows the Joker and Harvet Dent were wrong. Civil War shows that Zemo was wrong. Infinity War does not show that, and if it's not going to do so, it should've done so for a conflict that actually deserves 5 hours of moral quandary, not 5 hours of "have you considered genocide".
Heh there's something amusing about that phrasing, "in the worst possible way".
Man that day for her was just a fucking rollar-coster.
Though unlike those other examples, IW is clearly part of a two-parter no matter what Word of God says.
Edited by slimcoder on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:58:48 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I don't think Thanos was supposed to be factually wrong about killing half the universe equating to saving the rest. Ignoring how, mechanically, his plan makes no sense (he's wiping out half of all organic resources in the universe, so it's not like the survivors will have proportionally more food after the snap), the film presents it as a factually correct solution to improving the longevity of civilizations throughout the universe.
That's actually really important. The question the film poses is, "Is it right to sacrifice other people for the greater good?" If it turns out that the snap wasn't even a functional solution for the greater good, that would distract from the moral question, leading to unanswered follow-up questions like, "Thanos was scientifically wrong about how to save the universe, but if his science was right, then would it have been the right thing to do?"
By making Thanos factually right, the film can then argue that Thanos was ethically wrong.
Edited by MileRun on Feb 5th 2019 at 8:04:17 AM
Thing is, presenting it as "it'd work, it'd just be evil" is how we get tropes like Repressive, but Efficient, which perpetuate myths about dictatorships as being more productive than free societies. 30 years later Star Wars is still having to shake off the insistence that the Empire was safer than the Republic by showing, no, it wasn't.

People are still arguing about Thanos’ motivation?
The creators outright said it was to prove he was right. He wants to be validated.
Disgusted, but not surprised