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Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules still apply.

  • This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
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    Original post 
Since Thor and now Captain America came out this year, I wanted to get what Tropers thought of the concept and execution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. Personally I love the idea and wonder why this idea hasn't been seriously tried before. It sorta seems to me like the DCAU in movie form (And well, ummm, with Marvel), and really 'gets' the comic book feel of a shared universe while not being completely alienating.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM

MileRun Since: Jan, 2001
#96351: Feb 5th 2019 at 11:50:52 PM

The directors say that we can empathize with Thanos. Empathize means we can relate to him, or at least understand where he's coming from. Sympathize means we should pity him. They're not the same thing.

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#96352: Feb 5th 2019 at 11:55:52 PM

And neither mean any of his evil actions should be excused.

Again, being able to relate to a character and absolving them are very different things.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 5th 2019 at 11:56:29 AM

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#96353: Feb 5th 2019 at 11:57:53 PM

[up][up]The difference between empathy and sympathy is that empathy is feeling another's feelings as if they're your own, whether through a personal connection or a similar experience, while sympathy is just acknowledging their pain and understanding something of why they might feel it — it does not require you to pity or forgive them. I understand the difference you're trying to draw, but the distinction you're making isn't correct.

alliterator Since: Jan, 2001
#96354: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:00:20 AM

Sympathize means we should pity him.
No, it doesn't, that's a very reductionist view. "Sympathy" is the ability to feel compassion or identification with someone else. "I sympathize with them" doesn't mean "I pity them," it means "I identify with them and understand what they are going through." Although, again, it doesn't mean that you approve.

Edited by alliterator on Feb 6th 2019 at 12:01:27 PM

Tuckerscreator (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#96355: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:06:01 AM

I am not sure the distinction being drawn here between empathy and sympathy was on the writers’ minds during their statement. The two concepts are frequently conflated with each other.

Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#96356: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:08:35 AM

Probably wasn't. It's a sliding scale, anyway, like most things. How much you empathize/sympathize, if you do at all and if you considered the filmmakers successful in their attempt to make a character sympathetic, that's all highly personal.

MileRun Since: Jan, 2001
#96357: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:11:31 AM

Sympathy is more than just understanding someone's pain. Perhaps "pity" wasn't the right word for me to use, but sympathy does require some element of compassion towards a suffering person/character. Speaking as broadly as possible, a sympathetic character is one that we aren't supposed to feel happy about seeing them suffer.

I don't think that applies to Thanos. Thanos suffers when Gamora dies, but in that moment we are supposed to loathe him for doing it. Thanos expressed some hint of sadness at the news that Maw died, but we're supposed to be glad that Maw is gone. Thanos tearfully says that he sacrificed everything for his plan, but at that point we're supposed to be horrified that his plan went through at all.

He's not a sympathetic character.

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#96358: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:15:40 AM

I definitely did not find Thanos sympathetic at all. Empathetic insofar as I could understand why he might feel the way he does, but definitely not sympathetic, because if anything it just showed how twisted he was and made me like him less as a person.

slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#96359: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:16:38 AM

The man is indeed a delusional psychopath.

He has earned his title well.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 6th 2019 at 12:16:48 PM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#96360: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:17:08 AM

You can feel more than one way about something, at different points during a work — at the same time, sometimes. That's allowed. Emotions are complex, and they strike people different ways. A character who is sympathetic in one moment does not necessarily need to be maximally sympathetic forever and at all times. These things are not binary.

Which does mean that yes, you can empathize with someone's pain while not sympathizing with their views, or them personally. That's also fine.

Edited by Unsung on Feb 6th 2019 at 1:24:11 PM

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#96361: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:18:27 AM

Speaking as broadly as possible, a sympathetic character is one that we aren't supposed to feel happy about seeing them suffer.

I don't think that applies to Thanos. Thanos suffers when Gamora dies, but in that moment we are supposed to loathe him for doing it.

These are two different things, which is where the logical leaps in your argument comes from.

For one, a character who is sympathetic is not a character who is always sympathetic in every situation period. Just because we're meant to sympathize with them, doesn't mean we're supposed to believe that everything they do is worthy of sympathy: those simply are not the same thing.

But more to the point, even if "a character who we don't ever want to see suffer" was what being sympathetic meant (it's not), it still wouldn't also mean "a character whose actions we are never supposed to disagree with."

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#96362: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:18:33 AM

I never once found Thanos to be sympathetic or empathetic. I'm not sure how we're supposed to be able to relate to someone who thinks killing half the universe is a good way to save it.

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#96363: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:21:13 AM

Those little moments of vulnerability or tenderness that give away to the man inside all he monster.

Which is usually immediately lost once you are reminded that a monster is still a monster.

Look at the scenes with Gamora & Nebula. He genuinly praises & loves Gamora but in the same breath he will call Nebula a failure & a waste of spare parts as if the sheer differences in treatment doesn’t even register to him.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 6th 2019 at 12:22:07 PM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Unsung it's a living from a tenement of clay Since: Jun, 2016
it's a living
#96364: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:22:14 AM

[up][up]Well, that's not the part you're supposed to empathize with. People are more complex than their worst actions — they have to be. That being said, if Thanos's worst actions outweigh any sympathy or empathy you might have felt for him, I think that's understandable too. I think that would be, you know, within expected parameters, as a writer.

Edited by Unsung on Feb 6th 2019 at 1:23:31 PM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#96365: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:22:36 AM

[up][up]Personally those moments were way too brief for me to empathize with Thanos.

I also personally can't empathize with abusive parents like Thanos. Nor do I want to.

Edited by M84 on Feb 7th 2019 at 4:23:51 AM

Disgusted, but not surprised
slimcoder The Head of the Hydra Since: May, 2013
The Head of the Hydra
#96366: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:23:53 AM

[up] That’s understandable.

It’s a big movie so a lot of space has to be divided.

It at least adds dimension to the character. He is not a blithering one-note Card Carrying Villain.

Edited by slimcoder on Feb 6th 2019 at 12:24:53 PM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
MileRun Since: Jan, 2001
#96367: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:28:31 AM

But more to the point, even if "a character who we don't ever want to see suffer" was what being sympathetic meant (it's not), it still wouldn't also mean "a character whose actions we are never supposed to disagree with."

I've said numerous times that we're not supposed to agree with Thanos, and that Thanos being unsympathetic is incidental to that. What more do you want from me?

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#96368: Feb 6th 2019 at 12:48:59 AM

I think my favorite Thanos moment in the whole film is the contrast between him making that loving speech to Gamora about how he wants her on his side and would never lie to her or manipulate her, and then once she continues to defy him he turns around and tortures Nebula to make her do what she wants without ever seeing the irony. He's "the ends justify the means" taken to the point of sheer ignorance, and it exposes him for not just a hypocrite, but a hypocrite who is chronically unable to understand how much he contradicts themselves.

That's what good relateability does for characters like Thanos. He's a contradiction, a hypocrite and a fool with a lot of power and conviction that turns him from a madman to a monster. Writers need to make us understand, even halfway adhere, to where characters like that are coming from in order for us then to understand why and how they're so far from where they think they are (otherwise you end up with Malekith). The parts about him that draw you in are exactly what make the parts that repel you more impactful.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 6th 2019 at 12:57:26 PM

AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#96369: Feb 6th 2019 at 1:01:51 AM

I think that's the strange thing about his supposed love for his children. I can buy that Thanos believes that he loves them due to Brolin's acting and that one scene of him with little Gamora. But I never believed he actually demonstrated anything resembling what we know as love for them, partly because I don't think the film did as good a job of showing him actually caring for them as it should've and it definitely doesn't help that I've always felt the GOTG films underserved Gamora and Nebula in this area. Even his abuse of them is largely an Informed Attribute that we infer from the way Gamora and Nebula talk about him.

MileRun Since: Jan, 2001
#96370: Feb 6th 2019 at 1:14:47 AM

My interpretation is that Thanos' idea of "love" for Gamora is less like the way that a parent would love a child and more like the way someone might love a car they built.

He doesn't see love as something that needs to be mutual, or at least he doesn't recognize that Gamora's loathing of him is detrimental to their relationship. Gamora is his trophy; he recognized her potential as a little child and trained her to be the deadliest assassin in the universe. He's proud of his work on her, and so he loves her as his personal accomplishment. Meanwhile, because Nebula is inferior, he sees her as his own failure, and therefore resents her.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#96371: Feb 6th 2019 at 1:19:22 AM

[up][up] Well, I certainly wouldn't want to see it in detail. We see the result all over Nebula's body and we see her suspended in the air, suffering. I think that is enough to make the point. And we explored in detail the scars he left on their mind in Vol 2.

Edited by Swanpride on Feb 6th 2019 at 1:20:02 AM

Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#96372: Feb 6th 2019 at 1:21:50 AM

I did sympathize with him and I think its a little weird to say that he was not meant to be sympathized with. The scenes are pretty clear in that regard. Being irredeemable and evoking some sort of sympathy is not mutually exclusive.

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#96373: Feb 6th 2019 at 7:06:06 AM

How much weirder would the ending have been if people weren't shocked, but instead turned to the other survivors and said, "Man, I really hated those guys. Anyway, look at all the resources we don't have to fight over. Go team Thanos!"

Thanosgiving.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Beatman1 Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Gone fishin'
#96374: Feb 6th 2019 at 7:08:39 AM

“Please don’t bring up politics at Thanksgiving”.[lol]

eligram Since: Sep, 2009 Relationship Status: In denial
#96375: Feb 6th 2019 at 7:17:29 AM

Honestly, I don't understand the criticism of nobody telling the flaws of Thanos plan to him. What? Do you believe Tony has a Power Point presentation ready in his armour titled "why mass genocide is bad and it wouldn't solve the resources problem", and sitting Thanos down and showing said presentation was the only future where the Avengers won?

I mean, I'm sure most of us here before this movie could tell him that mass genocide wouldn't work, but didn't had the the knowledge (be it research, investigations, numbers...) to make a compelling case other that is morally wrong. Remember this guy had all his life making the argument that mass genocide us the only way. It would be weird if Tony or any other hero came up and say " finally! I had researched all my life for why genocide wouldn't solve the limited resources problem and have an argument ready just in case a mad alien came trying to do just that! Leave it to me guys!!" I mean, how weird would be that?

...well, now that I think about it, I can see Tony totally be all: " I was researching on how to solve the limited resources on Earth and came with random mass genocide, but I did the math and didn't work. So I got this, let me talk to the purple guy" tongue


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