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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Note that nothing we saw about Thanos leading up to Infinity War painted him as a sympathetic well-intentioned extremist.
The first sight of him in the entire MCU is grinning when one of his minions tells him that humans "court death".
Well, remember that it's not the same Thanos. The one from Endgame's, uh, endgame hasn't had five years to mull things over; he's still pretty fresh off the Avengers denying him the Tesseract in 2012, and hasn't gone through the loss of his daughters betraying him yet or being forced to sacrifice one of them for the Soul Stone.
That being said, I think they did a good job of making it feel like one continuous character; Past Thanos does his homework and picks up where his present self probably would have gone next, albeit more bloodthirsty and ill-tempered.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Yeah the important thing to note is the Thanos who made the change was the one who hasn't gone through all the experiences in IW. They are both different people but also the same. Past-Thanos is more actively violent compared to Present-Thanos who has been rendered somber from pain and having nothing left in his life to do.
Edited by slimcoder on Jun 10th 2019 at 11:41:44 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Bear in mind that Infinity War Thanos said he was going to "finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe" after completing his goal.
He always thought that people would tell him he's awesome.
Forever liveblogging the Avengers![]()
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I'm still not 100% on my feelings towards that aspect of the film.
Having Thanos be replaced by a version of himself without any character development sorta just highlights how margianalized he is in E Ndgame. He exists because the film needs a final battle. Even though the film kinda twists itself to make that happen. He's inevitable because the screenwriters demand he be inevitable. You could easily not have Thanos be involved in the plot at all. It's basically pure bad luck that he gets wise to what's going on.
Edited by GNinja on Jun 11th 2019 at 8:45:36 AM
Kaze ni Nare!^ That's sort of my feelings towards the overall story of Endgame. Strange said after searching 14 million possible scenarios that this was the only option of success. Instead basically the entire climax hinges on complete random chance ( if Nebula pressed the return button one second earlier, or Rhodey pressed his one second later) otherwise it would have been an unspoiled victory. I do like the idea of a bleeding effect between these realities, which Far From Home might explore, but in terms of the movie itself it's just there to give us a third act.
The first sight of him in the entire MCU is grinning when one of his minions tells him that humans "court death".
Yeah, but nothing we saw about Thanos leading up to Infinity War meant anything at all, so I can see why people don't take that into consideration. His appearances in Avengers 1, Guardians, and the Age of Ultron stinger have basically nothing to do with these films, which were more or less written in a vacuum.
That said, I agree with the general sentiment that Thanos was seeking validation for his horrible ideas on Titan, not being truly selfless. It's an easy thing to overlook, however, because that's one of many things Endgame fails to pay off.
Thanos asserts that Titan died because of a Malthusian catastrophe. This is his entire justification for his plan to kill half the universe, and the film uses the setting for one of its climaxes as well as the Reality Gem to show us the before and after of Titan's tragedy.
Endgame allows Thanos's claim to be the final word on the matter. It never offers rebuttal for his version of what happened to Titan. Thanos says, "My methods are horrifying but they are effective," and the heroes' position is "Yeah, but they're horrifying, though."
That's the biggest misstep with Thanos's character and it's what makes the transition between films so jarring. His position in IW is Utopia Justifies the Means. His position in Endgame is Dude, Where's My Respect?. And that can be an unexpected leap in his character for some because the only argument against Thanos's Utopia Justifies the Means philosophy that IW and Endgame offer is a superficial You're Insane!.
The film never disagrees that it would work; only that it's a cruel way of doing it. Rather, Infinity War spends so much time selling Thanos as a diehard true believer willing to do whatever it takes to save the universe, while stashing his egotistic "grateful universe" characterization in throwaway lines here and there.
Thanos makes the most sense as a character in denial about his own terrible ideas. Someone who utterly refuses to admit that his plan for Titan was garbage. Someone driven to vindicate himself, even if it means reducing the rest of the universe to the same burnt-out shell that Titan has become.
But that's not the character presented in the films.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 11th 2019 at 7:55:43 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It’s shown to an extent in Endgame that halving Earth’s population wasn’t all beneficial. Five years later, major cities like NYC and San Francisco have massive unoccupied zones left to gather dust.
On the other hand, somehow Earth is more peaceful? No outbreak of war, no other supervillains, and the Avengers on Earth don’t really have much to do except monitor petty crime.
And on that same hand, that Titan and Gamora’s planet just needed to kill more people is left completely unchallenged.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jun 11th 2019 at 8:12:59 AM
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Ehh, not really. Thanos wanted to kill everyone and restart the universe with enough resources for enough people. Cyrus just wanted to remove all emotion from the world; based on his line in Platinum about the player "waking up" in a world of his creation, he didn't even intend to kill everybody off, just change the world they all live in.
That's actually not clear at all. Carol mentions that other planets don't have Avengers to help them, but that's basically the plot's excuse for her to f*ck off. It's never developed or expanded on beyond being an excuse to remove Carol from the events to come.
And even then, I guess she just hung out in low Earth orbit for an hour or something 'cause she shows right back up unprompted once the Avengers have completed all their time travel shenanigans. No one calls or signals her. She just manages to return in a timely fashion when she's needed.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 11th 2019 at 10:00:54 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It’s logical to assume that the other Avengers put out a call to her that they were doing a time heist and she swung by as soon as she was done doing whatever she was up to. Alternatively: she’s a living FTL engine. Who knows how fast she can book. What was the turnaround time of the beeper shutting down and her showing up in the Captain Marvel stinger
Forever liveblogging the Avengers"That's Thanos, I think. He feels pride and attachment to the beings he groomed into devotees. But he "created" them for a purpose, and considers it just if the culmination of their existence is to die for that purpose. His love is an entirely onesided affair, because he does not conceive of relationships that don't end with his ideals being paramount.
"
Pretty much, Thannos love Gamora because gamora act the part he wanted and therefore the part he made of her, the moment she rebel like nebula, he could only find disaponitment.
He is yoru typical overbearing parent, just with a cosmic gauntlet on him
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"It’s not insignificant crime, but it is a far cry from how all life on Earth was nearly wiped out four times in the prior five years,note with several World War 3s risked as well.note Most of the Avengers have retired and the world didn’t suffer for it. Thanos saved the planet apparently.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jun 11th 2019 at 9:19:01 AM
He is yoru typical overbearing parent, just with a cosmic gauntlet on him
Exactly.
Which is, itself, another area where the films wound up uncomfortably validating Thanos's behavior. When he sacrifices Gamora, we're meant to feel bad for him. Thanos asserts that he alone has the courage to make the necessary sacrifices, and the film wholeheartedly agrees.
Gamora insists that Thanos's abusive relationship with her isn't love, but that's just, like, her opinion, man. The supernatural arbiter of love and sacrifice declares that Thanos indeed loved Gamora, that his love was real love, and that it counts. This absolute declaration is never refuted by the rest of the film or Endgame.
Indeed, Endgame goes a step further by asserting that the love between Hawkeye and Black Widow is exactly equivalent to the love Thanos has for Gamora. An opportunity to undermine the Soul Gem's claim to being a supernatural arbiter of what is and is not love goes by unheeded. The Vormir Sacrifice is never subverted in a way that would devalue Thanos's initial sacrifice. Instead, the narrative rewards Black Widow's death in precisely the same way as Gamora's, vindicating Thanos's "love" in the process.
Infinity War and Endgame are bizarrely reluctant to actually condemn Thanos's actions. The writers know he's supposed to be the bad guy. But it doesn't feel like the writers actually understand why his actions are bad. The films seem to think that an abusive, genocidal madman is a complex, morally grey character with valid arguments to make.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 11th 2019 at 10:21:40 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I’ve never seen that scene that way. Imo, that scene does a stronger job of making us feel bad for Gamora than for Thanos.
The fact that it feels entirely unfair that Thanos keeps getting his way and patting himself on the back for it is intentional. We’re supposed to feel outrage, not sympathy, that he can sacrifice and traumatize better people than himself and call it justice - which is why the movie puts so much attention on how his actions make the other characters feel.
From the Infinity War DVD commentary:
The scene wants the audience to feel sorry for Thanos.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jun 11th 2019 at 9:31:50 AM
To the exclusion of feeling that his actions are wrong? He doesn’t say that.
Feeling sorry for a character and feeling that they’re right are two very different things, especially in a film that does such a strong job of establishing the negative personal effects of his actions.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Jun 11th 2019 at 9:36:13 AM

I agree that the transition between “sad man noble duty” Thanos in Infinity War and “I demand everyone tell me I’m awesome” Thanos in Endgame is unconvincingly abrupt, but I never liked Thanos being played as sympathetic in Infinity War anyway so I’ll take the new Card-Carrying Villain version.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jun 10th 2019 at 11:36:46 AM