If you have the power of reality, spacetime, the mind, etc., surely you could snap in more fresh water, food, metals, plants, etc.? Was he just stubborn and didn’t want to let go the idea he proposed on his home planet?
Also, how does Thanos survive “snapping” but regular people using the power don’t? Does that imply that the type of people on Thanos’ planet is “superior” to everyone else (in my opinion, nobody should survive it because the stones are essentially the power to control every aspect of the universe itself)?
One thing of note, Thanos in Infinity War shows that you could use the stones individually (and also other characters, like Vision using it as his brain/the power source for his thinking bits and Dr Strange using the time stone to manipulate time) and that doesn’t kill Thanos or any other character it seems. Why is that, are the stones meant to be more powerful together? Also, what happened to all the stones, were they all returned to their hiding place (and if so, why weren’t they used for doing good stuff, like space stone could be used for fast travel, soul stone could bring back the dead, mind stone could solve the mysteries of the universe, reality stone could make awesome virtual reality games…)
And finally, and definitely very important, why is Thanos purple? Seriously though, why? Is it because of the comic books (like Hulk being green), or is there another reason? Did he just need to stand out from everyone else?
Because his original motivation was to impress a girl he liked. Death is a hot chick that he was in to but she wasn’t interested in him. So he figured killing half of all life would impress her.
They decided to make his motivation more sympathetic for the movie. They didn’t think through how his new goal could be better served with the godlike powers he gets.
He likes killing, and he likes thinking of himself as s benefactor who is just so much smarter than everyone else that he’s the only one who sees the solution, who can rise above petty emotions and do what needs to be done. Sure he’s killing trillions, but only to save them from something worse that would have happened (he reasons).
Most people wouldn’t mind killing someone if there was a moral justification for it and they could get away with it. Just look at how people react to videos of someone stealing a bike: everyone in the thread is ready to literally murder that person. Because they think they have justification. Well, Thanos thinks he has a justification too. And he’s murdered millions up close already - not with a snap - there’s no going back now. In order for his mass murder to be excusable there has to be a larger purpose to it. There has to be.
He’s a knot of different psychoses mixed together. Primarily narcissism plus homicidal tendencies. He’s fully insane, if that did not come across somehow. Totally pinched off from the rest of reality, living in his own self-reinforcing loop. He’s got a lot of power and that makes him more and more immune to reality intruding on his fantasies.
Logic doesn’t come into it. Not only could he have created more resources… he didn’t even think that populations would just grow again and bring everything back to the same place. No he’s blindly playing out the track he’s on. The only way out is forward, because he can’t justify anything behind him otherwise. When the universe isn’t grateful for what he did, and his fantasy of being the benefactor falls apart, notice that he is ready to destroy the entire universe and become god, because how else can he escape the crushing blame for what he’s done.
That would have been a boring movie.
If you want to try and rationalize it, I think he might say that the psychological scarring is necessary for all existing societies to change to more sustainable models, or risk another such culling in the future. Due to exponential growth of life, doubling resources, especially while societies continue to abuse those resources wouldn’t probably wouldn’t do anything long term (in his mind).
I am skeptical if such psychological damage can make enough long term inter generational impact, but hey it’s a theory.
The psychological scarring is an interesting point, but that only works if you know why the snap happened.
By the end of Infinity War most of Thanos’s army and underlings have been defeated. Thanos then (within a few days/weeks) goes into retirement. So he’s not spreading word of his accomplishments or reasoning.
Carol mentions at the start of Endgame that a lot of other worlds need her help. So she could spread some information on what happened, but I’m not sure it’s going to really stick. You need the trauma of Thanos actually showing up (or his underlings and then the Avengers filling in the gaps).
I love how this whole premise never gets questioned. By anyone. None of the super smartest people in the movie were like, “no that won’t work.” The premise just gets accepted as true, but it would be bad.
“I’m going to eliminate half of all life in the universe” hey thanos did you know that scarcity in modern society isn’t driven by population at all, and is in fact an artificial condition imposed on the lower classes by the ruling class that hoards those resources?
No its just like, “well killing people is wrong but it would probably work, people might be sad though.” No Disney, fuck you. Don’t let people believe this shit. Thanks for your endless support for cultural fascism, ya fucks
This is a formal reply from the cancellation authority. We’ve reviewed your comment and found you obscene. Please report to the nearest authority for cancellation.
Comment in question : scarcity is an artificial construction.
We do express the people here at the cancellation authority are not trump supports we protect the billionaires as they are our chosen gods. Any deviation is therefor blasphemy. Please collect your check from George seros and exit stage left. We appreciate your acceptance.
Y’all mind if I just uncancel myself like our lord and savior Jesus Christmas?
Every time I see that image I think of the tag line
“Screw your sins I’m getting the hell out of here”
The short answer is that they had to come up with something more palatable to a movie audience than “I’m evil and have a crush on the literal Lady of Death.”
Hah, came to comment this. Honestly, the comic got pretty wild, especially once Nebula got a hold of the gauntlet.
Go on
Ok, here is my tl;dr of the last part of the story from the comics. The gist is that after the snap, every remaining hero + Dr Doom do an all out attack on Thanos along with all the “cosmic” super bosses (Galactus, Chaos, Order, all sorta wacky beings) and they were going to win until Doom tried to steal the gauntlet and fucked it up. Thanos kills every hero and traps the all cosmic weirdos and then becomes the new “God” of the universe. When he does that and leaves the gauntlet sitting there, Nebula (that he had been torturing) grabs the gauntlet and tears the whole universe up and takes over. In the end, Dr Strange saves Thanos and convinces him to help fight/trick Nebula and restore the universe. I am sure I missed stuff, but it was pretty crazy. One of the more fun things I remember was Wolverine sticking his claws right into Thanos through the neck and for a sec Thanos thought he was dying until he remembered he could essentially just make himself “not dead” and then he turned Wolverines claws/bones into Play Doh.
Wait… I never read the comic. Please explain
As a casual viewer I just heard from you basically “you’re forgetting he’s in love with literal death personified into an tangible entity”
I’m sure you understand without context that leaves me with a lot of questions.
I once had my hair braided illegally in the Bahamas. That’s a true story. Do you have questions? I’m sure you do.
In the comics, Thanos is in love with Lady Death (sometimes called Mistress Death) who is a personification of death. Thing is, she doesn’t return his affections. So, he kills half the universe as a way to try to win said affections. I think the writers for the MCU probably felt that was a little too hokey to fly with modern/mainstream audiences.
Thank you!
Btw my hair braiding was more of a union kind of agreement I violated but I’d argue anything a cop cuffs you about is fair to call illegal. I did it purposefully as well just to tell the story.
How you frame a story matters lol.
Is lady death an X-men style hero, juggernaut, or spiderman?
Born, stumble apon, or inflicted? That matters to me for some reason.
Edit: door dr strange. (Sought)
Lady Death is an anthropomorphism of death. The marvel comics version of the grim reaper. Not a hero, just a thing that exists.
Back on Titan, Thanos told his people “you need to kill half the population to save our civilization from disaster.” The people of Titan dismissed Thanos as insane. Thanos, being actually insane, decided he was going to prove he was right by going around massacring halves of populations.
In other words, he’s not doing this to actually help anyone, he’s doing it just to prove he was right. Solving the universe’s problems by other means wouldn’t do that so that’s not an acceptable outcome for him.
The comic had better writing. Thanos killed half the universe so he could fuck Death. He thought she’d love that shit since she’s, y’know, death. I’d do the same for a goth girl.
I love that title and have read it a hundred times. But I wish the writing didn’t veer into archaic high-falutin’ language like it does. Some realism and modernity really added something to Thanos in the movies.
for a goth girl.
Big Titty Goth Girl! FTFY
I - and since regretting it - rewatched the early MCU movies recently. The first time you really see Thanos mirrors the first frame, and the line immediately before he turns and smiles talks about how to invade Earth is “to court death.” Given the comic book version, I’m not sure they had the whole 50% motivation thought through yet.
I’m not sure they’ve thought it through yet, although I do like the argument elsewhere in the thread that Thanos did it to prove he was right, not to save the universe.
One of the motivations from the comics doesn’t make sense anymore. Remember that Death revived Thanos because she thought it was unjust that more people are living now than have ever died.
That’s one of those cool sounding factoids that people used to throw around but which is now pretty well debunked. They _couldn’t _ go with that for the movies.
They definitely hadn’t thought his motivation through by the time of Guardians of the Galaxy, where it’s stated that Ronan killed all of Drax’s people for him.
He was just jealous of Wade Wilson, who Lady Death actually likes. XD
Jesus-Zombie-Christ…Fucking vanilla! How do you even get hard without wiping out half the life on a planet?
I think what was missing was his obsession with Death. The MCU didn’t include his infatuation and Death’s hold on him. He wanted to impress her and she held him to it in the comics.
In the comics, he was trying to impress his girlfriend, Death.
Thanos is simping for Lady Death who doesn’t give a thought about him at all
No girlfriend. She barely noticed him. The ultimate incel
Doesn’t Deadpool fit in there too? Amusing cause he’s not in ‘those’ movies. Never read those comics but just reading about Thanos, Deadpool and Death seems neat.
Death doesn’t even notice Thanos exists, but finds Deadpool amusing. Thanos is watching his crush go on dates with the class clown.
Much like how they dumbed-down the original story for The Matrix, they decided that a romance with Death wouldn’t sell as many action figures, lego sets and app games I suppose. Gotta keep dem stories 2-dimensional.
Maybe he did
Because the only way Marvel movies know how to ratchet up the stakes is having more and more people die.
So if a new one comes out… everyone needs to die in the marvel universe.
It’s the only logical progression.
After that they’ll have to start killing the audience.
I think batman already did that last bit
Fortunately there is another universe we can go to. Isn’t the multiverse fun?
“When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”
Dude just wasn’t very smart
Because it’s a pretty dumb story at its core. Because they wanted the “worst villain” but couldn’t come up with something more interesting or intelligent than “misguided environmental terrorist.”
As others here have indicated: he was also courting the personification of death itself.
So he’s a “death obsessed environmental terrorist.” I think that’s worse.
That’s in the comics. We’re talking about the movies, where the personification of death is not a factor.
