Much like the entire movie, Thanos carried a lot of weight on his shoulders after so many years of buildup. Was he worth watching in Infinity War?
Warning! Major spoilers ahead for Avengers: Infinity War. Read at your own risk, and remember, Thanos demands your silence.
Marvel has been one for one on the whole “good villain” thing so far. It’s been agreed that Erik Killmonger from Black Panther was the best Marvel villain to date. But now it is Thanos’ turn. Was he a compelling villain in Avengers: Infinity War?
In short, the writers and everyone involved certainly made Thanos as fascinating and terrifying as possible. He might not be a cool and menacing villain like Darth Vader or the Joker, but there’s still a lot at stake for him that the movie carries out well.
Prior to Infinity War’s release, we discussed why Thanos needed to be a good villain. His story is a culmination of 10 years worth of Marvel movies, with six of those where we’ve actually known who he is. He’s been the guy silently pulling the strings in the background, and it’s been driving us crazy to know exactly what this guy’s deal is.
Finally, in Infinity War, that was revealed. Thanos was not the power-hungry cliché that most villains were. In fact, he had a master plan that he thought could help fix society. Now, let’s not get hung up on over whether we should sympathize with Thanos because he wants to kill off half of the universe to essentially fix it. The writers made this choice so we could simply see where Thanos was coming from; to give him a bit of plausibility.
Remember when we kind of felt for Killmonger when he wanted to set things “right” with Wakanda? His plan might not have involved condonable actions, but the plausibility made his character all the more interesting.
The best villains are ones who almost had a great plan, and maybe it would have worked, if it weren’t for them being completely insane.
That goes for Thanos, and the writers did a fantastic job at executing that. Sure, he wants to bring world peace. But wiping out half the universe probably isn’t the best way to do that, Thanos.
What really drives the point home with Thanos’ narrative is when he’s forced to chose between giving up something he loves for something he desires. We see that Thanos is a man of his morals (sort of). He ultimately chooses to sacrifice his own daughter Gamora in order to bring balance to the galaxy (oops, wrong movie, same premise).
In the end, everybody has something to sacrifice, even Thanos. What we don’t see, though, is if those choices were worth it for him in the end. The writers were correct to say that Thanos was the main character in this movie. And now we need to know the payoff. Was it worth it? He lost his daughter, his Black Order, Titan… What’s left? Sitting and watching the sunsets alone?
If there’s one thing that might help the Avengers conquer Thanos by Avengers 4, it’ll be the heart that he wears on his sleeve. We saw in his interactions with Gamora (and in his quest to bring universal peace) that he has the tiniest sliver of humanity in him.
We also saw that the Avengers couldn’t defeat him with brute force alone, so something else has got to give. Now that he is alone, is that bit of humanity his exposed weak spot?
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We’ll just have to find out next year, unfortunately. For those who are impatient, a new novel will come out later this year with some key information on Thanos’ background that might guide us in putting all the pieces together.