I don’t often think of movies like this in a way where a lot of thought goes into
it.
For the most part, most of my time is spent enjoying the movie and looking for any possible
cadences that the creators had put in.
Though I believe I wasn’t giving enough credit to superhero movies, or well Marvel
superhero movies, because there’s a lot that would make you think.
My focus in my second time of watching Infinity War was Thanos, I have a lot for his character
and his character in the comics, but this is going to be a general overview in comparison
to the character analysis I have planned.
See, I don’t believe in his ideals or anything of that matter, though I do believe that his
goals link up well with everyone against him.
Don’t you think it’s a bit odd on how we look down on the villain for doing something
we wanted our heroes to do?
Not as in we want the Avengers wiping out half of the universe, but more on us possibly
being disappointed in our heroes not willing to put in the sacrifices for the greater good.
Now before you get on me for thinking about the sacrificing of heroes, I’m just posing
a thought.
We’ve seen heroes sacrifice themselves before, there’s countless stories where it’s done,
but in the case of Infinity War, it’s not about heroes sacrificing for a stone or two,
but more on heroes needing to understand the situation and what’s at stake here.
Not every situation had to end in sacrifice, I know a very dire situation where the only
thing needing to be done was… nothing, but we had a character that had let himself get
overwhelmed and put himself ahead of the universe because he was upset.
That character being Peter Quill, or better known as Star-lord.
While trying to be as empathetic as possible for a movie character, it still puts me in
the same mindset, and I understand this was done for the plot, and it’s probably all
in the planning of Doctor Strange, but it happened, and my statement still stands strong.
Meanwhile you have many losing moments like this, Thanos goes through the same road as
the heroes, but he’s ready to do what’s needed to win, even if it’s something that
hurts him more than anything else would.
They share this road, both our heroes and Thanos.
There are many points in the journey that we see the heroes and Thanos go through, and
those points have very colorful and bright indicators.
This where the second part of this video’s title comes into play.
The Infinity Stone aren’t only the most important things in the universe, but they’re
also highlighters for the important moments our journey.
I’m going to go over these moments in order of appearance since it looks like the most
sensible way of going about it.
Let’s start this off with the Power Stone.
This was a chilling opening with the many bodies of Asgardians laid out everywhere,
and then into the picture we have Thanos dragging the body of an extremely beaten Thor.
Thanos is looking for the Space stone, and confronts the man responsible for saving it,
that being Loki.
Some bargaining happens between the two, and it ends up with Loki holding the Tesseract,
getting ready to hand it over to Thanos.
The thing is, they have a Hulk, or well…
Had.
I’m not going to say this is the worst beatdown the Hulk has received, but it’s probably
the most degrading since what was at stake, and the strength gap between the two was immense.
This is where the Power Stones symbolization comes into play, not because he used it, but
because he didn’t.
Thor and Hulk had just come off of a fight from Azgard and had encountered Thanos right
after.
Fatigue could be a reason on why they didn’t do as well, but the fact of the matter is
they didn’t have the power to contest Thanos in the first place.
That’s why you see Squidward stopping any interferences in the fight between Thanos
and Hulk, because he believed that Thanos would just get a kick out of it.
Trust me, he definitely got more than a kick out of that fight.
This all being done with out the Power stone backing Thanos up, because no Power stone
was required.
That’s why I believe the Power Stone has this sort of poetic irony symbolism, to show
that they never had the power to contest anyways.
The next stone obtained is the space stone.
I wasn’t exactly sure on what the situation would connect to when first approaching this
since the power of the space stone is so broad.
Though I believe it would correlate or well, contrast well to it’s most common use, that
being transportation through the universe.
The symbolism being that those with the stones can’t escape the grasp of Thanos even with
having the power to do so.
The people in question being the unaware Asgardians who didn’t even know about Loki bringing
the Space stone onto the ship.
It wouldn’t make sense to say that Loki was dishonest since no one had asked about
the Tesseract, but there wasn’t anyone worried about things like that since they’re recovering
from the attack on Asgard by Hela.
It would’ve been easier if Loki didn’t have the stone and it was destroyed on Asgard,
but you know Loki and his love for power and mischief.
Someone had ran the idea of the space stone being a symbol of the space between Thor and
Loki, and that space being gone once the stone is gone, which leads to Thor feeling as close
to Loki as possible because he believes it’s a death he’s not coming back from.
I’m not sure on it, but personally I believed it sounded cool.
So, you can take that as you will since this whole thing is a speculation anyways.
Now, we have the reality stone.
This isn’t one where the symbolism is the lack of or indirectly the stone, this is closer
to showcasing if anything.
Thanos had created this whole scenario to where Gamora is able to match up against him
and take his life.
The thing is, even when claiming that he’s someone she had never cared about and always
hated, she cries over his dying body.
Thanos claims that he knew that she still cared about him, and from what we’ve seen
it looks like she does.
The thing she believed she had to do this one thing for the greater good of the universe,
she knew what was at stake, and she took it upon herself to still carry it out.
The only issue is that it didn’t happen.
Then you have the interaction between Star-lord, Gamora, and Thanos, where we see this reoccurring
incident.
The question was, would Star-lord be able take out his love for the greater good of
the universe?
It was the most painful thing Quill had to do, but he was still able to do.
The issue was that it didn’t matter.
Quill in this moment isn’t doing it for the universe, he’s doing it because Gamora
had got him to promise that he would.
We see what he does when there’s no promise bound to his actions anymore, but that’s
for later.
The next stone we get, the soul stone.
While being the most sought for stone in the universe, it wasn’t that difficult to figure
out what was behind it.
Especially since the way to obtain it is the symbolism itself.
Sacrifice for the greater good is a thing that the movie makes a huge note of.
So many situations where the heroes were completely incapable of doing something that would’ve
taken no time for Thanos too do.
Reminder about what I said in the beginning of the video, it connects over well.
Think about all of the moments where sacrifice could’ve happened, but the heroes weren’t
willing.
There was Thor and Loki, Vision and Scarlet Witch except it was done multiple times, Gamora
and Thanos, Star-lord, Gamora and Thanos, Gamora Thanos and Nebula, Thanos and Gamora,
possibly Star-lord and Thanos if you see it that way, Vision and Scarlet Witch the last
time, and the most important one Doctor Strange and Thanos.
I wanted to move Doctor Strange and Thanos to the end for the reason mentioned, it being
the most important sacrifice.
Loki and Gamora were in this position to where someone they massively care about is being
tortured because they knew of the location of an Infinity Stone, Loki had his, and Gamora
knew where to go.
Scarlet Witch, Thanos, and Star-lord were in a position to where they had to kill their
loved one for the sake of the universe.
If you can what Star-lord did as ignoring sacrifice which I sort of would, then he put
his emotions ahead of the universe.
Finally, Doctor Strange, letting half of the universe, including himself, die so that the
possible outcome of them coming out of this on the winning side can happen.
Or, the next movie can do something completely different and have Doctor Strange say “Whoa,
yeah I didn’t see that being a possible outcome”, but I doubt it.
The thing with sacrifice in the movie, is that it’s strongly connected to will.
If you remember the quote of Doctor Strange, “I think you’ll find that our will is
equal to yours!”
The thing is, it isn’t.
Only a select few characters have will on par with Thanos, those characters being Doctor
Strange, half of Star-Lord, and Scarlet Witch.
Though that’s in the case of people that had to do something on the same level of pain
as Thanos.
I’m sure that you can have Black Panther with Wakanda and some of the Avengers in the
group when talking about self-sacrifice, but I’m not going to be the one that weighs
self-sacrifice versus the sacrifice of the one you love the most.
In this movie, putting down the one you love the most is made to mean so much more than
just fighting the fight and possibly losing your life for it.
But back onto the topic of will.
The thing here is that Thanos does everything our characters do and can’t do.
He has the strength, the army, the mind, and the will.
All of those things are what led him to be the victor at the end of the movie.
To summarize that, soul stone equals will.
Up next is the time stone where we meet the same case as the Reality Stone.
Where what it lays isn’t in before or when it was obtained, but instead, the use of the
stone.
“I understand my child, better than anyone.
Today I lost more than you can know, but now is not time to mourn.
Now, is no time at all.”
The same credit he gives to Star-lord, is given to Scarlet Witch in this moment.
He credits her with being able to take the life of the one she loved the most, but it’s
too late.
The crowd knows that if this was done earlier in the movie, there would’ve be no way for
him to know when or where it happened.
The thing is, he would confront them, and they would either lie on what happened or
try not to speak to him.
The problem with that is he would’ve just ended up torturing it out of someone else,
and who knows if they would keep quiet.
Their track record so far isn’t the best here.
It was too late, there was no time.
And now finally, we have the mind stone.
We see no use of the mind stone since now he has them all, or maybe not.
It’s speculation, but I believe we see the first time use of the mind stone when Thanos
ends up in this plain of nothing but water and a shrine that resembles the one we saw
Thanos and Gamora under when they had first met.
I believe we’re in a pocket of the mind of Thanos since the only thing we see here
is Gamora and he’s also without the Infinity Gauntlet.
Thanos had been mourning ever since he had ended the life of Gamora, and I believe this
moment is where he’s able to get into his own thought and finally accept what he’s
done.
She asks him “What did it cost”, and he responds with “everything”.
His everything.
Thanos in Infinity War is a villain that puzzled me when first approaching the movie because
I couldn’t see where he was coming from, but at a second glance, it wasn’t difficult
at all.
He was a Hero, but just not our hero.
Without mentioning any names when talking about Infinity War to people haven’t seen
it, but had seen all of the previous MCU movies, I asked some people what characters would
give up the one thing they care about the most to save the whole universe.
I was told Doctor Strange because he had sacrificed himself before, so he would probably do it
again.
Captain America because he had also done the same thing.
Iron-Man because he looks like the hero that would do so, and the Hulk because… and this
is a direct quote, “Black Widow is fine”.
After they had watched the movie, I asked the same questions and they brought up Scarlett
Witch liked expected.
Thanos wasn’t mentioned because what he was doing didn’t seem like saving the universe
at all.
The thing is, when the moral compass is removed, the characters are the same in motive, it’s
just that Thanos had a way that he believed worked, and he wanted it the most.
Of course, it’s not respected because many people don’t want to compare the heroes
to villains because villains have been made to be these characters who are evil to be
evil.
Yet we see many villains who believe what their doing is the correct thing.
It’s shown in the many of the MCU movies, and it exists very well in many pieces of
fiction.
One of my favorite examples is from Hunter Hunter, and it’s a comparison between the
characters Gon and Hisoka.
Once you remove all the cheery protagonist things with Gon, you get a character who in
too many ways matches up to someone who we should be fearing.
Thanos has goals that haven’t been something that anyone in the MCU strives for.
Doctor Strange defends our reality but doesn’t interfere with the countless problems of the
planets in the universe, his role is general defense and not what’s inside.
There’s many characters that defend the Earth, but they don’t do anything else to
push the world to be a better place, except possibly Tony Stark.
In the eyes of Thanos, no one can understand what he’s doing, and he’s right because
it’s not morally correct at all.
Thanos looks past that because he believes that the way that he’s tested to work to
make the universe a better place is the only one possible.
He probably looks at his road as the misunderstood heroes journey and sees everyone else as children
that wouldn’t understand his ideals.
He should know that what he’s doing is wrong to everyone, but to him it’s just a small
cost for the greater good.
“With all six stones I could simply snap my fingers and they would all cease to exist,
I call that, mercy.”
The half of the universes population fades while he rises, smiling looking into the sunrise.
There sits a titan, an accomplished titan.