Let's Talk about Thanos - Movies with Mikey (Avengers Infinity War Discussion) [Archive]

Ramza00

2018-08-31, 07:25 AM

I don't know. I think that the problem is that first he believes that a film somehow endorses the actions of it's protagonist, just by virtue of them being a protagonist. Which is not the case, not even in old school film. I mean look at Citizen Kane, probably one of the most famous films of all time, they have a protagonist who is largely portrayed in an extremely negative light. There are many other examples. This film does not show Thanos in a positive light. Not at all. He's a madman, and that's pretty clearly shown in the film. It also doesn't show that he actually "loves" Gamora, only that whatever his twisted mind has pass for love is enough for the stone that wanted him to kill somebody he loved, which I think would not be the best arbiter of love.

Wrath of Khan did it better. Making a compelling villain, making a villian you can empathize with, but at the same time not too visually appealing that people will literally think he is right and then advocate for the "mad titan policy."

Part of making a charismatic villain is realizing you are playing with fire and making him too charismatic and too focused only on his own point of view will change the nature of a "family friendly audience that all can enjoy" and it will bring out some really dark toxic fandom. Genocide is a serious subject, abuse is a serious subject, if you are going to tackle these issues in your story you need to be cognizant of this fact and if you do not do it in a masterful way you are going to burn yourself or part of your audience (not necessary your fandom but instead the greater audience.) but some people will not feel comfortable / not like the movie for it is toxic in its way, you can say that it is okay to be toxic for this is the villain part of the two part arc but recognize it is the audience right to not like the movie. Even be critical of the movie And this is valid criticism, yes it is subjective criticism but subjective criticism is still valid.

Devonix

2018-08-31, 08:24 AM

People keep asserting this but the movie soundly refutes it. Even Thanos refutes it at the end when asked "was it worth it" and he says no. Not "well, no but I'm happy with the end result" or anything to that effect. Thanos says it wasn't worth it. If that's not an "I was wrong" than I don't know what is. "They never said out loud it was wrong!!" is such a terrible argument. The audience doesn't need to be told everything point blank. We don't need to be told something we already know. Saying it flat out would have been so hideously insulting to my time and my intelligence I'd have walked out of the theater.

I don't want or truly need someone to say out loud he was wrong in those words. But no one and nothing in the film suggests that he was incorrect.

I love Gammora even though I'm doing all this crap. Tosses her off the cliff. Yep guess it was real love because he got the stone.

And no Saying it wasn't worth it, is not the same thing as saying he was wrong. Hell it's the opposite, because his plan worked, from the very beginning he acted like it wasn't going to be worth it, like he was some hero who was the only one who could make this great sacrifice for the benefit of the universe. It's not worth it to him, but he thinks still that it was the right thing to do.

Razade

2018-08-31, 08:34 AM

I don't want or truly need someone to say out loud he was wrong in those words. But no one and nothing in the film suggests that he was incorrect.

Except the 200,000+ people who fought against him so he couldn't do what he wanted to do. Or the entire civilizations that stood in his way or...yeah. No one. You're right. How silly of me, I forgot everyone just helped him along the way and that's why the movie was six minutes long of him just going from place to place being handed the stones and Gamorra jumping to her death so he could get the Soul Stone.

Oh, was that not how the movie went? Awesome. So people did say he was wrong.

I love Gammora even though I'm doing all this crap. Tosses her off the cliff. Yep guess it was real love because he got the stone.

It's like he's the villain and we're supposed to...not root for him! Weird!

And no Saying it wasn't worth it, is not the same thing as saying he was wrong. Hell it's the opposite, because his plan worked, from the very beginning he acted like it wasn't going to be worth it, like he was some hero who was the only one who could make this great sacrifice for the benefit of the universe. It's not worth it to him, but he thinks still that it was the right thing to do.

1. His plan working doesn't mean he was right. That doesn't follow. Things happen all the time that aren't right.

2. He didn't act from the start like it wasn't worth it. He literally spent the entire movie talking about how it was for the good of the universe and everyone would thank him. The moment after the snap is him showing remorse for having done it. Like, empathy says what?

3. We don't know how he feels after. Because the movie is a two parter. Unless you've got the script for the second part.

Incidentally, Devonix is showing a class act on what is and isn't valid criticism. So A+ and Gold Stars for him.

Devonix

2018-08-31, 09:00 AM

Except the 200,000+ people who fought against him so he couldn't do what he wanted to do. Or the entire civilizations that stood in his way or...yeah. No one. You're right. How silly of me, I forgot everyone just helped him along the way and that's why the movie was six minutes long of him just going from place to place being handed the stones and Gamorra jumping to her death so he could get the Soul Stone.

Oh, was that not how the movie went? Awesome. So people did say he was wrong.

It's like he's the villain and we're supposed to...not root for him! Weird!

1. His plan working doesn't mean he was right. That doesn't follow. Things happen all the time that aren't right.

2. He didn't act from the start like it wasn't worth it. He literally spent the entire movie talking about how it was for the good of the universe and everyone would thank him. The moment after the snap is him showing remorse for having done it. Like, empathy says what?

3. We don't know how he feels after. Because the movie is a two parter. Unless you've got the script for the second part.

Incidentally, Devonix is showing a class act on what is and isn't valid criticism. So A+ and Gold Stars for him.

The 200,000+ people fought him because he was evil, and they didn't want to die. They didn't fight him because he was wrong.

I think you are confusing a plan being correct, with a plan being morally right. The movie doesn't play the plan as morally right, it does portray it as something that is statistically or scientifically correct.

We have the creators actual words saying that what he's doing is evil , but a good motivation, that it's a sacrifice he's making. You don't have to take my word for it, I'm just going by the film's themes as stated by the writers and director.

And no, the film isn't saying that we're supposed to root for him. The film is saying that what he's doing is bad, but make us question what we would do in the situation. It's asking us to think about his plan as if it would work. We're supposed to see him as sympathetic.

AMFV

2018-08-31, 09:09 AM

The 200,000+ people fought him because he was evil, and they didn't want to die. They didn't fight him because he was wrong.

I think you are confusing a plan being correct, with a plan being morally right. The movie doesn't play the plan as morally right, it does portray it as something that is statistically or scientifically correct.

We have the creators actual words saying that what he's doing is evil , but a good motivation, that it's a sacrifice he's making. You don't have to take my word for it, I'm just going by the film's themes as stated by the writers and director.

And no, the film isn't saying that we're supposed to root for him. The film is saying that what he's doing is bad, but make us question what we would do in the situation. It's asking us to think about his plan as if it would work. We're supposed to see him as sympathetic.

If that is the case. It's failed because neither I nor anybody I've watched the movie with saw him as sympathetic, AT ALL.

Devonix

2018-08-31, 09:28 AM

If that is the case. It's failed because neither I nor anybody I've watched the movie with saw him as sympathetic, AT ALL.

I 100 percent agree with you there. However you can find people on this very site during the discussions, as well as many many many popular videos online about how Thanos was right. or how Thanos was the most sympathetic villain of all time, ect. And that's why I had a hard time likeing the movie.

My views were such at odds with what the filmakers wanted me to feel.

Razade

2018-08-31, 04:25 PM

The 200,000+ people fought him because he was evil, and they didn't want to die. They didn't fight him because he was wrong.

You can't be serious at this point.

I think you are confusing a plan being correct, with a plan being morally right. The movie doesn't play the plan as morally right, it does portray it as something that is statistically or scientifically correct.

No it doesn't and no I'm not. The movie never once, ever, endorses Thanos's plan. The only people who think Thanos's plan is right are....shocker...the villains. No one else goes "yeah...he's right". Not once. The movie does not ever, once, paint the plan as scientifically correct.

We have the creators actual words saying that what he's doing is evil , but a good motivation, that it's a sacrifice he's making. You don't have to take my word for it, I'm just going by the film's themes as stated by the writers and director.

He did sacrifice. That doesn't validate his plan. The creators saying it's a good motivation doesn't mean the plan is good or the end result is good.

And no, the film isn't saying that we're supposed to root for him. The film is saying that what he's doing is bad, but make us question what we would do in the situation. It's asking us to think about his plan as if it would work. We're supposed to see him as sympathetic.

No it's not. No we're not. We're supposed to find him revolting. Killing a loved one for a mad scheme isn't sympathetic. There's pathos in it. It helps us understand who he is but it certainly doesn't make him sympathetic. It's the moment we're supposed to go "oh...yeah, screw this dude."

At this point I don't think you can even keep this tangent going. You've so decisively misinterpreted the movie that I'm not sure you were even awake for most of it.

I 100 percent agree with you there. However you can find people on this very site during the discussions, as well as many many many popular videos online about how Thanos was right. or how Thanos was the most sympathetic villain of all time, ect. And that's why I had a hard time likeing the movie.

My views were such at odds with what the filmakers wanted me to feel.

You...liked the movie because people had a different opinion about it than you? Yikes.

Darth Ultron

2018-08-31, 04:44 PM

The problem as I see it, is Avengers Infinity War needed a prequel. There should have been a movie that introduced Thanos and set up the whole back story.

And a Captain Marvel movie would have been the perfect fit.

Setting: the past 1960's ish Earth/Florida/NASA
Heroes: Captain Mar-Vell(white male Kree) and Captain Marvel(Carol Danners, white female human)
Villains:Von-Rog(Kree) and Thanos(younger)
Plot: The Kree send a stealth mission to Earth to watch over humans space flight. Mar-Vell disguises himself as a human to spy on them, but quickly learns to like the humans. Von-Rog and Mar-Vell fight a lot, and Carol gets zapped with the alien machine. Von kills Una and Mar-Vell rebels.

Von-Rog then does his fiendish plot of he ''tricks" the space pirate Thanos into heading towards Earth to destroy it. The two Captains team up to save the world...but the invasion fleet oddly heads towards Saturn...or specifically Titan. The two Captains head to Titan and help the fight. Von is ready and has his 'Lunatic Legion' of Nitro, Cheeta and such. Thanos kills Mentor, Mar-Vell kills Von-Rog, Nitro kills Mar-Vell, Titan falls and Thanos's fleet is destroyed.

Earth is saved...but only barley...and at great cost. Thanos gets away. Dying Mar-Vell gives Captain Marvel the job/responsibility of ''protect your planet...Thanos is still out there."

End Cap-Thanos vows to rebuild and needs more power, and encounters little girl Gammora.

Ramza00

2018-08-31, 05:31 PM

The problem as I see it, is Avengers Infinity War needed a prequel. There should have been a movie that introduced Thanos and set up the whole back story.

And a Captain Marvel movie would have been the perfect fit.

Yes. You can tell the story of Thanos that the director / writers / producers wanted to tell but it would need more scenes. Not much more scenes but 5 more minutes. (Remember Darth Vader only appears for 34 minutes over 3 movies in the Original Trilogy.) But you literally could not tack on another 5 more minutes on Infinity War's Script. Infinity War is already too bloated and it is pure "rising action" with no release over the 160 minutes length. Something would have to go, something would have to be sacrificed in order to tell the story of Thanos that you want to tell and still be true to the directors / writers / producers style they wanted to create with Thanos while at the same time answering the complaints.

A prequel movie would have solved all of this. It did not even need Thanos as the main character / story / plot point but some world build / character motivation set up could have occurred during that movie. There are several types of prequel stories you could have told and you are correct Captain Marvel would be a great / perfect fit while also being its own thing.

----

I think people are talking past each other here in this thread and not understanding each other complaints, and not understanding each other from "each other's frame of reference." The people who are complaining about Thano's plan are not just complaining about the plan being stupid or being wrong. They are also complaining about how in some people (I am not refering to anyone here) mind, some people's toxic mind, you can just invalidate people's frame of reference, their subjectivity, for "the greater good." Your life does not matter for it does not fit in my grand design. Your life does not matter for your subjective pains, passions, experiences, goals do not add to my pains, passions, experiences, goals.

Aka it is not just about genocide or no genocide it is about someone invalidating the life experiences of others for you feel dominion over another. I am the master and they are my underling / slave.

By only hyperfocusing on Thano's perspective / frame of reference and never responding to this frame of reference with a counter narrative (instead of "the heroes" merely responding to Thano's actions, organizing against the villain protagonist.) You allowed this narrative to continue for 2 hours and 40 minutes and this narrative is toxic from a sociological standpont. Some people can tolerate this / endure listening to this narrative where a person is literally advocating for only one person's subjectivity and he can erase other people's subjectivity (not their life but literally the ability to counter his opinions) while other people say what is the big deal I can compartmentalize while others can not.

And there is a 3rd group a very small group but a small group who agree with Thanos and they feel it is their duty to "shut up" people who disagree with themselves and the world will be better once such a "social structure" is created.

-----

Yes Infinity War is a good / great movie. But it is no longer a movie "for everyone" (aka something similar to family friendly but not really.) Much like horror movies are not for everyone and that is okay, Infinity War decided to create a specific fanbase and discard a specific style of audience with the story it wanted to tell. You are allowed to do this if you are Disney / The writters / The directors / The producers, but also realize people are allowed to criticize you for this and their criticism is valid, it is subjective criticism but the criticism is valid.

Razade

2018-08-31, 06:13 PM

Dudes, ladies, guys, people.

All the other Marvel Movies were prequels.

Like.

How have you missed this? They've all been setting up for Infinity War. That's the point. We see Thanos in lots of other movies and people, across all the times he's brought up, talk about how he's a mad man bent on destroying the Universe. Like. Seriously.

I think people are talking past each other here in this thread and not understanding each other complaints, and not understanding each other from "each other's frame of reference." The people who are complaining about Thano's plan are not just complaining about the plan being stupid or being wrong. They are also complaining about how in some people (I am not refering to anyone here) mind, some people's toxic mind, you can just invalidate people's frame of reference, their subjectivity, for "the greater good." Your life does not matter for it does not fit in my grand design. Your life does not matter for your subjective pains, passions, experiences, goals do not add to my pains, passions, experiences, goals.

Thanks for quarterbacking but I get people's complaints. Me not agreeing with them isn't the same as me not understanding them. The rest...I don't even know what you're trying to say honestly. This is me not understanding you, which I'm happy to ask for clarification. Like...no kidding genocide is about telling a large swath of people their life doesn't matter? Thanos is the VILLAIN. We understand this! We should, at least.

Yes Infinity War is a good / great movie. But it is no longer a movie "for everyone" (aka something similar to family friendly but not really.) Much like horror movies are not for everyone and that is okay, Infinity War decided to create a specific fanbase and discard a specific style of audience with the story it wanted to tell. You are allowed to do this if you are Disney / The writters / The directors / The producers, but also realize people are allowed to criticize you for this and their criticism is valid, it is subjective criticism but the criticism is valid.

What the....

How is Infinity War "no longer a movie for everyone". What does that even mean? It was never a movie for everyone, but how has it lost a target demo now that it's out? Because a segment of a fanbase wants to hyper-rationalize every single bit of minutia to the point of making every cigar into a big black penis? Like, for real? You're trying to make the unprofound profound.

Marvel's Infinity War was an action movie. It may touch on important things but it's absolutely not some movie with deep, artistic merits. It's a movie where you can watch the Grimace fight Robert Downy Jr. and Sherlock Holmes. That's all it was trying to be. That's all it is. That's all it needs to be.

Darth Ultron

2018-08-31, 07:23 PM

Yes Infinity War is a good / great movie. But it is no longer a movie "for everyone" (aka something similar to family friendly but not really.) Much like horror movies are not for everyone and that is okay, Infinity War decided to create a specific fanbase and discard a specific style of audience with the story it wanted to tell. You are allowed to do this if you are Disney / The writters / The directors / The producers, but also realize people are allowed to criticize you for this and their criticism is valid, it is subjective criticism but the criticism is valid.

I don't think Marvel has ever made ''movies for everyone". Really, that just sounds like something a non-geek, non-comic book reader, non-Marvel fan would say to distance themselves from those groups of people. So the ''non" people can sit on their high horse and say ''sure they liked the movie....but not in the way ''them geek comic book reading fans over their do"". Iron Man was made for 99% geek comic book fans, but they focus on that 1% of "Wow Tony went to Burger King" as they eat their kale ''steak" and drink a low fat soy drink from a happy green non conflict zone.

Family Friendly is just a myth, as that just means ''For Kidz and Crazy Moms(and the rare Crazy Dad)". A movie that was family ''for everyone" would have stuff for Mom(aka drama) and Dad(aka adult stuff), but, of course they don't.
And in no way is ''everyone" a fan base. Geek comic book reading fans are a fan base. "Guy that randomly sees an action movie" or "Person that sees new movies as they are bored" are not fan bases.

And sure, we have never seen torture in a Marvel movie ever before, and it never, ever happens in the comic books either(like that Dr. Strange spike torture scene is totally not in any comic ever). So sure, the non-geek, non-comic reading, non-fan is ''shocked'' when they see torture. Death is fine, kill everyone...but torture is so wrong (Thanos could ''in fiction" kill hundreds of human (males), but if he so much as even kicked a CGI(aka not real) puppy then hordes of angry barbarians would attack Marvel over that).

Dudes, ladies, guys, people.

All the other Marvel Movies were prequels.

Like.

How have you missed this? They've all been setting up for Infinity War. That's the point. We see Thanos in lots of other movies and people, across all the times he's brought up, talk about how he's a mad man bent on destroying the Universe. Like. Seriously.

Because they don't? They are just movies with a slight, vague arc. Now, if what they would have done is released a ''10 minute" short or something with each movie that directly stared Thanos and showed directly the events leading up to Infinity War, that would have been more ''prequels".

Like way, way, way back in Iron Man, we could have gotten ''the destruction of Titan", then in Cap First Adventure a "Thanos finds little girl Gamora", then Avengers gives us "Thanos at the temple of Death" and so on.

Ramza00

2018-08-31, 07:48 PM

I don't think Marvel has ever made ''movies for everyone". Really, that just sounds like something a non-geek, non-comic book reader, non-Marvel fan would say to distance themselves from those groups of people. So the ''non" people can sit on their high horse and say ''sure they liked the movie....but not in the way ''them geek comic book reading fans over their do"". Iron Man was made for 99% geek comic book fans, but they focus on that 1% of "Wow Tony went to Burger King" as they eat their kale ''steak" and drink a low fat soy drink from a happy green non conflict zone.

Family Friendly is just a myth, as that just means ''For Kidz and Crazy Moms(and the rare Crazy Dad)". A movie that was family ''for everyone" would have stuff for Mom(aka drama) and Dad(aka adult stuff), but, of course they don't.
And in no way is ''everyone" a fan base. Geek comic book reading fans are a fan base. "Guy that randomly sees an action movie" or "Person that sees new movies as they are bored" are not fan bases.

Darth please :smallwink::smallyuk: *teases* I think you know I did not mean "literally everyone." But marvel movies success is not just creating a dedicated fanbase but actually a gestalt strategy of making a movie that will please the fanbase while at the same time being as open and accessible to "everyone" with everyone not being "literally everyone" but instead as big as audience as possible.

Most (but not all movies) try to do this when they are knowing their goal is to be a blockbuster but the thing that Seperates MCU from other blockbusters is they have gotten the process of doing this down to a formula to the point people complain the movies are formulatic / paint by numbers for so many things always occur in Marvel Movies it is trope worthy. And these tropes are not just comic / super hero / heroes myth type of tropes.

Iron Man was made for 99% geek comic book fans

Laughs we so disagree if you think Iron Man was made for the comic book fans. It was so successful for it was not made for the comic book fans. So many choices were made to have an accessible audience besides comic book fans.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-01, 07:35 AM

Ok, most of this isnt 'criticism' its just complaints. The bit about Star Lord and depicting Thanos as 'loving' Gamora are the only legit criticisms in that whole long video.

The rest is just that torture makes him feel bad, that killing people made him feel bad, that watching a villain made him feel bad. Thats not a valid criticism. Its just a complaint. Or to use different words, you're not attacking the techinical aspects of narrative or film-making, but rather just saying that you didn't like it.
I think his criticism goes a little beyond that. He is saying that the torture and cruel deaths are done for the sake of escalation, and also that Thanos' torture and abuse of his daughter does not somehow invalidate his "love" for her.

Wanda is forced to kill Vision, only to watch him brought back to life and be destroyed again. Quill brings himself to kill Gamora, only for it not to work and to find out later that Thanos actually kills her. Nebula is brutally tortured. The reason for this is because of a villain that doesn't make sense. I think that's part of his argument.

I don’t even think that his complaints about Star Lord or the bit with Gamorra are very valid. It requires an almost deliberately wrong interpretation of various events and themes across the guardians of the galaxy movies and this one.
Can you expound on this?

Criticizing character design...
Are you referring to his shot about Thanos for being huge? I think that's just injecting some humor into the video.

missing...entire messages worked over the course of 21 other movies
What are the ones you think are relevant and contrary to his critique?

making bizarre claims that "adults will not believe the stakes are what they are because "they'll undo it" is nonsense.
But this is a *very* common sentiment about the finger snap. Many people aren't concerned because they will be brought back. You may not feel the same way but I'm not sure "bizarre" is appropriate here.

People keep asserting this but the movie soundly refutes it. Even Thanos refutes it at the end when asked "was it worth it" and he says no. Not "well, no but I'm happy with the end result" or anything to that effect. Thanos says it wasn't worth it. If that's not an "I was wrong" than I don't know what is.
Who asks him this and when does this scene happen? I don't remember it. I tried finding it but I'm not having any luck. Little Gamora asks what it cost him, and he says "everything", but he doesn't say it wasn't worth it, and in the final scene he sits down and smiles. So where do you see the implication that he's had a change of heart?

Strigon

2018-09-01, 11:16 AM

Not really a fan.
Some of the things he says I agree with - I didn't particularly enjoy watching the characters be tortured and slaughtered, either, but I don't think that's an inherent flaw in the movie.
I also don't think the movie sends the kind of dangerous and irresponsible messages he claims it does. I can't see anyone finding Thanos' relationship with his "family" to be a healthy one, or even an okay one. He seems to be concerned that people will think that's normal, and I can't see that happening unless they go into the theatre with that mindset.

And really, his complaints about Thanos not being a complex character are simply wrong. The directors simply said that he had good, understandable, and relatable motivations. They said he tried to, and believed he was, doing the right thing. Somehow, he seems to have interpreted that as them saying he was doing the right thing.
In a lot of ways, Thanos is like Magneto; he comes from a tragic backstory, and his goals aren't evil - he just uses violent means to achieve them. He's someone you might actually like if you met him casually, and his end goals are admirable ones. That doesn't mean he's not a bad guy.

Saintheart

2018-09-01, 11:50 AM

Okay, I stopped the video when he started ranting about the film supposedly equating abuse with love.

This is a massive misunderstanding of the Soul Stone scene, and if he couldn't get that, then, analogous to the Gell-Mann Effect, we can end our viewing right there.

The damn Soul stone is evil. Did nobody figure that out in the course of watching the movie?

(1) It's being guarded by a former Big Bad. Indeed the Stone seems to have cursed good old Red Skull into guarding it. Not a good start for a supposedly neutral distilled concept-in-a-rock.
(2) Said Big Bad is done up like a Dementor on vacation from hovering at Hogwart's.
(3) Said Soul Stone's surroundings have heavy religious overtones - the fact that, as with just about every religious image in every film ever made, stuff happens at the top of a mountain.
(4) Unlike literally every other stone that essentially seems to be a law of physics contained in a rock, this stone has a price for using it. It quite literally demands that you give up a soul in return for using it. The mistake people made was in thinking that by Gamora's ife being snuffed out that she was the price. A soul is not a life. No, it isn't Gamora's soul that is the price of the stone: rather, Thanos's.

Why on Earth would anyone expect a rock with these apparent ideas in it, and with a manipulative Big Bad guarding it, to know anything about love, or indeed be able to recognise it other than in a twisted, manipulative form? Only those who have difficulties understanding the perspectives of others to begin with.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 12:47 PM

I don't know. I think that the problem is that first he believes that a film somehow endorses the actions of it's protagonist, just by virtue of them being a protagonist. Which is not the case, not even in old school film. I mean look at Citizen Kane, probably one of the most famous films of all time, they have a protagonist who is largely portrayed in an extremely negative light. There are many other examples. This film does not show Thanos in a positive light. Not at all. He's a madman, and that's pretty clearly shown in the film. It also doesn't show that he actually "loves" Gamora, only that whatever his twisted mind has pass for love is enough for the stone that wanted him to kill somebody he loved, which I think would not be the best arbiter of love.

I think the core issue as to why people may assume that the movie is giving some sort of.. endorsement of Thanos's motives and/or methods is because of the Grand Overarching Theme of the Marvel movies; a theme MovieBob discussed in his Starlord-discussion video:

Right Makes Might

Thats the central team of practically every Marvel movie:

- there is a moral failure somewhere on the part of the hero, or the environment.
- whe that failure is addresses, things turn out for the best and you defeat the bad guys.

Hey Tony Stark, if you stop being a selfish *******, you can become a world-saving superhero. Hey Thor, if you stop being a warmongering entitled asshat, you will gain back your power and save your father and Kingdom. StarLord has to open up emotionally and trust his instincts (there is a reason why he wins the first movie by doing an improvised dance-off and taking Gamora's hand).

(Captain America movies go in reverse: things go bad because the world is not listening to Captain America).

In Infinity War, everybody do exactly what they have to do emotionally to triumph. Iron Man is selfless. Strange is humble. Everyone goes with what Captain America wants.

And Thanos crushes everyone. One. By. One.

Thanos breaks the metanarrative that have shaped every single Marvel movie. If you want that metanarrative preserved, then you have to assume that.. Thanos is right.

Otherwise, he wouldnt have won. Right makes Might.

BWR

2018-09-01, 01:16 PM

Thanos breaks the metanarrative that have shaped every single Marvel movie. If you want that metanarrative preserved, then you have to assume that.. Thanos is right.

Otherwise, he wouldnt have won. Right makes Might.

This argument would make more sense if there wasn't another movie coming out where Thanos loses and the heroes win. This isn't THE win for Thanos, this is the middle part of the story where the heroes have taken one on the chin and have to rally and defeat the baddie.

LaZodiac

2018-09-01, 01:18 PM

This argument would make more sense if there wasn't another movie coming out where Thanos loses and the heroes win. This isn't THE win for Thanos, this is the middle part of the story where the heroes have taken one on the chin and have to rally and defeat the baddie.

Just as you can't take everything as a vacuum, you can't discredit a thing just because sequels exist.

For this one shining moment Thanos has won. You can't undo that. Our heroes are gonna struggle to undo it, but it will always "have been a thing that was done".

Frozen_Feet

2018-09-01, 01:38 PM

Sure, Infinity War subverts the "Right makes Might" message. I fail to see how this is a FLAW in a movie that's more or less supposed to be MCU's Empire Strikes Back.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 02:42 PM

Sure, Infinity War subverts the "Right makes Might" message. I fail to see how this is a FLAW in a movie that's more or less supposed to be MCU's Empire Strikes Back.

I dont think it is a flaw.

I am just saying, i think this break in the metanarrative we have lived under for 10 years might explain why some people.. drew the wrong message?

"You ALWAYS win when you do the right thing!"
"The bad won here"
".. well.. exception?"

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 03:10 PM

Okay, I stopped the video when he started ranting about the film supposedly equating abuse with love.

This is a massive misunderstanding of the Soul Stone scene, and if he couldn't get that, then, analogous to the Gell-Mann Effect, we can end our viewing right there.

The damn Soul stone is evil. Did nobody figure that out in the course of watching the movie?

As a non-comic book fan, this was close to my interpretation of the soul stone, which probably is very wrong.

I assumed it was a rock that decided that zapping an ex-villain across the universe to a barren, desolate planet and watching people kill each other was a fantastic idea. Why...Why would anyone think it has any idea of what true love is, it's a rock. These rocks seem totally okay being used for evil plans, and I think the one setting up a sacrificial altar probably isn't the greatest rock in the universe. This rock has not shown enough character other than 'jerk', so why would anyone treat it as some sort of authority or mouthpiece on the topic of love? They also seem pretty okay with the general mayhem and mind control of the other films, so maybe these rocks just suck.

Also, why is a PG-13 film for everyone? I mean, that rating exists for a reason. If a parent can't monitor what their children see, that really isn't the movie's fault. I also assume that comic book fans were probably going to be aware of these developments, while the general audience probably should have looked at the rating.

I think the video has some good points, but some seem just confusing.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 04:07 PM

As a non-comic book fan, this was close to my interpretation of the soul stone, which probably is very wrong.

I assumed it was a rock that decided that zapping an ex-villain across the universe to a barren, desolate planet and watching people kill each other was a fantastic idea. Why...Why would anyone think it has any idea of what true love is, it's a rock. These rocks seem totally okay being used for evil plans, and I think the one setting up a sacrificial altar probably isn't the greatest rock in the universe. This rock has not shown enough character other than 'jerk', so why would anyone treat it as some sort of authority or mouthpiece on the topic of love? They also seem pretty okay with the general mayhem and mind control of the other films, so maybe these rocks just suck.

Also, why is a PG-13 film for everyone? I mean, that rating exists for a reason. If a parent can't monitor what their children see, that really isn't the movie's fault. I also assume that comic book fans were probably going to be aware of these developments, while the general audience probably should have looked at the rating.

I think the video has some good points, but some seem just confusing.

I think the movie did say that Thanos did felt love for Gamora. In fact, Thanos felt love for the universe..

Its just that its a sick, unacceptable manifestation of love. Its the sort of horrible love that someone might rationalize existing when they beat up their kids.

"I hit you because I love you" is a very real sentence that is said all too often.

Thrudd

2018-09-01, 04:07 PM

I don't think the movie portrays anything of the sort being claimed here. Thanos is seen clearly as a villain, from earlier movies and throughout this one. His plan is villainous, he and his henchmen are brutal and violent. In the very first scene, we see piles of slaughtered Asgardians aboard Thor's ship, and characters we like getting murdered. Repeatedly showing and stating his evil plan is not an endorsement of it, it is a narrative device that is depicting how evil, ruthless and insane he is. You need to build up a bad guy so the audience wants him to be defeated, and the bigger and more dangerous the bad guy is supposed to be, the more time the movie needs to spend showing us how bad he is. That's what they are doing - not implying that he has a valid point. The viewer is supposed to know and assume that his plan is evil and terrible, that's why all the good guys are going to fight him and try to stop him. It's obvious to everyone - it's wrong to want to kill half the universe, for any reason. They don't need to present a philosophical counter-argument to an obviously evil plan, nobody needs explained to them why we shouldn't kill trillions of people. The film makers would not assume that people are going to look at that in any other way. We're supposed to be shocked and horrified that he succeeded in the end, not relieved or happy.

The only hint of the "wrong" that Thanos is trying to right with his plan is the ruined Titan civilization - and we only have his word and point of view about what caused their destruction. It might turn out that the situation there is a lot more nuanced than he made it sound, and he might have had a hand in its destruction. He's the kind of guy who would absolutely destroy something just to spite someone who disagrees with him. He thought they needed to be more careful with natural resources and avoid overpopulation, so he proposed his 50% euthanasia solution. Obviously, that is insane and wrong, and everyone there told him so. So he f-ed up the planet with some kind of engineered disaster just to show them that he's right and they're wrong.

That the soul stone accepted his sacrifice is not an endorsement of his plan by the film-makers or the universe. If anything, it means that the universe doesn't care what we do - power can be used for evil or for good, so how we, and the heroes, choose to act is what is really important. It would be very anti-climactic if the evil plot ended due to a technicality in how the macguffin works, or because the universe, via sentient and conscientious infinity stones, prevented evil from happening. If that were the case, there would be little need for heroes.

That the villain thinks he is right and believes he is doing something good for the universe doesn't make this an immoral movie or inappropriate for kids. It's clear that he is wrong, even to a kid. It is the same with most villains - they always think they are right or justified in what they're doing. And it is usually pretty clear that they are wrong and somebody needs to stop them, and this movie is no different.

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 05:22 PM

I think the movie did say that Thanos did felt love for Gamora. In fact, Thanos felt love for the universe...

Where does the movie say this, other than 1) Thanos, who is quite clearly out of his mind and 2) a magic space rock who felt like torturing Red Skull for some reason? I didn't really get the feeling that the movie felt that Thanos was right, just that he was really convinced of his own point of view and partially in love with himself.

That the soul stone accepted his sacrifice is not an endorsement of his plan by the film-makers or the universe. If anything, it means that the universe doesn't care what we do - power can be used for evil or for good, so how we, and the heroes, choose to act is what is really important.

I know others feel like there is a narrative of 'Right makes Might', but I never got that idea. Evil isn't vanquished because it is evil and therefore is weak, it is vanquished by the actions, choices and sometimes blind luck of the heroes. The actions and strength helps the heroes and sometimes, helps them make really bad choices or mistakes. Bad things happen all the time and the villians aren't pushovers, but 'mighty' in their own sense. Hela was more powerful than Thor, and not because she was 'Righter' than him, just because she kicked more hiney than he did. Yeah, the good guys are probably going to win, but they are typically light-hearted adventure movies.

And if there was a 'Right makes Might' narrative, wouldn't that be a touch problematic if heroes who lucked into their power like Scarlet Witch or Vision, as opposed to more human heroes like Black Widow and Hawkeye? Are they wrong in their actions? Are they just not as 'right'?

Ramza00

2018-09-01, 05:35 PM

I know others feel like there is a narrative of 'Right makes Might', but I never got that idea. Evil isn't vanquished because it is evil and therefore is weak, it is vanquished by the actions, choices and sometimes blind luck of the heroes. The actions and strength helps the heroes and sometimes, helps them make really bad choices or mistakes. Bad things happen all the time and the villians aren't pushovers, but 'mighty' in their own sense. Hela was more powerful than Thor, and not because she was 'Righter' than him, just because she kicked more hiney than he did. Yeah, the good guys are probably going to win, but they are typically light-hearted adventure movies.

And if there was a 'Right makes Might' narrative, wouldn't that be a touch problematic if heroes who lucked into their power like Scarlet Witch or Vision, as opposed to more human heroes like Black Widow and Hawkeye? Are they wrong in their actions? Are they just not as 'right'?

Right makes Might narratives are a form of a just-world hypothesis or just-world fallacy where humans have a cognitive bias where we want a just world and we feel the world operates under principles of justices. Right make Might is a cognitive bias where we feel the need to "win" in the external world after moments of internal personal growth, or maybe not personal growth but we better understand how our actions / consequences affect the immediate environment and affect other people near us.

It is the need to have a neat and pretty bow on everything. Now this "Right makes Might" was literally the rule for comics enforced by censorship for to get the

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cf/Approved_by_the_Comics_Code_Authority.gif

Comic Code Authority stamp from 1954 on you had to have the heroes win in the end. Only after some changes in the 1970s (with some of the rules of the CCA changed in 1971) and business realizing they can still make money without the CCA stamp, that comic stores will still sell them and the comics without the stamp could still be popular and thus financial success do we see less "Right Makes Might" in comics.

-----

But "Right Makes Might" is not just in comics we see this type of thinking in lots of myths / communal stories that people tell. "Right Makes Might" is a form of legitimacy for it helps reassure our faith in the system and in an a just world. There are a lot of stories / myths where we do not see the creation of a city / culture / people but instead a hero defeating a corrupting influence inside the city or an external monster from outside the city. Aka the hero "rights the wrongs."

In fact this type of myth is very much involved with Disney Animation for there are often two style of heroes who oppose two type of villains. (Of course this is overly simplistic as the video I am about to link addresses near its conclusion.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtRArdcYWQ8

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 06:07 PM

But "Right Makes Might" is not just in comics we see this type of thinking in lots of myths / communal stories that people tell. "Right Makes Might" is a form of legitimacy for it helps reassure our faith in the system and in an a just world. There are a lot of stories / myths where we do not see the creation of a city / culture / people but instead a hero defeating a corrupting influence inside the city or an external monster from outside the city. Aka the hero "rights the wrongs."[/video]

But that doesn't prove that the movies themselves are operating under this logic. I think by the time you have Valkyrie going on drunken rampages, Star Lord showing off hand gestures from his native earth, or Hulk's ding-dong being mentioned, the code might not be in operation anymore. The fact that Thanos is flying in the face of this makes me think that the idea just isn't in play, even if older comics were written for it.

It is also an extremely hard thing to write. Few popular villains are terrible weaklings waiting to be pushed over by their morally upright counterparts, many are dangerous in their own ways. This isn't just limited to adult media, but movies like Big Hero 6 or Rise of the Guardians have villians capable of doing terrible things. Sometimes they get reversed, and sometimes they don't.

'Right makes Might' is a common story in myths...but so is 'Hero is utterly *****ed by fate'. Even in modern media, you can get stories of failure, loss, and never going back to something. A trend which has been seen in the Marvel movies themselves. Iron Man is never getting his mother back, Bucky is never getting to get those years of his life back again, those people from Wakanda that Scarlet Witch killed are going to remain dead. I don't think many people are expecting them to go through the revolving door of the comic book after life.

If you look at the Hero's Journey, which many myths and modern stories (including our old pal, Star Wars, just pick a trilogy) has the idea of the Abyss stage, that the hero is at their lowest point and suffered great loss, for which they generally atone or redeem themselves for. I think a better argument could be made that the hero's journey/monomyth structure is far, far, far more prevalent than 'right makes might'.

Disney is a company with shareholders. They're not married to their image. Sure, the animated films have a strong branding for being non-offensive, feel-good stories (except Fox and the Hound, I guess), but that doesn't mean the company is going to write Captain America the same way as they do Simba. It was the first concern fans had when Disney acquired Star Wars and Marvel, and I doubt many people would argue that attempting to mix the two styles is going to work well for the company. And even then, Mufasa ain't coming back, he ded. I guess Mufasa wasn't 'right' enough?

Thrudd

2018-09-01, 06:40 PM

Where does the movie say this, other than 1) Thanos, who is quite clearly out of his mind and 2) a magic space rock who felt like torturing Red Skull for some reason? I didn't really get the feeling that the movie felt that Thanos was right, just that he was really convinced of his own point of view and partially in love with himself.

I know others feel like there is a narrative of 'Right makes Might', but I never got that idea. Evil isn't vanquished because it is evil and therefore is weak, it is vanquished by the actions, choices and sometimes blind luck of the heroes. The actions and strength helps the heroes and sometimes, helps them make really bad choices or mistakes. Bad things happen all the time and the villians aren't pushovers, but 'mighty' in their own sense. Hela was more powerful than Thor, and not because she was 'Righter' than him, just because she kicked more hiney than he did. Yeah, the good guys are probably going to win, but they are typically light-hearted adventure movies.

And if there was a 'Right makes Might' narrative, wouldn't that be a touch problematic if heroes who lucked into their power like Scarlet Witch or Vision, as opposed to more human heroes like Black Widow and Hawkeye? Are they wrong in their actions? Are they just not as 'right'?

I agree. Villains are pointless if they aren't powerful and threatening to the heroes. In the world of super heroes, bad guys need to be equally or more powerful than the good guys, in one way or another, in order for there to be drama. Some of the most exciting stories are about how underdog heroes manage to deal with an overwhelming threat. For that story to be effective, it needs to spend sufficient time establishing the severity of the threat. Also, compelling characters tend to have flaws - if you want a good hero, they have to show that they are human and fallible in some way. This is not a philosophical statement on the part of the creators, that evil is better or stronger than good - it's a part of modern heroic story telling. If there's no challenge, there's no tension. The scariest evil is the one that is as committed to its beliefs as the good guys are (can't be talked out of it or reasoned with), and is powerful enough to actually oppose them. Thanos is an effectively scary evil character, which is perfect for super hero movies with some really powerful good guys.

Darth Ultron

2018-09-01, 07:15 PM

Darth please :smallwink::smallyuk: *teases* I think you know I did not mean "literally everyone." But marvel movies success is not just creating a dedicated fanbase but actually a gestalt strategy of making a movie that will please the fanbase while at the same time being as open and accessible to "everyone" with everyone not being "literally everyone" but instead as big as audience as possible.

Marvel movies are for the Kidz(and people that identity as kidz and like kidz stuff), action movie fans and geek comic reading fans. And, on top of that, they make (mostly) a good quality movie.

Laughs we so disagree if you think Iron Man was made for the comic book fans. It was so successful for it was not made for the comic book fans. So many choices were made to have an accessible audience besides comic book fans.

I think all Iron Man comic fans liked Iron Man, though sure their is always ''that guy" who is dancing around buring his comics saying ''my childhood is ruined because they changed Vietnam to Afghanistan!"

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 07:20 PM

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 07:33 PM

Yes. Exactly. Do you think i was arguing otherwise?

Love is always in the eye of the beholder. Thanos is a twisted sick monster who convinced himself he loves others.

My point was that I personally don't think that he loved Gamora in any sense. But if he did, yes, I must agree, it was twisted. It also isn't up to us, but a little donkey cavity of a stone. So either way, the movie is really just championing not getting relationship advice from tacky jewelry.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 07:38 PM

My point was that I personally don't think that he loved Gamora in any sense. But if he did, yes, I must agree, it was twisted. It also isn't up to us, but a little donkey cavity of a stone. So either way, the movie is really just championing not getting relationship advice from tacky jewelry.

But the stone is a stone. It does not have any intelligence of any kind; it merely access people's souls. Its a tool. A software meant to assess whether or not someone suffer genuine sense of loss. And I think its stupid to try to infer any sort of intelligence of judgement capacity to something that only demonstrated to be a lump of magic rock with no agenda.

The One Ring had an agenda and intelligence. The Soul Stone doesnt

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 07:47 PM

The One Ring had an agenda and intelligence. The Soul Stone doesnt

The fact that the Soul Stone demanded a sacrifice made me think that the stone does have some intelligence, but it could have been set up another way.

Then again, the Red Skull might have been on that planet with nothing to do for decades. Maybe he made up the sacrifice thing. It's probably a miracle that he didn't introduce Thanos to Mr. Flibbles, his handpuppet that he made out of rocks and whatever else he could scavenge.

Ramza00

2018-09-01, 07:48 PM

I think all Iron Man comic fans liked Iron Man, though sure their is always ''that guy" who is dancing around buring his comics saying ''my childhood is ruined because they changed Vietnam to Afghanistan!"

Laughs you misread me (I will respond to the rest later.) I meant Iron Man was not a comic book movie (in the old way comic book movies were told) but instead this "nouveau comic book" movie deal with politics not in the case lets take sides but it was a movie set after 9/11 and the Afghanistan and Iraq War, but it was not just this it looked into fame and tech culture, the military industrial complex, and dozens of other things. Iron Man felt like it was very much "our world" not some fictional world like a comic book version of Middle Earth.

Now when I say this it was not like Iron Man was trying to be an "essay" talking about our present. Instead people of that time and space very much related, identified, and explored that unique time and space through Tony. He was an avatar of many things people were still processing with in 2008, the movie felt very relevant towards the time. Except the relevant movie was also a comic book movie. The comic book movie felt very different in how it was going to tell its story compared to Batman 1989 or other comic book movies.

Part of this has to do with the fact the MCU movies are set in "earth" and not some alternative "earth." They have "our cities", "our history" and so on. Except it is not really our earth for it is fantastical, but I think you understand what I mean for it is not Literally our Earth just Figuratively our Earth :smalltongue:

Iron Man is a comic movie, and Iron Man is an action movie, but it was a different style a "nouveau" style of comic book movie and that is why it was successful. It did not felt like it was "gatekeeping" non comic book fans and thus pretty much anyone who likes action movies felt it was accessible to them.

I would argue MCU movies are successful for they feel welcoming and not "gatekeeping" and thus they are able to reache a much wider audience even if the audience is less passionate than the "one true fan." Focused too much on the "one true fan" is toxic for a franchise over the long term told in decades instead of years measured less than 5 for franchise need to regenerate, reconfigure, and retell a story to fill relevant to each new generation for the world it moves and the world soul may be timeless but the world as it configured right now is different with different people at different places in their lives journey.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 07:58 PM

The fact that the Soul Stone demanded a sacrifice made me think that the stone does have some intelligence, but it could have been set up another way.

Then again, the Red Skull might have been on that planet with nothing to do for decades. Maybe he made up the sacrifice thing. It's probably a miracle that he didn't introduce Thanos to Mr. Flibbles, his handpuppet that he made out of rocks and whatever else he could scavenge.

The Stone itself cannot set up its own agenda.

The Stone was in some sort of defense system, using the Stone's own powers to give access to it only someone who sacrifice the thing they love the most.

Absolutely none of the stone have ever demonstrated any possibility of having a mind or agenda of their own - except perhaps the Mind Stone.

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 08:01 PM

The Stone itself cannot set up its own agenda.

The Stone was in some sort of defense system, using the Stone's own powers to give access to it only someone who sacrifice the thing they love the most.

Absolutely none of the stone have ever demonstrated any possibility of having a mind or agenda of their own - except perhaps the Mind Stone.

So the Marvel Universe is basically saying to not take relationship advice from automated defense systems. Either way, I must agree that the movie isn't championing Thanos and Gamora's relationship as anything positive or good, just that it satisfied some sort of weird interstellar thing prone to kidnapping.

Kitten Champion

2018-09-01, 08:01 PM

Thanos killing Gamora for the Soul Stone was a pretty obvious and direct parallel to Steve Rogers and co.'s conviction to save Vision, and Vision's own willingness to sacrifice himself for that matter. Throughout the movie the heroes prove why they're heroes, they make the decisions which are most ethical at the greatest potential personal cost - which is what Thanos thinks he's doing as well, but we see quite transparently how he and they are very different and why he's the villain with the choices he makes.

What we haven't seen is where the heroes' moral convictions are manifested into narrative success, because the narrative has been split in half.

Saying Infinity War is pro-Thanos is like saying Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt.1 is pro-Voldemort.

Cikomyr

2018-09-01, 08:11 PM

Rodin

2018-09-01, 08:15 PM

I agree. Villains are pointless if they aren't powerful and threatening to the heroes. In the world of super heroes, bad guys need to be equally or more powerful than the good guys, in one way or another, in order for there to be drama. Some of the most exciting stories are about how underdog heroes manage to deal with an overwhelming threat. For that story to be effective, it needs to spend sufficient time establishing the severity of the threat. Also, compelling characters tend to have flaws - if you want a good hero, they have to show that they are human and fallible in some way. This is not a philosophical statement on the part of the creators, that evil is better or stronger than good - it's a part of modern heroic story telling. If there's no challenge, there's no tension. The scariest evil is the one that is as committed to its beliefs as the good guys are (can't be talked out of it or reasoned with), and is powerful enough to actually oppose them. Thanos is an effectively scary evil character, which is perfect for super hero movies with some really powerful good guys.

Counterpoint: Civil War. The villain of that movie was just some guy, and yet he did more damage o the Avengers than entire armies. A weaker villain who uses what he has with finesse to demolish the "stronger" heroes is actually more compelling than a villain who just shows up and starts stomping the heroes. This is part of why I found Hela to be so underwhelming.

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-01, 08:30 PM

Counterpoint: Civil War. The villain of that movie was just some guy, and yet he did more damage o the Avengers than entire armies. A weaker villain who uses what he has with finesse to demolish the "stronger" heroes is actually more compelling than a villain who just shows up and starts stomping the heroes. This is part of why I found Hela to be so underwhelming.

I agree that Hela had a few good lines, but is kinda underwhelming on her own. But I also don't think every single villain needs to be 'deep' or 'complex' if they get the job done. I think that's a problem that the DC movies kept running into, they kept focusing on the villain and not giving enough screen time to the heroes. Hela being in the background made the plot go, but you still had time for the heroes to do stuff. Your villian of the month is very nice, but I am pretty sure I came to this movie for one-liners from Robert Downey Junior and the Chris Avenger Team.

Darth Ultron

2018-09-01, 08:47 PM

Iron Man felt like it was very much "our world" not some fictional world like a comic book version of Middle Earth.

Maybe your a DC fan and like their ''not Earth/not Real" way of doing things......BUT Marvel has always set their stories in ''Out World." In fact, it is one of the Big Defining things about Marvel. So, sure, the Marvel moves do this...it is a given.

The comic book movie felt very different in how it was going to tell its story compared to Batman 1989 or other comic book movies.

I guess your saying the bulk of Super Hero movies in the past were bad as they were poorly made? Well, sure, that is true. Of course, you are also talking about DC, and they have the big problems of ''being goofy" and "must make things for little kidz only".

I would argue MCU movies are successful for they feel welcoming and not "gatekeeping" and thus they are able to reache a much wider audience even if the audience is less passionate than the "one true fan." Focused too much on the "one true fan" is toxic for a franchise over the long term told in decades instead of years measured less than 5 for franchise need to regenerate, reconfigure, and retell a story to fill relevant to each new generation for the world it moves and the world soul may be timeless but the world as it configured right now is different with different people at different places in their lives journey.

I think the problem is that before 2008, super heroes were just seen as ''silly movies for kids'' and they were not taken all that seriously. This is sure true for the way DC thinks(even today).

If you make a good movie, in this case a good action movie, people will watch it. The big trick is that Marvel makes a good action movie and a movie that the geek comic book fans want to watch(the kidz are easy as they will watch any CGI spam like zombies).

Frozen_Feet

2018-09-02, 02:43 AM

BWR

2018-09-02, 05:00 AM

Yup, Thanos really did love Gamora, yes he's a horrible person, yes he feels bad about killing her. I think it's just that many people more well-adjusted than Thanos can't imagine killing loved ones for the greater good and think that anyone who does so can't really love. It's a sacrifice I can respect and admire in principle if not for this particular purpose.

Am I the only one who was annoyed with Steve's 'we don't trade lives' thing?
It's the opposite of what he espoused in the other movies, and Vision even points this out. Yet somehow we're supposed to buy and applaud the change of heart, even when Visions' death would have stopped Thanos if implemented quickly enough.

deuterio12

2018-09-02, 05:15 AM

Am I the only one who was annoyed with Steve's 'we don't trade lives' thing?
It's the opposite of what he espoused in the other movies, and Vision even points this out. Yet somehow we're supposed to buy and applaud the change of heart, even when Visions' death would have stopped Thanos if implemented quickly enough.

Yeah, doubly so when they were willing to sacrifice countless Wakandians just to buy a few extra seconds to maybe be able to take the stone out of Vision.

So maybe the movie was operating under Right makes Might, and the heroes lost because caps was wrong and refused to admit he was wrong as the wakandans are slaughtered all around him while Vision's still in the operating table.

Cikomyr

2018-09-02, 05:55 AM

Yeah, doubly so when they were willing to sacrifice countless Wakandians just to buy a few extra seconds to maybe be able to take the stone out of Vision.

So maybe the movie was operating under Right makes Might, and the heroes lost because caps was wrong and refused to admit he was wrong as the wakandans are slaughtered all around him while Vision's still in the operating table.

During a discussions about a very politicized topic on another forum, I came at a conclusion regarding people's perception of passive vs active activity.

People have an easier time accepting letting bad things happen than causing the bad thing themselves. Its the trolley problem.

In this case, they are not the ones killing these Wakandans. Its the Children of Thanos who do. But they would be the ones killing Vision.

I know, from a purely utilitarian point of view, that Vision being killed by Thanos vs. Vision being killed by Wanda is the same thing. But many people have a different morality.

Cap is willing to do the right thing, which may cause his death. But the right thing is never "to kill himself". The death is a sad consequence of the action to take, not the core of the action itself.

GloatingSwine

2018-09-02, 06:03 AM

I think the core issue as to why people may assume that the movie is giving some sort of.. endorsement of Thanos's motives and/or methods is because of the Grand Overarching Theme of the Marvel movies; a theme MovieBob discussed in his Starlord-discussion video:

Right Makes Might

Thats the central team of practically every Marvel movie:

- there is a moral failure somewhere on the part of the hero, or the environment.
- whe that failure is addresses, things turn out for the best and you defeat the bad guys.

Hey Tony Stark, if you stop being a selfish *******, you can become a world-saving superhero. Hey

The secret is that there isn't always a moral failing in the hero, and correcting a personal failing isn't always what leads them to victory.

Tony Stark has personal problems, but selfishness isn't the core of them for most of the movies he's in, being self-destructive is. That's not a moral failing, but it is an internal problem he needs to overcome.

Stephen Strange is insufferable and smug, and he not only does not stop being insufferable and smug he wins by being particularly insufferable and smug to the extent that even an elder god wants him to please go away.

Peter Quill is flippant and doesn't take much seriously, which isn't a moral failing even if it causes him not to have any friends, and wins because he manages to form an emotional connection.

T'Challa doesn't even really have any personal flaws to overcome, his internal conflict is based on the realisation that the things he idolised and believed in have caused harm and not knowing the best way to undo that harm (Killmonger is the villain most like Thanos, because he also believes in the rightness of his cause whereas the hero is unsure).

Peter Parker puts too much faith in being Spider-Man to give him worth, and doesn't realise the value of being Peter Parker as well, that causes him to want to push too hard and reach too high (remember the scene of epiphany is him looking at the half reflection of the mask, realising that he's Peter and Spidey.)

And so on.

"Right makes might" is an oversimplification of the theme that the hero needs to master themself personally and emotionally and solve internal conflicts before they can do right in the world. They are not necessarily making themself more right except on the level of personal emotional equilibrium.

Thanos? He's in control of himself, he has an unshakable belief in the rectitude of his actions. He doesn't have internal conflicts, and he's ready to do what he believes in.

Zalabim

2018-09-02, 06:25 AM

Yeah, doubly so when they were willing to sacrifice countless Wakandians just to buy a few extra seconds to maybe be able to take the stone out of Vision.

So maybe the movie was operating under Right makes Might, and the heroes lost because caps was wrong and refused to admit he was wrong as the wakandans are slaughtered all around him while Vision's still in the operating table.

It's not like killing Vision would get rid of Thanos's army. Those people die fighting because they won't let Thanos just do whatever he wants with Earth, and we can all guess what he would do to the Earth if the Mind stone were destroyed beyond his capability to reach it. They're not going to just go away. Some kind of fight is inevitable and making it about protecting Vision lets the defenders narrow the army's target. It basically gives them a chokepoint so they can stop the army in one battle instead of fighting all across the globe.

deuterio12

2018-09-02, 07:42 AM

It's not like killing Vision would get rid of Thanos's army. Those people die fighting because they won't let Thanos just do whatever he wants with Earth, and we can all guess what he would do to the Earth if the Mind stone were destroyed beyond his capability to reach it. They're not going to just go away. Some kind of fight is inevitable and making it about protecting Vision lets the defenders narrow the army's target. It basically gives them a chokepoint so they can stop the army in one battle instead of fighting all across the globe.

If there's no mind stone on Earth anymore, then Thanos army has no reason to attack at all. Besides it's freaking Thanos army, the biggest in the galaxy that's already crushed plenty of planets with much more advanced defenses (plus that one god realm).

But then there's the bigger picture. Murderizing the wakandans is just one step, with the final goal being murderizing half the universe.

Caps decides that the lifes of trillions of beings accross the universe aren't worth more than some more minutes of Vision's existence. And that's how Thanos wins.

Saintheart

2018-09-02, 07:45 AM

I can't get why people are so resistant to the idea that Thanos really did love Gamora.

She's the little kid he saved and adopted, who he's been grooming to be his successor, who he has spared and treated with obvious leniency and favoritism (and continues to do so right up to the Soul stone scene).

She's an obious chink in his armor. Evil people can haved loved ones. Come on now. Thanos loving Gamora doesn't detract from either character.

As for the Soul stone being evil because it demands that you cast away your loved one... uh, are you familiar with this concept called "deterrent"? The stone is, in big flaming letters, telling Thanos to NOT do this, that it's NOT worth it. And it really rubs it against his face later on, when ghost of kid Gamora asks him what his plan cost, and dazed Thanos replies that it cost him everything.

A magic rock which has sufficient power to conceal itself effortlessly from those who would use it -- even from someone who has four other Infinity Stones -- doesn't need to function as a deterrent. If it has sufficient intelligence to realise its own use destroys its wielder, it doesn't need to demand a price as some sort of metaphysical lesson. It just has to conceal itself outright. Thanos has no way to find the stone, even with four infinity stones in his grasp already; that's apparent from the fact he has to torture his way into getting the stone's location. Therefore, if the Soul Stone is emo enough to conclude it's only going to harm those who use it, it has enough logic and intelligence to say: nah, I'm just going to stay invisible so as to avoid anyone getting hurt by me ... as I did prior to Red Skull being magically shoehorned into the plot to be a "guide" to find me. Indeed a stone that does allow itself to be used knowing that it's going to utterly destroy the person who wields it is pretty evil already.

Yeah, doubly so when they were willing to sacrifice countless Wakandians just to buy a few extra seconds to maybe be able to take the stone out of Vision.

So maybe the movie was operating under Right makes Might, and the heroes lost because caps was wrong and refused to admit he was wrong as the wakandans are slaughtered all around him while Vision's still in the operating table.

One consideration to bear in mind is that Cap may have been using the "We don't exchange people" thing as a rationalisation for his guilt over Wanda's predicament. When you go back to Civil War, you can see a number of times when Cap seems to be distinctly uncomfortable about how Wanda ended/ends up. He didn't neutralise Crossbones fast enough, obliging Wanda to intervene and a lot of innocents died. Wanda's horrified in the film by her mistake, both right afterward and when Ross is putting the Accords argument to the Avengers (and note it's Cap who intervenes then and tells Ross to stop it - because he sees what it's doing to Wanda.)

Worse still, Wanda's mistake -- understandable as it was -- was what triggered off the Accords. So -- indirectly -- Cap feels responsible for Wanda and guilt over the situations he winds up putting her in. This need not be a rational feeling: he was loyal to Bucky beyond the point of rationality, too, and that because way back in the first film, he failed directly to save Bucky from "death" in the first place. Remember, Steve is not above lying to himself - Tony Stark calls him out on this directly in Civil War, never mind that the idea is already there in the closing scenes of Age of Ultron.

In Infinity War, Wanda is being asked to kill Vision. Cap knows this. It's pretty heavily implied he knows they have very intense feelings for each other. It's possible that, given how responsible he feels for Wanda, he doesn't want her to be put to that dreadful choice of having to murder a friend and a lover. So he does everything he can to stop her from having to do that. This, too, is consistent in that Steve already did one heartbreaking exchange: he traded Tony Stark's friendship for Bucky's.

Honest Tiefling

2018-09-02, 10:20 AM

I can't get why people are so resistant to the idea that Thanos really did love Gamora.

Because it's really abusive is why. I think it's safe to say that he THOUGHT he loved her, and that her death did affect him. But he didn't care for her, not what she truly was, just his vision of what he could have made her into. Had she failed, just once, she might have ended up like ol' Nebula.

Evil can have loved ones, and that can make a deeper story. But I am a little hesitant to say that Thanos loved Gamora, as opposed to his ideal.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-02, 10:36 AM

I think the question isn't whether evil people can love, it's more like... can you love someone if you abuse and torture them? If they grow up hating you because of the way you treated them? Is this love? The soul stone says yes.

Is the soul stone a perfect and absolute judge of what love is? I'm guessing NO if Thanos' "sacrifice" counts.

If you look to Prince Nuada, he is a sympathetic villain because he is trying to save himself and his people. The movie sets up a predicament in which one group of people must die for the other to live. He is the bad guy, but you understand where he is coming from. It doesn't mean that killing his father is a good act, or activating the Golden Army is good, but if you were in his shoes, you can see where self-preservation and the salvation of your people can drive you to make the choices he makes.

Thanos, on the other hand, isn't stuck with this predicament. He is in no danger of dying or suffering. He has no interest in finding a real solution to the problem he has decided to "solve". He amasses great power to simply murder half the population of the universe. The way the movie attempts to get your sympathy is in his relationship with Gamora. But because he is abusive and tortures her, it's difficult to say he actually cares for her. Enter the Soul Stone to bluntly tell the audience that he does love Gamora, and that he is giving up "everything" to achieve his goals. It doesn't work.

BWR

2018-09-02, 11:05 AM

I think the question isn't whether evil people can love, it's more like... can you love someone if you abuse and torture them? If they grow up hating you because of the way you treated them? Is this love? The soul stone says yes.

And this is the crux of the issue - can you do horrible things to those you love?
Now a full discussion of the subject will run into RL politics and religion and culture but the short of it is that, yes this happens all the time IRL, and people still love the ones they abuse. In the same way that those of us who don't abuse the ones we love? Possibly not, but then we run into the One True Way problem. So more than anything else he did in the movie, for all his noble goals of trying to save civilization and his damn stupid and evil band-aid solution to the issue, loving Gamora and sacrificing her was the one thing that made me have a modicum of respect for Thanos.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-02, 01:41 PM

Frozen_Feet

2018-09-02, 01:53 PM

Because it's really abusive is why.

Love and abuse aren't mutually exclusive. Or are you saying that, somehow, portraying or accepting this fact is abusive?

I think it's safe to say that he THOUGHT he loved her, and that her death did affect him. But he didn't care for her, not what she truly was, just his vision of what he could have made her into. Had she failed, just once, she might have ended up like ol' Nebula.

Except we see Gamora fail and she doesn't end up like Nebula. Again: at all times before the Soul stone scene itself, Thanos demonstrates a level of leniency and favoritism towards Gamora that he shows to no other character.

---

A magic rock which has sufficient power to conceal itself effortlessly from those who would use it -- even from someone who has four other Infinity Stones -- doesn't need to function as a deterrent.

Okay, firstly, your extrapolation of the stone's abilities stands on no ground at all. Gamora found the map to it without any infinity stones in her possession, after all. Secondly, someone built that shrine. In these respects, the Soul stone is no different from the others: its initial positioning is practically the same as the Power stone's. (Found by a lone explorer in the isolated ruins of long-gone civilization.) Assuming that its hiddenness is solely due to the power and agency of the stone itself is dubious as ****.

Secondly, the idea that all that means it doesn't need a deterrent, is false. It has been found at least thrice, after all.

---

I think the question isn't whether evil people can love, it's more like... can you love someone if you abuse and torture them?

Yes. Again: abuse and love are not mutually exclusive. Plus, you too are rather poignantly missing the aforementioned leniency and favoritism we see Thanos showing towards Gamora. Thanos doesn't abuse and torture Gamora for ****s and giggles.

If they grow up hating you because of the way you treated them?

This is an even more obvious yes. Kids can scream, rage and cry at their parent for turning the TV off early. How a parent feels about their child and their own actions doesn't actually have all that much bearing on how their kid feels about their parent and the parent's actions.

In short: you cannot use how Gamora feels to deduce anything about how Thanos feels. This is made even more poignant because apparently there was a time when Gamora really did agree with Thanos. Which is why Gamora, herself, has conflicted feelings about fighting him, as well illustrated in the Reality stone scene.

Is this love? The soul stone says yes.

Except that's not what the Soul stone says. The Soul stone says yes to your other two questions, but it makes no comment on what love is. It only confirms that Thanos does, in fact, love Gamora. Your first two questions don't logically lead to this third one.

Is the soul stone a perfect and absolute judge of what love is? I'm guessing NO if Thanos' "sacrifice" counts.

This is another thing that doesn't follow. Its only basis is that love would stop anyone from making the sacrifice... but that's all you've got: a presumption.

Thanos, on the other hand, isn't stuck with this predicament. He is in no danger of dying or suffering. He has no interest in finding a real solution to the problem he has decided to "solve". He amasses great power to simply murder half the population of the universe. The way the movie attempts to get your sympathy is in his relationship with Gamora. But because he is abusive and tortures her, it's difficult to say he actually cares for her. Enter the Soul Stone to bluntly tell the audience that he does love Gamora, and that he is giving up "everything" to achieve his goals. It doesn't work.

Except you, somehow, forget that Gamora's reaction to the possibility of Thanos loving her is not sympathy - it is disbelieving shock mixed with disgust. She is very much the audience surrogate there, echoing many of the sentiments you are.

Whether Thanos is sympathetic as a villain is besides the point, because I don't agree that's the main purpose of any of it.

---

And this is the crux of the issue - can you do horrible things to those you love?

Everything everywhere says yes.

But unlike you say, it's not complex or controversial. At all.

It's very simple. It's, in principle, no different than smashing bricks with your bare fists.

Why and how? Those who have no experience in it often ask, "does it hurt?" Well of course it hurts. But people still wonder, because the obvious answer feels wrong. Pain is a deterrent, after all. They, themselves, would not like to do something if it causes them pain. So the act would intuitively make more sense if there was no pain.

The actual trick is in powering through the pain. Consciously deciding to do something despite your body telling to not do it.

And this applies for all emotions, not just pain. It's what we talk abouy when we say someone is "of two minds", or when we make a distinction between someone thinking "emotionally" versus "rationally", or when we tell someone to "listen to their heart" instead of their brain, or vice versa.

The movie doesn't ask you to believe that abuse, torture and murder are love. It's not telling you that Thanos is doing those things because he loves. It's asking you to believe that someone can love, yet still be so committed to their cause that they will abuse, torture and murder. It's telling you Thanos is doing those things despite of love.

The contrast point here is Wanda, who Vision tries to convince to kill him, not despite, but because of, love. I'd have to rewatch the scene to tell which way Wanda falls, but her struggle through the movie is, in principle, the same.

And Wanda does kill Vision, so the presumption that love would stop anyone from making the sacrifice is shown to be wrong by the movie itself, through the far less controversial relationship between Vision and Wanda.

GloatingSwine

2018-09-02, 02:00 PM

Except we see Gamora fail and she doesn't end up like Nebula. Again: at all times before the Soul stone scene itself, Thanos demonstrates a level of leniency and favoritism towards Gamora that he shows to no other character.

Remember that Gamora being the favourite was Nebula's motivation in two Guardians of the Galaxy movies.....

Ramza00

2018-09-02, 02:12 PM

Love and abuse aren't mutually exclusive. Or are you saying that, somehow, portraying or accepting this fact is abusive?

Let subdivide types of abuse for when we lump them all together we lose clarity for there are different types / reasons for abuse.

In a medical textbook I am familiar with that deals with recommendations of how treat people who are aggressive and violent it subdivides the groups into 3 different clusters for the reasons why they are aggressive and violent are very different involving different neural circuits and thus they will respond to different medicines and non medicine therapies (and some of this stuff you can't really treat into medicine and non medicines if the patient doesn't want to be treated.) The 3 groups are as follows.

A)

Planned behavior not typically associated with frustration or response to immediate threat.
Might not be accompanied by automatic arousal
Planned with clear goals in mind
Called Psychopathic Violence but also called predatory, instrumental, proactive, or premediated aggression

B)

Psychotic associated with positive symptoms of psychosis typically command hallucinations and / or delusions

C)

Impulsive
Characterized by high levels of autonomic arousal
Precipitated by provacation
Associated with negative emotions, such as anger or fear
Ususually represents response to perceived stress
Also called reactive, affective, or hostile aggression

C was the most common type of person who did aggressive and violent behavior, while A was the least common but also often the most lethal and least response to med and non med based therapies.

-----

So on abuse. There is a difference between abuse that is accidental or impulsive and abuse that was "pre-planned" / "cold" / "pre-meditated" / "I am going to make you a better killer and assassin, I am going to turn you into a living weapon."

Thanos may have "sentiment" / "feelings" for Gamora but I would not classify those sentiments and feelings under what most people would consider "love." What Thanos did to Gamora over years was not love (in my mind) but a form of ritualized abuse, Thanos was merely having his "children" dog fight except these intelligent beings were capable of high order reasoning and thus suffered even more than dogs in dog fighting pits.

It was never about love with Thanos and Gamora it was all about Thano's own gratification and him enjoying the "spectacle" of it all.

deuterio12

2018-09-02, 06:09 PM

Love and abuse aren't mutually exclusive. Or are you saying that, somehow, portraying or accepting this fact is abusive?

Indeed. The opposite of love is not abuse. The opposite of love is simply not caring. Like when Thanos other minions die by the millions he doesn't care a little bit.

And Wanda does kill Vision, so the presumption that love would stop anyone from making the sacrifice is shown to be wrong by the movie itself, through the far less controversial relationship between Vision and Wanda.

Excellent point. Wanda loved Vision, but her ideal of not letting half the universe die with a snap of fingers allowed her to sacrifice her loved one.

Xihirli

2018-09-02, 06:36 PM

Excellent point. Wanda loved Vision, but her ideal of not letting half the universe die with a snap of fingers allowed her to sacrifice her loved one.

There is a big difference here and it rhymes with "informed consent."

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-02, 07:39 PM

Yes. Again: abuse and love are not mutually exclusive.
Well let's all get on the same page then. What does it mean to love someone? Because you are saying you can abuse someone and still love them. I'm not convinced. I would agree that people that think they love someone can abuse that person, but I would argue that they are, at best, confused. Thanos abuses Gamora all throughout her childhood. He murders her family and her people. He *kills her* for his own ends.

What do we see in the movie that demonstrates that Thanos loves Gamora?

Plus, you too are rather poignantly missing the aforementioned leniency and favoritism we see Thanos showing towards Gamora. Thanos doesn't abuse and torture Gamora for ****s and giggles.
But he does torture and abuse her. That he does it to make her his best attack dog is irrelevant.

This is an even more obvious yes. Kids can scream, rage and cry at their parent for turning the TV off early. How a parent feels about their child and their own actions doesn't actually have all that much bearing on how their kid feels about their parent and the parent's actions.

In short: you cannot use how Gamora feels to deduce anything about how Thanos feels. This is made even more poignant because apparently there was a time when Gamora really did agree with Thanos. Which is why Gamora, herself, has conflicted feelings about fighting him, as well illustrated in the Reality stone scene.
Oh, I see where we are not agreeing. I'm saying that whatever Thanos feels, it isn't love. I love people, and I would never dream to treat them the way Thanos does. Now sure, I don't treat my loved ones the same way everyone else does, but I'm going to appeal to reason and assume that most people that "love" someone are on one side of the spectrum, and Thanos is on the other. So no, I'm not saying that because Gamora hates Thanos, he must not really love her. I'm saying that everything we've seen in the movie (including Gamora's feelings that are a direct cause of his abuse) suggests that he does not love her, and all we have to suggest otherwise is Thanos sacrificing Gamora to satisfy the conditions of the Soul Stone.

Except that's not what the Soul stone says. The Soul stone says yes to your other two questions, but it makes no comment on what love is. It only confirms that Thanos does, in fact, love Gamora. Your first two questions don't logically lead to this third one.
We only have what we see and know from the movies to inform our opinion of Thanos' feelings. He is clearly abusive and treats Gamora as a thing, to the point that he casts her aside and kills her to acquire another thing. The Soul Stone requires that you sacrifice someone you love. By accepting that sacrifice, the Soul Stone is saying that Thanos does indeed love Gamora. What does his love look like? Abuse, torture, psychological trauma, murder. Also, he looks a little sad about it.

This is another thing that doesn't follow. Its only basis is that love would stop anyone from making the sacrifice... but that's all you've got: a presumption.
Eh, no. Wanda is willing to kill Vision. Starlord is willing to kill Gamora. And those people clearly love each other. It is not clear that Thanos loves Gamora and his behavior does not indicate that he loves her. No one would ever guess, but for the movie just saying it to be true, that Thanos loves Gamora. It would be similar to Vision telling Wanda to sacrifice him to the Soul Stone so she has the power to defeat Thanos, and she does, and the Soul Stone says "sorry, actually, you didn't really love him". It wouldn't make sense. It is suggested to us that they love each other, yet the Soul Stone just arbitrarily says no. In the same way, everything we see about Thanos suggests a monster that treats everyone like disposable pawns. Except the Soul Stone arbitrarily agrees that he actually loves Gamora.

Thrudd

2018-09-02, 07:42 PM

Let subdivide types of abuse for when we lump them all together we lose clarity for there are different types / reasons for abuse.

In a medical textbook I am familiar with that deals with recommendations of how treat people who are aggressive and violent it subdivides the groups into 3 different clusters for the reasons why they are aggressive and violent are very different involving different neural circuits and thus they will respond to different medicines and non medicine therapies (and some of this stuff you can't really treat into medicine and non medicines if the patient doesn't want to be treated.) The 3 groups are as follows.

A)

Planned behavior not typically associated with frustration or response to immediate threat.
Might not be accompanied by automatic arousal
Planned with clear goals in mind
Called Psychopathic Violence but also called predatory, instrumental, proactive, or premediated aggression

B)

Psychotic associated with positive symptoms of psychosis typically command hallucinations and / or delusions

C)

Impulsive
Characterized by high levels of autonomic arousal
Precipitated by provacation
Associated with negative emotions, such as anger or fear
Ususually represents response to perceived stress
Also called reactive, affective, or hostile aggression

C was the most common type of person who did aggressive and violent behavior, while A was the least common but also often the most lethal and least response to med and non med based therapies.

-----

So on abuse. There is a difference between abuse that is accidental or impulsive and abuse that was "pre-planned" / "cold" / "pre-meditated" / "I am going to make you a better killer and assassin, I am going to turn you into a living weapon."

Thanos may have "sentiment" / "feelings" for Gamora but I would not classify those sentiments and feelings under what most people would consider "love." What Thanos did to Gamora over years was not love (in my mind) but a form of ritualized abuse, Thanos was merely having his "children" dog fight except these intelligent beings were capable of high order reasoning and thus suffered even more than dogs in dog fighting pits.

It was never about love with Thanos and Gamora it was all about Thano's own gratification and him enjoying the "spectacle" of it all.

What if Thanos believes the universe is a cold, harsh place in which a person needs to be equally cold, harsh and ruthless to survive? He cares about Gamora, he wants her to survive and be successful in life. The only way to do that is to make her a cold, ruthless, killing machines, because it's kill or be killed. To do that, he needs to put his feelings of fondness aside and make sure he gives her the proper, harsh training she needs to survive. The more she perseveres in the face of his cruelty, the stronger his fondness becomes, but also the more he is resolved to continue the process of making her the strongest most deadly woman in the universe.

He hurts her because he cares, because that's what he thinks love is (caring enough to give her whatever she needs to have a good life). I think there are/have been many many fathers with that mindset. True, some of them can't bring themselves to deliver the necessary cruelty so they send their children to other instructors to do the harsh stuff - but some fathers have no problem being cruel out of love.

Saintheart

2018-09-02, 08:12 PM

We only have what we see and know from the movies to inform our opinion of Thanos' feelings. He is clearly abusive and treats Gamora as a thing, to the point that he casts her aside and kills her to acquire another thing. The Soul Stone requires that you sacrifice someone you love. By accepting that sacrifice, the Soul Stone is saying that Thanos does indeed love Gamora. What does his love look like? Abuse, torture, psychological trauma, murder. Also, he looks a little sad about it.

This assumes that the Soul Stone -- or whoever has set up this weird test for getting access to it, and that isn't Red Skull -- is judging by our standards of what love is. This is not apparent. Indeed I would suggest the Stone is positively evil rather than amoral.

Another thought: the magic rock's test for whether you love someone is apparently to ask whether you'd be willing to kill them in order to gain the world-destroying power it contains. But this test is actually via negativa: if you are willing to murder someone solely in order to gain the stone, you therefore do not actually love them, or are giving up that love entirely for the sake of power. Hence the Red Skull's intonation: a soul for a soul. Again, it's not your loved one's soul you're giving up to acquire the stone, it's your own. This is supported by how we find Thanos once he's acquired the stone: lying in a pool of water at the foot of the mountain. The religious imagery in the scene is clear: he has gone through some sort of horrible baptism by doing this ... and he has, quite literally, fallen.

Okay, firstly, your extrapolation of the stone's abilities stands on no ground at all. Gamora found the map to it without any infinity stones in her possession, after all. Secondly, someone built that shrine. In these respects, the Soul stone is no different from the others: its initial positioning is practically the same as the Power stone's. (Found by a lone explorer in the isolated ruins of long-gone civilization.) Assuming that its hiddenness is solely due to the power and agency of the stone itself is dubious as ****.

Secondly, the idea that all that means it doesn't need a deterrent, is false. It has been found at least thrice, after all.

These still don't address the fact that it is heavily implied if not explicitly said throughout that scene that the Soul stone is different from the rest. It's not set up terribly well, I grant you - part of the problem of the film being a bit overstuffed - but saying the stone's not capable of keeping itself hidden is a bit of a stretch given its clear and apparent power, on top of the fact that nobody names or bothers to mention who else might have kept the stone in hiding.

Ramza00

2018-09-02, 08:54 PM

Thrudd I will answer your logic later about love as a word vs other words we can describe Thano's feelings. But before that I think getting to the heart of the matter.

All of Thanos' Children are from worlds he culls and then he adopts one representative from this world as a "child" in his mission. In effect Thanos creates trophy / tools with his children. Thanos speaks highly of Gamora in Guardians 1 for she is his favorite. Thanos also speaks highly of Maw (another of his children) who has also never failed him and even in death he succeeds in the tasks Thanos sets for him.

Is Thanos doing what he is doing for their emotional sake, or is he doing what he does with his children in order to make better weapons, trophies, tools, representatives of his "grand vision?" Is it any different than a person training his dogs in order to fight in the pits except it is not just the pits but also Thanos doing the "hunt" / "religious quest" of bringing balance to the universe? After all the mad titan thinks himself a prophet / visionary / judge / savior / messiah figure.

Devonix

2018-09-02, 10:33 PM

We also have to remember not to use older films to explain his actions in Infinity war. The directors have gone on record about how changes to his motivation changed between films.

The Thanos/Gamora past that she described in Guardians of the Galaxy, is explicitly different from the Thanos/Gamora past that she has in Infinity war.

deuterio12

2018-09-03, 02:34 AM

Is Thanos doing what he is doing for their emotional sake, or is he doing what he does with his children in order to make better weapons, trophies, tools, representatives of his "grand vision?" Is it any different than a person training his dogs in order to fight in the pits except it is not just the pits but also Thanos doing the "hunt" / "religious quest" of bringing balance to the universe? After all the mad titan thinks himself a prophet / visionary / judge / savior / messiah figure.

Because in Gamorra's case she tries to kill Thanos when they meet again, and the mad titan just goes "That's my little girl, now we need to talk about work."

I don't know of any pit dog trainer that would let one of their killing machines try to rip off their throat and just let them go with no punishment whatsoever.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-03, 05:00 AM

Again, the only reason we are even discussing Thanos' supposed "love" is because of the Soul Stone scene. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a topic of conversation. Some people might mention that he seems to have some feelings for Gamora, but otherwise it wouldn't be worth mentioning.

The Soul Stone scene takes everything we know about Thanos' relationship with Gamora, and flips it on his head. It would be identical if Wanda and Vision were there and, to retrieve the Soul Stone, Wanda has to sacrifice someone she hates. And she looks to Vision, and he has this horrified and confused look on his face, and Wanda kills him and gets the Soul Stone. We'd all be baffled because it doesn't make sense. And then afterwards a handful of you would be arguing that you can actually hate someone when all other deeds and actions suggest that you love someone.

If the Soul Stone is judging by its own standards, fine, but I would say that is a knock against the scene and the movie. If it's not really "love", the scene becomes unnecessary it seems. Or maybe "not worth it" is a better way to look at it.

Again, what does it mean to love someone? Is it simply to think that you love someone? So if an abusive boyfriend is arguing with his girlfriend in the driveway and she's trying to go inside and he grabs her hand and says "Wait, stop! I love you!" she is incapable of saying "no, that's not true"? Or at the very least, she's wrong? And then if he picks her up and throws her off a cliff the Soul Stone reveals itself to him?

Daimbert

2018-09-03, 06:31 AM

If the Soul Stone is judging by its own standards, fine, but I would say that is a knock against the scene and the movie. If it's not really "love", the scene becomes unnecessary it seems. Or maybe "not worth it" is a better way to look at it.

The problem is that it isn't the Soul Stone's judgement that is supposed to convince us that Thanos really loved Gamora. Rather, it's Gamora's.

Remember, she was taunting him about the Soul Stone's conditions after she heard them, saying that he had to give up something he loved to get it and since he didn't love anything there was no way he could get it. Then he turns to face her and has tears in his eye, and she comes to the horrifying realization that he does love at least one thing: her. That's why she tries to kill herself, because at that point she knows that he CAN get the Soul Stone because he at least genuinely FEELS that he loves her, and when you're dealing with emotions it's really hard to argue that someone could actually feel the emotion but we could objectively refute that they "really" love them. Thanos is presented as feeling the emotion, even if he doesn't act the way most people would given the emotion he's feeling. But Thanos is insane, so that he doesn't act sanely out of love pretty much fits the character.

And, again, it's clear that he isn't just treating Gamora as a simple sacrifice to get what he wants. He doesn't want to sacrifice her. He's as sad as he's even been shown to be over doing it. And he explicitly states that he has to do it because he compromised his mission once for her and can't justify to himself doing it again. He's giving up something that matters to him and possibly giving up the thing that matters most to him (beyond PERHAPS his mission). He didn't think of her as a pitbull or a tool; that was Nebula. He sees her as far more than that, and as something that he at least felt love for. And, as I said, that's in GAMORA'S judgement, not the Stone's.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-03, 08:19 AM

The problem is that it isn't the Soul Stone's judgement that is supposed to convince us that Thanos really loved Gamora. Rather, it's Gamora's.
Gamora can't possibly know that though. The horrifying realization is that she's not only there to lead him to the Stone, but she is also there to be slaughtered for the Stone.

She doesn't know for sure that he "loves" her, but she'll kill herself before running the risk.

Gamora's realization hinges on the conditions of the Soul Stone. She has no reason to think Thanos loves her, and in fact doesn't believe this at all, until the Soul Stone's conditions are uttered and Thanos looks at her sadly. I don't know that this convinces Gamora that he loves her, but I think it's not a risk she's willing to take and so she tries to end her own life (in the same way she'd rather die than risk Thanos finding the stone in the first place).

Remember, she was taunting him about the Soul Stone's conditions after she heard them, saying that he had to give up something he loved to get it and since he didn't love anything there was no way he could get it. Then he turns to face her and has tears in his eye, and she comes to the horrifying realization that he does love at least one thing: her.
Or rather, the horrifying realization that he thinks he loves her. I'm surprised that people are being so relative about love.

Just picture yourself at a family reunion and your sister shows up with her boyfriend that beats her, that manipulates her, that controls her and brutalizes her in every which way. But... you know, they live together and he pays the bills and stuff and they post pictures on Facebook. You complain about him to some other family members and they tell you "Well, he does love her in his own way. Who are we to judge?"

I guess that's what it comes down to. Some people think you can't judge what love is. It's whatever a person feels I suppose.

deuterio12

2018-09-03, 07:32 PM

Gamora can't possibly know that though. The horrifying realization is that she's not only there to lead him to the Stone, but she is also there to be slaughtered for the Stone.

She doesn't know for sure that he "loves" her, but she'll kill herself before running the risk.

Gamora's realization hinges on the conditions of the Soul Stone. She has no reason to think Thanos loves her, and in fact doesn't believe this at all, until the Soul Stone's conditions are uttered and Thanos looks at her sadly. I don't know that this convinces Gamora that he loves her, but I think it's not a risk she's willing to take and so she tries to end her own life (in the same way she'd rather die than risk Thanos finding the stone in the first place).

Or rather, the horrifying realization that he thinks he loves her. I'm surprised that people are being so relative about love.

Just picture yourself at a family reunion and your sister shows up with her boyfriend that beats her, that manipulates her, that controls her and brutalizes her in every which way. But... you know, they live together and he pays the bills and stuff and they post pictures on Facebook. You complain about him to some other family members and they tell you "Well, he does love her in his own way. Who are we to judge?"

And that's why Thanos is a villain and Wanda is a heroine despite they both be willing to sacrifice the ones they love. Because Wanda had the "let's get a nice home and cuddle together" type of love and Thanos had the "you don't know what's good for yourself so I'll forcefully train you into something that can survive in this cruel cold universe so that you can succeed at life" type of love.

I guess that's what it comes down to. Some people think you can't judge what love is. It's whatever a person feels I suppose.

"Feels" being the keyword here. Thanos has feeling for Gamorra. They may be twisted, evil feelings, but feelings nevertheless. Love is not always pretty, there's a reason why lover's quarrels are infamous and when two people are always at each other's throats others will say "Just kiss already". But when you don't have any feels for somebody else, you just don't care what happens to them, then that's the true opposite of love.

Daimbert

2018-09-04, 06:50 AM

Gamora can't possibly know that though.

Other than the Soul Stone and Thanos himself -- both of which are unreliable narrators -- she's the person best suited to actually knowing whether or not Thanos actually loves her, so her opinion is definitely going to carry weight, especially in the context where both of the others concur with her conclusion.

The horrifying realization is that she's not only there to lead him to the Stone, but she is also there to be slaughtered for the Stone.

Thanos didn't know about the condition before he arrived. And your theory here conflicts with her happily mocking him for not having anything he loved to sacrifice and even mocking his tears until she realizes what they meant. Again, it's far more likely that her realization is indeed "Oh, crap, he actually DOES love me!".

Gamora's realization hinges on the conditions of the Soul Stone. She has no reason to think Thanos loves her, and in fact doesn't believe this at all, until the Soul Stone's conditions are uttered and Thanos looks at her sadly. I don't know that this convinces Gamora that he loves her, but I think it's not a risk she's willing to take and so she tries to end her own life (in the same way she'd rather die than risk Thanos finding the stone in the first place).

Yes, until he looks at her with utter pain and regret that he has to sacrifice her she doesn't believe that he loves her. Then she does, and so realizes that his killing her is likely to work, and so she has to kill herself to stop that from happening.

Or rather, the horrifying realization that he thinks he loves her. I'm surprised that people are being so relative about love.

As I said in my original comment, if he actually feels the emotion of love then on what grounds can you deny that he loves her? The only objective measure you can appeal to is that if he really loved her he wouldn't have done what he did to her for all of these years. But that's predicated on one premise: No sane person who loved her would have done that to her. But Thanos is, explicitly, INSANE. For all of his rationalizations, his behaviour is not rational. So you can't go from how he acts to what he really feels, because his insanity makes it so that he doesn't act sanely or appropriately on his feelings. Heck, his main rationalization for why he needs the Infinity Gauntlet is not that he needs it to complete his mission efficiently (or even at all) but that it will allow him to kill that half of the population more painlessly. His actions are completely off-kilter from what a sane person would do with his mindset and feelings. That's why Gamora was surprised to find out that he did actually love her.

Just picture yourself at a family reunion and your sister shows up with her boyfriend that beats her, that manipulates her, that controls her and brutalizes her in every which way. But... you know, they live together and he pays the bills and stuff and they post pictures on Facebook. You complain about him to some other family members and they tell you "Well, he does love her in his own way. Who are we to judge?"

We probably should avoid the RL examples because they are hard to argue against without getting into deeper issues. But one thing I'd like to point out here is that there is an ambiguity in your example over whether you are complaining that he doesn't love her or whether you are complaining that he treats her poorly. Applying it to Thanos, it seems that there's a notion that if Thanos really loved her, then you can't criticize him for how he treated her, because the fact that he did it out of love justifies it. I think that's totally false. Thanos is still insane and still treats Gamora badly EVEN IF he does it out of love. You don't need to deny that he feels love for her to say that, regardless, he abused her.

I think the same thing applies to the arguments over how his mission was never shown to be "wrong". Killing off half the population of the universe, in and of itself, is an insane thing to do for which there can be no rational justification. But many seem to think that if it would solve the overpopulation problem it WOULD be the right solution, and so that the movie needed to show that he was wrong and that it wouldn't solve the problem. But we can just as easily note that, at a minimum, things are not so bad in the universe to justify that extreme a position, if it's ever justified at all, and so again his view is insane and he can be condemned for attempting it (and stopped on that basis). You don't have to deny that overpopulation is a valid problem or that his intention is to solve that problem to point out that what he's doing to solve it is insane and wrong.

Tyndmyr

2018-09-04, 04:32 PM

It's just difficult to buy. I didn't get it from the movie. Like... what is it about Gamora that makes him love her and not Nebula? Because she's "a fighter"? He tortures and abuses both of them, then drags Gamora kicking and screaming to her death. But he looks sad about it so I guess he loves her?

In GotG2, Nebula explicitly screams at Gamora about how Gamora was always Thanos's favorite. A lot of effort has been put into foreshadowing the Thanos/Gamora relationship, even if it is pretty one sided.

I mean, making the two sisters fight is still pretty screwed up, but Thanos isn't the Mentally Stable Titan.

We only have what we see and know from the movies to inform our opinion of Thanos' feelings. He is clearly abusive and treats Gamora as a thing, to the point that he casts her aside and kills her to acquire another thing. The Soul Stone requires that you sacrifice someone you love.

Your proposed standard for love would make the soul stone's rule unbeatable. Literally anyone after the soul stone would have to sacrifice someone they love. This was obviously not the intent of the test.

Sacrifice is a fairly major theme in this film.

deuterio12

2018-09-04, 08:15 PM

No sane person who loved her would have done that to her. But Thanos is, explicitly, INSANE. For all of his rationalizations, his behaviour is not rational. So you can't go from how he acts to what he really feels, because his insanity makes it so that he doesn't act sanely or appropriately on his feelings.

I mean, making the two sisters fight is still pretty screwed up, but Thanos isn't the Mentally Stable Titan.

This too. Claiming that we should try to rationalize Thanos actions is like saying we should try to rationalize the Joker's actions.

Devonix

2018-09-04, 08:24 PM

AMFV

2018-09-04, 08:32 PM

Is Movie Thanos actually insane? I mean he doesn't really act that way. He acts cruel and evil. But he's also very pragmatic plans things out, and doesn't seem to suffer from the same mental problems that the comic book version does.

He wants to kill half the population of the universe to solve a notional problem of overpopulation which isn't even really demonstrated to be a problem. That's not a rational thing. Insane people often have very logical plans and thoughts to their delusions, but they're still delusions.

Ramza00

2018-09-04, 08:44 PM

Is Movie Thanos actually insane? I mean he doesn't really act that way. He acts cruel and evil. But he's also very pragmatic plans things out, and doesn't seem to suffer from the same mental problems that the comic book version does.

So much of this discussions so far have been about what words mean, what words best describe things, and so on. Aka games of language.

So you are now asking another game of language of what "does insane mean?" Thanos can meet many different definitions of insanity and also he will not meet all the definitions of insanity.

1) Thanos may not be having problems with telling "what is real or not."
2) Nor is Thanos having hallucinations (sensory events that other people do not see or hear.)
3) There is another criteria for insanity and we call a very stupid name called "thought disorders" and thought disorders are really about "organization of thinking" and can you organize toward a goal or do you have problems with this due to one of dozens of reasons. Thanos does not have most of the symptoms of a thought disorder under most definitions. (Note I am trying to convey #3 is kind of a "catch-all term")
4) But is Thanos suffering delusions? Well actually that is the heart of the matter for Thanos goal and thinking his goal will lead to everyone being happy or at least better off, well this is very much delusional thinking.

So yes Thanos very much meets the definition of insanity under some definitions of insane. But on other definitions of insanity he may not meet the criteria. The people who would want to debate is Thanos insane or not would focus on Thano's plan and whether he is showing normal behavior, delusional behavior, and arguing over where he is on a spectrum for there is no magic "bright-line" to say Thanos is suffering delusions or he is not.

Saintheart

2018-09-04, 08:54 PM

And it's right here that supposedly rational people start getting rather uncomfortable, mainly because logicality has little to no interaction with sanity.

Insanity is based on other people's opinions: per the dictionary, you are insane when you are "in a state of mind which prevents normal perception, behaviour, or social interaction; seriously mentally ill." This is the judgment of your peers, it's subjective. "Normal" perception, behaviour, or social interaction does not have an objective component.

By the dictionary definition, if we are saying what Thanos intends is logical or based in reason, he is, necessarily, rational. Or is at least making a decision that is rational.

rational (adj.): 1. based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

To emphasise: a rational argument doesn't have to be both reasonable and logical; either will suffice.

Thanos puts up the argument during his discussion with Strange on Titan that "like most worlds", Titan suffered too many mouths with too few resources, and that it collapsed as a result. The main reason anybody finds Thanos logical or rational is because in the film nobody directly contradicts the foundation of this premise (indeed, Strange congratulates Thanos for being a prophet since Thanos had predicted the collapse and deduced its cause). In addition, nobody contradicts Thanos's assertions that Gamora's homeworld was on the brink of collapse and that it is presently thriving with a halved population. Doctor Strange does not scan the millions of planets in the galaxy and conclude that virtually none are overpopulated and convey that to the audience. In the absence of contradictory evidence, then, the movie influences us to presume that Thanos is correct. It also draws on the feelings in its audience that Earth is overpopulated and its resources on the brink of collapse, which is also why people found Thanos sympathetic.

So it's not quite right to object that it's "not demonstrated to be a problem". In a movie, the assertion, plus a lack of contradictory evidence, is enough to make the demonstration for the audience. The movie, perhaps tellingly, perhaps as a manipulation of its audience, instead just says "But the price is too high." It makes the argument wholly about values rather than facts. If it was an argument over the facts, Thanos's character would have had a lot more outward signs he was completely loco, because Thanos's character features of pragmatic, calm, and logical pursuit of mass murder would not have been consistent with someone providing him a reasonable, fact-based argument that the universe is not overcrowded.

Ramza00

2018-09-04, 09:21 PM

Adds a third argument under rational and what is rational. Rational comes from a latin word that also is the origin of the word ratio. One of the older definitions of rational (that is used less in current / modern English) is that the behavior suggests balance aka it is the more reasonable options, there is a proper ratio of how you perform what you perform.

Aka is Walter White acting in a rational fashion when he tries to kill a fly in his chemistry lab?

Rationality like you said before (I am agreeing with you) is inherently subjective. This in turn causes people to feel uncomfortable when they think on it deeply for much of life is inherently subjective and thus we both simultaneously feel more control and a lack of control simultaneously when we think about it.

deuterio12

2018-09-04, 09:39 PM

If it was an argument over the facts, Thanos's character would have had a lot more outward signs he was completely loco, because Thanos's character features of pragmatic, calm, and logical pursuit of mass murder would not have been consistent with someone providing him a reasonable, fact-based argument that the universe is not overcrowded.

Again, look at the Joker as the insane villain that's still quite capable of looking pragmatic, calm and in logical pursuit of mass murder.

And in Thanos case in-universe people literally call him the mad titan. He surely didn't pick that name for himself, meaning he earned it. Sane in-universe people already agree he's completely loco, and those willing to follow Thanos are clearly crazy fanatics.

Saintheart

2018-09-04, 10:00 PM

Again, look at the Joker as the insane villain that's still quite capable of looking pragmatic, calm and in logical pursuit of mass murder.

And in Thanos case in-universe people literally call him the mad titan. He surely didn't pick that name for himself, meaning he earned it. Sane in-universe people already agree he's completely loco, and those willing to follow Thanos are clearly crazy fanatics.

I am a little unclear on what the point being made is...can you elucidate?

Off the cuff, though, the Joker -- assuming we are talking about the Dark Knight incarnation? -- is all about feel and being consistent to his philosophy on life. He's all about chaos and the inherent comedy in life ("I'm only burning my half" is the best line in the film on multiple levels) and trying to prove his argument that people will do horrible things when the chips are down. The central argument in Dark Knight is about how far you go before you change from hero to villain, and the factor that is suggested as determining it is what pressure you're put under, a.k.a. the "one bad day" idea in The Killing Joke.. There necessarily is a disagreement on values: Batman believes people are inherently good, Joker that they're inherently bad, but this is a conflict of values, not one of facts, because when you get down to it the proposition is not testable.

That seems different to what's going on in Infinity War. Thanos is coldly pursuing a solution to a factual problem that he enunciates: the universe is overcrowded. The movie doesn't try to attack that premise on a factual basis - perhaps wisely - so it attacks it from a values perspective: "You may be right that the universe is overcrowded, but the price of solving the problem is just too high." It doesn't argue "No, you're wrong, the universe is not overcrowded." My point is that if that had been a factual argument of that type at play, then Thanos would only have portrayed as calm, logical and rational if he had some clear screws loose that we could see as an audience.

Pax_Chi

2018-09-04, 11:12 PM

Regarding Thanos and Gammora, Thanos may call what he feels for Gammora "love", but it's clearly not anything healthy. Thanos has been shown to have this rather creepy obsession with adopting kids, and especially talking to younger women as "my child" (see what he did to Wanda), likely as some kind of compensation to try and give himself some kind of family after losing his own during what happened to him. Is it the kind of healthy love anyone here would want to have with their child? No, of course not, because 99% of all parents would find the idea of sacrificing their child for personal power to be unthinkable. No good person would do that, hence why no one on the Avengers side is willing to sacrifice anyone else if they can avoid it.

What the Stone asked Thanos to do was to sacrifice the thing he cared for the most, on a personal level. And to him, personally, Gammora was the most important person in his life. Does he "love" her? In the way an abusive, manipulative and/or overcontrolling spouse or parent thinks they love their partner or child, sure. But it isn't what we'd consider love because actual love would stop him from making that choice.

The movies do not portray Thanos as a good person. He's someone who thinks he has understandable motivations, that he's doing a good thing, but as the old saying goes "Everyone is the hero of their own story". He doesn't even get basic population growth. Unless his act was more of a curse that will kill off half of all newborn life as well, the universe will be back at the same point within a short time. He'd have to use the Gauntlet every 20 years or so to keep the population down.

Anyone with a lick of compassion would have said "Well, if this is really a problem, why not just create more resources? Or shrink everyone and their technology to 1/10th their size and thus free up more space?"

And we only have Thanos' word that Titan ended the way he says it did. I suspect we're going to find out more about his past that will kill off anything even remotely sympathetic about him in the second film. For all we know, he's the one that murdered everyone on Titan for not listening to him.

Thanos is not a good person. He's someone who, at best, believes because something happened once it will happen everywhere, all of the time, and he's fitting circumstances in his head to give him the justification to do what he wants. He's like a less mouthy Handsome Jack from the Borderlands games who considers himself the hero while doing increasingly horrible things to everyone around him.

Heck, given both Thanos and Jack both claim to love children they've horribly abused, the comparison is even more apt.

Regarding Cap's "we don't trade lives" bit, it's again the polar opposite of Thanos. Steve is willing to sacrifice himself if there's no other option, and he's willing to allow Vision to sacrifice himself if there's no other option. But being a good person, Steve will make that the last possible option to consider.

That's what separates Steve from Thanos. Steve is willing to make the hard sacrifices, but only as a last resort. He never wants to kill if he can help it. Thanos, by contrast, essentially takes the lazy option and goes straight for killing. Steve will sacrifice himself before sacrificing someone else. Thanos will sacrifice everyone else to get what he wants so he can enjoy his "retirement".

As for him being willing to sacrifice Wakandan troops to protect Vision, even if they destroyed the Mind Stone, Thanos' forces were still on Earth. Best case scenario is they destroy the Stone, they lose Vision, and still have to fight Thanos' forces to keep them from murdering half the planet. Remember, Thanos didn't just show up and take the Space Stone from the Asgardian ship, he murdered half of the Asgardians there while he was at it. If Thanos had come to Earth and found out the Mind Stone was gone, he would have still killed off half the population. Better to have them fight and possibly save a hero who can aid them and stopping Thanos than destroying the Stone, losing Vision and still having to fight Thanos anyway.

warty goblin

2018-09-04, 11:32 PM

That seems different to what's going on in Infinity War. Thanos is coldly pursuing a solution to a factual problem that he enunciates: the universe is overcrowded. The movie doesn't try to attack that premise on a factual basis - perhaps wisely - so it attacks it from a values perspective: "You may be right that the universe is overcrowded, but the price of solving the problem is just too high." It doesn't argue "No, you're wrong, the universe is not overcrowded." My point is that if that had been a factual argument of that type at play, then Thanos would only have portrayed as calm, logical and rational if he had some clear screws loose that we could see as an audience.

Which I think rather contributes to the problem, since 'the price is too high' is not a really compelling argument about genuinely existential threats. If Thanos is right, then either half of everybody dies, or civilization collapses and more than half of everybody dies. In other words if Thanos has correctly identified the problem and identified a least bad solution to it, stopping Thanos is even worse than not stopping Thanos, at least if you're a utilitarian and consider killing people acceptable so long as it minimizes longterm negative utility. If you don't consider that acceptable, and Thanos is right, then the only moral action is apparently to let even more people die.

Obviously if Thanos is wrong, stopping him is absolutely necessary. But since the movie never does anything to suggest that the problem doesn't exist, or his solution won't work, or there's a better solution out there, there isn't really any reason provided to think that he is wrong in terms of his forecast. This sort of leaves us with assuming the villain has to be wrong about everything, even when the movie sort of says he isn't, simply because otherwise the heroes aren't right about everything and then the whole thing goes to pieces. Black Panther handled this much better, because the heroes admitted that the villain was right about a lot of stuff, but very wrong in his means, and so actually went on to address the problems the villain pointed out.

It doesn't help that Thanos has one of the lowest whiny smartass twerp factors of anybody in the MCU, and is allowed to spend a substantial portion of the movie beating the snot out of the various heroes. Since I find a solid 80% of the heroes genuinely obnoxious, this instantly made me like Thanos far more than is reasonable for an omnicidal maniac.

The fundamental problem here is that actions that seem moral at the individual level may, particularly when summed over an entire population, result in very bad outcomes at largescale, and decisions that produce good outcomes at the largescale may very well result in very bad things happening to individuals. This problem is, so far as I can tell, basically intractable. The ethics of the MCU to date seem to very much be rooted in personal-scale morality based mostly around letting good people (generally wearing costumes) do whatever they feel like, and never really considering largescale effects. Which is another way in which Thanos is a weird villain, because his morality is based on a metric that the heroes apparently don't even consider, and likewise he doesn't really give a snot about their metric. In Thanos-verse, having some sort of personal epithany isn't going to let you punch extra hard to win the day, because the universe is simply indifferent to your personal emotional state, and in superhero-verse, worrying about the consequences of actions of entire populations is utterly outside the realm of thought. Looked at this way, this is why he can kill Gamora, something utterly unthinkable to the superhero contingent, because the smallscale effect of him suffering is irrelevant compared to the universal suffering he'll be able to prevent. But for the superheroes, personal suffering or happiness and fulfillment are essentially the only things that have epistemic worth.

(There's an entirely sensible objection to Thanos' plan, in that killing half of everybody only gets you one more doubling time of the universal population away from collapse. It's not a permanent fix in other words. Reducing the r0 of the universe until the asymptotic growth rate is 1 would work a lot better, and not even require killing anybody, although it is obviously a substantial trespass on individual freedom.)

Saintheart

2018-09-04, 11:56 PM

Which I think rather contributes to the problem, since 'the price is too high' is not a really compelling argument about genuinely existential threats. If Thanos is right, then either half of everybody dies, or civilization collapses and more than half of everybody dies. In other words if Thanos has correctly identified the problem and identified a least bad solution to it, stopping Thanos is even worse than not stopping Thanos, at least if you're a utilitarian and consider killing people acceptable so long as it minimizes longterm negative utility. If you don't consider that acceptable, and Thanos is right, then the only moral action is apparently to let even more people die.

Obviously if Thanos is wrong, stopping him is absolutely necessary. But since the movie never does anything to suggest that the problem doesn't exist, or his solution won't work, or there's a better solution out there, there isn't really any reason provided to think that he is wrong in terms of his forecast. This sort of leaves us with assuming the villain has to be wrong about everything, even when the movie sort of says he isn't, simply because otherwise the heroes aren't right about everything and then the whole thing goes to pieces. Black Panther handled this much better, because the heroes admitted that the villain was right about a lot of stuff, but very wrong in his means, and so actually went on to address the problems the villain pointed out.

It doesn't help that Thanos has one of the lowest whiny smartass twerp factors of anybody in the MCU, and is allowed to spend a substantial portion of the movie beating the snot out of the various heroes. Since I find a solid 80% of the heroes genuinely obnoxious, this instantly made me like Thanos far more than is reasonable for an omnicidal maniac.

The fundamental problem here is that actions that seem moral at the individual level may, particularly when summed over an entire population, result in very bad outcomes at largescale, and decisions that produce good outcomes at the largescale may very well result in very bad things happening to individuals. This problem is, so far as I can tell, basically intractable.

Digressing very slightly, Nassim Taleb would likely agree with you. He puts up some very powerful arguments against universal application of principles, chiefly that the real world doesn't run on it -- more or less as a feature. Contrary to intution, a crowd of people is not just X number of people's individual motives massed together. Rioting crowds frequently have a certain psychology all of their own. As a couple of guys once commented: "I am, at the Federal level, a libertarian; at the State level, a Republican; at the local level, a Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist."

The ethics of the MCU to date seem to very much be rooted in personal-scale morality based mostly around letting good people (generally wearing costumes) do whatever they feel like, and never really considering largescale effects. Which is another way in which Thanos is a weird villain, because his morality is based on a metric that the heroes apparently don't even consider, and likewise he doesn't really give a snot about their metric. In Thanos-verse, having some sort of personal epithany isn't going to let you punch extra hard to win the day, because the universe is simply indifferent to your personal emotional state, and in superhero-verse, worrying about the consequences of actions of entire populations is utterly outside the realm of thought. Looked at this way, this is why he can kill Gamora, something utterly unthinkable to the superhero contingent, because the smallscale effect of him suffering is irrelevant compared to the universal suffering he'll be able to prevent. But for the superheroes, personal suffering or happiness and fulfillment are essentially the only things that have epistemic worth.

The footnote I'd add here is that the one time this came close to consideration in the MCU was in Civil War with the Sokovia Accords debate. And yet even there the issue was suborned to the narcissism of the two main characters, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Tony Stark supported the Accords not so much because he believed in the morality implicit in oversight, but only because the personal consequences to the people he cared about were too high to countenance - let alone his own guilt in contributing to the death of a grad student vacationing in Sokovia. Steve Rogers, meanwhile, was opposing the Accords less out of a personal belief in the morality of Freedom than that the Avengers wouldn't have the right to choose which conflicts to get involved in, i.e. he believed his own judgment was inherently better than that of the UN. Both of these guys basically still saw themselves as the main characters of their own movies, to coin a metaphor - and that's the definition of narcissism when you get right down to it. Indeed as I sit here I can't remember a single argument for or against the Accords which originated from a wider morality of this kind - even Vision The Demigod On The Side Of Life one movie before merely suggests oversight cannot be ruled out solely because of causality, i.e. that the characters' existence invites challenge, i.e.e. narcissism since it's seeing themselves as the centre of the universe.

(There's an entirely sensible objection to Thanos' plan, in that killing half of everybody only gets you one more doubling time of the universal population away from collapse. It's not a permanent fix in other words. Reducing the r0 of the universe until the asymptotic growth rate is 1 would work a lot better, and not even require killing anybody, although it is obviously a substantial trespass on individual freedom.)

The trespass on individual freedom being why Thanos insists on a flat 50% chosen at random - he points out to Strange on Titan that that pure mechanistic random chance is the only fair way to do it given any other method necessarily favours one person over another. The reasoning seeming to be that if everyone suffers the same imposition on their freedom, it isn't really an imposition as such, it becomes a feature of the universe rather than a bug in the programming.

SuperPanda

2018-09-05, 12:52 AM

I'm not going to touch the love / abuse discussion for this post but I do take exception to the idea that Infinity War never presents a counter argument to Thanos's thesis that eliminating half the life in the universe was the "solution" to bring about utopia. The pieces of a counter-argument are woven into the context of the film.

Asgard and Xandar:

The Asgardian refugee ship that is destroyed in the opening of the film is the only one we know of to have escaped the destruction of Asgard at the end of Thor: Dark World (correct me if I'm wrong and there actually were two). As a result we have an already decimated refugee population. Thanos's assault on their ship cannot be for the purpose of restoring balance to their world because their world is already gone. The film then suggests that Thanos is going through his usual ritual of killing half of all Asgardians, including Ebony Maw's speech. Thanos then destroys the entire ship because he was only there for the stone.

Xandar: The only time we saw Xandar was in Guardians of the Galaxy 1 - we never saw any indication of extreme poverty, in fact we saw evidence of the opposite. Part of Ronin's anger about Xandar was the decadence of Xandarian culture. Once again Xandar had an infinity stone and therefore stood in Thanos's way - but he proves in Infinity War that taking a stone from a world does not require invading and conquering it.

The movie also leaves us with three very simple logic questions:

1) If the finger snap wipes out half of all life - what happens on the worlds where he already wiped out half the population, do they get halved again? What happens with near-extinct races (like Groot, Timelords (I know the Doctor isn't part of Marvel), unique life forms (Rocket, Vision), and animal life (Did half the insects on earth dust as well, the Panda's, banana plants?) - Does the finger snap account for evolutionary niches or do 50% of all ants dust without regard of which species of ant.

At least one individual presented as a member of a near-extinct species does dust - which suggests that already "balance" worlds are now suddenly unbalanced within movie-Thanos's own logic of too much to one side or the other is unbalanced. All of the worlds he personal balanced are unbalanced by the snap.

2) What about the short term aftermath of the snap. We see this directly in the end of the film, in the aftermath of the snap cars are still in motion without people inside them - death and destruction reigns on every civilized world throughout the universe as fear and panic takes over from this horrific and unexplainable event (from the perspective of the vast majority who still don't know what a Thanos is). Many many more than were snapped away have died, meaning that the moment of balance is lost before it begins.

3) What about the long term aftermath of the snap? Lets except Thanos's argument as valid for the moment: accept that a short while after the snap things work out and everyone shares the now abundant resources, lives in wealth, and generally gets along. What happens then? Biological models suggest that in an environment of plenty like that the remaining individuals breed - increasing the population back to where it was before the snap. Did Thanos set up the dusting to be a recurring event ever X years to prevent this? Also, going back to question 1 - a major resource is food which pretty much always comes from other life in some shape or form... If Thanos wiped out half of all life then he hasn't actually changed the availability of resources at all now has he?

4) Going back the "original incident" for the snap idea - how would the 50% cull of Titan have been carried out? Did Thanos expect everyone who got randomly selected for death to just peacefully accept it? Everything else in the film shows him fighting a war and then killing half of everyone who remains, which is less than half of what was there at the start. The film states that the people of Titan warred with themselves when resources became scarce - so wouldn't a forced extermination of half the population have risked a war in itself?

Thanos does identify and address a real problem, but the solution he proposes is unlikely to make any significant positive impact on that problem. We are given no evidence that his plan to randomly cull half the population of Titan would have succeeded, only that doing nothing in the face of a real problem fails. We are given no actual evidence that his actions on Gamora's world were ultimately justified. Instead we are shown that he doesn't want young Gamora to watch what happens - an odd choice given that he sees his actions as being her people's salvation - and we are implicitly told that he never sent her back to see first hand that it worked. Thanos has built an overly simplified model of the systems which lead to the real problem that he recognized so that he can grasp onto an elegantly simple "ideal" solution. We have no evidence that he has actually given that solution any real thought, that he built that idea on any real understanding of the problem, or that he cares if it ultimately is a good answer. Thanos is presented more like a person who broke when his home was destroyed and built his new identify around the "fact" that his survival "means something."

He deludes himself that he exists to prevent the tragedy which befell him from befalling anyone else; however, the film opens with him bringing the same tragedy to Thor and reminders that he has done similar to many other worlds. The film ends with the audience and heroes in the same state of shock and hurt that Thaos would have experienced at the fall of Titan, that same feeling of "All those people died when it could have been prevented."

eh, its late and I'm tired - I'm not sure if I'm saying any of this intelligently.

Short form: Thanos came across to me more like a terribly damaged fanatic. My experience with the film solidly framed him as "in the wrong" at pretty much every level. Thanos's declaration of the problem is presented as the film as being generalized beyond the point of meaning. The Asgardian refugees had far to few resources for their people, but more than enough for some to survive. Xandar was not shown to have any resource problems yet, while Gamora was poor we never see her world. The only world we know to have suffered overpopulation was Titan - we are not shown any evidence that the 50% cull would have prevented anything - or have even been possible without the infinity stones.

Saintheart

2018-09-05, 02:02 AM

We are given no actual evidence that his actions on Gamora's world were ultimately justified.

Aside from Thanos's own word that life on that planet is a near-paradise. He states this outright to Gamora. And that indeed is part of the problem: because nobody comes up with something directly contradicting Thanos's point of view, all the other losses - as you say, evolutionary collapse, halving again of halved populations - are reframed as justifiable because nobody says the threat is other than supremely existential to all life in the galaxy -- and nobody says Thanos's identification of the problem is other than real. Too much credence is given to Thanos's viewpoint and too little material to counter it. In particular he's not terribly illustrated as a masterful liar or terribly dishonest about what he says or thinks. Part of his charm is that he's shockingly direct and straightforward about the problem and the solution.

In particular, I don't think we are ever given a precise idea of how the Infinity Gauntlet will work. Does it eradicate 50% of life on a given planet, or does it just do a straight headcount of everyone in the universe and divide by 2? (Yes, I know Thanos says to Tony that "half of humanity will still be alive." Maybe he's being dead-on accurate on that and maybe not.)

Instead we are shown that he doesn't want young Gamora to watch what happens - an odd choice given that he sees his actions as being her people's salvation - and we are implicitly told that he never sent her back to see first hand that it worked.

Thanos seems to appreciate that what he is doing is a dreadful thing. He is portrayed as the walking argument for "the ends justify the means" given his own world's civilisation collapsed because it had too many people on it. There's nothing inconsistent in Thanos not wanting a tiny child to see mass murder before her very eyes. Indeed I'd bet you five bucks that's why the line from the trailer - "This does put a smile on my face" - didn't make it into the movie, because they realised that Thanos's character works better as realising he's doing horrible things but going ahead and doing it because he believes unquestionably that this is the only way the problem can be solved.

The destruction of Xandar, Knowhere, and Thor's people have one thing in common: all of them stood between Thanos and an Infinity Stone. They all stood between Thanos and his solution for the universe, and therefore were his enemies to be wiped out. The same thing happened with Peter Dinklage Tyrion Lannister the giant-dwarf guy on Niffleburger or wherever it was: Thanos didn't stop at half the population there either, he obliterated every dwarf in his way and then burned the last one's hands. They weren't given the "half survive" treatment because they represented an ongoing threat to him.

(P.S. -- for what it's worth, by obliterating the Asgardian ship, Thanos in a way is only fulfilling the prophecy of Ragnarok in a more literal way than Thor: Ragnarok interpreted it. The literal rebirth of Asgard - likely on the slate for Avengers 4 - is therefore also prophesied and likely to be fulfilled as well.)

Pax_Chi

2018-09-05, 10:28 AM

Pax_Chi

2018-09-05, 10:29 AM

Interestingly, regarding the Soul Stone choice, for me at least it's clear that after he makes the finger snap, he's taken inside the Soul Stone, given the orange landscape matches the Soul Stone's color. The person he's then talking to is either Gammora's soul, or the Soul Stone itself speaking through her. It's possible the Soul Stone's sadistic choice is actually a way of preserving the soul of anyone who would be sacrificed in such a way, and that Gammora will somehow play a part in fixing things.

I'm of the mind that Thanos' act to get the Soul Stone is going to bite him in the butt at some point. Because whatever pain his action caused him, "he" really didn't sacrifice anything. He forced someone else to sacrifice themselves for him. Someone who wasn't willing to do so. Whereas if someone had sacrificed for him willingly, or if he had made the jump himself, maybe something different would happen.

I don't know, I'm hoping for something in Part 2 where Thanos' entire justification for doing what he did, his actions, everything basically slaps him in the face.

Chen

2018-09-05, 08:41 PM

In particular, I don't think we are ever given a precise idea of how the Infinity Gauntlet will work. Does it eradicate 50% of life on a given planet, or does it just do a straight headcount of everyone in the universe and divide by 2? (Yes, I know Thanos says to Tony that "half of humanity will still be alive." Maybe he's being dead-on accurate on that and maybe not.

In practice if it was just a 50/50 chance of each living being destroyed it would amount pretty closely to every moderately large group just being cut in half. Its an exponential issue so a village of 50 people has a ridiculously small chance of all disappearing (on the order of 8x 10^(-16)). A village of 200 people that drops to the order of 10^(-61)!! My phone doesnt even give me a number for a small town of 1000 people.

warty goblin

2018-09-05, 09:10 PM

Digressing very slightly, Nassim Taleb would likely agree with you. He puts up some very powerful arguments against universal application of principles, chiefly that the real world doesn't run on it -- more or less as a feature. Contrary to intution, a crowd of people is not just X number of people's individual motives massed together. Rioting crowds frequently have a certain psychology all of their own. As a couple of guys once commented: "I am, at the Federal level, a libertarian; at the State level, a Republican; at the local level, a Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist."

Color me intrigued. Any recommended reading?

The footnote I'd add here is that the one time this came close to consideration in the MCU was in Civil War with the Sokovia Accords debate. And yet even there the issue was suborned to the narcissism of the two main characters, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Tony Stark supported the Accords not so much because he believed in the morality implicit in oversight, but only because the personal consequences to the people he cared about were too high to countenance - let alone his own guilt in contributing to the death of a grad student vacationing in Sokovia. Steve Rogers, meanwhile, was opposing the Accords less out of a personal belief in the morality of Freedom than that the Avengers wouldn't have the right to choose which conflicts to get involved in, i.e. he believed his own judgment was inherently better than that of the UN. Both of these guys basically still saw themselves as the main characters of their own movies, to coin a metaphor - and that's the definition of narcissism when you get right down to it. Indeed as I sit here I can't remember a single argument for or against the Accords which originated from a wider morality of this kind - even Vision The Demigod On The Side Of Life one movie before merely suggests oversight cannot be ruled out solely because of causality, i.e. that the characters' existence invites challenge, i.e.e. narcissism since it's seeing themselves as the centre of the universe.
Indeed. This was one of the things I found most disappointing about Civil War. It could have been an interesting debate about responsibility vs. freedom or something. Instead I spent most of it wishing everybody would just grow the hell up.

The trespass on individual freedom being why Thanos insists on a flat 50% chosen at random - he points out to Strange on Titan that that pure mechanistic random chance is the only fair way to do it given any other method necessarily favours one person over another. The reasoning seeming to be that if everyone suffers the same imposition on their freedom, it isn't really an imposition as such, it becomes a feature of the universe rather than a bug in the programming.
This is true. On the other hand, in terms of getting his desired result (lower resource consumption) there are much better elimination strategies available, based on actual resource usage. It basically boils down to a particularly morbid survey design problem, and simple random sampling is a very poor method compared to any sort of method where inclusion probability depends on response. Interestingly enough, a optimal design in this case discriminates against the rich and powerful, since their resource consumption is generally going to be substantially higher.

In practice if it was just a 50/50 chance of each living being destroyed it would amount pretty closely to every moderately large group just being cut in half. Its an exponential issue so a village of 50 people has a ridiculously small chance of all disappearing (on the order of 8x 10^(-16)). A village of 200 people that drops to the order of 10^(-61)!! My phone doesnt even give me a number for a small town of 1000 people.
Indeed. Most of the issues I've seen raised about the 50% elimination rate are either probabilistically implausible to the extreme, or basically rounding error.

There's also a substantial number of implementations for eliminating 50% of the population, but I don't think it really matters which is chosen for the movie. I mean would it make it less monstrous if he paused for a five minute lecture explaining that he was stratifying by census tract, with a side-bar on the definition of a species that needed culled? Much as I'd find it hilarious if he broke out a blackboard and demonstrated that he had a minimum variance allocation under certain constraints, I admit it wouldn't have made for a particularly compelling movie.

(That said, if he didn't stratify, at least at the level of species, he's an idiot. Stratification is the closest thing to a mathematical free lunch you will ever find.)

Saintheart

2018-09-05, 09:11 PM

We only ever see Thanos explain the justification for his actions to two people: Gammora and Dr. Strange. When he explains it to Gammora, she flat out tells him that he truly doesn't know if he's right, and all he can do say that "I'm the only one who knows it, or at least the only one willing to act on it". So either he's the only person who truly believes his rational, or there might be some people who buy into it that refuse to act on it because the mass culling of people is an atrocity. That doesn't give his argument much credence.

Here's my perception: in saying 'Thanos must be the only guy who truly believes he's rational, or other people believe what Thanos does but refuse to act on it because it's an atrocity', it seems to me you are buying into the film's very approach to the problem, which I've already identified. You're not actually contesting the factual premise behind Thanos's actions, you're contesting the morality of the solution. Thanos believing he's the only rational person in the universe with this solution presupposes that the problem of overcrowding exists and is real. "Because it's an atrocity" is a moral argument, not one that contests the facts driving Thanos.

And that's my precise point. One of the big reasons people find Thanos sympathetic is that nobody produces a direct contradiction to the factual premise that motivates him to omnicide. As I keep saying, not one person in the film says "Not every living world in the cosmos is overcrowded, hell, not even most of them, where did you get this idea?" Even Gamora's objection -- "You don't know that's true" -- is not a direct contradiction, it's just saying "You can't be sure the cosmos is overcrowded." Thanos simply shrugs it off, and that also influences people to shrug it off since, again, Thanos is portrayed as vastly more knowledgeable about the state of things than any other character except for Dr. Strange. And even Dr. Strange doesn't say "You're wrong. I've seen the vast majority of worlds in the cosmos, they're not the least bit overcrowded." All Strange does is throw down on Thanos.

The film does not endorse what Thanos does, otherwise the heroes wouldn't be trying so hard to stop him, nor would it treat his success as anything but a horrible thing. Even Thanos remarks that success cost him everything. Nor would we have a sequel set up to fix the problem he caused.

I mean, we literally have a moment when Thanos is holding the Tesseract and Ebony Maw says that Thanos "Holds the universe in the palm of his hand". And what does Thanos do? He crushes it. you don't get much more clear cut symbolism than that.

For clarity's sake:

I am not arguing that the film endorses what Thanos does. What I am saying is that it manages to make Thanos a sympathetic character by making the film an argument about the morality of the solution Thanos proposes -- not an argument about whether Thanos has correctly identified the problem. Thanos is the walking argument for "the ends justify the means", the Avengers are basically the walking argument for "the ends can never a priori justify the means". That's the philosophical question driving the plot.

Thanos's horrible actions don't change the central question he represents: "If the universe is overcrowded such that all life is imperilled, does that not justify a few more bodies in the foundations in order to save the universe?" Again, the film specifically steers us away from answering "But the universe isn't overcrowded", its entire focus -- "We don't trade lives" -- is about arguing the morality of the solution. But by going in that direction, by not allowing a clear doubt to arise about Thanos's assumptions, it makes Thanos a sympathetic character.

Color me intrigued. Any recommended reading?

Taleb's written five books on the subject, which he collectively calls the Incerto, because his interest has been in probability, randomness, and uncertainty on an academic basis after being a Wall Street trader for 20 years. The five books being, chronologically:
- Fooled by Randomness
- The Black Swan
- Antifragile
- The Bed of Procrustes
- Skin In The Game

In theory one doesn't need to read them in any order, but the Bed of Procrustes is essentially a book of aphorisms summing up the entire Incerto, and Fooled by Randomness, being Taleb's first book, is more of an introduction to where he sees the errors in the general use of probability in ordinary life (and consequently in economics generally). The specific argument against universality is made in Skin in the Game, but I'd recommend starting with Antifragile only because it was the first one I did and seems a good "midrange" place to start and expand from if the interest takes you. (I haven't read The Black Swan yet, but given the references to it in Taleb's other books I suspect I'll be fairly familiar with the content before I open the book to the first page :) )

SuperPanda

2018-09-05, 11:42 PM

For clarity's sake:

I am not arguing that the film endorses what Thanos does. What I am saying is that it manages to make Thanos a sympathetic character by making the film an argument about the morality of the solution Thanos proposes -- not an argument about whether Thanos has correctly identified the problem. Thanos is the walking argument for "the ends justify the means", the Avengers are basically the walking argument for "the ends can never a priori justify the means". That's the philosophical question driving the plot.

Thanos's horrible actions don't change the central question he represents: "If the universe is overcrowded such that all life is imperilled, does that not justify a few more bodies in the foundations in order to save the universe?" Again, the film specifically steers us away from answering "But the universe isn't overcrowded", its entire focus -- "We don't trade lives" -- is about arguing the morality of the solution. But by going in that direction, by not allowing a clear doubt to arise about Thanos's assumptions, it makes Thanos a sympathetic character.

I think I better understand where you are coming from and I think I understand why it bothers you the way it does. My observation on the matter was similar, but different in a meaningful way.

I saw the film presenting Thanos as someone who had identified a real problem but not a real solution. He'd identified a solution that felt correct but was not based on any actual examination of the problem(*).

Thanos's argument is not given any real defense in the movie apart from "the problem was real in the case of Titan" and maybe "Gamora and her mother were poor." Instead Thanos's solution is presented as "There is a real problem, people did not agree with my solution and then they failed to fix the problem, therefore mine is the correct solution."

This feels like it is justifying Thanos's position but it really doesn't. If Thanos and his people were arguing over the simple math problem X+2=5 to solve for X and his people insisted that X=7 while Thanos insisted that X=1/2 they would both be wrong. One side being demonstrably wrong does not actually mean that the other side is correct. Of course, this is cartoonist exaggerated because the problem presented is not so clean or easily understood.

The film instead presents Thanos as having identified a real problem (**) but not a real solution. It is a solution that "feels" like it would help, but wouldn't solve the problem. In the best case scenario it delays the problem. In the worst case scenario it can cause or worsen the very problem he's trying to solve(***). Thanos is presented as a radial extremist whose entire life is defined by his whole hearted devotion to an ideal that he has never tested or challenged. He is shown to be ruthless, charismatic, brutal, and confident. No point in the film portrays him as intellectual or wise apart from in his own judgement of himself or Ebony Maw's words.

(*) - Thanos's thesis that "a culling" is the only thing that can prevent the end of all life is based on a single event on his home-world. The event happened after he'd grown to young adult or adult age for his race. The complete environmental collapse of his world happened relatively shortly there after as he isn't portrayed as being past his prime in Infinity War. Assuming his race is not immortal that is the equivalent to at most 35 years between him identifying the problem, failing to convince his people, witnessing the total collapse of his homeland, recruiting an army, starting his crusade to "save" other worlds, recruiting Gamora and the other children, raising Gamora and the other children, learning about the infinity stones, starting his quest for them, abandoning his quest once before because of Gamora, resuming his quest, and the snap.

Now Thanos is clearly not human so this can have taken much longer for him - but it is worth noting that the time between him coming up with his solution and the total collapse of his world was most likely the time span it took a single generation of his race to reach adulthood. This is all very fridge logic but that kind of time-span suggests that his sollution wouldn't have worked even if it had been implemented.

(**)I understand that you'd have preferred the protagonists to argue that the problem Thanos was trying to solve doesn't exist - but I personally am glad they didn't. Thanos's argument as presented was not "All worlds are currently overpopulated" and more that life has a tendency to overpopulate, which is observably accurate, and that when sentient races do it they have the potential to wipe out whole biospheres in the process (which is arguable - and my interpretation for why the snap doesn't hit plant or animal life).

(***) - Makes it worse: The panic over the finger snap leads to fear and war. Nations and worlds convinced that their adversaries were part of the dusting incident launch full scale strikes, wiping out biome after biome leading to mutually assured destruction. Given the panic and chaos we see in the stinger with Nick Fury, this is entirely within the realm of possibility on many worlds. Any world that survives is likely to see an increase in birth rate as well seeing as an incident like this would kick the biological drive to procreate into overdrive. So now there is a "live for today," resource heavy, babybooming group or paranoid races replacing what worlds we'd seen before this which were far more normal and, for the vast majority, prosperous.

Saintheart

2018-09-06, 12:06 AM

I think I better understand where you are coming from and I think I understand why it bothers you the way it does. My observation on the matter was similar, but different in a meaningful way.

I saw the film presenting Thanos as someone who had identified a real problem but not a real solution. He'd identified a solution that felt correct but was not based on any actual examination of the problem(*).

Thanos's argument is not given any real defense in the movie apart from "the problem was real in the case of Titan" and maybe "Gamora and her mother were poor." Instead Thanos's solution is presented as "There is a real problem, people did not agree with my solution and then they failed to fix the problem, therefore mine is the correct solution."

This feels like it is justifying Thanos's position but it really doesn't. If Thanos and his people were arguing over the simple math problem X+2=5 to solve for X and his people insisted that X=7 while Thanos insisted that X=1/2 they would both be wrong. One side being demonstrably wrong does not actually mean that the other side is correct. Of course, this is cartoonist exaggerated because the problem presented is not so clean or easily understood.

The film instead presents Thanos as having identified a real problem (**) but not a real solution. It is a solution that "feels" like it would help, but wouldn't solve the problem. In the best case scenario it delays the problem. In the worst case scenario it can cause or worsen the very problem he's trying to solve(***). Thanos is presented as a radial extremist whose entire life is defined by his whole hearted devotion to an ideal that he has never tested or challenged. He is shown to be ruthless, charismatic, brutal, and confident. No point in the film portrays him as intellectual or wise apart from in his own judgement of himself or Ebony Maw's words.

About the only observation - observation, not argument, I don't disagree with anything you're saying here - I would make here is that, just as the Avengers never contradict Thanos's premise that the universe is overpopulated, Thanos is also never compelled to defend his particular solution as such. Not directly, anyway. As said, Doctor Strange was the one who it would have made most sense to put those arguments to Thanos, but he ... doesn't. This silence again allows the presumption to arise that Thanos has only gotten to this point because he's tried every other possible solution and none of them have worked out.

It's a shaky presumption, to be sure. They could've made Thanos's case a lot stronger by adding one line to his exposition with Dr. Strange: "I proposed a solution; it was rejected. I remained silent. On my people went, trying everything else they could, endless talking, endless ideas, endless half-baked theories and philosophies and interventions and efforts. And after all that thought, all that action, they still ended up with ... this. (Uses the Reality stone to return us to the present ruins of Titan.)

That example would have stood for all other notional solutions to the overpopulation problem, would have stood as the metaphor for Thanos's argument that his solution was the last resort and the only way to solve the problem. But as it stands, there was just silence from Strange and silence from every other character in a position to actually ask the obvious questions, i.e. "Is there actually a problem?" and "How many other solutions have you tried?"

EDIT: Also, on the proposition that Thanos's badness is illustrated by the company he keeps, i.e. the Black Order: yes and no. Thanos uses the Black Order as tools by which to achieve his goals. Absent Gamora (insert twenty pages of debate here) there isn't any one of them that he seems to have a lot of feeling for, he accepts Ebony Maw's death with a shrug. The problem lies in the existential nature of the threat: assuming the whole universe is at risk and there is no other way to buy it more time than omnicide as described, hanging around with a bunch of cruel zealots and killing whole starships full of people pales by comparison. Or at least that seems to be the argument that those who find Thanos a sympathetic character have to accept.

SuperPanda

2018-09-06, 12:36 AM

That's well put and I understand why the former of those two lingering questions bothers you more. For me it is the second of those lingering questions that bother me more because the film pretty heavily implies that the answer would have been:

Thanos: None, why would I try other solutions when I know mine is right?

Strange/Stark/Gamora (the only people he could have had the conversation with): Did you test it?

Thanos: No need, it is simple, elegant, balanced. It must be right.

This kind of thinking is very believable. I can think of many examples in reality of it, but for fiction I'd go with Kingsman: The Secret Service. The Villain has identified a similar problem with overpopulation and a similar answer. The film never directly questions whether or not that problem exists - let alone exists in the form Valentine claims it does - but still paints him as insane and in the wrong for his chosen solution.

I fully get where you are coming from and why the films apparent acceptance that "he has a point" wasn't contradicted or challenged more directly. I felt that his solution was presented as so morally, practically, and logically wrong that it didn't matter that he'd identified a real problem - but I agree it would have been more clear in the film if they'd had someone state it explicitly.

All this said, I enjoyed Thanos as a villain, but he's no where near my top TV and Cinematic Marvel villains. For me Killgrave was somehow more frightening, more revolting, and more sympathetic (not as in I liked the person at all but in that I could understand his thinking and get my head into his unique insanity in really disturbing ways). Killmonger (Jessica Jones, Season 1) was one a more compelling of the "He's got a point" variety that they seemed to be going for with Thanos. Dr. Radcliff (Agents of Shield, Season 4) was far more compelling as a "ends justify the means" villain and had a far more satisfying emotional moment involving looking out at a sunset after his work has been completed. Heck, I had much more sympathy for Graviton (Shield, Season 5) as the "only I can fix it" villain with a bad solution to a real problem - but then that story arc had a very very different presentation and focus.

I personally did not find Thanos sympathetic at all. He represented powerful figures desperate to grasp simple answers to complex problems and then force their square pegs into round holes. I have limited sympathy for figures of that nature but know many people who are very sympathetic to that kind of thinking. For this reason I found Thanos compelling.

deuterio12

2018-09-06, 04:08 PM

This kind of thinking is very believable. I can think of many examples in reality of it, but for fiction I'd go with Kingsman: The Secret Service. The Villain has identified a similar problem with overpopulation and a similar answer. The film never directly questions whether or not that problem exists - let alone exists in the form Valentine claims it does - but still paints him as insane and in the wrong for his chosen solution.

Thanos: "There's too many people, we should kill half of them but in the fastest and most painless way."
Valentine: "Hold my beer."

Also do notice that in Kingsman the villain gets virtually every world leader to agree with his plan, even the leader of the Kingsman themselves, so clearly he got plenty of supposedly smart people to agree with him.

Then they all get their heads blown up in pretty colors as opera music plays.:smallbiggrin:

Zalabim

2018-09-07, 01:16 AM

Thanos: "There's too many people, we should kill half of them but in the fastest and most painless way."
Valentine: "Hold my beer."
Shouldn't that be "Hold my <brand name beverage/blatant product placement>"

deuterio12

2018-09-07, 03:33 AM

Shouldn't that be "Hold my <brand name beverage/blatant product placement>"

No, but the camera would suddenly zoom in the bottle's logo for several seconds, then Thanos would drink and declare it the best beer he ever drunk and change his plans from invading Earth for the mind stone to invade the Earth for more of that beer and holding the bottle.

In the next movie Thanos is defeated by somebody telling him the beer can't be fabricated anymore because he killed all the people of the company with his universal purge so he undoes all the destruction himself and gives up in the infinity stones.

Saintheart

2018-09-07, 07:58 AM

No, but the camera would suddenly zoom in the bottle's logo for several seconds, then Thanos would drink and declare it the best beer he ever drunk and change his plans from invading Earth for the mind stone to invade the Earth for more of that beer and holding the bottle that beer isn't something one considers when balancing the universe, but that this does put a smile on his face.

Further re-fixed.

Clertar

2018-09-08, 06:39 AM

Saintheart

2018-09-08, 08:33 PM

As a non-Anglosaxon European looking in from the outside, I think that this debate is very much an Anglosaxon or a North American debate and find it really interesting. Granted, the caricature of evil problem that is pervasive in present-day depictions of "evil" actions is found more and more outside of North American sources, but nowhere is it as manichean as there.

To make it short, it's the idea that certain types of evil actions (genocide, torture, abuse) can only be done by monsters and that normal human beings are incapable of that. Never mind that throughout history progroms, hate crimes and pillages have been carried out accompanied by torture, murder, rape etc. by everyday people that just happened to be in the position to exert these actions. And after these actions, they went back home to their loved ones and were probably loving and caring people to them.

The problem with fascism and nazi ideology wasn't that one inhumane monster (or a dozen of them) mind-controlled thousands of "normal" people to perform these evil acts. The real problem is that virtually everyone is capable of it given the situation. The danger of totalitarianism is not that a mind-controlling fascist dictator will emerge; it's that for this figure to emerge, a pre-condition is for there to be a favorable environment with many likely-minded people.

Maybe as a balance to this caricature view of evil, a caricature view of good and love is also pervasive in North American media. Over here in Europe there's even a collocation, something like "American love" or "Hollywood love" to refer to a ridiculous candy-land vision of romantic love. Romantic love and romantic relationships should be non-abusive, generous, and selfless, no question there. Heck, human beings should be non-abusive, generous and selfless all the time, not just with their romantic interests. However, that is not the case. It never has and it never will.

Did Hitler love his loved ones? Did Mladić? Of course they did. Are they monsters? Yes---they are normal people who, given the chance, committed monstrosities.

Yes and no.

First up, fully agree that Hollywood presents a very silly version of love. Hollywood only knows how to portray the first five days of a relationship. This holds no matter what the age group, although for the older characters falling in love a wife or husband will invariably have been stuffed in the refrigerator. It is comparatively rare for Hollywood to portray a functional relationship that's been going for 10 plus years, mostly because that sort of relationship has learned how to manage conflicts and keep going afterward. The problem being that Hollywood, being the only culture that most people have been exposed to for the past 80 years or so, has its influence on populations, but that's a much bigger and wider question.

That said, I don't think you can fully run the argument that "evil is banal, ordinary people do it all the time, we're all like-minded" - not if you've read persuasion books by people like Robert Cialdini and similar (Cialdini's books Influence and Pre-suasion are not scientific texts, they're more like long-form journalism really, but they are basically a survey of what modern psychology thinks about the cognitive triggers we have to make us agree with or be influenced by others.)

Whilst it's not a magic formula - and never will be, psychology operates in simply too opaque an area for it to be otherwise - the techniques for persuasion are well-known and extremely powerful given the right circumstances. In particular, the principle that once we have made a public commitment to something, we will tend to follow that commitment through, even if it's irrational. There are a raft of other similar techniques you can see in anyone who significantly manages to persuade others. We are hardwired by our biology to these sorts of fallacies and quirks because they're useful from an evolutionary point of view.

As for Hitler? I love Steven Pressfield's observation in his book The War of Art which theorises that the muse is one of the most terrifying forces to confront. Hitler had wanted to be an artist but failed. It was literally easier for him to rule a country and start a war than face a blank canvas.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-08, 09:09 PM

No one is saying that humans can’t be evil monsters or that evil monsters can’t love people.

What I’m saying, at least, is that torturing and abusing someone and then murdering them for your own personal gains and loving them are mutually exclusive, and to call what Thanos feels for Gamora love is to set a very low bar for the word.

deuterio12

2018-09-09, 08:23 AM

As for Hitler? I love Steven Pressfield's observation in his book The War of Art which theorises that the muse is one of the most terrifying forces to confront. Hitler had wanted to be an artist but failed. It was literally easier for him to rule a country and start a war than face a blank canvas.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/262/440/075.png

Reality is indeed stranger than fiction. I can't really think of any fiction villain with a background of "I just wanted a normal job but got rejected from th relevant school SO I BECAME SUPREME RULER AND RAISED AN ARMY LIKE NOTHING EVER SEEN BEFORE TO LAY WASTE TO A WHOLE CONTINENT!"

Devonix

2018-09-09, 08:53 AM

Some of the problem with Thanos comes from the writers changing the backgrounds and motivations of characters between movies. The Gamora that we have in Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2 and the relationship she had with Thanos. Is explicitly not the Thanos/Gamora relationship the writers of Infinity War used when writing that movie.

The Guardians Gamora didn't hide any Infinity stone. Didn't have only half of her planet killed while the other half lived. Nearly everything that Thanos talked about with Gamora in the new film didn't happen to the Gamora we spent 2 movies with. So it makes it even harder to gel.

Strigon

2018-09-09, 09:08 AM

Reality is indeed stranger than fiction. I can't really think of any fiction villain with a background of "I just wanted a normal job but got rejected from th relevant school SO I BECAME SUPREME RULER AND RAISED AN ARMY LIKE NOTHING EVER SEEN BEFORE TO LAY WASTE TO A WHOLE CONTINENT!"

... That also didn't happen in reality.
Yes, he was rejected by art school, and yes, he did eventually become Literally Hitler, and yes, one could make the argument that going to art school would have prevented his reign of terror, but they aren't directly related. A lot of stuff happened between the two events, including a not-insignificant stint in jail. It wasn't as if he received his rejection letter and immediately went to his fallback plan of genocide.

Darth Ultron

2018-09-09, 04:09 PM

To make it short, it's the idea that certain types of evil actions (genocide, torture, abuse) can only be done by monsters and that normal human beings are incapable of that.

This very much is the Worldview of Hollywood, the American Media, the out of touch Elite and some bits of the West.

The big problems that Mikey has with the very tame exploration of what is evil and what is good/love in Infinity War is maybe a function of him being an American millennial whose views on these concepts are largely shaped by media that depict them in a completely caricaturist way. Bottom line: maybe Mikey should watch more documentaries. Or more non-Hollywood films.

This is very much true of not just millennals, but also generation Y.

What I’m saying, at least, is that torturing and abusing someone and then murdering them for your own personal gains and loving them are mutually exclusive, and to call what Thanos feels for Gamora love is to set a very low bar for the word.

Except this is falling for the Hollywood Love brainwashing. This is saying only the super good people can get and know love....and worse it has the control: be a good little zombie and do what Hollywood(and our political party agenda) tell you to do or you won't know love.

And why is 'love' so special, compared to other emotions...like say hate? If an elf ''hates all orcs" and kills say 10 orcs, ''everyone" would agree that is a hate crime, right? But if that same elf only kills one orc...is that ''too low a bar" for a hate crime?

deuterio12

2018-09-09, 05:42 PM

... That also didn't happen in reality.
Yes, he was rejected by art school, and yes, he did eventually become Literally Hitler, and yes, one could make the argument that going to art school would have prevented his reign of terror, but they aren't directly related. A lot of stuff happened between the two events, including a not-insignificant stint in jail. It wasn't as if he received his rejection letter and immediately went to his fallback plan of genocide.

Evil baby steps, before genocide came becoming supreme leader and one does not simply become the fhurer. Once told he sucked as an artist, Adolf went right into politics aiming at the top. Indeed the reason he got in prison was precisely because he tried to speed up the proccess to power with a coup (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch) and he put the time behind bars to good evil use by writing Mein Kampf which would later be used to support his genocide policies. Then years of gathering all sorts of support and popularity, everything with the aim of becoming the unquestionable leader of Germany, and once that goal was achieved Adolf followed by turning the country's resources into a genocidical machine.

Then somewhere an art teacher went "oh dear I shouldn't have rejected that application. Adolf would be drawing flowers on canvas instead of extermination routes on maps".

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-09, 05:58 PM

Except this is falling for the Hollywood Love brainwashing.
No it's not. I love some people, and I know how I treat them and want to treat them and the ways I wouldn't want to treat them. And I know other people that also love other people. And their ways of love are largely in line with mine. Because the word means something real. We can argue about what exactly it means, but I'd argue that when you start saying Thanos loves Gamora, it doesn't end up meaning anything.

This is saying only the super good people can get and know love....
No it isn't. I'm not sure what is so difficult to grasp about this concept. I am not saying Thanos is incapable of love. I am saying that his relationship with Gamora, as depicted in the moves, is not representative of love.

Like... someone made the point earlier that Hitler had loved ones. Guess what. Hitler didn't treat his loved ones the way Thanos treats Gamora. This isn't complex.

and worse it has the control: be a good little zombie and do what Hollywood(and our political party agenda) tell you to do or you won't know love.
Totally irrelevant.

And why is 'love' so special, compared to other emotions...like say hate? If an elf ''hates all orcs" and kills say 10 orcs, ''everyone" would agree that is a hate crime, right? But if that same elf only kills one orc...is that ''too low a bar" for a hate crime?
Again... if Wanda has to kill someone she hates to get the Soul Stone, and she kills Vision and receives the Soul Stone, everyone would be scratching their heads about it, because nothing about Vision and Wanda's relationship suggests that there is hate there.

It's the same thing with Thanos and Gamora. Nothing suggests love. Maybe narcissism. Not love.

Devonix

2018-09-09, 07:11 PM

Darth Ultron

2018-09-09, 07:42 PM

No it's not. I love some people, and I know how I treat them and want to treat them and the ways I wouldn't want to treat them. And I know other people that also love other people. And their ways of love are largely in line with mine. Because the word means something real. We can argue about what exactly it means, but I'd argue that when you start saying Thanos loves Gamora, it doesn't end up meaning anything.

But that is just saying you, and say the hundred people you personally know say ''love is X''. And that is nice, but it does not exactly give a worldwide definition of love. Just as you, and ''everyone you know" buy flowers on Valentines Day, does not mean that is the only way to show love.

I guess you can say Thanos's love for Gammora means nothing...but then, sure, you can get on your high horse and say anything you don't like has no meaning....to you.

No it isn't. I'm not sure what is so difficult to grasp about this concept. I am not saying Thanos is incapable of love. I am saying that his relationship with Gamora, as depicted in the moves, is not representative of love.

Yes, Thanos's love for Gammora does not fit your personal, narrow, definition of love. And that is fine: you can say something is ''not love" for you. But you can't say it is not for anyone else in the world.

Like... someone made the point earlier that Hitler had loved ones. Guess what. Hitler didn't treat his loved ones the way Thanos treats Gamora. This isn't complex.

Ok, so Thantos is not Hitler? Sure. How about some other evil folks?

It's the same thing with Thanos and Gamora. Nothing suggests love. Maybe narcissism. Not love.

I guess your saying that in the Action Adventure Movie that they did not take thirty minutes to show a Thanos and Gammora lovely childhood and growing up? Like if there was a five minute bit where Thanos read girl Gammora a bed time story, you would count that as ''real love", assuming your small group of people you know do that sort of loving thing, right? Wanda and the Vision love each other...as we have watched them talk to each other a couple times..and even you would approve as you do talk to people you love, right? But not Thantos and Gammora, they talk, just like everyone else....but it does not count, right?

We're not saying that Thanos is evil and so can't feel love. What we are saying is that we've been shown no evidence that he loves her. We've only been shown evidence that he feels possessive of her.

So the problem is there was never a scene all about love in the Action Adventure movie? That seems a bit harsh. Like how many minutes of love would you demand? Would five minutes be enough? Like a bit where girl Gammora skins her knee, and Thanos stops to kiss her boo boo and she hugs him and he hugs her? Would that be enough?

Though, too bad they could not add more of the comic Gammora's history: like where Thanos takes her to space Dodge City, and tells her to stay in the ship as it is a ''wicked hive of scum and villainy". She, being a stubborn little girl runs off to see the city...and ends up getting attacked, and other ''bad stuff". Thanos finds out about it and saves her just in time, but she is near death and Thanos has to rebuild her as a cyborg.

Devonix

2018-09-09, 08:31 PM

If your action movie has as an integral plot point the fact that this character loves someone. Then show me that he loves this person. It's a movie, Show don't tell. They told us, but they never showed us.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-09, 08:37 PM

But that is just saying you, and say the hundred people you personally know say ''love is X''. And that is nice, but it does not exactly give a worldwide definition of love. Just as you, and ''everyone you know" buy flowers on Valentines Day, does not mean that is the only way to show love.
As I said... there is room for discussion on what constitutes "love". But if you can torture and abuse someone, psychologically torment them, and murder them for your own ends, *AND STILL SAY YOU LOVE THEM* then the word loses meaning if that is true.

Try and stay with me here... I lean in and kiss my girlfriend and tell her "I love you", and a few feet away Thanos is tormenting Gamora and pitting her against her sister in death match after death match after death match, wondering which one will come out alive, and he says "I love you too Gamora".

Those are not the same things. What you are saying is that because someone says they love something, it must be true. That there is no way to judge that love externally. I don't agree with that at all.

I guess you can say Thanos's love for Gammora means nothing...but then, sure, you can get on your high horse and say anything you don't like has no meaning....to you.
Lmao, it's not a high horse. Again, it looks so high because the bar you've set for "love" is so freaking low.

Yes, Thanos's love for Gammora does not fit your personal, narrow, definition of love. And that is fine: you can say something is ''not love" for you. But you can't say it is not for anyone else in the world.
It is ludicrous to suggest that "love would prevent you from abusing, tormenting, and torturing someone, and murdering them for your own selfish gains" is a narrow definition of love.

Ok, so Thantos is not Hitler? Sure. How about some other evil folks?
I'm pointing out your misconception of the argument we're having. I'm not saying only good people can love someone, or evil people can't. I agree that Hitler loved people. But when Hitler loves someone, it generally looks like how most people love someone. It isn't a up-is-down and left-is-right stupid representation of "love". It's like Infinity War takes place in Bizarro Land and Thanos is like "this is how we love people here!!".

I guess your saying that in the Action Adventure Movie that they did not take thirty minutes to show a Thanos and Gammora lovely childhood and growing up? Like if there was a five minute bit where Thanos read girl Gammora a bed time story, you would count that as ''real love", assuming your small group of people you know do that sort of loving thing, right? Wanda and the Vision love each other...as we have watched them talk to each other a couple times..and even you would approve as you do talk to people you love, right? But not Thantos and Gammora, they talk, just like everyone else....but it does not count, right?
The movie sets up that Vision and Wanda care about each other. The audience assumes they love each other, and if some test was set up in the movie that required there to be love, we either wouldn't be surprised that they pass the test, or there would be some reveal that one of them doesn't love the other.

The movie does not set this up for Thanos and Gamora. What we know is that he abused her all the time and pit her against her sister to the death daily. If you're willing to lose her life in pit fight after pit fight, it's hard to say that you love her. At least, for me it is. But for you you can literally do anything to someone and still "love" them.

So the problem is there was never a scene all about love in the Action Adventure movie? That seems a bit harsh. Like how many minutes of love would you demand? Would five minutes be enough? Like a bit where girl Gammora skins her knee, and Thanos stops to kiss her boo boo and she hugs him and he hugs her? Would that be enough?
How about you just take out the backstory where he forces her to fight for her life every single day?

Devonix has the right of it! :smallcool:

Darth Ultron

2018-09-09, 09:20 PM

Try and stay with me here... I lean in and kiss my girlfriend and tell her "I love you", and a few feet away Thanos is tormenting Gamora and pitting her against her sister in death match after death match after death match, wondering which one will come out alive, and he says "I love you too Gamora".

Those are not the same things. What you are saying is that because someone says they love something, it must be true. That there is no way to judge that love externally. I don't agree with that at all.

Well, to turn it around: where to you see "torture and abuse someone, psychologically torment them" of Gammora in Infinity War? They fight, they talk and then Thanos kills her

I'm pointing out your misconception of the argument we're having. I'm not saying only good people can love someone, or evil people can't. I agree that Hitler loved people. But when Hitler loves someone, it generally looks like how most people love someone. It isn't a up-is-down and left-is-right stupid representation of "love". It's like Infinity War takes place in Bizarro Land and Thanos is like "this is how we love people here!!".

But, still, you are saying love (or anything) is only real, if you say it is. You are making yourself, and the people that agree with you, as the ones who decide everything. So both you and Hitler do ''X'', but Thantos does not do ''X'', so you say, ''well it's not love unless he does it just like me (and Hitler)!"

The movie sets up that Vision and Wanda care about each other. The audience assumes they love each other, and if some test was set up in the movie that required there to be love, we either wouldn't be surprised that they pass the test, or there would be some reveal that one of them doesn't love the other.

I guess the ''set up" of love is the part where Wanda and the Vision talk to each other? See this is where your argument falls apart. You ''assume" Wanda and Vision are ''in love", off of nothing...other then you want it to be true. Where do you see the love?

The movie does not set this up for Thanos and Gamora. What we know is that he abused her all the time and pit her against her sister to the death daily. If you're willing to lose her life in pit fight after pit fight, it's hard to say that you love her. At least, for me it is. But for you you can literally do anything to someone and still "love" them.

How about you just take out the backstory where he forces her to fight for her life every single day?

Does Infinity War have that back story? Or are you taking it from another movie?

Thanos loved her, so he taught her everything that a parent can. His words in the movie, “You’re strong. Me. You’re generous. Me. But I never taught you to lie.”, and that is clearly reminiscent of a true father. Thanos is seen being tearful. We later have a scene in where Mantis jumps on the back/shoulders of Thanos, touches his head and says he is in “great mourning and grief” due to what he did to Gamora.

Guess none of that counts as ''your version of love", right?

I'm fine with saying Thanos did not have good healthy love for Gammora.....but you still have to count it as real, true love.

Chen

2018-09-09, 10:20 PM

I'm fine with saying Thanos did not have good healthy love for Gammora.....but you still have to count it as real, true love.

I gotta agree with this. Emotions are complex. There are many facets to any of them, love included. I don’t see any reason to not consider Thanos as actually loving Gamora. I mean consider abusive parents in real life. I have no doubt they can love their kids while at the same time abusing them.

deuterio12

2018-09-10, 12:59 AM

Thanos loved her, so he taught her everything that a parent can. His words in the movie, “You’re strong. Me. You’re generous. Me. But I never taught you to lie.”, and that is clearly reminiscent of a true father. Thanos is seen being tearful. We later have a scene in where Mantis jumps on the back/shoulders of Thanos, touches his head and says he is in “great mourning and grief” due to what he did to Gamora.

Guess none of that counts as ''your version of love", right?

I'm fine with saying Thanos did not have good healthy love for Gammora.....but you still have to count it as real, true love.

This, plus that knife scene when he's teaching her about the importance of balance. If you claim Thanos didn't show any (twisted) affection for Gammora before the soul stone scene, you weren't really paying attention.

Contrast with Thanos receiving the news that his most fanatic minion just died, and not a single tear shed.

Clertar

2018-09-10, 01:37 AM

We're not saying that Thanos is evil and so can't feel love. What we are saying is that we've been shown no evidence that he loves her. We've only been shown evidence that he feels possessive of her.

It's not that he can't love, it's that he didn't convince us he loved her. Yet we're supposed to buy that he convinced the stone that he did.

I have a lot of respect for what the good forum folks are saying, but my reply addressed the commentary in the video that was initially discussed :smallwink:

Giggling Ghast

2018-09-10, 03:50 PM

Kyberwulf

2018-09-10, 05:49 PM

The thing about love, is that if its not returned. It's obsession.
Romantically speaking of course.

I think that's where people are getting confused. Gamorra and Thanos aren't "In love". So it doesn't matter if it's one sided. All that matters is that Thanos thinks he loves someone enough to consider their loss a sacrifice. Which I think he does.

I mean, I don't get other people's definition of love. Where you have to "Love" someone, and let them run all over willy-nilly, and not expect something from them. You have no right to make demands or expect some form of consideration. Where you have no say in how they act. You have no recourse to just letting them go, and hoping they come back. That's just as bad as Obsession. It's blind terror of losing someone, just cause you are afraid they will leave if you consider you own feelings.

You commenting on the validity of Thanos' emotions, is like saying some random strangers has the right to say how your emotions matter. How your feelings are wrong, full stop.(I know he isn't a real person, still though) I am not saying I am agreeing with everything Thanos does. I don't think he is as abusive as people are saying though.

I mean, I think he had to be hard on Gamorra, not just for it's own sake. Which, I think, which I think the word abuse pertains. He had to be hard on her, (again I know this is what a lot of abusers say) for her own sake. I mean, he is one of the most hated men in the universe. If he wasn't as hard as he was, think of all the people that would have tried to hurt Garmorra to get to Thanos. I mean, in hindsight, making her one of the most able-bodied people in the galaxy was kind of a good thing, for her own sake. I mean, as a father I would think people would love to spoil their kids all the time, and just be "loved" for being the nice guy. Yet, it is also part of the duties of a father, to be harsh sometimes. It is to put aside the wanting of being "Loved" so that you can prepare your child for the real world. The Harsh realities.

I don't know, I am waiting to see the second part before I am going to judge this discussion completely. I mean, we might get a scene in that movie, where Thanos whistles, proclaims himself to be Merry Poppins. Then everyone will love him for being the "perfect dad." Before sacrificing himself to bring Gamorra back.

Saintheart

2018-09-10, 08:49 PM

Hey folks, I have no idea what you're currently debating, but I just wanted to make note of something I just realized.

A lot of fans have been debating if Thanos destroyed half of ALL LIFE with the Snap or just sentients. It occurred to me that in the final scene, none of the plants around Wakanda are turning into ash along with the rest of the Marvel heroes who were killed. So I think it's safe to say he only targeted half of all SENTIENT life.

Well, on this one we have the sort-of word of Ao:

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/07/08/kevin-feige-still-wont-tell-us-all-marvels-future-plans

Q: I do need to confirm something about the outcome of Infinity War, and apologies if you’ve addressed this – the end of Ant-Man and the Wasp led to conversations. Are half the animals dead? Are half of the horses gone? Half of the ants?

A: Yes! Yes. All life.

Looks like Wakanda's plant life scored a natural 20.

Saintheart

2018-09-11, 02:31 AM

Another thought point, just to restart the Thanos/Gamora debate again:

Did Thanos know ahead of time that the Soul Stone would demand Gamora's life?

The movie seems to suggest that he didn't know, given what seems to be surprise when Red Skull reveals the price of obtaining the stone. But this invites some Fridge Logic - if he didn't know, why did Gamora come with him at all? What was his motivation for taking her along when he could've teleported her straight back to her cell?

I didn't quite realise it at the time, but the religious overtones in the whole setup seem to suggest one story: Abraham and Isaac on the mountain. Maybe the movie is trying to argue, in a simplistic way, that Thanos is the Knight of Faith (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_of_faith). On the other hand, it perverts the story: in the Biblical account, God ordered Abraham to stay his hand. Thanos, of course, does not.

BWR

2018-09-11, 06:56 AM

On the other hand, it perverts the story: in the Biblical account, God ordered Abraham to stay his hand. Thanos, of course, does not.

Even putting aside the morality of ordering someone to kill his son and going "just a prank, bro*, there are (likely) older versions of the story where Abraham goes through with it as a proper sacrifice. Soooooooo, Thanos is old school?

Saintheart

2018-09-11, 08:08 AM

Even putting aside the morality of ordering someone to kill his son and going "just a prank, bro*, there are (likely) older versions of the story where Abraham goes through with it as a proper sacrifice. Soooooooo, Thanos is old school?

Funny you should say that; in the Islamic version of the story, Abraham goes through with it at his son's insistence, and his son is restored to life a moment later.

Chen

2018-09-11, 08:09 AM

The movie seems to suggest that he didn't know, given what seems to be surprise when Red Skull reveals the price of obtaining the stone. But this invites some Fridge Logic - if he didn't know, why did Gamora come with him at all? What was his motivation for taking her along when he could've teleported her straight back to her cell?

Well I mean she only told him the planet it was on. Since he evidently couldn't sense the stone's location it's probably easier to bring her along and have her show him exactly where it is rather than search a whole planet by himself.

Tyndmyr

2018-09-11, 10:40 AM

Looks like Wakanda's plant life scored a natural 20.

Groot rolled a 1.

Gurston

2018-09-12, 06:42 AM

The problem for me was Thanos appeared to just be an idiot. He thinks the universe is overpopulated so his solution is to kill half of the population. Well popluation growth is mostly limited be resource availability so it would be a few generations before the drop in population he caused is no longer relevent as it is absorbed by higher birth rates. Which means what he is doing is triggering a case of natural selection which prioritises species with high birth rates. The exact opposite of what he want he should be trying to set up a situation where long lived species with really low birth rates have the advantage.

zimmerwald1915

2018-09-12, 10:28 AM

Looks like Wakanda's plant life scored a natural 20.
Oh, well then Thanos is an order of magnitude greater idiot than I had given him credit for. Most of the resources that life needs to survive come from life - on Earth, mostly from phytoplankton and green plants. So nothing is gained here. But it's worse than that, because if places like Wakanda can have all their plant life be spared while losing some large proportion of their consumers, then other places can have almost all of their consumers be spared while losing all their plants and plant-equivalents. You end up with bad maldistribution of resources with which trade can't catch up fast enough, leading to all sorts of problems and lots more death.

Which is exactly why preferring a solution that lets you sit back and retire self-satisfied to one that you've thought through is bad.

Chen

2018-09-12, 01:39 PM

Well they clearly messed up the Wakanda scene if they meant to include plant life. There's pretty much zero chance for all that plant life to have not been hit by the random 50% chance.

Z3ro

2018-09-12, 03:01 PM

Well they clearly messed up the Wakanda scene if they meant to include plant life. There's pretty much zero chance for all that plant life to have not been hit by the random 50% chance.

I'm fairly certain they didn't mess up in they forgot to include something, I'm sure they messed up in the sense that it never occurred to them to do it. Then someone comes along and asks a question they never even thought of and they given an answer they think sounds right, even if the film contradicts it.

Leewei

2018-09-12, 03:28 PM

Hydra has the Space Stone, develops Project Insight to kill a bunch of people to improve the world.

Ultron is made from the Mind Stone, attempts to wipe out humanity altogether.

Thanos collects them all and eradicates half of the universe.

The purple guy only looks like a small part of the problem. Those stones are bloodthirsty.

Ramza00

2018-09-12, 06:44 PM

Saintheart

2018-09-12, 07:01 PM

The stones are not allies with Death but instead allies with Entropy / Chaos?

I'd say more that they're meant to represent neutral concepts and that "sentients beings are bad therefore what the stones do is bad lol". Unfortunately, we then have the Soul Stone which does appear to be flat-out evil if it's responsible for the sick test it uses to gate out those who would wield it.

Androgeus

2018-09-12, 07:05 PM

-D-

2018-09-13, 02:51 AM

I'd say more that they're meant to represent neutral concepts and that "sentients beings are bad therefore what the stones do is bad lol". Unfortunately, we then have the Soul Stone which does appear to be flat-out evil if it's responsible for the sick test it uses to gate out those who would wield it.
I'd say the test puts Soul Stone at Neutral Evil. The result of Thanos passing the test means Soul Stone is Stupid Evil.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-18, 09:42 PM

Okay, I just watched Infinity War the whole way through (I fell asleep in the theater when I saw it the first time).

So, the movie definitely wants you to think Thanos is right about his solution and also that he loves Gamora. Right off the bat, let me say I like the movie quite a bit. But I don't like Thanos.

And I think it is a problem that the movie doesn't do enough to show that he's wrong about his plan and that he doesn't actually love Gamora. To the former point... we have a movie filled with geniuses. Between Vision, Stark, Banner, Strange, and Shuri, there are a bunch of very intelligent people in the movie. The movie even goes so far as to demonstrate Shuri's genius by asking Banner why he didn't program all the synapses to work together or some other sort of techno babble. And he looks mystified. So everyone is smart. But the veracity of Thanos' solution is never questioned. The only question we get is whether or not it's the only solution or something along those lines, but not if his solution actually works. This is an issue to me because the plan is very obviously short-sighted. It's glaring, to me, that no one that engages with Thanos brings this up.

Re: love

I know we've gone over this. I think it's a mutilation of the word "love" to say that Thanos loves Gamora. The problem is that Gamora and Wanda are heroes in the movie, and they both agree with me. Gamora says flat out "this isn't love". And when Thanos says "I understand better than anyone", Wanda rejects that notion and says "You could never". I happen to agree with Wanda and Gamora and think they are speaking truth in the movie, like they are telling the audience that Thanos doesn't actually love Gamora. The problem is that it appears most people walked out of the theater thinking Thanos actually loves Gamora. And I think that's because of all the tears he sheds and the fact that Thanos' plan is portrayed as being a working solution that only he has the fortitude to enact, and this paints him as a tragic guy. This is compounded by the fact that he doesn't kill any of the heroes (for the most part), content to let them reassemble after he leaves or trap them in stone or dirt or something, and he goes around empathizing with everyone and commending them on their efforts. The movie tries hard to portray him as a complex villain but I don't think it works because his supervillain plot is childishly simplistic and doesn't work (but the movie says it does), and there is no evidence of his love but for a few tears and the Soul Stone's test.

Kyberwulf

2018-09-19, 01:20 AM

Meh, it doesn't matter if you or gamorra say thanos does or doesn't love. Unfortunately. It matters if the soul stone does... and it apparently agrees with thanos.

Saintheart

2018-09-19, 01:32 AM

Meh, it doesn't matter if you or gamorra say thanos does or doesn't love. Unfortunately. It matters if the soul stone does... and it apparently agrees with thanos.

That holds if, and only if, the Soul Stone is representing a Platonic ideal, an objective statement, of what love is. I can understand that proposition is attractive because we're told that the stones are basically distilled elements of the universe (ugh...). But the whole setup of the Soul Stone's test strikes me that it's practically evil, and its ideas on what love is are at best very different to what we human beings think it is or at worst seriously twisted.

And I don't think the stones are really neutral concepts as such. The Mind stone in particular generates what Thor calls "horrors", the visions in their heads, Ultron, and so on. Vision is not that because it's made clear from the start that he's essentially a combination of Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Thor, the Mind Stone, and Jarvis; he's something different again. And most of the time when we see the stones used - Guardians of the Galaxy, CA: First Avenger - they're used for terrible things.

Clertar

2018-09-19, 01:43 AM

That holds if, and only if, the Soul Stone is representing a Platonic ideal, an objective statement, of what love is.

Not even that. The soul stone, or the magical protection placed around it, doesn't need to have any operational version of "love", all it needs is to be able to probe someone's mind (or soul?) and check if for that person the "feeling love" notion holds true. Like an infallible lie detector.

Kyberwulf

2018-09-19, 02:07 AM

See there we go again. Assign our mortalities into something that isn't us. What you think and feel is right.. is different from I do.. and what the soul stone does...not only that.. you are assigning human precepts of things into a world that has a varied of possible definitions of what things are.

-D-

2018-09-19, 05:28 AM

Re: love

I know we've gone over this. I think it's a mutilation of the word "love" to say that Thanos loves Gamora. The problem is that Gamora and Wanda are heroes in the movie, and they both agree with me. Gamora says flat out "this isn't love". And when Thanos says "I understand better than anyone", Wanda rejects that notion and says "You could never". I happen to agree with Wanda and Gamora and think they are speaking truth in the movie, like they are telling the audience that Thanos doesn't actually love Gamora. The problem is that it appears most people walked out of the theater thinking Thanos actually loves Gamora. And I think that's because of all the tears he sheds and the fact that Thanos' plan is portrayed as being a working solution that only he has the fortitude to enact, and this paints him as a tragic guy. This is compounded by the fact that he doesn't kill any of the heroes (for the most part), content to let them reassemble after he leaves or trap them in stone or dirt or something, and he goes around empathizing with everyone and commending them on their efforts. The movie tries hard to portray him as a complex villain but I don't think it works because his supervillain plot is childishly simplistic and doesn't work (but the movie says it does), and there is no evidence of his love but for a few tears and the Soul Stone's test.
I kinda agree with FilmCritHulk on this (https://observer.com/2018/04/avengers-infinity-war-movie-and-marvels-endless-endgame/).

To boil it down, Brolin, with his good acting and excellent direction, managed to convince a lot of people he loves Gamora, despite everything else screaming - NO, he doesn't love her. It's basically tell don't show done masterfully. If Avengers: Infinity Wars was a cake, it would be a very nice looking fondant cake, that tastes like wet carboard and lemon juice, but looks like it is the best cake ever made.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-19, 06:07 AM

Meh, it doesn't matter if you or gamorra say thanos does or doesn't love. Unfortunately. It matters if the soul stone does... and it apparently agrees with thanos.
Right. I'm speaking to the choices the filmmakers made. I think the movie is confused on the matter of love.

See there we go again. Assign our mortalities into something that isn't us. What you think and feel is right.. is different from I do.. and what the soul stone does...not only that.. you are assigning human precepts of things into a world that has a varied of possible definitions of what things are.

What other perspective should we use to judge the film? What other language should we use to judge the words they use? Sorry, I left my completely inhuman alien perspective and cultural framework at home when I watched Infinity War. I guess I'll have to settle for my human one and my understanding of American english.

That aside, I think you're wrong on this. I don't think it's an alien, unknown form of "love". I think it's the love that we all know to be love. That's the confusion. And how do I know that's the love the Soul Stone is looking for and that Thanos feels for Gamora? I know because they gave us someone to contrast Thanos with: Red Skull.

We know what a villain who is incapable of love, and therefore strictly incapable of achieving the Soul Stone looks like; it looks like Red Skull. This is the way the movie tells us "actually, Thanos does love, he loves Gamora", because if he didn't he'd be like the Red Skull, incapable of making the sacrifice to acquire the Stone. And Red Skull isn't incapable because he's alien or something other. He's incapable of love because he's an evil super nazi. He's a villain.

Thanos, on the other hand, is simply misunderstood. That's a major theme in the movie.

No one believed his predictions, but they came true and Titan died. He enacted his simple calculus on Gamora's planet and it worked; paradise. They think he's a monster incapable of love, but Red Skull and the Soul Stone prove otherwise. He is capable of love and pain and loss. He is the obvious protagonist, struggling and making sacrifices to achieve his goals.

My issue is that they didn't set this up (as said in the article that -D- links to). We're just told that Thanos loves Gamora. Meanwhile, Wanda makes a heartwrenching decision for the fate of the universe, and destroys her love as he comforts her through it, and she says Thanos can't possibly know what she just did BUT she's wrong. The movie tells us that he did the exact same thing earlier and we know because of the Soul Stone.

To boil it down, Brolin, with his good acting and excellent direction, managed to convince a lot of people he loves Gamora, despite everything else screaming - NO, he doesn't love her. It's basically tell don't show done masterfully. If Avengers: Infinity Wars was a cake, it would be a very nice looking fondant cake, that tastes like wet carboard and lemon juice, but looks like it is the best cake ever made.
Agreed. Despite the fact that I'm not crazy about his finger snap plan, Brolin makes him so compelling and I'm looking forward to seeing him in Part 2.

Cikomyr

2018-09-19, 06:33 AM

Thing is, i can accept there is such a thing as sick, twisted and disgusting love the way Thanos display.

Its still love. Its reprehensible, its objectionable, but its love. The Stone's defenses do not open for someone who has pure beautiful love. Merely to the one who sacrifices what he loves the most.

Saintheart

2018-09-19, 08:33 AM

In passing, I will say this: in what world would someone watching movies in the 1980s think that Brand from The Goonies was ever going to turn into this superb, focused actor?

So many child stars burn out or wind up just becoming adult-child versions of the characters they played when they were young. Watching Josh Brolin grow up has been a joy. He just accumulates more patina with every performance and just gets better.

Z3ro

2018-09-19, 08:34 AM

So, the movie definitely wants you to think Thanos is right about his solution

What? Why would you think that? Literally every hero in the movie opposes him without even thinking about it. All the good guys who, across 20 movies, we've rooted for, think this guy is bad and needs to be stopped. There's no argument or discussion because his plan is so obviously wrong. If a delusional person had a gun and thought shooting random people would save the world you wouldn't sit and explain why he's wrong, you'd stop him.

I think the reason people think this is because of the film-makers choice to make Thanos the protagonist. We don't get many movies (especially mainstream ones) were the villain is the protagonist. And as a result, I think people end up confusing some of the choices in the film from how we would normally view them. Of course the movie doesn't question Thanos, it's from his perspective! Someone delusionally convinced they're right isn't going to question themselves.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-19, 08:40 AM

Z3ro

2018-09-19, 10:23 AM

It's pretty clear the movie wants you to think that Thanos' solution is a working one.

When it wasn't implemented on Titan, Titan died. This is the problem Thanos is trying to avoid for the rest of the universe. When he implemented it on Gamora's planet it thrived. He has since been doing this on countless planets as Banner explains. Presumably, it continues to work, or he would stop doing it. No one ever questions him on whether or not it works, despite the fact that everyone opposes him.

The only person who says these things is Thanos. We get zero independent confirmation they are true. We don't know Titan died because they lacked resources, or that his plan would have saved them. We don't know Gamora's planet is a paradise; Thanos says it is, but no one agree with him. In fact, I'm inclined to believe he's straight up lying; if his plan was actually working on these other planets, then there would be discussion of the costs. But there's not, so again, we only have his delusional word.

The plan is portrayed as a bad plan because it requires a lot of people to die, but not because it doesn't actually solve the problem. Thanos is portrayed as someone making a very difficult choice to do something that will actually create countless paradises across the universe. This is never questioned or shown to be wrong.

I'm not sure what the confusion is here. As I said, the people in the movie are smart and question each other eagerly (Cap to Vision, Wanda to Vision, Stark To Strange, Shuri to Banner, etc.) But when it comes to Thanos, no one actually says "your solution won't work", because the movie says the solution will work.

The movie says it will work because it's from Thanos' perspective; of course he thinks it will work! And none of the heroes say it won't because it's so obvious it won't there doesn't even need to be a rebuttal. Look at all the threads on the internet detailing why it won't work! There's no need to rebut the delusional person's delusions; they're delusions, by definition they're false. So to is it with Thanos, the mad titan.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-19, 10:34 AM

Z3ro

2018-09-19, 11:56 AM

Sorry Z3ro, but that's not how movies work. You don't just assume a character is delusional and everything he says is a lie just because "it's obviously so". The movie has to lead you there, and that's not where this movie leads us. I'm glad it makes sense in your head canon, with all your presuppositions. But if we just take the movie as a self-contained entity, it does not suggest what you're saying.

I have introduced nothing that is not directly addressed in the movie. As an example, you are the one who suggested that, since Thanos says the worlds he depopulated are paradises, or that Titan died because of too high a population, he is correct. I only pointed out that he is the only one who says those things. Not Gamora, who was by his side for many years, not the Guardians who fly around the galaxy. We only have his word.

As far as obvious, I say that because it is obvious. If the problem is too many people and not enough resources, killing half the people at best kicks the can down the road. It won't solve the problem he claims to care about. If you tell me you plan to fly to the moon by flapping your arms you need to demonstrate it will work, I don't need to explain why it obviously won't.

But this still comes back to the main problem; not understanding narrative intent. In a traditional movie, whenever the villain talks whatever he says is automatically suspect. Villains lie all the time, and we accept that they will take sometimes irrational steps to stop the heroes. We've all seen enough stories to intuitively understand this.

When the villain is the protagonist, they don't stop being the villain. We should still assume they lie, manipulate and murder to get what they want, and what they want is usually evil, or at least bad. And when viewed through that narrative lens, everything makes sense. You assume Thanos is telling the truth because he's the main character. I assume he's lying, or at least delusional, because he's the villain.

deuterio12

2018-09-19, 06:49 PM

The only person who says these things is Thanos. We get zero independent confirmation they are true. We don't know Titan died because they lacked resources, or that his plan would have saved them. We don't know Gamora's planet is a paradise; Thanos says it is, but no one agree with him. In fact, I'm inclined to believe he's straight up lying; if his plan was actually working on these other planets, then there would be discussion of the costs. But there's not, so again, we only have his delusional word.

I think what happened was something more along the lines of:
Thanos: Yoh, so how are things turning out after I killed half of you?
Gamora's planet's survivors: EVERYTHING IS PERFECtLY FINE WE'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER! NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT US OR COME CHECK THINGS! FEEL COMPLETELY FREE TO GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! YUP, THIS IS PARADISE NOW KTHNX BYE! (and please never come back)
Thanos: Ah, the joy of a job well done. Onwards to the next planet!

For all we know if killing half the planet's population didn't "solve" things, Thanos may've just doubled down and killed half of the survivors, repeat until people say they're happy or there's no people left.

AMFV

2018-09-19, 07:55 PM

For all we know if killing half the planet's population didn't "solve" things, Thanos may've just doubled down and killed half of the survivors, repeat until people say they're happy or there's no people left.

Till there's only half a person left.

Pax_Chi

2018-09-19, 08:09 PM

Devonix

2018-09-19, 08:12 PM

DVD commentary by the*Russo brothers*indicates that Thanos's methods are more about proving that his proposal that was rejected by his people was right all along than it is about doing something for the universal good. He's essentially projecting his planets perceived failure onto the rest of the universe and convincing himself that he's the hero by doing what he feels he should have done originally.

Thanos is not a reliable narrator. We only have his word on his planets history and the fate of Gammora's world. Starlord specifically points out that Titan is actually off of its axis, and more overpopulation doesn't account for the devastation we see. I wouldn't be surprised if part 2 has Tony going through some Titan computers and finding a recording of how he did try to implement his solution and wound up destroying his world anyway.

This is, after all, only the first half of a story.

True, but in stories the general rule is to accept things told to us, unless the story tells us that they are not to believe by some other source.

If you have a group of characters spend an entire movie in a locked room. And the characters say that the sky is purple. Well unless we're given reason to believe otherwise, unless the information is contradicted. We're just supposed to take the sky being purple at face value.

AMFV

2018-09-19, 08:47 PM

Devonix

2018-09-19, 08:50 PM

That is absolute horse crap. If the characters are in a locked room in an asylum you obviously wouldn't take them at face value. In fact it would subvert expectations if the crazy characters were right and the sky was purple. Thanos is not depicted as a sane character in his behavior. There is no logical basis for his solution.

It being demonstrated that the characters do not have an understanding of color, or a grip on their sanity would indeed be the exception I listed at the very start of my statement. But the film has to tell us these things. If the film has in no way told us that we shouldn't believe these people. Then yes the film expects us to believe them.

AMFV

2018-09-19, 08:59 PM

It being demonstrated that the characters do not have an understanding of color, or a grip on their sanity would indeed be the exception I listed at the very start of my statement. But the film has to tell us these things. If the film has in no way told us that we shouldn't believe these people. Then yes the film expects us to believe them.

The directors and most of the viewing audience would disagree I suspect.

Devonix

2018-09-19, 09:02 PM

The directors and most of the viewing audience would disagree I suspect.

We are expected to believe the information characters give us, unless there is something contradicting that information. Otherwise we'd need someone backing up every single statement a character makes.

AMFV

2018-09-19, 10:18 PM

We are expected to believe the information characters give us, unless there is something contradicting that information. Otherwise we'd need someone backing up every single statement a character makes.

We are expected to use societal cues and literary ones to figure out who we should believe. When the Devil shows up in Daniel Webster we know that he is dishonest. When Snidely Whiplash twirls his mustache we know that he is being dishonest.

Devonix

2018-09-19, 10:35 PM

We are expected to use societal cues and literary ones to figure out who we should believe. When the Devil shows up in Daniel Webster we know that he is dishonest. When Snidely Whiplash twirls his mustache we know that he is being dishonest.

Yes we are.

But when someone has a conversation with another person, saying that the world that person lived on is a paradise now after what he did. And this person is not known as a someone who lies. And no one in the story contradicts his story. We have to assume he's telling the truth.

The Devil is used as a character in a story because of the audience's experience with him. Devil is Film shorthand for dishonest. And We know Snidely Whiplash is not to be trusted because the story tells us this. Outside of the stories telling us these things, we have to assume characters are honest.

Dishonesty is a character trait and as such it is a character trait that the audience has to be made aware of.

Zalabim

2018-09-20, 01:24 AM

True, but in stories the general rule is to accept things told to us, unless the story tells us that they are not to believe by some other source.

If you have a group of characters spend an entire movie in a locked room. And the characters say that the sky is purple. Well unless we're given reason to believe otherwise, unless the information is contradicted. We're just supposed to take the sky being purple at face value.
So when the heroes land on Titan and are incredulous that the amount of damage done to the planet(moon) could be caused by overpopulation, we're supposed to believe...?

Yes we are.

But when someone has a conversation with another person, saying that the world that person lived on is a paradise now after what he did. And this person is not known as a someone who lies. And no one in the story contradicts his story. We have to assume he's telling the truth.
A paradise, at least Thanos' version of a paradise, after what he did, but not because of what he did. He can't know that, so we can't know that. These aren't experiments. There's no control group. Life will go on after Thanos is done, but there's no way to prove life wouldn't go on if Thanos does none of this. It can be a true story, but it's still just an anecdote.

-D-

2018-09-20, 03:48 AM

I think what happened was something more along the lines of:
<INSERT FANFICTION>

For all we know if killing half the planet's population didn't "solve" things, Thanos may've just doubled down and killed half of the survivors, repeat until people say they're happy or there's no people left.
Point was we don't know. From Thanos' speech him not killing half led to ALL people (save Thanos) perishing in the wars.

So when the heroes land on Titan and are incredulous that the amount of damage done to the planet(moon) could be caused by overpopulation, we're supposed to believe...?

That Thanos is telling the truth. Name one instance where Thanos ever lied to people? Devil and Evil McMoustacheTwirler lie and deceive all the time.

Only thing Thanos can be construed as lying is him tricking Gamora into revealing herself, and even that was done to test her, more than outright deceive her.

Delicious Taffy

2018-09-20, 05:53 AM

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-20, 07:04 AM

Oh I see the confusion. Some people don't know how to watch movies... :smallconfused:

I have introduced nothing that is not directly addressed in the movie.
Yes you have, that's the crux of our disagreement. The movie does not tell us that Thanos is delusional or that he is a liar. But you are convinced of it, despite nothing in the movie suggesting anything of the sort. This is you coming in with your own preconceived notions about Thanos and the role of a villain in a movie as a protagonist.

Thanos perceives a problem, has enacted a solution on many worlds, has a higher goal in mind to achieve his ends, works towards that goal, respects his enemies, commends them, empathizes with them, feels loss and sorrow, etc.

Nothing about him says he is delusional. The only thing you can say is that his belief that he is the only one capable of weighing the costs and making such a terrible choice is narcissistic or megalomaniacal. And that's probably right. But it doesn't call into question everything else he has said or allow us to just dismiss all of his assertions as obvious lies or delusions.

As an example, you are the one who suggested that, since Thanos says the worlds he depopulated are paradises, or that Titan died because of too high a population, he is correct. I only pointed out that he is the only one who says those things. Not Gamora, who was by his side for many years, not the Guardians who fly around the galaxy. We only have his word.
Yes, and until the movie gives us reason to not trust his word, we should believe what he says. Unless you just watch the movie not believing everything said on screen until it's proven, but I have a strong suspicion that you don't do that.

As far as obvious, I say that because it is obvious. If the problem is too many people and not enough resources, killing half the people at best kicks the can down the road. It won't solve the problem he claims to care about. If you tell me you plan to fly to the moon by flapping your arms you need to demonstrate it will work, I don't need to explain why it obviously won't.
That's not how movies work. If what you say is true, then Stark, as a brilliant genius engineer that is snarky and quippy, would have added a punchline in there about how Thanos' plan just obviously wouldn't work.

This is how movies work. But no one tells us he's lying or his plan is obviously flawed.

But this still comes back to the main problem; not understanding narrative intent. In a traditional movie, whenever the villain talks whatever he says is automatically suspect. Villains lie all the time, and we accept that they will take sometimes irrational steps to stop the heroes. We've all seen enough stories to intuitively understand this.

When the villain is the protagonist, they don't stop being the villain. We should still assume they lie, manipulate and murder to get what they want, and what they want is usually evil, or at least bad. And when viewed through that narrative lens, everything makes sense. You assume Thanos is telling the truth because he's the main character.
Protagonists have their beliefs challenged all the time. Bond villains give away their secret plans all the time and they aren't ever lying. Sorry, you're wrong. This isn't a maxim of the universe, and as such anyone cleaving to it absolutely is bound to be wrong sometimes.

I assume he's lying, or at least delusional, because he's the villain.
Correct. Preconceived notions.

Devonix is spot on as to how to watch a movie or read a story.

Oh my god, people, how hard is it to comprehend that Thanos is a complete nutcase, and that's why everyone is trying to stop him? Yeah, the heroes don't rebut his arguments point-by-point because they agree with him, sure, that must be it.
Literally no one is making this claim. The heroes oppose Thanos because the cost is simply too high. The movie doesn't tell us it won't work. It suggests the opposite. Thanos' plan will work. But the Avengers will not allow that because the cost is unthinkable. Hence Thanos' line about "I'm the only one that knows that".

So... again, the movie isn't saying that the plan is justified or morally correct. The movie is suggesting to us that the plan is sound as a means to solve overpopulation. The heroes, being the good guys, are going to stop the bad guy from killing trillions of people.

-D-

2018-09-20, 08:03 AM

Oh my god, people, how hard is it to comprehend that Thanos is a complete nutcase, and that's why everyone is trying to stop him? Yeah, the heroes don't rebut his arguments point-by-point because they agree with him, sure, that must be it.

Thor agrees with Thanos so much, he spends the whole movie creating an unreasonably-powerful axe specifically to murder the guy. Scarlet Witch agrees with Thanos so much, she destroys the only remaining Infinity Stone to keep him from getting his way. Spider-Man agrees with Thanos so much, he hitches a one-way ride into space and helps murder his herald. Captain America agrees with Thanos so much, he plants his feet in the ground and puts his entire being into physically pushing the Mad Titan back.

Come on, Spider-Man and Captain America are doing everything they can to stop him, but we're supposed to think Thanos is right? If that's what you guys got out of the movie, I'm not sure this was even worth typing out.
It's hard to comprehend him as "crazy"/"mad" or "delusional", WHEN THE MOVIE DOESN'T DEPICT HIM AS SUCH! Thanos in this movie is an unstoppable force, but not a maniac or "Mad Titan" (a title he has earned in comic, where he is literally a guy trying to date the concept of Death).

Remember when Loki talks about his plan to Tony Stark, and Tony is "That's not a great plan". Where is such a callback to Thanos, when he talks about his stupid plan...

Look, if Thanos said "I have magical power glove that only needs to kill half of universe to grant me the wish of Eternal Paradise for the survivors", heroes would still oppose him, even if Thanos was completely right. Avengers don't have problem with his goals, but the means to attain such goal. Why don't they have problem with his goals - they never voiced their opposition, and never call him on his frankly idiotic idea.

What adds a layer of idiocy, is that rationally his goal is stupid and doesn't take more than like 12 year old to figure why it's wrong.

Pax_Chi

2018-09-20, 10:21 AM

Oh I see the confusion. Some people don't know how to watch movies... :smallconfused:

Because that's not condescending at all. :smalltongue: I think most people here know how to watch movies just fine, and especially remember that watching a movie can also involve critical thinking, examining a characters motivations, and not taking everything at face value.

The thing with Thanos is that the only heroes he has any meaningful conversation with is Gamora and Dr. Strange, and neither of them buy his reasoning.

Gamora literally calls him insane, calls him out on the horrible things he's done, and flat out states that Thanos doesn't know if his solution is right.

Dr. Strange responds to Thanos' story with sarcasm and flat out calls him a murderer.

We see Thanos twist events to fit his version of reality. When talking with the Scarlet Witch, he claims that he "lost more than she will ever know", talking about the time when he murdered Gamora. He's treating it like it was some tragic thing that happened to him, when flat out murdered someone. Now you could argue that Wanda had just done the same thing with Vision, but it doesn't track. Vision willingly sacrificed himself and had to beg Wanda to do the deed, basically against her will, while Thanos tossed an unwilling Gamora off of a cliff.

Thanos murders an artificial planets worth of dwarves even after they did everything he asked, and then maimed the only dwarf he left alive. Not only did he not do his usual "let half the population live" bit, he went back on his word and even crippled someone who had done exactly what he'd been told.

Thanos kidnaps children and indoctrinates them into his own personality cult. He clearly favors some while horribly abusing others, such as painfully converting Nebula into someone who is 99% robotic. His apparently oldest "child", Ebony Maw, basically treats Thanos like a literal god and proselytizes to corpses about Thanos' grandeur.

Thanos is a murderer. Thanos lies to and cheats others. Thanos abducts and brainwashes children into his own Death Cult via brutal training and traumatic surgery. The heroes call him out on his insanity and are dismissive about his reasoning.

Thanos is an ideal unreliable narrator. It's entirely possible the second film will confirm his stories were 100% true, but I won't be surprised if we find out that his stories are only true "from a certain point of view".

The directors have already come out and said that Thanos is doing this less because he thinks it's the right thing to do and more that he wants to prove that he was right all along and that his people should have listened to him. These guys aren't shy about debunking fan theories either, like when they said that the Hulk's reason for not coming out isn't the "Hulk is scare of Thanos" theory and is actually "Hulk is tired of only being called up when Banner needs him to solve Banner's problems".

So yeah, all of this isn't "people don't know how to watch movies" as much as it's "people like to analyze movies and debate things".

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-20, 10:52 AM

Because that's not condescending at all. :smalltongue:
Yeah, sometimes I can't help myself. My apologies :smallredface:.

The thing with Thanos is that the only heroes he has any meaningful conversation with is Gamora and Dr. Strange, and neither of them buy his reasoning.

Gamora literally calls him insane, calls him out on the horrible things he's done, and flat out states that Thanos doesn't know if his solution is right.
Not quite. She calls him insane because he believes the price is worth it. *IN FACT* Gamora suggests that Thanos' plan worked. The quote is:

Thanos: You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm the one who stopped that. You know what's happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It's a paradise.

Gamora: Because you murdered half the planet.

So now we have to believe that Thanos is a liar, just because, and also that Gamora is misinformed because... why? Gamora is admitting that her planet is a paradise precisely because Thanos murdered half the people.

He then says a small price to pay for salvation, to which she calls him insane. Again, it's the cost associated with salvation. The good guys don't think it's worth it. It's not even an option. Thanos believes it is worth it, and he considers it his responsibility because he is the only one that can make that tough choice.

Dr. Strange responds to Thanos' story with sarcasm and flat out calls him a murderer.
You're proving my point. Strange *never* says the plan won't work, and Thanos spells it out perfectly for him. He tees it right up and Strange doesn't say "your plan is stupid and won't work". Here's the exchange:

Thanos: Titan was like most planets. Too many mouths, not enough to go around. And when we faced extinction, I offered a solution.

Dr. Stephen Strange: Genocide.

Thanos: At random. Dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. They called me a mad man. And what I predicted came to pass.

Dr. Stephen Strange: Congratulations, you're a prophet.

Thanos: I'm a survivor.

Dr. Stephen Strange: Who wants to murder trillions!

Thanos: With all the six stones, I could simply snap my fingers, and they would all cease to exist. I call that... mercy.

Dr. Stephen Strange: And then what?

Thanos: I finally rest, and watch the sunrise on an grateful universe. The hardest choices require the strongest wills.

Dr. Stephen Strange: I think you'll find our will equal to yours.

Thanos: Our?

All Strange has to offer is that he killed a lot of people (true, Thanos does not dispute this) and mocks the fact that Thanos' prediction came true. Strange asks him to what end and Thanos says he will rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe. This is exactly where someone like Dr. Strange would dispute the plan working at all, this is the exact precise moment. Instead, he lines up the reveal of the Avengers/Guardians.

Thanos murders an artificial planets worth of dwarves even after they did everything he asked, and then maimed the only dwarf he left alive. Not only did he not do his usual "let half the population live" bit, he went back on his word and even crippled someone who had done exactly what he'd been told.
But again, this is the dispute I'm having with Z3ro. We only hear this story from Eitiri. According to Z3ro, this makes it suspect. How do we know Thanos went back on his word? Maybe the dwarf is making it up.

Thanos killed the dwarves to prevent anyone else from making the weapon. He left Eitiri alive because the dwarf made him the gauntlet, but mutilated him so he couldn't manipulate the equipment anymore. This does not make Thanos insane or delusional. But fair point about lying.

The directors have already come out and said that Thanos is doing this less because he thinks it's the right thing to do and more that he wants to prove that he was right all along and that his people should have listened to him. These guys aren't shy about debunking fan theories either, like when they said that the Hulk's reason for not coming out isn't the "Hulk is scare of Thanos" theory and is actually "Hulk is tired of only being called up when Banner needs him to solve Banner's problems".
That's fine. But the movie doesn't show either of these things. Nothing indicates that Thanos just wants to prove that he was right all along. He talks about mercy and salvation. He tells the one story about Titan, but this doesn't establish that proving his former people wrong is his actual motivation. Just like when people watch the movie and see Hulk get curbstomped, and then he doesn't want to come out anymore, it's logical, and in fact the movie suggests that the Hulk is reeling from his defeat (either scared or angry). Never has it been established that the Hulk is resentful of how Banner uses him (in fact, Avengers reveals that Banner is in control of the Hulk and can summon him at-will), so this is out of left field and of course has to be explained out of the movie.

So yeah, all of this isn't "people don't know how to watch movies" as much as it's "people like to analyze movies and debate things".
Sorry, but word from the directors doesn't count. I'm going by what we see in the movie. Gamora confirms what Thanos has said, the movie never does anything to indicate that Thanos is lying or his plan won't work. So to assume that he's just lying and delusional doesn't make sense. You have to come to that conclusion out of thin air, or by having the directors explain it after the fact.

Pax_Chi

2018-09-20, 11:57 AM

The full conversation between Thanos and Gamora:

Gamora: I was a child when you took me.

Thanos: I saved you.

Gamora: No. No. We were happy on my home planet.

Thanos: Going to bed hungry. scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I'm the one who stopped that. Do you know what's happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It's a paradise.

Gamora: Because you murdered half the planet.

Thanos: A small price to pay for salvation.

Gamora: You're insane.

Thanos: Little one, it's a simple calculus. This universe is finite, it's resources finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correction.

Gamora: You don't know that!

Thanos: I'm the only one who knows that. At least, I'm the only one with the will to act on it. For a time...you had that same will...as you fought by my side. Daughter.

Gamora: I'm not your daughter. Everything I hate about myself you taught me.

Thanos' interpretation of events is clearly at odds with Gamora, and of the two, we have far more reason to believe her.

She says she was happy. Thanos claims that he "saved" her, when the only reason she might have been killed was because he sent an army to wipe out half the population.

He claims her world is a paradise, but the way it's phrased makes it clear Gamora has not been to her homeworld since her abduction. She can't say "no, it isn't a paradise" because she hasn't been there and has no factual way to dispute what Thanos has done to it. All she can state with certainty is that whatever her people's status, it's that way because Thanos committed a terrible act.

And then she calls him insane, and says that he truly doesn't know if he theory is correct, to which he says "I'm the only one that knows it". Now, if Thanos is the only one who knows/believes in this, it either makes him the only sane person in a universe full of lunatics, or someone insane believing something no one else agrees with.

Gamora is the character with the most personal connection to Thanos, who knows him the best, and is someone who the audience trusts and likes. And she flat out calls him insane for doing what he does, calls out his hypocrisy for calling murder and torture "mercy", and says point blank that even he doesn't know if his theory is correct or works.

We also get an actual flashback to show what Thanos did to Gamora's people, so we know flat out that he did in fact murder half of her people. We get no such flashback showing Gamora's current world, or a flashback showing Titan's fall.

Remember, at that point, Thanos has the Reality and Space Stones. He could easily SHOW Gamora what her world is like, let her see the paradise it has become. Instead, we only have his word that it has become a paradise, and what Thanos' idea of paradise is anyone's guess.

As for Dr. Strange, Stephen has no reason to get into a long dialogue with Thanos. Remember, he's had that conversation literally millions of times, he knows debating Thanos is pointless. So instead, he just opts for something to keep Thanos talking while the heroes get into position. Stephen has no reason to debate Thanos because he knows debating the guy is pointless. So he opts for simple sarcasm to keep Thanos talking while Tony hits the Titan with a building.

And Thanos admits that his own people called him a madman. And rather than use the Reality Stone to show their final dying moments, he just lets it fade away. Remember, Starlord points out:

Quill: The *heck* happened to this planet? It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place.

Yeah, overpopulation doesn't account for that.

Given that this is the first half of the story, I strongly suspect that we're only getting Thanos' side of things in an effort to make him seem somewhat sympathetic, even as he commits these horrible things. I won't be surprised if the second half undercuts Thanos' claims with actual facts, or that when Thanos gets defeated the heroes don't refute his claim. Or we get to see the results of his universal genocide and see that it doesn't actually make things honky dory.

Because that's the thing to consider: we never SEE that Thanos' solution actually works. We only have his word, and as we've seen, he's not a reliable narrator.

The lack of heroes getting into a moral debate with the guy actively trying to murder half the universe is not the film advocating that Thanos is right. We never see that Thaons is right, he never shows us that he's right, all he does is say that he's right while doing incredibly horrible things.

And remember, he has a glove that literally lets him travel to any place in the galaxy, and lets him bend reality. He could easily have shown us places where his solution did improve things. But he never does, and he never offers any proof.

Actually, I take that back. We DO see the aftermath of Thanos' culling: Nidavellir. Is anyone going to argue that Thanos improved the life of the dwarves on that world?

Thanos is an unreliable narrator that is flat out called insane and a madman. We have no reason to trust his words, and no reason to take the hero's lack of debating him as the film saying that he's in the right.

But again, this is the dispute I'm having with Z3ro. We only hear this story from Eitiri. According to Z3ro, this makes it suspect. How do we know Thanos went back on his word? Maybe the dwarf is making it up.

Thanos killed the dwarves to prevent anyone else from making the weapon. He left Eitiri alive because the dwarf made him the gauntlet, but mutilated him so he couldn't manipulate the equipment anymore. This does not make Thanos insane or delusional. But fair point about lying.

We have every reason to believe Eitiri because nothing he says is contradicted by the rest of the film. He owns up to creating the gauntlet, he explains why his hands are the way they are, and his explanation completely fits with what we've seen. Thor also has a personal relationship with the character, and the heroes take his word for it.

Eitiri is presented as a sympathetic victim of Thanos' actions, and his world clearly shows the effect of Thanos' "mercy". It's a dead world with a single inhabitant who can't use his hands for anything.

Eitiri gives his explanation = The heroes don't question him, accepting what he says at face value because they've seen what Thanos does. Eitiri's story completely fits with Thanos' past actions.

Thanos gives his explanation = The heroes call him crazy, respond with sarcasm and fight him with everything they have. His story is contradicted by other characters, and he's shown to twist events to make himself the hero.

One is clearly painted as more reliable.

Bobb

2018-09-20, 12:23 PM

As I recall, the dwarf guy complied with Thanos' demands in the hope of being granted mercy. Thanos never promised anything.

Delicious Taffy

2018-09-20, 12:31 PM

Look, I know exactly how to watch a movie, and how to tell if a character is off his rocker. If he's trying to murder half of everyone, everywhere, he's bananas. Nobody reasonable is going to do that, and honestly think it'll solve everything. If Steve Rogers and Peter Parker are in the movie, and they're both fighting a guy, it's usually a very safe bet to say "Yes, this guy is in dire need of stopping."

And let's just say, for a moment, that reducing every planet's population by a clean 50% does solve the specific problem of overpopulation. Congrats, Grimace, you've successfully deleted one (1) single, solitary problem, and created hundreds more. Everyone has, in the best case scenario, plenty of resources to go around, sure, but unless every greedy rich punk was fizzled, it's still not going to be distributed fairly and people will still starve and kill each other.

He's out of his mind if he thinks "Yep, this will only be good for everyone. Every survivor will play fair with each other, and they'll all be so grateful that every planet I visit will throw me a great big pizza party, and we'll all have a great time."

Daimbert

2018-09-20, 12:38 PM

So... again, the movie isn't saying that the plan is justified or morally correct. The movie is suggesting to us that the plan is sound as a means to solve overpopulation. The heroes, being the good guys, are going to stop the bad guy from killing trillions of people.

But if the movie is clear that this is an immoral and unjustified plan, why does it matter that it never spells out whether or not it's impractical? Just from what people here have considered, it seems like it is impractical, but why in the world would the heroes bother to lampshade that when the dramatically stronger opposing argument is that it's wrong?

In fact, stopping the movie to add on that the plan is impractical would HURT that, because it would allow for the interpretation that it would be moral IF IT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK, which would mean justifying his heinous idea of killing billions to save billions and turning the opposition into an argument that it won't actually save the billions. Most of the characters cited earlier are stronger if they are opposing it even if it would work rather than opposing it because it won't even work.

In short, it doesn't matter whether it would work or not, and insisting that the movie tell us whether or not it would work is asking them to add in something that, in the end, is irrelevant to the central conflict and a potential confound or distraction from it.

Bobb

2018-09-20, 12:45 PM

But if the movie is clear that this is an immoral and unjustified plan, why does it matter that it never spells out whether or not it's impractical? Just from what people here have considered, it seems like it is impractical, but why in the world would the heroes bother to lampshade that when the dramatically stronger opposing argument is that it's wrong?

In fact, stopping the movie to add on that the plan is impractical would HURT that, because it would allow for the interpretation that it would be moral IF IT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK....
In short, it doesn't matter whether it would work or not, and insisting that the movie tell us whether or not it would work is asking them to add in something that, in the end, is irrelevant to the central conflict and a potential confound or distraction from it.

"Mitchel and Webb, kill all the poor" being a relevant (and hilarious) YouTube link.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-20, 01:06 PM

Thanos' interpretation of events is clearly at odds with Gamora, and of the two, we have far more reason to believe her.
It's not clearly at odds, and I'm no sure why we should have far more reason to believe her. She was a helpless child when it happened.

She says she was happy. Thanos claims that he "saved" her, when the only reason she might have been killed was because he sent an army to wipe out half the population.
She says she was happy. That doesn't speak to whether or not her planet was on the verge of collapse like Thanos says. Maybe her parents fought hard to provide for her and she didn't understand the socio- and geo-political state of her planet.

Her population was at risk of dying because it was resource deprived, not because Thanos arrived.

He claims her world is a paradise, but the way it's phrased makes it clear Gamora has not been to her homeworld since her abduction. She can't say "no, it isn't a paradise" because she hasn't been there and has no factual way to dispute what Thanos has done to it. All she can state with certainty is that whatever her people's status, it's that way because Thanos committed a terrible act.
Not "whatever" their status. The conversation essentially reads "my planet is a paradise because you killed half the population". That's what she says. He makes the claim "planet is paradise" and she accepts the claim as true but adds a qualifier "because you killed half the people".

And then she calls him insane
Because he considers the deaths of so many people a "small price to pay". Let's be clear.

...and says that he truly doesn't know if he theory is correct, to which he says "I'm the only one that knows it". Now, if Thanos is the only one who knows/believes in this, it either makes him the only sane person in a universe full of lunatics, or someone insane believing something no one else agrees with.
Insane doesn't mean what you want it to mean here. Also, she is, once again, not speaking to his actual plan. She is speaking to his assertion that the universe requires correcting in order for life to thrive. She is saying that he doesn't know if that's true. Once again, this is not disputing whether or not his actual plan will work.

So we have Gamora suggesting (not even outright claiming) that action isn't necessary, we have people going on about the numbers of deaths Thanos has caused, but no one actually saying "you know killing half the population won't work the way you think it will right?".

Gamora is the character with the most personal connection to Thanos, who knows him the best, and is someone who the audience trusts and likes.
I don't particularly like or trust Gamora, as an aside. The character is strange. Thanos' right hand woman, raised to be a ruthless assassin killing machine, tortured and abused, and somehow she has this heart of gold and is willing to kill herself to save the universe. Seems weird and unfitting to me, but it is what it is.

And she flat out calls him insane for doing what he does
She calls him insane for the value he places on lives.

calls out his hypocrisy for calling murder and torture "mercy"
The finger snap is a mercy by his standards. It avoids any painful or violent deaths.

and says point blank that even he doesn't know if his theory is correct or works.
It is a meek protest. She doesn't say it doesn't work, or that he is wrong. She simply throws out into the aether the notion that he doesn't know what he is saying is true. And he says he does. And without anything else to go by, we have the paradise on her planet, which she agrees to, and the fate of Titan.

We also get an actual flashback to show what Thanos did to Gamora's people, so we know flat out that he did in fact murder half of her people. We get no such flashback showing Gamora's current world, or a flashback showing Titan's fall.

Remember, at that point, Thanos has the Reality and Space Stones. He could easily SHOW Gamora what her world is like, let her see the paradise it has become. Instead, we only have his word that it has become a paradise, and what Thanos' idea of paradise is anyone's guess.
Right. A trip to Gamora's planet would be useful to prove Thanos right or wrong. But we don't need it, because no one is arguing the point. Again, Gamora agrees that her planet is a paradise.

As for Dr. Strange, Stephen has no reason to get into a long dialogue with Thanos. Remember, he's had that conversation literally millions of times, he knows debating Thanos is pointless. So instead, he just opts for something to keep Thanos talking while the heroes get into position. Stephen has no reason to debate Thanos because he knows debating the guy is pointless. So he opts for simple sarcasm to keep Thanos talking while Tony hits the Titan with a building.
See, I'm talking about what the movie should have done to get the audience to understand what it wants them to. You're just coming up with reasons whole cloth for why Strange doesn't make the obvious point to Thanos.

That's not how movie-making works. In fact, if Strange is just stalling, getting into an argument about the efficiency of Thanos' plan would be a great way to do it. Strange has done something similar before, calling out Kaecilius in his own movie. Kaecilius is going on about the wonders of Dormmamu and eternal life and Strange says "oh come on, he's evil, just look at your face". The heroes do this. But he didn't do it here. He didn't say "oh come on, you know killing half the population won't actually solve the problem right?".

Remember, Starlord points out:

Yeah, overpopulation doesn't account for that.
Overpopulation and resource scarcity will lead to war. I don't think the people on Titan simply all died of starvation. But maybe we'll see that it didn't go down as Thanos said in the sequel.

Given that this is the first half of the story, I strongly suspect that we're only getting Thanos' side of things in an effort to make him seem somewhat sympathetic, even as he commits these horrible things. I won't be surprised if the second half undercuts Thanos' claims with actual facts, or that when Thanos gets defeated the heroes don't refute his claim. Or we get to see the results of his universal genocide and see that it doesn't actually make things honky dory.
That's fine. It's still an issue with this movie.

Because that's the thing to consider: we never SEE that Thanos' solution actually works. We only have his word, and as we've seen, he's not a reliable narrator.
How have we seen that he's an unreliable narrator?

The lack of heroes getting into a moral debate with the guy actively trying to murder half the universe is not the film advocating that Thanos is right. We never see that Thaons is right, he never shows us that he's right, all he does is say that he's right while doing incredibly horrible things.
Everyone keeps conflating "right" with the fact that the plan will work. Let's just please try to keep them separate so this conversation can actually take place.

And remember, he has a glove that literally lets him travel to any place in the galaxy, and lets him bend reality. He could easily have shown us places where his solution did improve things. But he never does, and he never offers any proof.
And you're saying this is the movie's way of showing us that Thanos is lying?

Actually, I take that back. We DO see the aftermath of Thanos' culling: Nidavellir. Is anyone going to argue that Thanos improved the life of the dwarves on that world?
No, I'm going to argue that his motives and goals on Nidavellir were different than all of the other planets he's culled.

Thanos is an unreliable narrator that is flat out called insane and a madman. We have no reason to trust his words, and no reason to take the hero's lack of debating him as the film saying that he's in the right.

I'm not saying the movie says he's "in the right". And why do you keep saying we have no reason to trust his words??

We have every reason to believe Eitiri because nothing he says is contradicted by the rest of the film. He owns up to creating the gauntlet, he explains why his hands are the way they are, and his explanation completely fits with what we've seen. Thor also has a personal relationship with the character, and the heroes take his word for it.
The same can be said for Thanos...

Look, I know exactly how to watch a movie, and how to tell if a character is off his rocker.
It's what you guys mean by "off his rocker" and how much you are willing to dismiss or assume because of it that is in dispute.

But if the movie is clear that this is an immoral and unjustified plan, why does it matter that it never spells out whether or not it's impractical?
Because it is paramount to having a compelling villain, something the MCU has an issue with. Thanos is ten years in the making, with all of these movies connected to each other and building him up. He acquires massive power to threaten the universe with. Seeing him destroy a moon and hurl it towards Stark and Co is just absolutely awesome.

But this is undercut by a very stupid and childish motive/plan. The movie goes to great lengths to make him a complex sympathetic villain, and one of the ways it does that is by suggesting that his plan would actually work and create paradises across the universe. And this doesn't make any sense, but here we are.

Z3ro

2018-09-20, 05:45 PM

I pity you if every time you watch a movie, you believe everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie. It sounds like a very boring way to watch movies.

But again, this is the dispute I'm having with Z3ro. We only hear this story from Eitiri. According to Z3ro, this makes it suspect. How do we know Thanos went back on his word? Maybe the dwarf is making it up.

I never said anything like this, please don't put words in my mouth. I said things a villain says are suspect, not automatically lies. Eitiri is not a villain, meaning we judge his words by their merit based on his established character.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-20, 06:07 PM

I pity you if every time you watch a movie, you believe everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie. It sounds like a very boring way to watch movies.
Save the pity for someone that needs or wants it Z3ro :smallcool:. I'm perfectly happy with my interpretation, and I'm sure you are happy with yours too.

I never said anything like this, please don't put words in my mouth. I said things a villain says are suspect, not automatically lies. Eitiri is not a villain, meaning we judge his words by their merit based on his established character.
You have yet to provide anything to back up the claim that things villains say are automatically suspect. Also, you are now saying they are not automatically lies, but you called Thanos delusional and a liar so... not sure where we are now.

Z3ro

2018-09-20, 06:13 PM

Save the pity for someone that needs or wants it Z3ro :smallcool:. I'm perfectly happy with my interpretation, and I'm sure you are happy with yours too.

We agree on this at least.

You have yet to provide anything to back up the claim that things villains say are automatically suspect. Also, you are now saying they are not automatically lies, but you called Thanos delusional and a liar so... not sure where we are now.

First, I never said literally everything a villain says is a lie. I said its suspect, meaning you have to look at it critically. When a villain says they're helping, they might be lying, you have to pay attention as a viewer.

As far as things villain says being suspect, that's simply a function of narrative fiction. If we can't agree on this basic convention, I dont think this conversation will benefit either of us.

-D-

2018-09-21, 04:18 AM

I pity you if every time you watch a movie, you believe everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie. It sounds like a very boring way to watch movies.
And I pity you, if you doubt everything every character says. That's some conspiracy level thinking.

Movies usually have convention when they want to tell you character is lying. This movie didn't follow that convention. No one in movie questions Thanos' goals, only his methods.

Kyberwulf

2018-09-21, 07:38 AM

So you are in essence, saying the end justifies the means?

I mean, if his goal is to bring about peace and prosperity, but the means by doing it is the death of half the population? Is it really the goal you should have a problem with?

I think the movie is in effect saying the means does NOT justify the ends.

Saying that.

You know, I watched the movie again recently. I just want to say something.

I don't have a problem with Thanos' plan per se. I mean. There is no real malice behind it. He isn't only selecting one race, religion or anything like that. As far as I can tell, it's all random.

The current state of things in the world, the thing is, is it can't sustain the current population. Nor, if projections hold out won't be able to in the very near future.

Wishing half of everyone dead isn't the ideal plan. I don't think just, wishing more supplies and a bigger world is either though. That doesn't really Solve the problem of people.. just recklessly reproducing. Because in the end, the world will just keep on reproducing. Until in the future it will just.. happen again. Sure this isn't solving the problem either, but neither is just.. wishing for more stuff for people.

The thing is, this isn't all that different from a natural disaster. Things happen all the time. Plagues, earthquakes, floods,....

The kneejerk reaction is to say this is... bad. But, is it though? Is it really? When the dust was in the wind, and all the superheroes we watched were going bye-bye, it hit me in the feels. In the end though, I kind of sat there and thought. Well, one, They are going to be brought back, so this whole question of right or wrong will be kind of rendered moot. Secondly, I was kind of glad, for a moment. I mean just the sheer amount of superheroes movies marvel is bringing us.

Anywho, is it really bad they way the people were taken? They didn't suffer, as far as we can tell. It's not like in war, natural disasters, or starvation. They didn't linger in abject pain and suffering. I mean, as normal, it's the people still remaining that have to pick up the pieces. So in essence it's more, selfishness that seem to be motivating people reactions. I don't know what word other then selfishness... I mean something like, the fear of losing, or loss.

I mean, trying to say Thanos is doing something to people is wrong. He isn't really doing anything to any particular person, anymore then a disease is doing anything to someone. By luck of the draw you or either chosen or not.

I am not saying I see him as a Hero, or something to aspire. For some reason, I don't see him as a villain really. If he had more malice or seem to take more pleasure in the killing. I could see something in him being wrong. IN essence I feel as though we were robbed of something to dislike and hate.
My view, is I see Thanos as a literal personification of Death. He doesn't judge souls, he has no motivation. He arbitrarily takes souls.

Z3ro

2018-09-21, 08:03 AM

And I pity you, if you doubt everything every character says. That's some conspiracy level thinking.

What? I never said that. At this point I'm beginning to wonder if I just am not being clear or if people are deliberately misunderstanding me.

I don't doubt everything every character says. But I also don't accept everything every character says unless directly contradicted, like others do. I apply critical thinking to come to conclusions about what is happening in any given work of fiction.

Movies usually have convention when they want to tell you character is lying. This movie didn't follow that convention. No one in movie questions Thanos' goals, only his methods.

In this we partially agree. Movies do have conventions to tell us when someone is lying, that is, more than one. Sure, other characters questioning is one way to accomplish that. There are others, the most basic of which is simply making a character a villain with a completely unworkable plan. This is the route they went in this movie.

As I've said, it doesn't take much to completely unravel Thanos' plan. It's hilariously flawed, to the point of basically being nonsensical. There are multiple threads explain why, at best, it kicks the can down the road. When the villain of a piece presents a completely unworkable plan, I assume the movie is using this as a method to also indicate he's wrong. When every hero character (the vast majority of whom are trustworthy) opposes him, I assume he's wrong.

I mean, did we have this problem in, say, the first Captain America movie? No one sat down and offered a point by point rebuttal of why the Red Skull's plan was terrible; they didn't have to, it was self evident. Were people confused as to if the Red Skull was a coherent character or completely delusional? It's basically the same thing in Infinity War, but for some reason people assume this murderous, manipulative villain is perfectly reasonable and not lying about anything. I'm baffled by this.

Jan Mattys

2018-09-21, 08:40 AM

What? I never said that. At this point I'm beginning to wonder if I just am not being clear or if people are deliberately misunderstanding me.

I don't doubt everything every character says. But I also don't accept everything every character says unless directly contradicted, like others do. I apply critical thinking to come to conclusions about what is happening in any given work of fiction.

In this we partially agree. Movies do have conventions to tell us when someone is lying, that is, more than one. Sure, other characters questioning is one way to accomplish that. There are others, the most basic of which is simply making a character a villain with a completely unworkable plan. This is the route they went in this movie.

As I've said, it doesn't take much to completely unravel Thanos' plan. It's hilariously flawed, to the point of basically being nonsensical. There are multiple threads explain why, at best, it kicks the can down the road. When the villain of a piece presents a completely unworkable plan, I assume the movie is using this as a method to also indicate he's wrong. When every hero character (the vast majority of whom are trustworthy) opposes him, I assume he's wrong.

I mean, did we have this problem in, say, the first Captain America movie? No one sat down and offered a point by point rebuttal of why the Red Skull's plan was terrible; they didn't have to, it was self evident. Were people confused as to if the Red Skull was a coherent character or completely delusional? It's basically the same thing in Infinity War, but for some reason people assume this murderous, manipulative villain is perfectly reasonable and not lying about anything. I'm baffled by this.

The way I see it, Thanos might well be lying to himself. About his plan making any kind of sense, about loving Gamora, probably about being an outcast as well. This doesn't mean he's a liar in the same way people called liars usually are. He's delusional, but not a "liar".

(I digress, but incidentally that's my take on the Soul Stone debate as well. Thanos doesn't love Gamora but he thinks he does. Which is enough for him to feel the sacrifice, which in turn is enough for the Stone to be unlocked. The test is about being able to let something important go, not about being able to show true love)

Chen

2018-09-21, 10:12 AM

The current state of things in the world, the thing is, is it can't sustain the current population. Nor, if projections hold out won't be able to in the very near future.

Frankly I question this premise to begin with. In terms of actual resources on the planet we have an abundance. Many are currently expensive to access (such as fresh water) but can be accessed if it came down to it. Renewable energy can certainly work. We blanket enough area in solar cells you're going to have enough power. Food can be produced hydroponically or in other indoor means.

And this is just talking current humanity. In terms of spacefaring civilizations in the universe? I can't possibly see how you'd run out of resources for all of life.

Tyndmyr

2018-09-21, 11:14 AM

The way I see it, Thanos might well be lying to himself. About his plan making any kind of sense, about loving Gamora, probably about being an outcast as well. This doesn't mean he's a liar in the same way people called liars usually are. He's delusional, but not a "liar".

(I digress, but incidentally that's my take on the Soul Stone debate as well. Thanos doesn't love Gamora but he thinks he does. Which is enough for him to feel the sacrifice, which in turn is enough for the Stone to be unlocked. The test is about being able to let something important go, not about being able to show true love)

I think Thanos genuinely loves Gamora. It's one sided, but it exists.

That said, I think we have reason to doubt Thanos's honesty elsewhere. His grand plan is only shown to result in good when we're seeing things from his point of view.

Consider the worlds he's visited that we see from the perspective of others. The dwarves? Killed down to the last one, and then he was maimed. Knowhere? A shattered world with nobody alive. His justifications are just that. He may present them convincingly, and perhaps even believe them himself, but in actuality, he is horrifically evil.

Jan Mattys

2018-09-21, 11:57 AM

His justifications are just that. He may present them convincingly, and perhaps even believe them himself, but in actuality, he is horrifically evil.

Emphasis mine.
That's exactly what I was saying. He is - no question about that - horribly delusional and misguided, but no liar in the "let's deceive people for my own goals" kind of way.

Edit: and that, in my opinion, is what makes him an interesting ubervillain. There's incredible sorrow, and determination, and wasted potential in him. But, if you think about it, very little malice. Just the fatigue of having to deal with people who don't understand.
What I found interesting was his exchange with Strange: "And then what?" - "I finally rest. And watch the sun rise on a grateful universe"

He's an incredibly strong being pushing towards an incredibly evil goal because he is incredibly misguided.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-21, 04:20 PM

First, I never said literally everything a villain says is a lie.
You said:

Villains lie all the time...

When the villain is the protagonist, they don't stop being the villain. We should still assume they lie...

I assume he's lying, or at least delusional, because he's the villain.

You are making the point that no one needs to contradict Thanos in the movie because we should simply assume he is lying by virtue of being a villain. Am I misunderstanding you?

I said its suspect, meaning you have to look at it critically.
Ok, but this is not looking at it critically. You are just saying "he is a villain, therefore he is a liar and delusional". We don't throw the "insane" label around just because a villain has a plot to kill a lot of people. That label gets used to mean someone is irrational, but Thanos is not portrayed as irrational.

Think of it this way... Ozymandias wants to kill millions, to save billions. Would you call him insane and delusional and just ignore everything he says as a lie because he is a villain? I think you'd be wrong to do so. He's actually quite rational and logical and forward thinking, and perceives reality probably better than most people. The heroes oppose him because they are not willing to pay the price for the peace he offers. But Ozymandias' plan might actually work. At the very least, it isn't obvious that it won't.

How about Prince Nuada? Everyone balks at the idea of releasing the Golden Army because they are so powerful and deadly. Nuada thinks it is necessary to save his people, and he is the only one willing to do it. Does this make him delusional and insane? Does it make his every word a lie? No. He is also quite rational and perceptive and lucid. His plan also might work, since the Golden Army is so powerful and he would control them.

Now contrast this to Superman. Imagine that Superman says "Don't worry Jimmy Olsen, I am going to spin around the planet really fast in the opposite direction and turn back time." And Jimmy tells Perry White, who tells Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon. And all the while the characters are just talking about whether or not Superman can achieve flight speeds that would reverse the spin of the Earth, never once mentioning that time doesn't actually work this way. Is it so obvious that Superman's plan wouldn't work that no one needs to mention it and can just dance around the fact?

When a villain says they're helping, they might be lying, you have to pay attention as a viewer.
Sure, but I'm just not seeing the cues you are. I agree that Quill's comment about the tilt of the planet seems like a strange detail to add if it wasn't a clue about the fate of Titan. But where you and I probably disagree is that even though this movie is part 1, it should stand on its own. So if the reveal would be that Thanos has been lying all along, I don't think it works.

As far as things villain says being suspect, that's simply a function of narrative fiction. If we can't agree on this basic convention, I dont think this conversation will benefit either of us.
They are suspect if we are given reason to be suspicious.

I mean, did we have this problem in, say, the first Captain America movie? No one sat down and offered a point by point rebuttal of why the Red Skull's plan was terrible; they didn't have to, it was self evident. Were people confused as to if the Red Skull was a coherent character or completely delusional?
Can you remind me of his plan? People break down villain plots all the time. IIRC, Red Skull, after harnessing the power of the Tesseract, decided to betray Hitler and conquer the world himself. What was the issue that I'm not remembering? (It's been a long time since I've seen the movie, as I wasn't a huge fan.)

Consider the worlds he's visited that we see from the perspective of others. The dwarves? Killed down to the last one, and then he was maimed. Knowhere? A shattered world with nobody alive. His justifications are just that. He may present them convincingly, and perhaps even believe them himself, but in actuality, he is horrifically evil.
Yeah but his purpose on these planets was different. He went to Knowhere to retrieve the stone, and he went to the dwarves to get the gauntlet. Banner confirms that Thanos does indeed go around culling half the population of each planet he visits. But he doesn't do it to the dwarves to prevent weapons from being built (presumably), and we don't know what happened on Knowhere, I don't think.

Devonix

2018-09-21, 05:30 PM

Thanos may believe his goals to be just. But he is also not above slaughter to get what he desires. He culls half a population in order to save that world. But he's not Twoface, he doesn't have an obsession with only killing half of something.

If he's fighting an army he's got no problem killing the entire force. The Dwarves weren't killed to save them from overpopulation. They were killed so that there would be no one left to make any weapon that could be used against him. So he had no problem killing them all.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-21, 05:35 PM

Precisely, Devonix! :smallsmile:

AMFV

2018-09-22, 04:13 PM

Devonix

2018-09-22, 04:20 PM

As another point the movie does explicitly point out that Thanos is at least considered unstable. He's the "Mad Titan" not really a name you get by being stable or rational. And if you look at his plans through that lens everything makes a good deal more sense.

He's the " Mad Titan. " Because he's an evil and his idea would have killed a lot of people. It's not shown to have any connection to his actual mental state. Not to mention that the people who called him Mad. Were the same people who were proven to be wrong by their world dying.

AMFV

2018-09-22, 04:42 PM

He's the " Mad Titan. " Because he's an evil and his idea would have killed a lot of people. It's not shown to have any connection to his actual mental state. Not to mention that the people who called him Mad. Were the same people who were proven to be wrong by their world dying.

You know that the nickname was used by people other than the people on Titan, yes? Or did you miss that. We don't even know that the people on Titan called him that, because that wouldn't make sense, since they're all from Titan. We've seen multiple references to his instability and what-not, made by other characters who we assume are largely sane. If you're ignoring those then the only thing that could convince you is a large disclaimer at the start that reads "ATTENTION AUDIENCE: THANOS IS CRAZY, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MURDER 50% OF PEOPLE TO STOP NOTIONAL OVERPOPULATION". But they don't need that because multiple characters mention that they don't believe him to be stable.

Devonix

2018-09-22, 04:51 PM

You know that the nickname was used by people other than the people on Titan, yes? Or did you miss that. We don't even know that the people on Titan called him that, because that wouldn't make sense, since they're all from Titan. We've seen multiple references to his instability and what-not, made by other characters who we assume are largely sane. If you're ignoring those then the only thing that could convince you is a large disclaimer at the start that reads "ATTENTION AUDIENCE: THANOS IS CRAZY, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MURDER 50% OF PEOPLE TO STOP NOTIONAL OVERPOPULATION". But they don't need that because multiple characters mention that they don't believe him to be stable.

A character calling a villain Mad or condemning their actions is not the same as saying that the villain is actually insane or that his actions are incorrect. Only that the villain is evil and that the character believes that character's actions to be reprehensible.

No one is disputing that the heroes believe that they need to stop Thanos. What we are talking about is that Thanos is being presented by the film as this complex and intellectual villain who believes he's doing the right thing. But since we can see so many obvious flaws in the plan it takes us out of the film that no one brings these things up and he's treated as some mastermind who's has this noble goal that would work but is too costly.

deuterio12

2018-09-22, 08:04 PM

A character calling a villain Mad or condemning their actions is not the same as saying that the villain is actually insane or that his actions are incorrect. Only that the villain is evil and that the character believes that character's actions to be reprehensible.

Then they would call him Thanos the Cruel or Thanos the Bloodthirsty or Evil Thanos or something else. But instead they call him the Mad Titan. Precisely because Thanos plan makes no sense whatsoever and he refuses to see any flaws on it.

Case in point just look at the crazies actually willing to follow him, they're completely fanatic to Thanos and consider his every word an unquestionable dogma. Not exactly the kind of people who are following a "noble goal" nor a "mastermind".

-D-

2018-09-23, 10:10 AM

What? I never said that. At this point I'm beginning to wonder if I just am not being clear or if people are deliberately misunderstanding me.

Well lets look at your previous quote:

I pity you if every time you watch a movie, you believe everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie. It sounds like a very boring way to watch movies.
What's opposite of "believing everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie" - Doubting everything character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie.

As another point the movie does explicitly point out that Thanos is at least considered unstable. He's the "Mad Titan" not really a name you get by being stable or rational. And if you look at his plans through that lens everything makes a good deal more sense.
Let's be honest - He's only known by that name since he had that in comics. And once you look at movie from these lens, everything makes perfect sense.

Devonix

2018-09-23, 12:22 PM

Let's be honest - He's only known by that name since he had that in comics. And once you look at movie from these lens, everything makes perfect sense.

To me this right here is my biggest problem with the film. The Finger snap and getting rid of half of the universe was never Thanos' goal. By making it that in the film they had to cobble together a reason for it.

Comics Thanos is actually crazy. He was being manipulated by someone since he was a child, indoctrinated by someone who he fell in love with and is ascribing to her ideology even though it makes no sense and he knows it.

That's actually crazy. The film started out with a goal in mind. Have Thanos finger snap half the universe. And then worked back from there to try and create a character that might do those actions. Rather than creating a character and figure out what things this character might do.

Clertar

2018-09-24, 06:15 AM

-D-

2018-09-24, 06:35 AM

DR STRANGE: Genocide.
THANOS: At random. Dispassionate, fair. Rich and poor alike. They called me a madman. And what I predicted came to pass.
Let's see - Thanos predict people of Titan will die, unless they implement his "solution". People of Titan refuse and call him mad. People of Titan die, in what appears to be a massive war.

Now Thanos could have killed them all, but we have no proof of that, and he claims his prediction came to pass, rather than he had slaughtered them. So we have no proof he killed them. And him lying doesn't seem to be in the cards. I don't remember a single instance where Thanos said an outright lie.

Devonix

2018-09-24, 06:47 AM

Yes they called him Mad, and yet the film says that he was completely right in what he said would happen. The film is treating him as a Cassandra. A someone who predicted doom and was called mad or ignored. And who's people died out because they didn't heed their warning.

You know who else they called mad in the exact same circumstances. Jor-El Another scientist like Thanos who predicted the end of their world and had a plan in place. Jor-El's plan wasn't even half as evil as Thanos' and he was also called Mad. Are was just supposed to call him crazy too just because.

No we need actual proof of his insanity if it's going to be used as an excuse for his plan making no sense.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-24, 08:23 AM

Let's see - Thanos predict people of Titan will die, unless they implement his "solution". People of Titan refuse and call him mad. People of Titan die, in what appears to be a massive war.

Now Thanos could have killed them all, but we have no proof of that, and he claims his prediction came to pass, rather than he had slaughtered them. So we have no proof he killed them. And him lying doesn't seem to be in the cards. I don't remember a single instance where Thanos said an outright lie.

Yes they called him Mad, and yet the film says that he was completely right in what he said would happen. The film is treating him as a Cassandra. A someone who predicted doom and was called mad or ignored. And who's people died out because they didn't heed their warning.

You know who else they called mad in the exact same circumstances. Jor-El Another scientist like Thanos who predicted the end of their world and had a plan in place. Jor-El's plan wasn't even half as evil as Thanos' and he was also called Mad. Are was just supposed to call him crazy too just because.

No we need actual proof of his insanity if it's going to be used as an excuse for his plan making no sense.
It's kind of like what is happening in this thread. We few are correct, and everyone else thinks we're crazy. When the sequel drops and we are vindicated, we will get to say "We're the only ones that knew that." :smallwink:

deuterio12

2018-09-24, 09:02 AM

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-24, 09:11 AM

We are open to Thanos being wrong (well, I can only speak for myself). But the movie doesn't show us that. The movie doesn't show any of the things people are asserting here with regards to Thanos' sanity, or that his plan won't work.

-D-

2018-09-24, 09:18 AM

Just because you can identify a problem doesn't mean you can identify the respective solution.

Yes, the people of Titan did die, but there's also zero proof that "kill half the population" would've prevented the disaster.
You would be right that predicting something will happen and suggesting a solution isn't the same thing.

However, you are forgetting the larger picture - the example of Gamora's world as a paradise. Those two points, imply:
A) Thanos was right about the prediction
B) Thanos was right about the "solution"

The movie tries to make me believe Thanos, but what I can't believe such stupid goal or solution, because it makes no sense. And thus I experience break of immersion from the film. That's my problem. I can see how writers got to that point, but I can't in all honesty accept it.

My third breaking point is - Thanos loves Gamora.

So my thesis is:
A) Thanos is mad, because he was in the comics
B) Thanos has his stupid idea, because in the comics he kills half of all people everywhere* and we need some kind of justification that isn't he's in love with Death.

* Remember Bane in Dark Knight Rises breaking Batman's spine? That was done also because comic Bane was known for that. Now, in comic, Bane managed to manipulate multiple Batman villains into committing crime after crime, bringing Batman to point of exhaustion. Then waiting for Batman in Wayne mansion (figuring out his identity in the process) and then grabbing an exhausted and tired Batman and breaking his spine, in what Batman considered his haven (or safe space if you will). That is why Bane was a memorable villain.

Movie!Bane on the other hand, just grabbed Batman in the sewer and broken his spine for evilz. Although arguably Movie!Batman was still fresh from period of inactivity. He didn't have to work for it, he knew Batman's identity from Talia, and he didn't engineer the confrontation, it sorta happened.

Z3ro

2018-09-24, 09:24 AM

Well lets look at your previous quote:

What's opposite of "believing everything every character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie" - Doubting everything character says that isn't directly contradicted by the movie.

I will bow out now, as I no longer feel the conversation is productive. But please don't put words in my mouth. I never said I held to the opposite, and there are worlds of possibilities between "Believe everything" and "Believe nothing".

-D-

2018-09-24, 09:31 AM

I will bow out now, as I no longer feel the conversation is productive. But please don't put words in my mouth. I never said I held to the opposite, and there are worlds of possibilities between "Believe everything" and "Believe nothing".
That's how speech works.
If I say, "I pity you because you don't believe in FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster)", implies I believe Flying Spaghetti Monster.
If I say "I pity you because you believe in FSM", implies I don't believe in FSM.

deuterio12

2018-09-24, 09:48 AM

You would be right that predicting something will happen and suggesting a solution isn't the same thing.

However, you are forgetting the larger picture - the example of Gamora's world as a paradise. Those two points, imply:
A) Thanos was right about the prediction
B) Thanos was right about the "solution"

The movie tries to make me believe Thanos, but what I can't believe such stupid goal or solution, because it makes no sense. And thus I experience break of immersion from the film. That's my problem. I can see how writers got to that point, but I can't in all honesty accept it.

That would be a valid point if:
A) Titan and Gamora's world were the exact same planets. Considering that the same solution will work to every planet and species everywhere is pretty insane by itself.
B) Thanos had managed to "save" more than one world so far. Thanos has supposedly been doing this for quite some time and he can only brag about one saved planet? Sounds more like a lucky fluke than anything else.
C) We knew what exactly counts as "paradise" for Thanos whose idea of loving his daughter was torturing her into a ruthless assassin and sends his minions to die by droves with no remorse. For all we know Gamora's world is stuck in neverending war between the survivors and Thanos counts that as "paradise".
D) Earth wasn't descending into chaos at the end of the movie. Maybe killing half the population did work for Gamora's world, but in Earth it ends with planes crashing into buildings and anarchy as leaders vanish. Earth did not turn into a paradise.

My third breaking point is - Thanos loves Gamora.

So my thesis is:
A) Thanos is mad, because he was in the comics
B) Thanos has his stupid idea, because in the comics he kills half of all people everywhere* and we need some kind of justification that isn't he's in love with Death.

My counter-thesis is-Thanos is mad not only because he has this insane idea, but also because Thanos loyalist followers consist of 100% crazy fanatics that obey with no question. As they say, tell me who you hang with and I'll tell you who you are, and Thanos crew is following an idol out of pure fear/awe, not logic.

-D-

2018-09-24, 12:12 PM

That would be a valid point if:
A) Titan and Gamora's world were the exact same planets. Considering that the same solution will work to every planet and species everywhere is pretty insane by itself.
B) Thanos had managed to "save" more than one world so far. Thanos has supposedly been doing this for quite some time and he can only brag about one saved planet? Sounds more like a lucky fluke than anything else.
C) We knew what exactly counts as "paradise" for Thanos whose idea of loving his daughter was torturing her into a ruthless assassin and sends his minions to die by droves with no remorse. For all we know Gamora's world is stuck in neverending war between the survivors and Thanos counts that as "paradise".
D) Earth wasn't descending into chaos at the end of the movie. Maybe killing half the population did work for Gamora's world, but in Earth it ends with planes crashing into buildings and anarchy as leaders vanish. Earth did not turn into a paradise.
A) Implication is that Titan's and Gamora's world suffered similar issue and what Thanos saw is a universal law. It's merely the matter of time, before it happens everywhere.
B) It was only planet any heroes has any familiarity with. Imagine the conversation:

Thanos - You know planet Xaraband IV
Dr. Stranger - No?
Thanos - Garaban?
Stark - No?
Thanos - How about Xanadu VII?
Gamora - No?
Thanos - Malakith?
Gamora - Is that the one with three moons?
Thanos - No. Maybe you've been Zalator? It's a paradise.
Peter Quill - I'm thinking you're just making them up.
(hell, now that I think of it, this would have made for fun banter)

C) He never said, what he does is "paradise". For Thanos Utopia Justifies the means. His children are merely tools for that means.
D) According to Thanos it is only matter of time (a few years, a few decades, maybe a century at best). Though realistically looking at our current state of climate I wouldn't say he was necessarily wrong either.

deuterio12

2018-09-24, 06:24 PM

A) Implication is that Titan's and Gamora's world suffered similar issue and what Thanos saw is a universal law. It's merely the matter of time, before it happens everywhere.
B) It was only planet any heroes has any familiarity with. Imagine the conversation:

Thanos - You know planet Xaraband IV
Dr. Stranger - No?
Thanos - Garaban?
Stark - No?
Thanos - How about Xanadu VII?
Gamora - No?
Thanos - Malakith?
Gamora - Is that the one with three moons?
Thanos - No. Maybe you've been Zalator? It's a paradise.
Peter Quill - I'm thinking you're just making them up.
(hell, now that I think of it, this would have made for fun banter)

C) He never said, what he does is "paradise". For Thanos Utopia Justifies the means. His children are merely tools for that means.
D) According to Thanos it is only matter of time (a few years, a few decades, maybe a century at best). Though realistically looking at our current state of climate I wouldn't say he was necessarily wrong either.

A) You can't claim it's an universal law with just one example. Again, if that's the fate of all planets with sentient species, then there should be ruins like Titan everywhere, it should be something that's already happened millions of time and is happening right now in the galaxy and thus known by everybody who keeps with space news.

B) Gamora and Starlord are the guardians of the galaxy. They're supposed to have traveled everywhere in space and some more. They should've run or at least heard of such "paradise" planets (plus the planets that self-destructed due to overpopulation).

C) Thanos considers that "love" means torturning your favorite daughter to turn her into a ruthless assassin to be later sacrificed to some cosmic entity. You should be very afraid of what he considers "paradise".

D) That's only Thanos mad theory. All the current evidence is that killing half of Earth's population in one go just made Earth a worst place to live.

Devonix

2018-09-24, 07:07 PM

A) You can't claim it's an universal law with just one example. Again, if that's the fate of all planets with sentient species, then there should be ruins like Titan everywhere, it should be something that's already happened millions of time and is happening right now in the galaxy and thus known by everybody who keeps with space news.

B) Gamora and Starlord are the guardians of the galaxy. They're supposed to have traveled everywhere in space and some more. They should've run or at least heard of such "paradise" planets (plus the planets that self-destructed due to overpopulation).

C) Thanos considers that "love" means torturning your favorite daughter to turn her into a ruthless assassin to be later sacrificed to some cosmic entity. You should be very afraid of what he considers "paradise".

D) That's only Thanos mad theory. All the current evidence is that killing half of Earth's population in one go just made Earth a worst place to live.

I think there's a disconnect here. WE think that Thano's plan is stupid, we just don't believe that the film adequately conveyed that. We think it's stupid because IRL it's stupid. But the movie has to put that idea out there.

The movie to us tried to say that He was right, and that his plan made sense but was evil.

And since we think the plan is stupid and he's wrong we kept waiting for the film to say this too.

deuterio12

2018-09-25, 01:06 AM

I think there's a disconnect here. WE think that Thano's plan is stupid, we just don't believe that the film adequately conveyed that. We think it's stupid because IRL it's stupid. But the movie has to put that idea out there.

The movie to us tried to say that He was right, and that his plan made sense but was evil.

And since we think the plan is stupid and he's wrong we kept waiting for the film to say this too.

Ok, let's re-check what the film actually says:
-We only have Thanos word that Titan was destroyed by overpopulation, and see no other planet destroyed by overpopulation. The word of Thanos who's been known to slaughter whole populations just for a shiny gauntlet.
-We only have Thanos word that Gamora's world turned into a paradise after the demipurge, and no other planet confirmed to be turned into paradise despite Thanos having been rampaging around the galaxy culling population after population for decades/centuries now.
-His own daughter bailed on him.
-The only people willing to follow Thanos are an horde of suicidical bloodthirsty fanatics.
-When Thanos cuts Earth's population in half, more people start dying right away, explosions, fire, chaos. Not very good results.

Because all of that added together is screaming to me that Thanos is wrong, or at least there's something quite fishy in his story. If Gamora's world turned into a paradise, couldn't he have recorded a video for propaganda purposes or something?

As they say, show, don't tell. The movie doesn't explicitly say that Thanos plan is bad, but the signs are just everywhere. The only "proof" that Thanos madness works in any way is Thanos word himself while he's standing on a mountain of corpses.

Also I wouldn't be surprised at all if in the next movie it turns out that Titan was wiped out by Thanos himself and Gamora's world is actually a hellhole by normal people's standards, and Thanos been doing nothing but hallucinating this whole time, believing his own delusions.

-D-

2018-09-25, 01:32 AM

Ok, let's re-check what the film actually says:
-We only have Thanos word that Titan was destroyed by overpopulation, and see no other planet destroyed by overpopulation.
-The only people willing to follow Thanos are an horde of suicidical bloodthirsty fanatics.
-When Thanos cuts Earth's population in half, more people start dying right away, explosions, fire, chaos. Not very good results.

Because all of that added together iswhile he's standing on a mountain of corpses.

And yet, the movies doesn't put into question Thanos' words.

We see one bloodthirsty maniac following Thanos - Ebony Maw. The rest are a brute, and two assasins. Also keep in mind that his children are essentially just tools to achieve his goals.

Also there is no explosions and panic as result of half and half solution. We see one explosion, traffic jams and people being more confused than panicing. Hell only heroes go through mourning, because they know what is happening.

deuterio12

2018-09-25, 01:59 AM

And yet, the movies doesn't put into question Thanos' words.

We see one bloodthirsty maniac following Thanos - Ebony Maw. The rest are a brute, and two assasins. Also keep in mind that his children are essentially just tools to achieve his goals.

What do you call the thousands of nameless aliens killing themselves trying to bypass Wakanda's energy shield? The armored guards that stood watch as Thanos tortured his daughters? The soldiers that shoot down millions of civilians at a sign from Thanos?

And the brute and two assassins, what's in it for them? You think they're killing and dying because they want to save the galaxy? That they actually have hearts of gold under their trails of destruction and murderizing? Do tell, how does exactly the movie tells us that they're just compassionate rational do-gooders? Maybe the time where they held a philosophical discussion with Thanos and no, wait, Thanos says kill, they kill with no question.

Also there is no explosions and panic as result of half and half solution. We see one explosion, traffic jams and people being more confused than panicing. Hell only heroes go through mourning, because they know what is happening.

That's only one city, planes will be going down all over Earth, half of chirurgeons will pop off in the middle of operations, half of babies with single parents will be left to starve to death (and 1/4 of babies will starve to death with both parents gone). There will be indeed little mourning because there will be little to no people left to mourn.

Devonix

2018-09-25, 06:38 AM

Also I wouldn't be surprised at all if in the next movie it turns out that Titan was wiped out by Thanos himself and Gamora's world is actually a hellhole by normal people's standards, and Thanos been doing nothing but hallucinating this whole time, believing his own delusions.

I can very much understand why you'd not be surprised. But here's the thing. Showing that would be a subversion of the expectations the writers put into the audience's minds with the film. Saying one thing in a movie, and showing something different in another movie only works if you expect the audience to have believed what you said in the first was true.

Just because you guessed the answer doesn't mean there wasn't a question. I'm going to assume that you've seen more films than the average movie goer. That means that you don't fall for the same tricks. But not falling for the trick of the director doesn't mean that the trick ( IE baiting the audience to expect Gamora's world to be a Paradise ) isn't in the movie.

Daimbert

2018-09-25, 07:08 AM

And since we think the plan is stupid and he's wrong we kept waiting for the film to say this too.

I think doing so, though, would badly have hurt the movie because it would allow for the interpretation that at least some of the heroes are opposing it not because it is evil but because it won't work, and that if it would actually work they'd side with Thanos on it. Remember that Stark, at least, DID employ similarly Utilitarian reasoning in Civil War, and a number of the others are indeed pragmatic enough to go along with that sort of reasoning. So setting it up that none of them even bother to ask or consider whether or not it would work drives home the moral point that the movie needs: it doesn't matter whether or not it would work, because it's unacceptably evil otherwise.

Why Thanos talking about it working is important to the movie is that it establishes that HE believes that, which makes him less a sadistic shallow murderer and a but more nuanced. That he abused Gamora out of love also adds to that. But none of that need imply nor does it imply that he's right about that. Gamora certainly thinks that what he did to her did not, in fact, benefit her, and from that we can question whether his cullings have actually benefited the planets he's performed them on. We can also add in that his culling of the Asgardians is far more likely to result in the final extermination of them than in a resurgent Asgardian society. There's plenty of reasons given in the movie for the audience to think that it might not work, but again the movie wisely focuses on the main moral conflict rather than arguments over practicality.

So I still don't see why the movie stopping to take the time to say that would in any way benefit it.

I can very much understand why you'd not be surprised. But here's the thing. Showing that would be a subversion of the expectations the writers put into the audience's minds with the film. Saying one thing in a movie, and showing something different in another movie only works if you expect the audience to have believed what you said in the first was true.

But all the movie really says about Titan is that it had an overpopulation problem, Thanos proposed that extreme solution for it, they called him mad, and now the planet is a disaster. The events as described only justify Thanos' obsession, but as we can see that it's obsessive the audience is not likely to think that he's actually right. So to show that he was deluded about Titan's fall and about Gamora's planet wouldn't be a subversion, but pretty much what we would expect at this point. The subversion would be that he WAS right. But I think most of the audience, if it was revealed that Thanos himself had caused the disaster on Titan due to pursuing his mad goal, would simply say that that was what they thought would happen, no matter how experienced they are with movies. It's just far too standard a trope for that type of character, that is common across most media.

So, no, I think most people aren't actually expecting what you think they are expecting. I think they are expecting someone with such an extreme position to be insane and delusional, because even if he was right about the danger this definitely seems like a solution that's worse than the problem. And I still maintain that only those who think in Utilitarian terms can even maintain the possibility that it could be the right solution and that whether or not it would work is any kind of relevant consideration. Deontologists and Virtue Theorists will simply not get that far.

EDIT: To clarify that last point, Utilitarians will find the question important because there's the possibility that if it was the best or the only way to solve the overpopulation problem then it might actually be the morally right thing to do because it will prevent more suffering than it will cause. Deontologists and Virtue Theorists won't even get that far because it would violate their morality from the outset (generally). So my thought here is that many of the people who are so bothered by Thanos' plan not being clearly outlined as not actually working is because they worry that the movie is saying or hinting that Thanos' plan is morally right, despite the movie being clear that it isn't.

-D-

2018-09-25, 07:18 AM

What do you call the thousands of nameless aliens killing themselves trying to bypass Wakanda's energy shield?
You mean the Chitauri Drone 1, Chitauri Drone 7 and Chitauri Drone 53? Yes, they will be dearly missed?

The armored guards that stood watch as Thanos tortured his daughters? The soldiers that shoot down millions of civilians at a sign from Thanos?

And the brute and two assassins, what's in it for them?
No idea about the guards, but soliders that destroyed Gamora's homeworld were Chitauri aka Meat Drones aka Hive Creature.

Maybe they are killing because they don't want to piss off their father? I never said Thanos was good. Just that he doesn't lie. For example Joker lies all the time, but Darkseid? Darkseid rarely lies.

That's only one city, planes will be going down all over Earth, half of chirurgeons will pop off in the middle of operations, half of babies with single parents will be left to starve to death (and 1/4 of babies will starve to death with both parents gone). There will be indeed little mourning because there will be little to no people left to mourn.
First we don't know how Finger-Snap™ works. Maybe it takes such things into consideration. But for sake of argument, let's assume it doesn't.

Second, even if it kills half of surgeons, what are the chances they are operating in that precise moment? Low (a lot of those doctors probably will be sleeping or stuck in a traffic jam or doing paper work). Also there is a 50% chance their patient dies as well. So some doctors will be "freed" so to speak. Same with pilots. Most large airplanes have a copilot and automated landing systems.

Thirdly, even if some people die in the aftermath of the Finger-Bang™, by Thanos logic, they are acceptable sacrifices. He was willing to kill 50% of people, what are few more percent, here or there? Thanos point was that Finger-Bang™ will bring about paradise, and movie never questions it.

Here is my problem: Ridding world of half of population will realistically:
A) Be a stop gap measure in a population that experiences exponential growth
B) Human population is stabilizing;
C) Loss of life randomly causes so much more problems down the line, it takes time to train a replacement for any job;
D) It probably wouldn't affect the major problems that we face either way. Killing half of population probably isn't going to impact automatized industry.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-25, 09:02 AM

Ok, let's re-check what the film actually says:
-We only have Thanos word that Titan was destroyed by overpopulation, and see no other planet destroyed by overpopulation. The word of Thanos who's been known to slaughter whole populations just for a shiny gauntlet.
Why minimize the value of the gauntlet here? And why conflate "willingness to kill many for a powerful artifact" with "can't be trusted"?

No one has given any reason to totally distrust Thanos' word as presented in the movie.

-We only have Thanos word that Gamora's world turned into a paradise after the demipurge, and no other planet confirmed to be turned into paradise despite Thanos having been rampaging around the galaxy culling population after population for decades/centuries now.
That's not to hide the fact that it doesn't work. That's simply because it's the planet Gamora is familiar with. Case in point... she agrees with him! (It's a paradise --> Because you killed half the people.)

The movie doesn't give Thanos an opportunity to mention other planets because it doesn't provide any pushback on whether the population cull works.

-His own daughter bailed on him.
Yeah, because he tortures her. And yet you will all argue that he loves her at the same time :smallconfused:.

In any case, this isn't a mark against the strength of his word. He has loyal followers, so there are people that believe in his cause, even if Gamora (a good character) doesn't.

-The only people willing to follow Thanos are an horde of suicidical bloodthirsty fanatics.
Well, it stands to reason that your field agents will need to have a penchant for violence. That doesn't mean Thanos is a liar.

-When Thanos cuts Earth's population in half, more people start dying right away, explosions, fire, chaos. Not very good results.
Things take time. That the Earth wouldn't instantly become a utopia is as obvious as the finger snap not being a long term solution.

Because all of that added together is screaming to me that Thanos is wrong, or at least there's something quite fishy in his story. If Gamora's world turned into a paradise, couldn't he have recorded a video for propaganda purposes or something?
People don't think the price is worth it, so he's not interested in convincing anyone. He's accumulated the power to just go and enact his vision for the universe.

As they say, show, don't tell. The movie doesn't explicitly say that Thanos plan is bad, but the signs are just everywhere. The only "proof" that Thanos madness works in any way is Thanos word himself while he's standing on a mountain of corpses.
The signs are not "everywhere". They simply don't exist. To the contrary. Gamora concedes that her planet is a paradise because he culled the population. The movie posits that his plan is not worth the cost (the Avengers don't trade lives, they call me a madman, etc), but it does not speak to the efficacy of the finger snap.

Also I wouldn't be surprised at all if in the next movie it turns out that Titan was wiped out by Thanos himself and Gamora's world is actually a hellhole by normal people's standards, and Thanos been doing nothing but hallucinating this whole time, believing his own delusions.
This would be some TFA-->TLJ levels of "subverting expectations".

Tyndmyr

2018-09-25, 09:41 AM

And yet, the movies doesn't put into question Thanos' words.

We see one bloodthirsty maniac following Thanos - Ebony Maw. The rest are a brute, and two assasins. Also keep in mind that his children are essentially just tools to achieve his goals.

Also there is no explosions and panic as result of half and half solution. We see one explosion, traffic jams and people being more confused than panicing. Hell only heroes go through mourning, because they know what is happening.

There are definitely explosions and panic. We see aircraft falling from the sky. That's going to definitely result in an explosion and additional deaths.

So, he's definitely killing somewhat more than half.

As for the existence of Gamora's world as a paradise...we have only Thanos's word for that. We do not need to postulate him lying, only that he has a skewed perspective. He believes that, post finger snap, he will be basking in gratitude. No gratitude is depicted. Clearly, he's a wee bit off base with what he believes is the result of his murderin' hobby.

-D-

2018-09-25, 11:36 AM

There are definitely explosions and panic. We see aircraft falling from the sky. That's going to definitely result in an explosion and additional deaths.

We see a single chopper falling. Besides probably half of those deaths would will dust away anyway.

There isn't that much panic. More confusion than everyone is out of their car panicking...

Tyndmyr

2018-09-25, 11:40 AM

I mean, the logic of "we're already killing half, why worry about killing more?" is fair, but also ends up pretty clearly evil.

Thanos is pretty interested in the killing part. He doesn't seem very interested in any other part of building a beautiful world.

Kantaki

2018-09-25, 01:14 PM

Chen

2018-09-25, 01:50 PM

Besides, knowing Thanos telling him the flaw in his harebrained scheme would only result in the survivors getting sterilized.

Massively reducing the birth rate like the Mass Effect Genophage would have been a far more insidious way of doing this. Would take a while before people started noticing it especially if it wasn't birth defects death (like the Genophage) but just lack of ability to conceive to begin with. Probably best that wasn't how he did it.

deuterio12

2018-09-25, 09:08 PM

We see a single chopper falling. Besides probably half of those deaths would will dust away anyway.

There isn't that much panic. More confusion than everyone is out of their car panicking...

Those are still negative things.

We see zero positive things from Thanos genocide snap.

Thanos promised paradise. Earth did not turn into a paradise.

Instead all we saw was death from above and chaos on the streets.

I'm kinda reminded of Tarquin and Malack and the discussions about them.

Do we really have to be told that the mass-murdering villain's plan to kill half of everyone is wrong?:smallconfused:

Seemingly some people do need giant flaming letters to get the message. They won't be satisfied unless the movie fills the screen with "HEY GUYS JUST WANT TO SAY THAT THANOS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL IN CASE ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE SHOWED WERE NOT ENOUGH HINTS!"

Devonix

2018-09-25, 10:22 PM

Those are still negative things.

We see zero positive things from Thanos genocide snap.

Thanos promised paradise. Earth did not turn into a paradise.

Instead all we saw was death from above and chaos on the streets.

Seemingly some people do need giant flaming letters to get the message. They won't be satisfied unless the movie fills the screen with "HEY GUYS JUST WANT TO SAY THAT THANOS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL IN CASE ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE SHOWED WERE NOT ENOUGH HINTS!"

1: Thanos never implied that the killing would immediately cause a paradise. Only that the survivors without the need to scrape by with fewer resources would turn it into a paradise themselves.

2: Tarquin's quote doesn't work here because it's all about the Flaming letters to show that the guy is Evil. We know he's evil, the movie needs to tell us if he's wrong.

Evil and Wrong are not the same thing! And the film never tells us he's wrong only that he's evil.

eraskller

2018-09-25, 10:27 PM

I want Loki to be alive again :belkar: Thor needs him.

deuterio12

2018-09-25, 11:22 PM

1: Thanos never implied that the killing would immediately cause a paradise. Only that the survivors without the need to scrape by with fewer resources would turn it into a paradise themselves.

Thanos never said that. His plan was literally:
1-Kill half of the people.
2-PARADISE FOR EVERYBODY STILL ALIVE YAY!

There's no in-between step. That's the whole of Thanos sales pitch.

But in Earth what we get.
1-Kill half of the people.
2-MORE PEOPLE DIE! THINGS GOING UP ON FLAMES AND EXPLOSIONS! EVEN LESS RESOURCES YAY!

Thanos plan did not work, simple as that. There can be no greater proof of him being wrong other than the movie makers considering the viewers are complete idiots and writing in big glowing letters "HEY THANOS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL".

Delicious Taffy

2018-09-26, 12:03 AM

the movie needs to tell us if he's wrong.
No, it doesn't. It just needs to tell us why Captain America is punching him in the balls. Everything else is just unproductive noise.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-26, 06:21 AM

People keep conflating “wrong” with “morally wrong” when we’re talking about “strategically wrong”.

Reading comprehension folks...

-D-

2018-09-26, 07:13 AM

Do we really have to be told that the mass-murdering villain's plan to kill half of everyone is wrong?:smallconfused:

Or that it won't workfor that matter?
Emphasis mine.

My point is, the only time movie discusses it, it says that it works. To use your OotS example, it's basically Tarquin telling Elan his bloody reign has turned life of his subjects into paradise. And that he achieved all that with strategic clown placement.

Those are still negative things.

We see zero positive things from Thanos genocide snap.

Thanos promised paradise. Earth did not turn into a paradise.

Instead all we saw was death from above and chaos on the streets.

Seemingly some people do need giant flaming letters to get the message. They won't be satisfied unless the movie fills the screen with "HEY GUYS JUST WANT TO SAY THAT THANOS WAS WRONG AFTER ALL IN CASE ALL THE OTHER THINGS WE SHOWED WERE NOT ENOUGH HINTS!"
First off Thanos didn't say it will become instant paradise, just that future generations will be spared of our problems; that children won't go to bed hungry.

So, yeah showing a few people that die in the (optional) stinger, at end of the movie, is presented as solution for our problems like say global warming, inequality etc. - then yes it kinda is. Like possibly even if you take 50% of humanity that died. Why? Because climate change has a very bad end game scenario that's literally fireballs raining from the sky. In that scenario 100% of humanity is dead as doorknob.

Mightymosy

2018-09-26, 07:17 AM

Devonix

2018-09-26, 07:21 AM

-D-

2018-09-26, 07:22 AM

The thing is it doesn't solve the problem, even strategically. Because people will multiply.

It only "solves" the problem for a short period of time - is that what Thanos says: I want the Gauntlet so that my generation can postpone the problem of overpopulation"?
Oh, I know. It's basically trying to solve a non-existing problem (overpopulation) using non-effective solution (magic 50% less population) and presents that he achieved some measure of success.

As I said - It's like Tarquin claiming to make life of his subjects into paradise with mass murder and strategic clown placement.

Kantaki

2018-09-26, 11:05 AM

People keep conflating “wrong” with “morally wrong” when we’re talking about “strategically wrong”.

Reading comprehension folks...

Because the morally wrong part is what matters.
Whether Thanos crazy plan works is utterly irrelevant when his methods are already worth opposing.

I mean who cares what the crazy purple dude thinks the result of his actions will be?
He's going to murder a ton of people for it.
At that point the justification is kinda irrelevant.

That the whole thing falls apart like a house of cards in a hurricane is really just the icing on the cake.

Besides, Thanos and his cultists are fanatics- chance is he'll just ignore anyone telling him his stupid plan won't work.
Or, as I said earlier, add mass-sterilization to his mass-murder.

Tyndmyr

2018-09-26, 11:39 AM

I'm kinda reminded of Tarquin and Malack and the discussions about them.

Do we really have to be told that the mass-murdering villain's plan to kill half of everyone is wrong?:smallconfused:

Or that it won't work for that matter?
A kid in elementary school should be able to work that out*.

One would think not. But for every villain depicted, there's always some folks stubbornly insisting that he's right. I mean, sure, as a joke, it's amusing. But you can't really fault the movie for not telling you he was evil.

Evil and Wrong are not the same thing! And the film never tells us he's wrong only that he's evil.

Red Skull(to Thanos): "We all think that at first. We are all wrong."

Gamora(to Thanos): "You're insane."

These are not people saying "you're doing the right thing". The movie flat out shows that it does not work. The only time it is depicted as working is from Thanos's pov. A pov that is overtly described as mad.

The plan is not moral OR strategically sound, and the movie never claims differently.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-26, 12:34 PM

Because the morally wrong part is what matters.
Whether Thanos crazy plan works is utterly irrelevant when his methods are already worth opposing.

I mean who cares what the crazy purple dude thinks the result of his actions will be?
Because you want your movie plot and your villain to be compelling. Thanos is compelling in his acting, but his plan is not compelling. It is a bad plan. They tried to make him have a plan that can be justified by a villain. But the plan itself wouldn't work as Thanos appears to think it will, so it's hard to think that he feels it's justified. The movie (and therefore the viewer) has to make the assumption that the plan *WILL* work, so that Thanos can be a villain and decide that it is worth the cost in deaths to enact.

@Tyndmyr: No one here is saying Thanos is right, as in he is right to kill half the universe to save the other half. We're saying that in the movie this plan would actually work, that the movie makes the assumption that his plan would indeed lead to utopias universe-wide. Again, your examples don't speak to the efficacy of the plan itself, only to the idea that it is worth the deaths of so many people. You are commenting on something that no one is disputing.

Tyndmyr

2018-09-26, 01:16 PM

@Tyndmyr: No one here is saying Thanos is right, as in he is right to kill half the universe to save the other half. We're saying that in the movie this plan would actually work, that the movie makes the assumption that his plan would indeed lead to utopias universe-wide. Again, your examples don't speak to the efficacy of the plan itself, only to the idea that it is worth the deaths of so many people. You are commenting on something that no one is disputing.

I am aware of what you're arguing. I am disputing your idea that it is a good plan, not merely criticizing the morality.

It is not a good plan, and it will not work, as in "make the universe into a paradise". Literally nobody but Thanos thinks that will be the result. The movie does not depict that as the result.

There is no reason to believe that the Mad Titan's plan is anything other than mad. Certainly not effective.

Devonix

2018-09-26, 06:02 PM

I am aware of what you're arguing. I am disputing your idea that it is a good plan, not merely criticizing the morality.

It is not a good plan, and it will not work, as in "make the universe into a paradise". Literally nobody but Thanos thinks that will be the result. The movie does not depict that as the result.

There is no reason to believe that the Mad Titan's plan is anything other than mad. Certainly not effective.

You are misunderstanding Tyndmyr. He's not saying that the plan works or that it makes sense. He's saying that the movie is saying that the plan works. I know the plan is dumb, Tyndmyr knows that the plan is dumb. The problem we're having is that the film is saying that the plan isn't dumb and it's pulling us out of the film.

In storytelling, unless you provide a counter argument to something, you have to accept it as truth. There is no counter argument to Thanos's plan. And no we don't need one of the heroes to actually tell Thanos his plan is dumb. We don't even need a character to say anything. We need the film to show it to us. But instead When confronted with the only example of what a planet is like after Thanos visits. Gamora one of the characters we're inclined to trust, tells us that his plan did work there.

deuterio12

2018-09-26, 07:25 PM

You are misunderstanding Tyndmyr. He's not saying that the plan works or that it makes sense. He's saying that the movie is saying that the plan works. I know the plan is dumb, Tyndmyr knows that the plan is dumb. The problem we're having is that the film is saying that the plan isn't dumb and it's pulling us out of the film.

In storytelling, unless you provide a counter argument to something, you have to accept it as truth. There is no counter argument to Thanos's plan. And no we don't need one of the heroes to actually tell Thanos his plan is dumb. We don't even need a character to say anything. We need the film to show it to us. But instead When confronted with the only example of what a planet is like after Thanos visits. Gamora one of the characters we're inclined to trust, tells us that his plan did work there.

She doesn't, it's only Thanos that says her planet is a paradise now.

But even if Gamora had said that, words are cheap. Nobody actually sees this supposed paradise the mad titan is preaching about.

However we do see Earth after Thanos plan. And Earth is spiralling into even more death and anarchy. It's not turning into paradise.

There's your counter-argument. Thanos plan did not work on Earth, aka 100% of the examples where we actually get to see a post-Thanos world. How many times do we need to repeat that?

Devonix

2018-09-26, 07:35 PM

She doesn't, it's only Thanos that says her planet is a paradise now.

But even if Gamora had said that, words are cheap. Nobody actually sees this supposed paradise the mad titan is preaching about.

However we do see Earth after Thanos plan. And Earth is spiralling into even more death and anarchy. It's not turning into paradise.

There's your counter-argument. Thanos plan did not work on Earth, aka 100% of the examples where we actually get to see a post-Thanos world. How many times do we need to repeat that?

Thanos. " The Children have known nothing but clear skies and full bellies. "
Gamora. " Because you murdered half the planet "
Thanos . " A small price to pay for salvation. "

This right here is our problem. This is Gamora reinforcing to the audience that Thanos' plan worked.
Then we get Gamora saying
Gamora "You're insane. "
Thanos. " Little one it's simple calculus This universes resources are finite.

She only calls him insane when he says the price paid was small. She's calling him evil, not saying he's wrong.

And no we don't get to see Thanos' plan not working on Earth. The only way for us to see it not working would be for a time skip of some kind.

And no we don't get to see the planet being a paradise because that would be a silly detour for the film to make. We don't need to be shown every single place in the universe. If someone in a movie says that it's raining in New York, we don't need a shot of New York to know that it's raining there.

AMFV

2018-09-26, 08:21 PM

Thanos. " The Children have known nothing but clear skies and full bellies. "
Gamora. " Because you murdered half the planet "
Thanos . " A small price to pay for salvation. "

This right here is our problem. This is Gamora reinforcing to the audience that Thanos' plan worked.

This is Gamora reinforcing to the audience that Thanos is mad. That his plan isn't rational and doesn't make sense, regardless of it's efficacy on one planet, which again is something that we are uncertain of, and I'm fairly sure that Gamora herself may be uncertain of as well.

Then we get Gamora saying
Gamora "You're insane. "
Thanos. " Little one it's simple calculus This universes resources are finite.

She only calls him insane when he says the price paid was small. She's calling him evil, not saying he's wrong.

Calling somebody "insane" != calling them "evil". Insane is NOT a synonym for evil. And the way we see people react to him reinforces both that he is insane and evil. Doctor Strange, who negotiated with a literal embodiment of chaos, madness, and evil, doesn't try to get him to call off his plan through negotiation, the only thing he negotiates with him regarding is Stark's life. That's pretty suggestive that he doesn't think negotiating with an insane person to stop his delusions would be effective, no?

And no we don't get to see Thanos' plan not working on Earth. The only way for us to see it not working would be for a time skip of some kind.

And no we don't get to see the planet being a paradise because that would be a silly detour for the film to make. We don't need to be shown every single place in the universe. If someone in a movie says that it's raining in New York, we don't need a shot of New York to know that it's raining there.

And if that somebody is the devil and he's trying to sell you a raincoat for the small price of your immortal soul, maybe you should second guess him a little...

Devonix

2018-09-26, 08:28 PM

Yes Yes. In fiction Calling someone insane IS synonymous with calling them evil. And the organization of the words hold meaning. Insanity is used as a direct response of him equating innocent lives to a small cost.

The callousness of it is what she's calling insane.

Dr.Samurai

2018-09-26, 09:25 PM

I am aware of what you're arguing. I am disputing your idea that it is a good plan, not merely criticizing the morality.
I'm not saying it's a good plan. The whole problem is that it is precisely not a good plan, but the movie is operating from the premise that it is a good plan.

It is not a good plan, and it will not work, as in "make the universe into a paradise". Literally nobody but Thanos thinks that will be the result. The movie does not depict that as the result.
Right. It's not a good plan. But in the movie, it appears to be a plan that would work. Thanos is operating on that assumption, and he's been doing it for a long time now. He says he saved Gamora's planet from the brink of collapse, and she agrees. He does this by culling half the population. Therefore, the movie presents us with a solution to limited resources, in the same way Superman saves Lois Lane by flying around the planet. Would that work in real life? No. But does it work in the movie? Yes. Same with Infinity War. It *appears* that culling half the population will save the rest.

There is no reason to believe that the Mad Titan's plan is anything other than mad. Certainly not effective.
This claim is completely groundless and flies in the face of the actual scenes in the movie. If we're talking about real life, then yes, you're right. If we're talking about in the movie, then no, the movie suggests that his plan would be effective.

She doesn't, it's only Thanos that says her planet is a paradise now.
She says: Because you murdered half the planet.

This follows Thanos' claim. So the sentence can be read like this: It's a paradise because you murdered half the planet.

But even if Gamora had said that, words are cheap.
Words are certainly worth more than nothing, which is what the movie provides to suggest his plan won't be effective.

There's your counter-argument. Thanos plan did not work on Earth, aka 100% of the examples where we actually get to see a post-Thanos world. How many times do we need to repeat that?
This has to be one of the most mind-boggling suggestions I've read on this forum. Thanos' plan is not meant to operate instantly, and nowhere in the movie is it ever suggested to operate that way. When speaking about Gamora's planet, he specifically says "You know what's happened since then?"

Clearly there is a notion of time having passed in order for the "children born" to know nothing but full bellies and blue skies.

This is Gamora reinforcing to the audience that Thanos is mad. That his plan isn't rational and doesn't make sense...
No, Devonix is correct here. Gamora has already conceded that her planet is a paradise. She is not saying the plan doesn't make sense or is irrational. She is saying he is mad for being willing to murder half a planet to bring about a paradise. The heroes only ever take issue with the morality of his plan. No one disputes whether it would actually work as advertised or not, which is the problem. For the ultimate villain at the end of a ten year arc, his plan doesn't make sense but the movie takes it seriously.

And the organization of the words hold meaning. Insanity is used as a direct response of him equating innocent lives to a small cost.

The callousness of it is what she's calling insane.
1000% correct.

warty goblin

2018-09-26, 10:56 PM

I think one of the difficulties is that Thanos is presenting the snap as a solution to the trolley problem. If he does nothing, he perceives that everyone dies. If he acts, half of everybody dies. Under whatever passes for Thanos' ethics, clearly the answer is to act.

What the heroes seem to be generally saying is that flipping the switch to kill half of everybody is insane, not that the train isn't going to run everybody over, or that there's such a thing as brakes. Now there are ethical systems that absolutely say the moral thing is to let the train go kill everybody, instead of flipping the switch. But this is sort of unsatisfying as a position for the heroes to advocate for, because it's putting them on the side of 'maybe literally everybody dies'

I think it also ends up being somewhat unsatisfying because Thanos is a very active character. He wants to do something, he actually goes out and does it. Superheroes are usually rather passive, in the sense that they're usually pretty happy with the status quo until some annoying evil person goes and messes with it, but this isn't quite so noticeable when they're the focus of the movie. But here they're playing second fiddle to Thanos, focus-wise. He's the only character who actually wants to do something, the various heroes just run around ineffectually.

It doesn't help that the problem Thanos seeks to address (however badly) is one that's clearly entire outside their realm of consideration. I mean the standard Marvel superhero can, so far as I can tell, only solve problems that can be 1) punched and 2) one-linered at in order to resolve some sort of deep seated emotional problem, in roughly that order. Resource depletion as an existential threat is entirely outside of their wheelhouse, which leaves them looking sort of clueless. None of which make Thanos look good, because he's still a monster, but it doesn't exactly make his opposition look great either.