You Can’t Punch God: Thanos and Film Morality

When the Earth starts to settle, God throws a stone at it. And believe me, He’s winding up.

Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron

SPOILERS FOR BASICALLY EVERY MCU FILM AT THE TIME OF WRITING.

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War – the biggest, loudest, beat-‘em-upiest spectacle ever put to film – there’s a piece of music called Porch.

Porch comes as a surprise. Moments earlier, we were watching a Norse god plunge a star-forged axe into a purple giant with a universe-ending rock collection. Yet Thanos’ victory is accompanied not by loud, blaring decimation, but by a small string ditty. It’s brooding, ominous and tragic…right up until it isn’t.

There’s something wrong with the final chord. Musicians might recognise it as a Picardy third. Picardy thirds occur in cadences to the major tonic in a minor key. In simpler (and slightly inaccurate) terms, a piece spends its entire duration sad, before ending unexpectedly happy.

If we believe the assumption that film music is meant to make you feel the way the characters do, Porch says not only that Thanos won, but that we should be pleased about it. As we’ll see later, this is even more discomforting than it appears.

I’ve wanted to write a post on Infinity War for a while. There are many things I want to say about it but none could fill a post alone nor come to a satisfying conclusion. Thus, I’ve decided to emulate the film by throwing as many things as possible together with one underlying thread and hoping they stick.

That underlying thread is the morality of Thanos. How is it depicted? What does Marvel want us to think? What does it say about our attraction to superhero films?

And, most importantly: how can anyone possibly hope to defeat someone who became God?

True Lies

Stories ending in a villain’s triumph aren’t rare, especially when there’s a sequel or two for the heroes to reverse the damage. The classic example is The Empire Strikes Back – Han is frozen in carbonite, Luke loses a hand, and Vader gets all the pleasure of bonding with his long lost son. There are plenty of others. Even Back to the Future Part II counts if you frame the antagonist of the series as the consequences of time travel, the order of nature which man can have no control over (a theme I’ll return to shortly).

But Infinity War stands apart because Thanos may not be the antagonist. With the most screen time, a series of character-building challenges to overcome, and his goal achieved by the end of the film, you can make a strong case for Thanos as the film’s protagonist.

“But Oliver,” I hear you say, “Thanos is evil. He’s the villain. How can the villain be the guy we’re supposed to root for?”

You make a good point, imaginary reader hivemind. Thanos abuses his adopted children and kills half the universe. He is clearly and demonstrably wrong. But take a step back and the language of storytelling might be trying to tell you something else.

To see why, let’s take a rather long detour. I’m starting that detour controversially by asking: why does Marvel make better films than DC?

Whatever your personal opinion on the respective franchises, you can’t deny the overwhelming critical and commercial leaning. In a run that rivals and arguably beats even Pixar, Marvel has birthed twenty films without a dud among them (at least according to Rotten Tomatoes, so get lost haters of Thor: The Dark World) and may continue to do so until the sun burns out. DC, meanwhile…I heard the first two acts of Wonder Woman were good?

What then is their secret? What do other cinematic universes lack?

There are probably plenty of factors. Balanced tone is one thing – turns out you can put a raccoon pulling an eyeball from his posterior into a film about half the universe dying, you just have to act with care.

But if you ask most people, the answer comes down to character.

Marvel creates characters we care about. There’s a reason Peter Parker turning to dust hurts. After my second viewing of Infinity War, where those I went with were seeing it for the first time, one member of the group kept saying that wasn’t acceptable. They couldn’t do that to Spider-Man. I bet she’s bitter about it to this day.

(I meanwhile was still sad about Vision. Why does nobody ever talk about Vision? The poor guy died twice.)

Trouble is, the discussion usually ends there. People agree character is the defining difference, include some vague justification of having ten years’ build up, then move on. As a writer currently building my own characters, I wanted to go deeper. What about Marvel’s characters makes them more complete than the average blockbuster?

Enter the character arc.

You’ve all probably heard of character arcs. But did you know that, according to some interpretations, there are three different types?

The most familiar is the positive arc. A character starts out flawed and learns a lesson over the course of a story. Think Woody in Toy Story, Bilbo in The Hobbit, Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender (my personal favourite as it involves a virtue hidden in a flaw).

The central thesis of the positive arc is that a character begins believing “lies”. Character flaws are or stem from “lies”, counterpointed by corresponding “truths”. It’s important to this article to note that these don’t have to be proper lies and truths. What matters is how they are depicted in the story. There’s nothing to stop you writing a book where the lie a character believes is that the Earth is round and he learns the truth of its flatness, but there’s a lot to stop you actually publishing it.

The other arc types come from mixing up the way characters and lies/truths interact. The negative arc happens when a character starts believing a truth or a lie but digs deeper and deeper into lies rather than discovering the truth.

Central to what we’re discussing here is the third type, the flat arc. In a flat arc story, a character starts out believing a truth that corresponds with the in-universe truth. The story may challenge their devotion to it, but in the end they win out and it’s the minor characters who change perspective. I’d like to nominate Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption as the ultimate example.

Here’s a handy video to explain the flat arc in more detail:

(Innocent, flat arc protagonist makes prison a better place then escapes? Hot take: Paddington 2 and The Shawshank Redemption are the same film.)

Both the positive and flat arc are often woven into a storytelling structure called the Hero’s Journey, a template for constructing a protagonist, supporting characters and their world. The structure then follows naturally according to the following model:

And as for the characters in the Hero’s Journey, I’ll leave Mario and Fafa to explain it.

(Because they removed the video from YouTube and WordPress doesn’t like embedding Vimeo apparently, here’s a plain old link: https://vimeo.com/album/5713191/video/313570398)

In order to understand the MCU’s approach to character arcs, in particular the flat arc, we need to know what its overarching truths are. So, where are we likely to find a bastion of noble righteousness whose beliefs change the world around them for the better? Hmm…

The Star-Spangled Man

Though the primary intention of this post is to explore Thanos’ literary standing, I have an ulterior motive. Namely, to convince you that Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a masterpiece.

My friends refuse to accept this. Time to convince them of this truth.

From the moment we meet Steve Rogers in The First Avenger, he’s presented as already knowing the truth in his world. It’s hard to pin down exactly what this is given what happens later, but ‘always stand up for what is right’ works for our purposes.

This truth compels him to join the army in spite of a world telling him he shouldn’t, the first example of others’ lies he corrects. When people learn he possesses a special moral compass, Steve Rogers becomes Captain America in a moment of quite literal character growth. Time and again he proves doubters wrong, standing up for what he feels is right to save others.

The trouble, however, comes with the film’s antagonists. Who does Steve spend the most time and effort defeating over the course of his journey?

Yep. It’s hard to present a character as a hero striving alone for what’s good and true when they’re fighting literal Nazis. Yes, obviously, fighting Nazis is good. But knowing this doesn’t make you special. It won’t make you sway the minds of others. If most of the people you know need convincing that fighting Nazis is good, find new friends.

Here then is the reason many people find Captain America annoying. His first film is by no means bad, but his character may come off as a stick in the mud, a boy scout, a self-aggrandising temple of all things basic. For the record, this isn’t my opinion, but I can understand it. Despite overcoming the prejudices of his own country and changing their minds, the film decides to focus on the conflict between Steve and Red Skull, which is only ever going to go one way both literally and ideologically.

In The Avengers, despite a new setting where everyone he knows has long since passed, Steve is pretty much the same (that’s the thing about flat arc characters). The Avengers as a whole go through character development in learning to work as a team – established as a truth of the fictional world when refusing to work together causes tragedy and answering the call saves the day – but Steve remains the moral centre.

How then to proceed? What do you throw at a man who can defeat Nazis and evil space aliens?

This is the genius of The Winter Soldier. For all his good intentions, before this film Steve had a pretty black and white view of morality. His truth was to some extent indisputable; of course you should fight for what’s right. Why the hell wouldn’t you?

Anthony and Joe Russo have stated that deepening the character was their primary intention when directing The Winter Soldier. From an arc perspective, they had to make Steve doubt his truth in as high-stakes a manner as possible. Another film spent fighting an obviously wrong villain would have bored us all to death.

What better way to do this than breaking the organisation he thought was true and good? It’s easy to believe in doing your duty when your enemies are irredeemable, but when you thought they were your allies, things get messy. The fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. represents the decline in Steve’s trust in authority and in inherent morality. Plus, its plan for order at the expense of freedom is highly relevant to our modern world. Our tracking algorithms can be (and probably have been) abused for power. There is a genuine philosophical debate over security versus liberty. And Steve’s refusal to sacrifice a few for the sake of the masses sets him up well for a showdown with a certain mad titan…

Add in the emotional hook of Bucky as another mired in grey morality, and Steve’s trouble fitting into a new world runs deeper than simply missing out on Star Wars. In the end though he wins without changing his central belief, correcting the flawed logic of HYDRA. Hence in the context of the film, he retains a flat character arc to which others should look for guidance.

However, some of his opinions do change. He goes from following orders without question to acting as a fugitive to subjugate the government. Without The Winter Soldier, Steve would have agreed to the Sokovia Accords and there’d be no need for Civil War.

Civil War meanwhile is a fascinating film. For the most part, the story doesn’t really tell you what the truth is. Usually you’d be bludgeoned over the head with a moral to know what the protagonist must learn. Yet this movie presents legitimate arguments for both sides.

Steve’s core truth is tested to the max as he abandons everyone. He believes in fighting for freedom, one thing he sees as unquestionably moral. Tony Stark’s arc is a whole other kettle of fish and we’ll get to that shortly. The fact of the matter is we have prior films espousing morals which justify both perspectives in Civil War, most notably The Winter Soldier for Steve and Avengers: Age of Ultron for Tony.

My issue comes from the fact Civil War is a Captain America film. Obviously Captain America wins. Even though in the real world the argument can never really be resolved, Steve literally punching Tony into submission tells you all you need to know about how the MCU feels about freedom versus control.

I admit there’s an aspect of a Hegelian Dialectic here, which is to say neither “truth” is really the truth. If both ideologies have merit, it’s always better to learn from both (synthesis) than choose one and oppose the other. In a way, both characters lose. But Captain America still beats up Iron Man. Steve wins. My point stands.

Ignoring any uncertainty from Civil War, Steve is a flat arc character throughout his entire cinematic run. This is important in Infinity War for two reasons: it tells us who the MCU believes should win, and it makes us all the more shocked when they don’t.

The Hardest Choices Require the Strongest Wills

After some time toiling with what this post should be about, I found my focus thanks to this video. Give it a watch. Then read the opening paragraphs about Porch again.

I should make it clear off the bat that I don’t agree with Mikey’s opinions here. But I don’t necessarily disagree either. Context is key.

Its main points in relation to Thanos are:

1. Thanos’ justification makes no sense. This is a product of the need for high stakes.
2. By having Thanos as the film’s empathetic protagonist, Marvel is perhaps unintentionally accepting his actions.
3. Not only that, but the Marvel universe grants Thanos the Soul Stone because it believes his abuse of Gamora counts as love. Hence, abuse is love according to the film world. It is presenting this statement as a narrative truth like those I discussed above, which is abhorrent.

For clarification on the final point, remember when I mentioned someone writing a book where a character learns the Earth is flat? This is the sort of absurd conclusion we’re talking about.

Before analysing each point, let’s take a look at Thanos’ arc – as the apparent protagonist, surely he has one. But what type of arc is it? Referring back to the Hero’s Journey gives us a neat way of framing it.

Winding the clock way back, Thanos’ known world and starting point of his journey is Titan, his home planet. The call to adventure – the inspiration for his quest to gather the Infinity Stones – is its destruction. Ok, maybe he takes an awfully long time to act on it (he sure loves his space chair) but it’s this event that drives him to prevent the same tragedy occurring in the rest of the universe.

In the context of the MCU’s other films, Thanos has been tackling the subsequent challenges on the way to achieving his goal for some time. He finds the Mind Stone somewhere before even The Avengers, playing a high stakes two-or-bust game with Loki to claim the Space Stone. He tries again in Guardians via Ronan, hoping to claim the Power Stone. And, err…neither go particularly well. Bad luck, Thanos. Why not learn a lesson like you’re the hero of the story? In other words, why not do it yourself?

The events of Infinity War can be seen as the climax of Thanos’ journey. As soon as he pulverises Xandar for the Power Stone, he knows a clock is ticking before greater powers of the universe step in. Think of it like the third act of a regular story, where the hero knows what to do and how to do it but must face their greatest demons to win.

But here’s a question: at what point does Thanos face his greatest demons?

A viewer rooting for the Avengers might suggest the battles on Titan and in Wakanda. After all, they’re the points of greatest conflict and occur at the end of his quest. But the moment that really tests Thanos’ mettle as a character and reveals what type of arc he has occurs much earlier.

When Titan collapses at the beginning of his arc, Thanos acquires a controversial belief: life must be kept in check. His arc is all about taking on the responsibility to see that belief through. Now comes the important point of contention: is his belief the truth or a lie? Does the Marvel universe present his belief as correct?

As this video discusses, the belief centres on weighing the material against the spiritual. Do we save the people we love or let them die in the name of greater good?

The Russos highlight the debate several times in Infinity War. Loki has to sacrifice Thor. Quill has to sacrifice Gamora. Wanda has to sacrifice Vision. Every time, their hesitation leads to tragedy.

There are though two notable subversions. We’ll address the second later, but the first and most important is that of Thanos himself, and it comes right at the climax of his arc. Look back at the Hero’s Journey diagram. Note the lowest point. Does the word abyss remind you of anything in Infinity War?

Thanos’ darkest hour is not the fight on Titan or in Wakanda. It’s hurling Gamora off a cliff.

He doesn’t hesitate to appease the spiritual at the expense of the material. And the universe quite literally rewards him for it with the Soul Stone. The other characters’ fatal flaw is their disbelief in his ideology. They fail every time.

According to the narrative structure of Infinity War, there’s only one conclusion: Thanos knows the truth.

Remember how Steve Rogers spent his films teaching his truth to those around him? Thanos, it turns out, is just the same. With the decision made and Gamora lying in a puddle of her own blood at the foot of a ravine, the rest is a formality. Thanos made the ultimate sacrifice to show his devotion to the truth so collects the remaining Infinity Stones without difficulty. He wins. Porch ends with its celebratory Picardy third. Thanos completes his Hero’s Journey.

Here’s where Mikey’s video sticks a thorn in the narrative’s side. Unless you too are a cosmic warlord hell-bent on killing half the universe, you won’t feel satisfied at all. Oh, and let’s not forget the child abuse. Aww yeah, the child abuser won! Suck it, ethical parenting!

The first point – killing half the universe makes no sense – is usually refuted as follows: there have been real people with insane views on the greater good who actually win. The twentieth century is littered with them. The issue though isn’t that such people exist, it’s that the film endorses them.

Thanos has beaten the odds. He’s achieved his goal. He’s now the most powerful being in the universe, sitting pretty in the sunset. By following the truth of his world to its ultimate conclusion, he became God. There’s no better endorsement than that.

Mikey’s second gripe takes this further. Not only does Thanos win, but we empathise with him. That’s what happens when you build a character arc around a villain – to have a compelling story, they must have their views tested in ways that affect their emotional wellbeing. In a situation where killing a loved one was the only option, we would cry too. We understand his trauma. Porch assures us the struggle was all worth it, just as the triumphant fanfare at the end of any big adventure espouses victory in spite of losing so much.

And now for the third of Mikey’s arguments. Mistreating your children gets you unlimited power according to this film. Abuse is love, it says.

Sadly, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. I’m not worthy to speak on the matter myself so I’ll leave Lindsay Ellis to explain.

Love – a twisted version of it – can exist in abusive relationships. In Infinity War, Thanos displays plenty of caring traits. He brings Gamora food, avoids sitting in his throne when she expresses her distaste for it, even holds an arm up to protect her from Red Skull. According to him, such things excuse his treatment of Gamora and Nebula. The Soul Stone thinks so too.

These arguments aren’t clear-cut but they weigh heavy on the film’s sense of morality. But don’t worry, there is a way out. We don’t have to live with a genocidal tyrant as God.

Because really, why would that ever happen in real life?

Death From Above

Why are there so many superhero films these days?

I have a friend who can’t stand Marvel movies. Apparently he watched Thor one time and thought the story was bland and the CGI would be better placed in the eighties, so now he doesn’t watch any out of principle. Except for Guardians of the Galaxy. He liked that one.

For those not indoctrinated by the Raimi/Nolan/MCU/DCEU/etc. juggernauts, mustn’t we all look quaint? Obsessing over space Vikings with the power to conjure lightning and generally be invincible. What can we possibly find interesting about the plights of people who can punch their way out of any hole, no matter how deep?

I have a theory. It involves asteroids.

I think a lot about meteors. The purity of them. Boom! The end. Start again. The world made clean for the new man to rebuild.

Ultron, Avengers: Age of Ultron

The solar system is a game of cosmic pinball with major extinction events instead of high scores. If any of the reasonably-sized lumps of rock littering the space around Earth find themselves on a collision course with us, we can do very little, possibly nothing, to stop it.

Meteors aren’t the only example of world-ending events we have no control over. Solar flares, gamma ray bursts, supervolcanoes – all have the potential to destroy us without warning.

The same day I found the video above, still reeling from all the talk of death and destruction, I watched this one from Captain Midnight.

For those who’d rather skip it (if you would, why are you spending just as much time reading a long-ass blog post about similar Marvel character arcs?), it states Tony Stark’s entire character arc in the MCU has been about control. First he learns to have control over his own life and company, then becomes obsessed with standing toe to toe with gods and aliens to challenge any threat they post. In Iron Man 3, this appears in compulsive suit building. In Age of Ultron, it’s Ultron himself. In Civil War, it’s the Sokovia Accords. Yet when Thanos turns up in Infinity War, all Tony’s technology and effort does nothing to avoid the ultimate truth: he is a mere human.

He can never have total control. Powers beyond any control he could ever dream of turn Peter Parker to ash in his arms just to rub it in.

I don’t know about you, but watching these two videos in succession gave me an idea: Tony is a metaphor for our species. Since the Industrial Revolution, our power has grown like bamboo on steroids. Show anyone from the eighteenth century the Hoover Dam, the Burj Khalifa, the ISS, the internet, the lack of polio, or the slab of metal in your pocket capable of contacting anyone on Earth, and they’d think we’d become gods. We have control over so much more than anyone ever imagined, but we’d disappoint them. We’re not gods.

In fact, the modern world has given apocalyptic fears a wider platform than ever. We used to live in blissful ignorance of all the asteroids. Now we know one can strike at any minute. Even we in our great wisdom can’t stop God throwing stones. We can’t stop Thanos.

Superhero films are power fantasies. In a world beset by problems so massive and so out of our comprehension that thinking about them gives you a headache, they tempt us with the promise of fighting back. That’s part of the reason why modern society is so attracted to them.

The coin has another side though. And it is, I believe, the secret to Marvel’s success.

By giving character arcs to heroes with unimaginable power – by allowing them to believe lies, by making them fallible – Marvel makes us believe even the greatest powers in the cosmos can be beaten in real life. Thor wields an unstoppable hammer (well, until recently…RIP Mjolnir, 2011-2017) but is also a bumbling idiot beaten by a zapper clipped to his neck. And this gives us hope to exploit the flaws in what we once thought unstoppable.

My favourite scene in Infinity War, perhaps the entire MCU, runs from Thanos’ arrival in Wakanda to the moment he plops the Mind Stone into the gauntlet. Heroes we’ve seen display their unfathomable might time and again charge at him for the climactic final battle…and are tossed aside without a second thought. Thanos has a foil for each of them. Even Scarlett Witch’s valiant sacrifice means nothing because, oh yeah, Thanos now controls time as well.

Now imagine you’ve been watching The Thanos Show instead of Avengers: Infinity War. A screen above you lights up with one word: applause. This is the feel-good curb-stomping moment when the hero uses the skills and items he’s spent his journey collecting to defeat his greatest nemeses once and for all. This is Aragorn charging into battle with his army of the dead, this is Goku going Super Saiyan, this is Harry Potter coming back to life to cross streams with Voldemort and turn him to dust.

This is why the true climax of Thanos’ arc is Gamora’s death. Everything after that is his glory run. Aside from the Avengers on Titan coming painstakingly close to loosening his grip on the gauntlet (which itself fails directly because of Thanos’ character-defining sacrifice) he has it in the bag. There might as well be no tension left.

Thanos is a force of nature. He is the apocalypse by asteroid we so fear. Ultron tried to warn us…

Even the greatest heroes ever gathered by human-kind (and tree-kind and android-kind) can’t stop the coming end. This is no longer the fight of man, but of gods.

Fitting then that our favourite axe-wielding Asgardian is the only one who can deal the final blow. But, as well know, he should have gone for the head. The strongest Avenger has neither the might (the Russos confirmed Strombreaker only reached Thanos because he’d been caught off-guard) nor the wit to save the universe.

What if Thor had gone for the head?

Whether we like it or not, we’re now invested in Thanos’ plight. We’ve seen him struggle. We’ve empathised with him. To see him taken down in his moment of triumph by a lucky shot when he himself did everything right would ruin his arc. This is the genius of the Russos and writers Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFeely – somehow they made it feel unfair for the heroes of the freaking film to win.

It would have been easy for Marvel to make Infinity War a boring old gather-up-the-MacGuffins quest. While it would have satisfied our need for a power fantasy – Thanos goes from one man to God with a capital G simply by picking up shiny gems – the idea pales in comparison to what we got. Understanding his efforts skews our perception of the film and the superhero genre as a whole. I give the creators mad props for connecting each stone’s acquisition to a major character moment.

Until Infinity War, we were content with seeing ourselves in the MCU’s heroes. We lived safe in the fantasy that we could fight any foe, no matter how cosmic. Like Iron Man, we crave control over a universe too big to handle.

Also like Iron Man, we fail miserably at it.

At least, for the moment….

Endgame

Sit rep:

Thanos has won. The Marvel universe has decreed his will the strongest, his ideals the truest, his actions justified. He became the force of nature we hoped to rise against.

According to the analysis by Movies with Mikey and the understanding that Thanos is a flat arc character at the centre of the story, this is a problem. We’re apparently meant to endorse this. But there’s one important fact we’ve yet to consider: this isn’t the end.

Taken as a whole, ending Marvel’s cinematic behemoth with a villain’s victory is…less than sensible. Just as it’s unfair in the context of Infinity War for Thanos to lose, it’s unfair in the context of the other bajillion Marvel movies for him to win. We’ve watched the Avengers grow and mature with arcs of their own, some incomplete. Cutting them short now breaks all conventions of narrative structure.

Here then we come to the strongest refutation of Mikey’s argument. Yes, the narrative structure of Infinity War makes us empathise with a tyrant, but we’ve known from the beginning it would always be the first part of a whole in which the Avengers win.

What then of Thanos’ truths?

With the brief screen time he’s afforded, Steve Rogers makes his role as the mad titan’s ideological antagonist in Infinity War clear. His faith is in people. Individuals. Direct opposition to Thanos’ belief in individual sacrifice for the greater good.

Yes, in Infinity War, he fails. He and others hesitate to make the sacrifice, marking them as apparent believers of narrative lies. But if these writers are as competent as they’ve so far shown themselves to be, I believe we’re in for the ol’ switcheroo.

I started writing this article months before the Avengers: Endgame trailer (I had university to attend to, ok?). It only struck me after the tenth or so viewing that this is a trailer for what’ll undoubtedly be the most successful action film of all time and it features no action whatsoever. Unless you count Hawkeye cleaning a sword. Yet it feels even bigger than Infinity War. The musician in me points to the soundtrack – So Say We All by Audiomachine, now a staple of my music library – but the writer knows it’s all about character. We’ve watched the characters grow. We know their arcs. The thought of their conclusion excites us. Watching them talk gets us amped on its own.

Endgame must be the payoff to Infinity War’s setup. In particular, it must pull the wool from our eyes and show why the previous film’s truths are in fact lies.

Yes, it’s a superhero blockbuster so there’ll be plenty of punch-ups, but here are four very special words I hope the Russos have kept in their thoughts: you can’t punch God.

Infinity War establishes Thanos as God. He possesses the most powerful items in the universe and flicks the greatest heroes away like flies. But we know he must be beaten, otherwise Mikey’s arguments are valid and Marvel is indeed supporting child abuse and genocide. Not a good business plan.

Though I have faith the teams involved won’t be so crude, I’m worried about the easy solution. Some have suggested Captain Marvel – ‘the most powerful superhero the MCU has ever introduced’ – could save the Avengers simply by fighting Thanos. I call that quite the deus ex machina.

Even a united combat effort couldn’t stop our purple kleptomaniac overlord in a satisfying way. The solution needs more finesse. The Avengers must destroy Thanos ideologically before they destroy him physically.

In what remains my favourite Endgame prediction even after so long, Wisecrack took the odd happenstance of Doctor Strange’s plan and ran with it. In essence, they predict he bargained for Tony’s life for this very reason, as a philosophical foil to Thanos’ utilitarianism. The remaining 14,000,604 outcomes may have hit Thanos with more firepower, but only one showed him the lies of his conviction and thus defeated God without punching Him. This is the other subversion of sacrifice I mentioned earlier. Doctor Strange acts in complete opposition to Thanos’ truth by prizing Tony’s life above all others. We’re led to believe he knows this is the path to victory. Because he clearly has a plan to come to fruition in Endgame, he will eventually win and, in the process, prove his stance on the sacrifice debate correct.

Theories abound for the events of Endgame. Since I don’t want to leave this article without a point, I’m going to pull everything together and make my own theory. If you want to go into Endgame completely spoiler-free, turn back now.

Many predictions suggest we’ll be seeing some time travel through the quantum realm, so that’s a good starting point. The thing about a Hero’s Journey is it relies on set chronology – go to new world, then fight bad guys, then come home. Temporal voyaging is therefore the perfect way to interrupt and undermine the cycle.

I predict, through various time travel shenanigans, we’ll see Thanos’ inciting incident with our own eyes. We’ll see the destruction of Titan he believes justifies his apocalyptic motivations. And, crucially, we’ll see it doesn’t. I can’t pin down how, but we’ll see Thanos realise his plan wouldn’t have saved his beloved home planet. His motives were flawed from the beginning.

How do we reconcile this with the Marvel universe suggesting his aim was true by gifting him the Soul Stone? In all scenarios where Thanos doesn’t collect all the Infinity Stones, his mind is never changed. He continues on a path of destruction and finds some other, less efficient way to decimate the cosmos anyway. Only by truly succeeding can he know for certain that this isn’t the solution. The Soul Stone is playing the long con.

Or, you know, I could be completely wrong myself. You don’t need to look into a few million futures to know that’s more likely.

The Art of the Punch-Up

For such a popular art form, superhero films get a bad rap. Some might argue two and a half hours of progressively harder bludgeoning doesn’t deserve a 6000 word write-up on its narrative structure from some internet rando. It doesn’t even qualify as art, they say.

Here then we return to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

I paid little attention to the MCU until 2015. I think I’d seen Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy and nothing else. Both were good, but I was nowhere near obsessed with them. At the time, my sister was the Marvel fanatic of the family. On her insistence, we booked a cinema trip to see Avengers: Age of Ultron. I watched the first Avengers film to get myself up to speed a few days before.

Following my Avengers double feature, I had mixed feelings. Entertaining characters, great action, but a niggling sense that someone was abusing spectacle creep. Spectacle creep denotes a need for increasing action and power in each instalment of a franchise. So the Hulk is the most powerful being? Nope, Thor is. Except when he’s not. And now there’s a Hulkbuster. But wait, Ultron can beat all of them. It did feel a little as I described: progressively harder bludgeoning. Without deep character connections to the action, it was hard to find enjoyment in it. Perhaps this is the reason why Age of Ultron remains one of my least favourite Marvel outings.

Then I watched The Winter Soldier.

The stakes aren’t physical. Captain America has no beast to slay, no army to overcome.

Instead, it’s the US government and his once best friend. Even on a smaller scale, the audience connection is much stronger. We relate to the character as he struggles with opposing Bucky, and with the themes as he fights against very real existential threats. Suddenly this is a superhero that not only takes place in familiar physical territory, but familiar emotional territory too. It has something to say and we understand it. Tying these heady but relatable ideas into a strategic subversion of Steve’s character arc is what, in my opinion, makes The Winter Soldier a masterpiece.

It’s what makes Infinity War a masterpiece too, among other things. Yes, there are physical stakes annihilating anything we’ve ever seen before, but it’s the emotional and thematic resonance of the conflict that makes it any good. We are Iron Man. We fear the power of forces beyond our control.

No one on the Oscars committee will acknowledge the Herculean task its creators faced: tie a dozen ongoing storylines into one cohesive narrative that satisfies both hardcore fans and general audiences without repeating beats from existing media. Sure, it may not be as polished or original as films they’d consider high art, but to pull it off required just as much storytelling skill. Not to mention the enormous scrutiny it was under. If an arthouse film falls flat, no one cares. Avengers: Infinity War? That would ruffle some feathers.

The MCU has become a breeding ground of narrative innovation for the masses. Films like The Winter Soldier and Infinity War prove its creators aren’t content to sit tight and rubber stamp another generic action flick.

But their success leads to one last question, one loose thread from Mikey’s criticism of Thanos’ morality. As Uncle Ben once said, with great power comes great responsibility. As the new dominant force in global storytelling, what should Marvel present as true?

Infinity War in isolation suggests sacrifice for the greater good is moral. Endgame should reverse this given Captain America’s established morality and Strange’s decisive act in defiance of Thanos’ ideology.

Even then though, is this film series telling us something it shouldn’t be? The issue of prioritising individuals over society has no objective resolution yet the MCU acts as if it does.

We arrive at the worrying conclusion that including truth/lie-based character arcs at all gives your story an agenda. Every good story you’ve ever read or watched has a belief system it will try to foist on you, some with more success than others. From Aesop’s fables in the obvious case to Porch’s Picardy third accompanying a smiling force of nature in the less obvious, we as a society shape and are shaped by the lessons in our media.

I hope this means we won’t see anyone throw their daughter into a ravine to become God, but you never know.

We can’t change this state of affairs – it’s part of what humanity is – but we can at least be aware of it. Next time you watch a film, work out what the characters are fighting for. You’ll know what the filmmakers want you to think.

And if, when watching Avengers: Endgame, Thanos is beaten by punching him harder than last time, I’ll know the filmmakers want us to think they’re idiots.

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If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. It’s rambly and disorganised, I know. I decided to go for it and publish it without as much editing as I would have liked, since I’ve spent far too long on it already.

I haven’t really done something like this before but felt compelled to because I like Infinity War so much and I’ve been watching far too many video essays about it (as you can tell by the number of embeds).

To anyone new: I make music and write books, which you can check out elsewhere on this site. To anyone old: you knew that already. Maybe I’ll do something like this again if this gets good reception, but I can’t promise I’ll have time to spare for it.