Rejoice, For You Are All Children of Thanos
In Avengers: Infinity War, all the brilliant people behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe have done the impossible: make Thanos compelling. Maybe this isn’t such a surprise. The MCU’s raison d’etre from the very beginning has been to transform B-list heroes from the comics into A-list movie icons. Thanos is no different. Thanos is compelling not because he’s the most powerful or effective villain in the MCU to date, though he’s both those things; he’s compelling because he’s armed with the deadliest weapon of all: narrative.
Thanos’ quest for the Infinity Stones is an effort of extreme propaganda, both textually and meta-textually, to convince any audience he confronts of his righteousness. A good portion of the film is devoted to Thanos making his case for the murder of half of all life in the universe, a case you’d think a being with the available power to do so wouldn’t deign to make. Much of the promotion of the film, primarily in interviews with the writers and directors, centers on the concept of Thanos as the protagonist of the film. The hero. This effort has been very successful, if you’ve read or watched any reviews.
In the comics, Thanos, at least when I was growing up, was a bit of a joke. Jim Starlin gave him crediiblity in the 90s with his trilogy (Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, and Infinity Crusade) but until then Thanos was an overpowered, over privileged man with a hard on for Death — basically every sixteen year-old guy ever. He even, at least once, escaped in the Thanos-copter. Helicopters are cool. As escape mechanisms for big purple cosmic beings, not so much. But Thanos got cool, mostly for his signature move: wiping out half the universe. This is another reason why the surprise about the surprise at the end is, well, surprising: there was no way the film wasn’t going to feature THE SNAP. After ten years of build up, and two and a half hours of Infinity goodness, the film wasn’t going to end without fulfilling that expectation.
Fan expectations are a funny thing. If you invest two years in expecting Rey to be Rey Skywalker, or Snoke to be Darth Plagueis, you might think The Last Jedi slapped you in the face and Kathleen Kennedy should be fired for making $4 billion off three movies in three years. Once upon a time, outrageous comments like that wouldn’t merit any attention. These days, the hotter the take, the more marketable your rhetoric becomes in a information landscape where volume, in every sense of the word, is the most magnetic force around.
So half the movie was always going to die. That was a given. What wasn’t a given was Thanos being compelling. Josh Brolin delivers an outstanding performance through mo-cap and the animators create one of the most authentic CGI characters yet. You can even see the Vellus hair on Thanos’ face and arms. Brolin invests Thanos with a weariness that befits a character who carries the (self-inflicted) burden of saving the universe. This is where the character really comes together: his comics backstory is mostly jettisoned, in favor of one that attempts to justifiy his genocidal behavior. And Brolin sells it; we believe Thanos believes he’s doing the right thing. So much so that some commentators say they were (almost) on Thanos’ side.
Wait, what?
WhatCulture describes him as ‘perversely relatable.’ Beyond that, ‘You find yourself agreeing with what he believes just enough to catch your breath.’ True, you can just about sympathize with Thanos; he loses a great deal. Brolin imbues him with great sadness. ScreenRant declares that ‘The Mad Titan’s repudiation of the MCU’s narrative worship of its heroes creates a deep uncertainty in our expectation that follows through each encounter toward the inevitable, horrifying conclusion.’ Repudiation of narrative worship. As if the narrative mode of the MCU — good guys fighting bad guys and doing the right thing — has in some way been erroneous. Suspect. Extreme.
But agree with Thanos? Relate?
A list of Thanos’ actions: the deaths of Heimdall, Loki and untold Asgardians. The destruction of Xandar. Knowhere. The attack on New York (twice), Scotland, Wakanda. The murder of his daughter, Gamora. The torture of her sister, Nebula. The erasure of half the universe, including half of our heroes.
His justification for this is that the universe requires balance. The universe is finite (logic failing already), resources are finite (his ambition is the infinity stones) so therefore half of all life in the universe must be cleared away so that the other half may enjoy a life unburdened by the stresses of so many mouths to feed. Halfway through the movie, Thanos comes into possession of the Reality Stone. With it, he turns Drax into a stack of blocks and Mantis into a coil of ribbon. He later turns Star-Lord’s kill shot to bubbles. So why can’t he turn dust to crops? Conjure worlds of nothing but the very resources the universe requires? Why can’t he simply cure hunger or thirst?
Because he doesn’t want to.
Thanos was already corrupt and insane before he arrived at any power. His homeworld of Titan experienced something like what we are about to experience on Earth — more people than water, food or energy — and his solution wasn’t to discover more of those things. His solution was genocide. We’re meant to believe the eventual collapse of his civilization made him so despondent his remedy was to transpose his plan — again, genocide — to the rest of existence. And this is believable. This is understandable.
How?
What’s missing from his backstory is any kind of anchor of reality. The tale of Titan is merely rhetorical. We don’t see Thanos lose family, friends, or loved ones. We don’t see him suffer, perhaps as the only survivor, his grief and anger metastasizing into a genocidal rage. We just get variations on a speech he gives to everyone about the need for balance. There is no practical reason for his behavior, and nothing in it to be understood, or even celebrated.
But it is.
A creature like Thanos requires no understanding. Creatures like Thanos can’t be understood. Their ideas and actions are intolerable, and only survive in society packaged as something else. Creatures like Thanos need to be sold. Consider the character of Ebony Maw. Maw serves as a herald for Thanos, proclaiming his virtues and the ‘joy’ of his victims in being ‘chosen’ for the ‘honor’ of being culled by him. Maw luxuriates in his reverence for Thanos, but it’s not blind: he fears failing him. Of course he does. Maw is only anyone at all, because of Thanos. And that’s Maw’s pitch to the dead: you now have utility and value, in death. You have meaning. You’re someone.
Why does any of this matter?
Being no one is hard to accept these days. We want our heroes to be somebody. We want them to reflect our values. We should be lauding Captain America’s resolution to fight, and save everyone, no matter the cost. Vision and Wanda’s sacrifice. Iron Man’s desperate but brave decision to take the fight to a god. But we’re not. We’re making a hero out of a villain. We’re making his actions and thinking permissible. And that, more than anything, is the lesson from this movie. Not that the good guys lose sometimes. The lesson is the good guys lose, and not because they’re weak, or unprepared or afraid. They lose because what is evil is made permissible. Tolerable. Normal.
Villains like Thanos are all around us. Their behavior and rhetoric cannot be understood or justified, and yet it persists. It persists in large measure because it’s being sold. Not as hate, or bloodlust, or bigotry, but as power. A service, to those it both lifts and oppresses. Thanos is compelling in Infinity War not because he’s understandable. Not in the least. He’s compelling because he’s a baroque reflection of real world villains. He’s doing you a favor by killing you. He’s got it all figured out. He alone shoulders the burden of his duty, invested in him by a self-righteous delusion born of extreme privilege.
All the best villains are echoes of ones in life. That’s why it’s so unnerving to hear people say ‘I was almost on his side.’ Because it’s not just a movie. This is a cultural event. This is the apex, more than likely, of an unprecedented run of filmmaking unique in the history of cinema both for its quality and success. If there had never been another Star Wars film after Return of the Jedi, we would still be using the lexicon and iconography of those movies today to try and understand current events. People will be using the MCU forty years from now for the same reason. Darth Vader is the great all time screen villain. You loved to hate him. You never understood him; to understand him, to explain him and his behavior was to dispel the myth and power of Vader and all you need to know about that can be found in the prequels.
Almost twenty years ago, audiences decried the humanization of Darth Vader. Now, they embrace Thanos’ inhumanity. It’s more than just different films and different expectations. We’re living in a different time, in which narrative is a weapon used every single day, against every single person, without end.
Captain America is one of the many characters in the movie, and one of those that arguably takes a backseat. He doesn’t need the spotlight, and he doesn’t need any platform to state his manifest opposition to Thanos’ ambitions. Cap states it simply, plainly and matter of fact: we don’t trade lives. His worldview, consistent from World War II to the present, requires no explanation or justification. Cap’s commitment to his values requires no pitch. No sale. Everyone has value. Everyone deserves to live.
Except for Thanos.
