Infinity War And The Importance Of Good Villains
- Apr 29, 2018
- 3 min read
Spoilers for Infinity War follow. This is your only warning.
Ask the vast majority of people about problems with the MCU and you'll likely see one answer pop up on more than one occasion. The villains are a weak, sometimes downright awful. If you can remember who Malekith, Abomination or Whiplash are, or what it is they want, you have a better memory than most of humanity. Thanos however, Thanos aims to change that.
From the moment we first see him in Infinity War, the opening scene involving the aftermath of the destruction of the vast majority of the Asgardians, we are rapidly introduced to who Thanos is, what he wants and how powerful he is. It takes no more than ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. In that time we see him defeat Hulk with ease, throw Thor around like a ragdoll and, most importantly of all, kills Loki. We are told he's strong, he's smart and from this point forward, following the acquisition of the space stone, he's only getting stronger. He is someone to be feared, and this time it's not just hearsay and rumours.
Then there's his plan. Thanos wants to wipe out half of the universe. At face level, it seems like the usual, evil for evil's sake kind of plan. But then he explains. His homeworld of Titan was overpopulated. They could have survived had his plan been enacted. Selecting people at random and removing them from the equation. It would have worked, but it was rejected. As a result, Titan collapsed, a once great civilization now reduced to nothing more than ruins. So he took it upon himself to enact his plan upon the universe. And where he did, on planets filled with the lost and dying, it worked. They became utopias. There was a balance in the universe, and Thanos was there to maintain it. For him, it makes sense, for me, watching the film, it made sense. He's not doing terrible things because he enjoys it, he does them because they're necessary.
But making your villain a formidable force, and giving them a solid goal, isn't all it takes to make a quality villain. It's also useful for there to be at least a little humanity to them. Take for example, my all time favourite villain, Darth Vader. While in his first outing he is little more than a visually unique and thoroughly imposing thug, over the course of Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi his character is expanded. There's a familial facet to his character, some hidden past, the fall to darkness. Vader goes from being a capable thug to something else altogether, someone you can, on occasion, empathize with. Thanos is very much the same.
In his introduction he is the thug, but through a well executed flash-back, involving his "adoption" of Gamora and a scene harking back to this moment. He stands before a chasm, accompanied by his adoptive daughter, and is given a choice. To acquire the soul stone he must give up a part of his soul, must destroy something he loves. As a viewer, my first thought was that Thanos loved nothing, thus he can give nothing up. But that wasn't the case. There is one thing he holds close, Gamora. And so, with tears shed, and through sheer will, he casts her into the pit. For the good of the universe, even he has to lose sometimes. Perhaps most importantly however, it's more than a throwaway scene. There's proper buildup, and it's addressed again as the film progresses. It is perhaps the movies pivotal scene, the moment where Thanos goes from being just a bad guy, albeit a very enjoyable one, to being someone with whom the audience can empathize, perhaps even sympathize.
Thanos is more than a big angry purple man. He's maybe the most human character in a film filled with humanity. I wanted him to win, and he deserved it. Even following the films climactic events, culminating in the inevitable death of half of the universe, there's a scene wherein Thanos sit down and takes in a sunrise. Or sunset, I don't know. The point is it feels like a moment of victory, as if the hero is finally able to rest, having at last achieved what he set out to do so long ago. And indeed he has.
Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives.
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