Over the years, there have been many superhero movies with many villains, but few can compare to Thanos. Everyone knows of Thanos, as he was the main villain in both “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame,” two of the biggest movies of this decade. He was one of best villains the Avengers had to face out of their eleven years of movies. His quest to procure the Infinity Stones started in 2012’s “Avengers,” and persisted until the climactic battle in “Avengers: Infinity War” where he got the final Infinity Stone (the mind stone) and killed half the universe. It was heartbreaking for the characters when their teammates and loved ones were dusted, but it was also heartbreaking for the audience, who saw the characters they had grown to love over the years disappear. I am still not over Peter’s death scene.
Thanos was clearly a villain, but his villainy was based on (what he believed was) the right thing to do. His home world, Titan, was destroyed and while we don’t know why or how it was ended, Thanos had gone to the leaders to give his proposal: to kill half the population randomly (not based on ethnicity, class, or any other factor). Like sane people, the leaders of Titan refused. Titan was eventually destroyed and reduced to ruin, setting Thanos to embark on his quest. He believed that the only way to save the universe was to kill half the living things, therefore eliminating the fight for resources. He thought he was doing the right thing for the universe by destroying half of it.
Since “Avengers: Infinity War” premiered in April 2018, there have been countless debates about if Thanos was right to snap away half the universe. Most of the answers were that he was wrong, an understandable choice given how affirming that he was right would be condoning mass genocide, but when you look at all the aspects did Thanos have the right idea?
Pros to Thanos’s Plan:
1. Overpopulation is an issue on Earth. Most people know about it and no one can deny that the Earth is growing out of control. There are too many people for natural resources to sustain. While there are many ways to fix this, by the time people get on board with solutions would it be too late to save the planet? With only half the population on Earth, there would be half the people using natural resources, therefore doubling the amount of time we have to use them. Especially since we would have all the same science and technology as before the snap, it would give people more time to find sustainable substitutes to the natural resources.
2. We are already destroying this planet! Just look at global warming. The world is on its way to destruction, and while I’m not saying that we should kill half the population, we’re already on our way to destruction. We might kill ourselves with the way we’re treating the Earth, and at least Thanos’s plan saves half of the people. With half the population, there would be much less waste and a much-reduced carbon footprint.
3. It would also (probably) help the economy. We’ve never lost half the population before, but there was one clear moment in history where a lot of people died in a short period of time: The Black Death. It killed anywhere from 30% to 60% of Europe’s population, which means almost half the population of Europe died, if not more. In Europe, wages rose because there were less workers, so they had more options in their jobs. The price of goods and food also fell, circumstances that made life better for the survivors (aside from the grief and survivor’s guilt that the people definitely felt). This was proof enough for Thanos to show that his plan could potentially work.
4. Let’s leave this world for half a sec because (since we’re doing this experiment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where there are countless alien planets) there are other species to think about. Thanos didn’t just kill half the living things on Earth, half the living things in the universe. “Why would that be any different?” you may ask. Well, it changes up a very major thing. If we venture into the world of “Captain Marvel,” you may remember that the Kree were hunting down the Skrull. For a while, the audience was against the Skrull, who seemed to be the villains. As it turned out, they were innocents fleeing from the evil Kree, who were fighting the Skrull because the Skrull were against the Kree’s genocidal war and were trying to escape from them. Earth also was attacked by countless aliens over time. If Thanos killed half the living things in the universe, the Kree would stop attacking the Skrull and people would stop attacking Earth, they would most likely return to their own worlds to assess the damage and rebuild. This result would probably cause peace in the universe because species would be more concerned with their own worlds than the worlds of others.
So, looking at that, you have to think, “Was Thanos right?” Well, I’m here to tell you that he was very, very wrong, and murdering half the universe is a very, very bad idea, and no one should ever think that mass genocide is positive because it is not and it never will be. Here’s why Thanos is wrong.
Cons to Thanos’s plan:
1.What Thanos didn’t account for is killing half the living things in the universe included plants and animals, not just people. That means that he wasn’t really saving people from fighting over resources as the resources would be proportional to the population before the snap.
2. Also, the biggest loophole that people have been pointing out is that Thanos is all-powerful. With the Infinity Stones, he could double all the resources and keep the population or, even better, make the resources infinitie. At the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” he even decides to destroy everyone on Earth and make a whole new planet. If he can do that, why kill half the population? He really has no good reason besides wanting to be a villain rather than a savior.
So, there you have it. Thanos is wrong, and mass genocide is never the answer. Thanos’s plan may have had some pros, or at least parts of it that weren’t completely deranged, but he let his ego get the best of him and didn’t think the plan through. After the leaders of Titan refused to take his suggestion into account and Titan was destroyed, Thanos needed to prove to everyone that his plan would work. He might have been very wrong, but his plan gave us the greatest movie in cinematic history (literally fight me), and I’m thankful for that this Thanksgiving.
Photo:
Russo Brothers. “Still from ‘Avengers: Infinity War.’” Marvel, 2019, www.marvel.com/characters/thanos.