Avengers: Infinity War brought us the biggest MCU villain, and probably one of the best villains in the entire industry. Thanos was a villain with a lot of depth. Phase 3 brought us some great villains who were developed really well us the plot of the films went forward. Hela and Vulture were pretty good, and Killmonger is surely among the top 3 MCU villains. But no other villain comes closer to beating Thanos.
A villain who is able to change your perspective fully, or at least up to a certain degree is considered to be great. This is why Killmonger and Thanos were so relatable. The audience actually agreed with the agendas that they had. Obviously not the extreme eradication parts, but their motivations. Some people actually considered Thanos to be right.
Thanos wasn’t the big bad guy who kills for sport. He is one of the most intelligent brains of the entire Universe, Avengers: Infinity War was a Thanos movie, and he actually was the hero of his own story. Reddit user Office_Zombie has come up with his explanation upon why Thanos is actually not a bad guy at heart. He proves that by explaining how he spared Captain America’s life in the film and not kill him when he had the changce. Here’ what the Redditor wrote:
“So Thanos doesn’t consider himself a bad guy. In his mind he is the hero of this story and everyone else is misguided. I say misguided because even though he sees himself as the good guy; it doesn’t mean he actually thinks everyone trying to stop him is a bad guy.
And because he is the good guy in his mind he doesn’t kill for any sort of pleasure, mostly only out of a misguided sense of duty. I think the only reason he killed Loki and Heimdall himself is because he saw they could seriously screw with his plans if allowed to live. Otherwise, much like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, he leaves death up to a certain amount of chance instead of being his choice.
Finally, before I get to Captain America, I would like to point out that he sees admirable traits in others which he truly respects. He said he liked Starlord. He knew of and respected Tony. Which brings us to Cap.
When he was fighting in Wakanda, he himself only “killed” Vision. Everyone else he merely disabled.
How was Captain America able to catch his hand and hold it? Because Thanos was trying not to hurt him. He only looked at Captain for a minute like that because he found something interesting in Captain America; and maybe he was a bit surprised by how strong or determined Steve was. Rather like how an adult person can get surprised while playing with a kitten.
Why did he need to use his other hand to knock Captain out? He didn’t. He just didn’t want to hurt Steve more than necessary, and he didn’t want Steve to hurt himself trying to fight him. (Because we all know Steve would have fought until he was dead.)
If Steve died in the Snap, so be it. But he wasn’t going to chose to end Steve’s life because that wasn’t his purview.”
Well, it is also obvious that Thanos felt all the heroes to be tiny and petty since he had 5 of the Infinity Stones. He didn’t really need to kill off anyone else. But Thanos does have a code and we saw after his battle against Iron Man. Doctor Strange bargained Tony’s life for the Time Stone, and Thanos could have killed Tony after getting the Time Stone, but he left him alive.
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So, we will be seeing the entry of Thanos one last time in Avengers: Endgame, and this time he may actually team up with the Avengers to take on an even bigger threat temporarily. Avengers: Endgame hits the theatres on April 26.
