Avengers Endgame: How History Defines The Avengers – Wisecrack Edition

this video is brought to you by Wix hey wisecrack jared here and today we're talking about a film that's almost as lucrative as that blue furry remake of Dances with Wolves avengers endgame it's the culmination of 21 films made over the course of more than a decade by dozens of different writers and directors and considering how so many similarly large projects have crashed and burned we might have expected a similar fate for the MCU but two point whatever billion at the box office certainly suggests that there's something about endgame that resonates with audiences and while it didn't go the way we were predicting after infinity war we a wisecrack found it to be a pretty satisfying conclusion and not just because it culminates with a battle so epic that it makes pelinore fields look like a small skirmish how was endgame able to provide a fulfilling conclusion to so many narratives to answer that we're gonna be diving deep into each member of Marvel's Trinity Thor Captain America and Iron Man three heroes who have a variety of differences in powers personalities and philosophies but one of their main differences is the way that they're arcs are structured not only do each of the big three embody different methods writers used to dramatize character growth but they also align pretty closely with some of the different ways philosophers have thought about the arc of human history and it's our contention that by building off these traditions that are so central to our understanding of human history the Marvel movies are able to build up to conclusions that strike us as fitting and emotionally resonant welcome to this wisecrack edition on Avengers endgame and in case you were dusted out of existence for the past 10 years and were just snapped back spoilers ahead for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe but before we get into it I want to give a shout out to our sponsors over at wigs in our recent video on automation we asked you to send us your wicks websites and wow I was honestly taken aback at some of the submissions we got you guys make some awesome stuff today I want to feature the work of Angela Angela's Wix site showcases her amazing talent as an animator and a media artist I particularly liked her figure drawing model animation what do you want to create a blog to share your thoughts with the world or make a creative portfolio like Angela Wix offers so many ways to create a professional looking website that will really let your work even if you've never built a website before Wix gives you the tools to create something really unique you can start from scratch or draw from there thousands of beautiful templates to create something that perfectly fits your vision keep sending us your work and we'll continue to feature our favorites so create your website today by going to wix.com slash wisecrack and send it to us when you're done plus it's free so why not and now back to the show let's start with the god of thunder Thor's arced throughout the film's is cyclical he undergoes a constant process of being on top of the world only to be brought back down learning and relearning the same lessons the first Thor film begins with him about to be crowned king of Asgard but right before his coronation Thor's pride and combativeness and invading Jotunheim result in him being cast out of Asgard and unworthy of wielding his hammer probably the worst day of his 1,500 year long life while he's exiled on earth he learns the lesson Odin wanted to not be so bellicose and vainglorious as a result he becomes worthy once again ending right where he started as the Prince of Asgard the dark world starts with Thor riding high as he restores peace in the nine realms but within a day he's brought back low as his girlfriend is infected with space sludge kidnapped by an evil elf and both his mother and brother die his lot here has fallen ever lower than when he was exiled but by the end he's saving all nine realms yet again of all the films it fits most messily into the paradigm but there's a reason it's widely considered one of the worst Marvel movies Thor Ragnarok starts off with Thor on top saving Asgard from Ragnarok by defeating the fire giant Serdar but again within a day he's brought back to his lowest point ever when his father dies his hammer breaks and he sold into slavery on Sekar that word through the ordeal he learns the lesson that Asgard is not a place but a people as a result his arc in the film ends right where it started with him saving the people of Asgard from Ragnarok even as the place itself gets a death star he's also finally crowned king but the grand cycle in which all these smaller cycles fit isn't over as King Thor he's briefly on top but infinity war begins with Panos handing him his ass and killing half his he's briefly back up when he acquires Stormbreaker and the power to off grimace but quickly back down again when killing him comes too late he undergoes a self-imposed exile to his mancave becoming a slovenly mess and getting pwned at fortnight this time the lesson he learns is to accept himself for who he is instead of who he's supposed to be while Asgardian law and his own ambitions always told him he was supposed to be king his conversation with his mother reminds him that he is at heart a hero and a warrior so it's appropriate that after he helps the fellow Avengers defeat Thanos that he abdicates the throne to go off with his friends on awesome adventures all over the universe ending right back on top there's some forward progression overall Thor goes from coveting kingship to no longer desiring it but for the most part that process of growth is circuitous door expresses this himself in Ragnarok yeah becoming predictable I trust you you betrayed me round and round in circles we go see Loki life is about it's about growth it's about change in addition to his own personal arc cycling back on itself time and again the same pattern repeats itself across Asgardian history Thor does not merely succeed his father on the throne he recapitulates his father's most noteworthy act losing an eye in exchange for wisdom Thor in the films and the comics is based off the pagan deity from Norse mythology as such it's particularly fitting that this cyclical storytelling structure should be employed for the character many ancient philosophies and religions such as the Stoics Hindus mu Maya and Aztec all conceived of history at the grandest scale as cyclical from the fragments of Norse mythology that have been passed down to us through works like Snorri Sturluson Rosetta and poetic edda the Norse are believed to have thought about history in a similar way in the Eddas the original man and woman asked and M blah first emerged from the wood of ash and elm our current cycle of history concludes with Ragnarok and afterwards the cycle starts anew with the only two survivors Leif and Leif thro seer likewise Ricard vogner captured this cyclic ality of Norse and Teutonic mythology in his Ring cycle which begins with the Rheingold being stolen from the Rhine maidens and after much term resulting in Ragnarok ends with the gold being reclaimed by the Rhine right where it started neil gaiman in his recent retelling of norse mythology makes this even more explicit when these six gods that survived Ragnarok find a chess set depicting the gods of old in the field where Asgard once stood they begin to play a game and as they move the pieces the drama unfolds exactly as before just as the whole cosmological cycle in Norse mythology is always circling back to where it started so too is Thor's character arc Captain America on the other hand basically has no character arc the world may change around him but he doesn't change with it famed screenwriting guru Robert McKee criticizes such characters in his book story when inner life and outer appearance are like a block of cement of one substance the role becomes a list of repetitious predictable behaviors it's not as if such a character is incredible shallow non-dimensional people exist but they're boring the kind of character he's describing sounds like someone audiences wouldn't want to watch especially a hero who stays the same for seven movies but Captain America is clearly an exception to that rule there's an initial physical change upon taking the Super Soldier Serum at the start of the first film but after that the all-american that people see on the outside is exactly who he is on the inside and neither changes gosh sake watch your language that's not going away anytime soon even Captain America going up against the American and global governments and Winter Soldier in civil war don't reveal any new facets of the character that we didn't already know before he ride it out he explained to dr. Abraham Erskine when they first meet that his patriotism isn't jingoistic and that he just wants to stand up to bullies I don't want to kill anyone I don't like bullies project insight was secretly surveilling American civilians and executing them without due process the sokovia accords barred good Samaritans from helping those in need and reserve the right to send the Avengers on missions they might find unconscionable making them more mercenaries than heroes both insight and the Accords sounded like the work of bullies to Rogers so he fought that inner strength is a trait which persists through all the films beginning before his transformation as he stands up to multiple thugs bigger than himself and continues on always getting up and standing alone in the face of overwhelming odds if I see a situation pointed South this is played straight as a callback in civil war when iron man beats him down only for Rogers to repeat his quip from the first film it's lampooned an ending game when cap confronts a past version of himself who knocks him on his butt with the doppelganger also announcing I can do this all day to which the future Rodgers replies yeah I know even Steve is self-aware the fact that his unchanging nature makes him predictable but the trope is treated with seriousness again when Captain America after being beat down by Thanos and having his shield shattered still gets to his feet ready to take on him and an entire army single-handedly and as predictable as it was it was anything but boring even his cheery optimism is inexhaustible as shown an endgame when he's able to see the bright side of life after Thanos is snapping half of all life may be dead but at least there are whales in the Hudson again and in the same scene he astutely observes his own lack of character development to Black Widow when he says other people change but we don't like his inner character Steve Rogers personal philosophy is equally unbending this is best summarized by agent Sharon Carter in civil war Sharon quotes verbatim caps most famous speech from the comics even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right even if the whole world is telling you to move it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree look them in the eye and say no you have this unwavering commitment to his moral duties is shown again an infinity war where he refuses to sacrifice vision to stop Thanos despite the compelling moral calculus of sacrificing a single life to save trillions we don't trade lives vision Captain America's unchanging nature is even more extreme in the comics in mark Miller's Ultimates Steve Rogers goes straight old man yelling at cloud about all the ways in which life has changed since the 1940s from the higher price of clothes and coffee to the way women dress he spends his days going to the same decrepit gym that's been in his neighborhood since his boyhood piecing together his old record collection and spending time with other World War two vets well into their 90's it might seem like the films portray a Steve Rogers that's seemingly more adaptable to change things I so bad foods a lot better we used to boil everything no polios good internet so helpful but in many important ways the times don't change any more than Captain America himself he was fighting Hydra in 1945 and still fighting them in 2014 rather than a cyclical version of history Captain America presents a belief that certain things are eternal enduring regardless of how much time passes or what new circumstances come about he shares this view of history with the author of Ecclesiastes who wrote what has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done and there is nothing new Under the Sun among the things which both Steve and Solomon would both agree are immutable throughout the ages are there's only one god man and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that there's a fixed moral law which doesn't change just because the stakes are high and human nature doesn't change whether it's 1945 or 2019 or 10th century BCE and because people are always the same so are the problems they caused Thanos was just a more successful Hitler who was just a more successful Pharaoh all of whom are more successful than Loki but the same unchanging human nature is also responsible for the courage that caused people to defend the plains of Wakanda and storm the beaches at Normandy the last time I was in Germany and saw a man standing above everybody else we ended up disagreeing heroes like cap art nothing do there a steadfast response to a world that continues to face the same perennial problems despite being a man out of time Captain America is relevant in every era we see this clearest in the comics in Hickman's Avengers run the time stone sends Captain America to the very end of time their iron lad tells him the perspective you're talking about it's based on the moralities of a society of individuals and not a collective one remember I lived in your now and that thinking just has no place in the future to which camp replied well it's too bad I've never really gotten over the past like Steve Rogers Tony Stark is a man out of time but there's a reason they so often find themselves on opposite sides the contrast between Captain America and Iron Man is best explained by Reed Richards you are a good man you do good things Tony however it is not as simple as us he's a future man trapped in the now a prisoner raging against the slow crawl of evolution his relationships his morality his ethics all of these are highly adaptable malleable to what he would call the greater good of mankind's necessary survival and undeniable progress Tony Stark's character arc is all about progress at the beginning of the first Iron Man he's completely self-centered unconcerned by his nickname Anderson and dad or the accusations of war profiteering but upon seeing to harm his weapons have caused in the hands of terrorists stark changes his mind and decides Stark Industries will no longer design weapons by the beginning of Iron Man 2 he is no longer personally selfish but his political philosophy Randian objectivism is still explicitly founded on selfishness Rand believed maximizing one's own self-interest is the only rational way to live in idea that was foundational in her defense of lazy fair capitalism this philosophy is on full display in Tony's testimony before Congress you want my property you can't have it but I did you a big favor I have successfully privatized world peace in Avengers he progresses from selfish to fully self sacrificial initially criticizing caps willingness to die in the line of dooty the only thing you really fight for is yourself you're not the guy to make the sacrifice play to lay down on a wire or let the other guy crawl over you I think I would just cut the wire always a way out you know you may not be a threat but you better stop pretending to be a hero but by the end of the battle he shows a willingness to self-sacrifice when he flies the nuke through the wormhole and while he didn't end up losing his life the brush with death did leave him psychologically scarred with the third Iron Man film showing him suffering from severe PTSD as a result it's still a progression of his character and that he's changed by trauma even if it's not progress in terms of improvement whether his character progression in civil war is an improvement or just raw change depends on your political leanings in his support for the sokovia accords iron man has abandoned his libertarian leanings in favor of increased government intervention for the sake of a safer and more secure society this progression is fairly gradual initially he supports the accords in part because as a futurist he sees them as inevitable when I realized what my weapons were capable of in the wrong hands I shut it down stop manufacturing you chose to do that if we sign this we surrender our right to choose what if this panel sends us somewhere we don't think we should go what if there's somewhere we need to go and they don't let us we may not be perfect but the safest hands are still our own if we don't do this now it's gonna be done to us later that's the fact by endgame both his personal and political progression reach their conclusions finding him at the opposite side of the spectrum from where he started politically he's completely abandoned any libertarian leanings he once had blaming cap for the snapping because Steve wasn't willing to violate freedoms and liberties in order to quote make a suit of armor around the whole world personally he fully goes through with making the ultimate sacrifice not merely of his life but in doing so Widow in pepper and leaving Morgan fatherless in the process just as the snap cost anos everything it did the same for Stark Stark's character philosophy and tech all progressed fairly linearly the understanding of history as a linear progression from a more primitive passed into a technologically and socially superior future is common among a number of prominent philosophers Hegel saw history as advancing inexorably toward the German state call marks conceived of history similarly albeit as a progression toward communism for Francis Fukuyama history had been on a linear path of progress but history ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the emergence of liberal democracy worldwide which even he admits did not turn out quite like he conceived as a futurist Tony too sees history as a linear and inexorable progression though he conceives of the end in a far different manner than Hegel or marks or Fukuyama he saw the Accords as an inevitable part of that process but only because of what the world would be up against at the end a hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space we're staying at 300 feet below it we're the Avengers we can bust arms dealers all the live long day but that up there that's that's the end game a more optimistic view comes from Marvel heroes such as rear itch ERDs who calls Tony Stark to future man at the end of history what everyone else is slowly but surely advancing towards if that's the case it's entirely appropriate that his character arc in the MCU should be marked by straightforward linear advancement perhaps the one view of history that all three heroes conform to is Thomas Carlyle's great man theory who wrote in on heroes hero worship and the heroic in history the history of the world is but the biography of great men certainly the history of the Marvel Universe from 1942 through 2023 is basically a biography of the various members of the Avengers and none more so than Tony Thor and cap each had done more to either accelerate the course of history or change its path altogether than anyone else of their age this same sentiment is echoed in the comics by Captain America as he exhorts his fellow Illuminati reshape the world it does not shape us as we've seen this is particularly true of changeless Steve Rogers but even Tony as he walks the path of progress and Thor as he turns up and down the wheel of fortune both shaped the world far more significantly than it does them but we don't love these characters simply because they're the Napoleon's and Caesars of their world seemingly single handedly charting the course of history no we love them in part because there's an appropriate is between the core concept of each character and how their arcs play out and in the moments when Marvel chooses to break from that clearly established pattern it's always a deliberate exception and to great effect such as iron man's final quip as he snaps circling back to the end of the first film I am Iron Man or Steve Rogers finally accepting that he'd done his duty as a soldier and finally progressing forward with a life of his own but what do you think wisecracker did Marvel marry their heroes core characteristics and story structure in a smart and satisfying way or did all the arcs and as unsatisfying Lee as a certain show about dragons and I some bees thanks to all our patrons who support the channel and our podcast be sure to hit that subscribe button and before you go I want to give another shout out to Wix bee destination if you want to build a website as we mentioned before we received some awesome website submissions since our automation video it's actually a really cool feeling to see how enormous Lea talented our viewers are you can do so much with Wix from blog to business they have all the features to make a stunning and unique site get started for free by going to Wix calm slash wisecrack and send it to the email linked below for a chance to be featured in a future video and as always thank you so much for watching peace [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Wisecrack

Views: 1,267,633

Rating: 4.8969617 out of 5

Keywords: Avengers, Endgame, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers Infinity War, Thanos, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Black Widow, Ant Man, Nebula, Russo Brothers, Robert Downey Junior, Paul Rudd, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johanson, Karen Gillan, Dunai Gurira, Brie Larson, Nick Fury, MCU timeline, Young Avengers, Marvel, Marvel Studios, MCU, action, movie, podcast, Wisecasts, Film analysis, philosophy, Show Me the Meaning, Wisecrack Edition, Wisecrack

Id: 8H_9ZwJg2_M

Length: 21min 19sec (1279 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/racas]

In Summary:

Tony’s arc is progressive: /

Cap’s arc is static: —

Thor’s arc is cyclical: O

Wonder what you get if you put all those together ?