Film Theory: Is Thanos Worthy of Thor's Hammer? (Avengers Endgame)

spoiler warning for avengers and game give up thanos you're finished we're tired of your memes they're as good as dead i mean they're on facebook now fine if this universe can no longer appreciate thanos car memes and i'll start a brand new one that will no were you expecting something to happen i uh i was kind of hoping i was worthy of mjolnir and i could just kind of summon it hold on i'm getting a text stop calling me i will not help you fight i thought i made that clear last thursday awkward [Music] hello internet welcome to film theory we're not america's ass but we are the ass of youtube so there's no denying that avengers end game was full of a lot of instantly iconic scenes tony's snapped ant-man taco sequence fat thor but in a movie full of awesome moments none not one was as thrilling as watching captain america using mjolnir to fight thanos just paint the scene since we don't fully have access to the footage yet thor is attacking thanos with stormbreaker when the tables suddenly turn thanos is pressing the axe closer and closer into chris hemsworth's chiseled bod or i guess beer bellied bod in this movie when out of nowhere thanos is knocked away by the hammer pull back to see mr america's ass wielding asgard's mightiest weapon and all the lightning powers that come with it ah it is so good even though we can't show it since the home version isn't released yet just talking about it with our little animations here is still getting me hyped for this scene but after getting me hyped it then got me curious who else could wield mjolnir mjolnir is after all a weapon that judges a person's worthiness so who else in this enormous cast of characters could make the cut should hawkeye be trading in his bow could black widow have finally found herself a decent weapon other than gun or maybe just maybe thanos could have wielded the hammer for himself by looking at steve and thor's actions across these movies and when they can or can't lift the hammer we can start piecing together where mjolnir's threshold of worthiness lies and from there judge whether anyone else would pass the test the best place to start when it comes to defining worthiness is of course the original thor from 2011. when the movie begins odin is bragging to thor and loki about how he heroically defeated the frost giants and then pulls the greatest jerk move of all when he reprimands thor for wanting to do the same thing a wise king never seeks out war but he must always be ready for it a wise king also apparently hides his warmongering past behind centuries of propaganda but don't worry that won't become important for another two movies at least flash forward a few thousand years from that opening scene and thor is about to be crowned king of asgard thor makes three vows during the ceremony he swears to guard the nine realms to preserve the peace and finally to cast aside all selfish ambitions for the good of the realm so that already starts to outline the criteria that we might end up working with during the coronation frost giants attack thor throws himself a hissy fit that his coronation was interrupted and swears vengeance on the frost giants you are a vain cruel boy you are an old man and a fool thereby breaking his oath to defend the nine realms odin doesn't take it all that well realize what you've done what you've started i was protecting my heart [Music] it's pretty obvious why thor would be deemed unworthy here and he spends most of the rest of the movie deep powered back on earth it's only after thor recognizes that violence isn't always the answer and he chooses to willingly sacrifice his life for earth's safety that mjolnir suddenly deems thor worthy once again the hammer flies to thor in his dying moments and he's back into fighting shape which is kind of an odd message but okay it tells us two major things here in the eyes of odin sorry in the eye of odin worthiness requires you to only use violence as a last resort and it also requires you to be willing to sacrifice your life for a greater good the story of captain america actually supports these two qualifications as well no one can doubt that steve's intentions are pure throughout his movies he's fighting in world war ii to stop a force of evil and ultimately protect the people and by the end of the first avenger he too has made the ultimate sacrifice he gives up his life to protect others this is why even as far back as age of ultron steve was deemed worthy by mjolnir look back on the hammer lifting scene from that movie it is one of the best moments in the entirety of this franchise not only is it hilarious but it's also a pure distillation of each of these various characters tony is trying to outsmart mjolnir with technology hawkeye is just kind of lost in this world of magic and superheroes banner plays off everything as a joke the entire time the hammer refuses to budge but when steve tries to pick it up we see it move ever so slightly but it does move back then i think most of us wrote that scene off as captain america almost being worthy to lift the hammer but not quite being all the way there however looking back on the scene now that endgame has happened the truth is clear captain america could lift the hammer the entire time he just played it off like he couldn't in order to not stand out above the others as director anthony russo himself confirms quote in our heads he was able to wield it he didn't know that until that moment in ultron when he tried to pick it up but cap's sense of character and humility and out of deference to thor's ego cap in that moment realizing he can move the hammer decides not to end quote that's why an end game thor calls out thor like us suspected that something else was going on but couldn't be 100 sure until it actually happened and in hindsight it actually puts an even more interesting twist on this moment from the first avenger you don't give up do you you could have the power of the gods choosing not to pursue the power of the tesseract in that first movie is a big reason why steve is actually able to access the power of the gods by the time ultron and end game roll around and this is back in the first movie god i'm just really blown away by little details like this it's really impressive anyway the moral here is that power is granted to those who don't seek it out cap being worthy all the way back in ultron may also explain another key moment in the franchise remember what odin says whoever holds this hammer if he be worthy shall possess the power so really cap from the moment he touches the hammer is working with the power of thor so maybe that's how a normal human like steve rogers would be able to hold back thanos's fully stoned gauntlet at the end of infinity war it's just a thought and yes i know that the co-writer of that movie christopher marcus said it was because thanos was dumbfounded at the brazenness of steve thinking he could hold back a titan but that's kind of dumb it was totally the power of odin that is my personal canon now anyway this all brings us to the main question of the day who else could pass mjolnir's test by the end of endgame surprisingly it's more than you might think let's start off with the obvious one tony the tony stark who appears in endgame is a far cry from the tony stark who failed to lift the hammer back in age of ultron at the time he was arrogant and selfish but his overconfidence is something that he largely loses in the wake of ultron's destruction of sokovia just like thor's time on earth taught him humility sokovia taught tony that others were suffering because of his actions and that he needed to be more responsible but even at the end of that movie he still wasn't worthy because he was selfish it wouldn't be until infinity war that tony would actually overcome that other barrier him hopping aboard thanos's ship was him giving up what he loved pepper potts for the good of earth he didn't anticipate coming home from that trip yeah he backslides a little bit at the beginning of end game but by the time of the snap he's back very solidly into the worthy column sacrificing a perfect life with his family for the greater good which honestly makes his sacrifice that much more unfortunate since as we saw at the end of thor the power of mjolnir can actually bring those on the brink of death back to life so instead of that prolonged tearful goodbye with peter and pepper they should have just given him the hammer and revived him but they didn't and now he's dead moving on natasha romanov aka black widow when she's first given the chance to try lifting mjolnir during the ultron scene she declines it by claiming that's not a question i need answered well maybe not you natasha but we all do now admittedly natasha has a spotty past of assassination and murder i got read in my lecture but when you actually look at her behavior throughout the mcu she's done nothing but selfless acts her entire life in an attempt to atone for her mistakes and even those past mistakes weren't really her fault to begin with she was kind of forced into them multiple times as she herself says in endgame i used to have nothing and then i got this this job this family i was better because of it her commitment to self-sacrifice for a greater good is ingrained in her character in winter soldier she exposes alexander pierce's evil schemes knowing that in the process she'll also be exposing her own crimes which will then force her back into hiding she then signs the sokovia accords because she believes that the heroes do need to be more accountable but then she goes on to help captain america in his own personal quest to find justice which causes her to again have to adopt status as a fugitive so basically in civil war she's giving herself the worst of both worlds all in pursuit of helping others even on her normal missions she's willing to lay down her life five years ago i was escorting a nuclear engineer out of iran but the winter soldier was there i was covering my engineer so he shot him straight through me as for the other half of worthiness black widow doesn't actively choose to fight and even warns those who are more worthy than herself against entering battle you know what's about to happen do you really want to punch your way out of this one and like i alluded to earlier she is a weapon that was created by other people she didn't choose this life this life chose her and she's trying to make the best of it and all of this of course climaxes in her moment of ultimate sacrifice for the soul stone in end game so would black widow be worthy of holding mjolnir yes a hundred percent yes she has more than redeemed herself and would absolutely be seen as worthy in the eyes of hammer she was probably worthy as far back as age of ultron the brilliant part here though is that she's not worthy based on her own standards the choice to have her not lift the hammer in ultron showed that external signs of worthiness don't matter to her it's more about how she feels about her own character which is again sad since had she tried to pick up the hammer and been successful she would have seen that she's not as irredeemable as she thought i had this dream that kind of seems normal at the time but when you wake what is true but i was an avenger that i was anything more than the assassin they made me and that again is what makes these movies so awesome strong emotional theming adding yet another level of insult to injury is the fact that if she hadn't sacrificed herself for the soul stone her plus mjolnir would have been a lot more useful in that final battle against thanos than hawkeye i mean hawkeye just runs with the gauntlet and then hands it off to the evil nebula good job there buddy and because of your murder spree is ronin at the beginning of the movie there is no chance that clint is passing muster meanwhile black widow plus a godlike hammer add her to that girl power shot my friends speaking of girl power what about another strong female from the series during an interview with buzzfeed brazil a few months back brie larson made the claim that captain marvel was definitely worthy of mjolnir do you think captain marvel is able to lift taurus hammer definitely are you sure about that one bree i think you might be getting strength confused with worth sure at the end of captain marvel she's doing her best to roam the cosmos protecting the helpless but captain marvel hasn't shown herself to be self-sacrificing she arrogantly believes that everyone including thanos himself is no match for her because before you didn't have me if she doesn't see there being a threat in the first place then it's not much of a sacrifice for her to enter the battle is it and that's actually kind of my problem with this character so far there are no stakes in a fight that she has no concern about winning but that's not all she also tends to resort to violence very quickly clearly she holds a personal grudge against the cree at the end of captain marvel outright challenging ronan the accuser during the final space battle her method of punch first ask questions later isn't going to be earning her any quality hammer time so no bree i have to disagree speaking of strength and sacrifice we can quickly eliminate the hulk as well losing to thanos didn't make hulk humble in the slightest if anything it made him more arrogant than ever before say green granted this isn't really disqualifying on its own but you know what is hulk's motto not really the phrase of someone who's going to be used in diplomacy first even when he snaps using the gauntlet and end game he still thinks that he's gonna be fine he specifically says it's like i was made for this indicating that his best guess is that he would survive not much of a sacrifice not much of a pacifist not so worthy in the eye of odin which brings us to the grand finale the third and final snapper perhaps the most interesting name to consider on this list thanos himself you may remember last year when i made the outrageous claim that thanos was right so is it possible that thanos is in fact worthy i mean sure he's treated as the villain of these movies but in principle his mission seems solid even if it is a bit misguided he's going around planet to planet wiping out half of all life to help those who remain he doesn't want what happened on his home planet to happen to anyone else's it is in his mind a noble mission and based on what we've seen about how the hammer works worthiness isn't about being right or wrong it's about intention how pure is your desire to help based on what we see you can make a strong case for him meeting our two criteria first self-sacrifice in pursuit of his noble mission thanos shows himself willing to make the hard sacrifices for what he perceives to be the greater good he sacrifices his greatest love his own daughter gamora off the cliff we see him gravely injured after using the infinity stones not just once but twice making him so weak that he's finished off without trouble at the beginning of endgame in a way he is repeatedly making the ultimate sacrifice of his own life as well as the lives of those he loves purely to achieve this goal of helping other people in the way that only he knows how to do one clip alone sums this up best did it cost everything as for avoiding violence as a first resort yeah you could argue that he does this too in endgame he sits around and waits until all the other heroes attack him he doesn't seek out the violence he lets it come to him on an even bigger scale though he just sits around on his floating space throne and waits for literally the entire series only choosing to step in to fight when it's clear that no one else is going to be able to help him accomplish his mission but perhaps the biggest point in his favor is that once he accomplishes his elimination of half of all life he stops from what we see on gamora's home planet and on earth thanos only pursues violence insofar as it's necessary for the task that he sets out to do could he have killed more people absolutely but he doesn't at least he doesn't until they continue to bring the fight back to him where did that bring you back to me it seems like even the movie's editors knew that this was the case considering that in promotional materials for infinity war thanos says fun isn't something one considers from balancing the universe but this does put a smile on my face which would seem to indicate that he does get some joy out of this process but the line was cut from the final release of the film for being a warring titan thanos is shockingly reserved and again this cannot be overstated enough when he gets control over all the infinity stones he has the power of the universe in his hand he still doesn't use the stones for his own personal gain he doesn't use them to kill needlessly he uses them once to help everyone and then he uses them again to destroy them so that no one can undo his actions that is it even the choice of him using the stone to accomplish his mission is a point in his favor look at how he describes it with all six stones i could simply snap my fingers they would all cease to exist and i call that mercy it's a clean way of killing it's not violent or painful like he says it is a merciful way to go he's clearly thought this through for the best interests of everyone all those who live as well as all those who are gonna die so is thanos actually worthy of wielding mjolnir while there's a great case to be made for thanos there is one final consideration he's helping people who aren't looking for help themselves sure his goals may be noble and yes he may only commit as much violence as he needs to in pursuit of that mission but he's also imposing his will on others without their consent they didn't ask for help and yet thanos comes storming into their planet to outright tell them what to do with extreme actions of violence is that the definition of worthy no no it's not this would be the deal breaker at least it would be the deal breaker for most people but remember we're not worried about most people we're worried about one person in this franchise in particular odin odin is the one who casts the charm on mjolnir and this whole time we've been asking what is worthy in the eye of odin it's easy to forget that odin himself like thanos was a conqueror odin subjugated the nine realms because he too thought that it was an act that served a greater good according to hella and thor ragnarok he slaughtered untold amounts of people to achieve this goal has no one been taught our history i was his weapon in the conquest that built asgard's empire one by one the realms became ours it was only after he finished his task that he decided to become a peaceful king thanos quest actually falls into the same territory be violent and be hated while you're taking over but retire and let those who remain be peaceful after it's all over as thanos himself says the hardest choices require the strongest wills something odin would be inclined to agree with so is thanos worthy of mjolnir i would have to say that in the marvel cinematic universe yes he is worthy in most people's definition of worthy i'd say no but based on the evidence that we see across all these movies as well as the morals of odin the man who made the enchantment in the first place thanos is within the bounds of worthiness he should be able to lift mjolnir maybe that's why he's able to stop stormbreaker in the final endgame scene maybe that's why it doesn't end in the way how it should've ended proposed with thor launching the hammer at him and just perma pinning him down it actually opens up a lot of really interesting avenues but now he's dead without realizing that he was worthy in the first place just like natasha and tony man if only people had stopped and asked themselves this question before they got into a climactic final battle hindsight is 20 20. which is useful in the marvel cinematic universe considering you have a time stone that turns things backwards in time so bring back thanos and black widow and tony and let them wield the power of thor it would be so cool a three-way battle royale with the hammer if you make that happen disney that is the thing that'll get me to subscribe to your new disney plus subscription service but hey that's just a theory a film theory and cuts [Music] you

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 7,789,582

Rating: 4.8434753 out of 5

Keywords: avengers endgame, marvel, marvel avengers endgame, endgame, avengers infinity war, infinity war, avengers endgame trailer, endgame final battle, endgame hammer scene, thanos hammer, thor hammer, thor's hammer, mjolnir, who is worthy, thor, endgame thor, black widow, the avengers, marvel theory, avengers theory, endgame theory, thanos, iron man, captain america, tony stark, film theory, film theorist, matpat, film theory marvel

Id: Lh14IyRjhJg

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 27 2019

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[u/Moonblaze13]

There's multiple misunderstandings of character in this one, most egregiously Thanos and Odin. But before I dig into those let me say that, while I'm willing to accept these as the criteria for worthiness for the sake of discussion, I don't actually think these are what the hammer deems as worthy. At the very least, it's not these two things exclusively, but the movies never make it clear what worth actually is to the hammer. So, objection noted, let's move forward with this as the premise.

​

So first of all, the line "This does put a smile on my face" might have been cut from the movie. What wasn't was Thanos telling Captain America how much he'd enjoy destroying Earth. So how much Thanos enjoys killing is still in the text itself. More importantly however, it's not about the greater good. It's about being right. His own planet died, and he blames it on overpopulation and says if they had used his plan his people would still live. We don't even know if that's true, we only have his word to go on. What we do know is that he believes it, and that he can talk about the greater good all he wants but his quest is actually about proving that he was right. This is why, in Matpat's words, he goes on to try and help people that aren't asking for help.

​

Which brings us to Odin. It certainly is easy to forget that he too was a conqueror. That's because he's ashamed of it and tries to cover it up. What happened wasn't his plan from the start, it was the result of a change of heart on Odin's part. That's why he tells Thor what was shown in the first section of this video, he was trying to teach his son to be different s he didn't repeat his mistakes. "A wise king doesn't seek war." It was Thor breaking this very concept that prompted Odin to place that enchantment on Mjolnir to begin with. So no, it certainly isn't part of how the hammer judges worthiness.

[u/emperor42]

There is no way Endgame Thanos is worthy, that fight is personal to him, to the point where he says it to the heroes' faces he will destroy everything and start a new because of their actions. IW Thanos is a bit more experienced but wouldn't be deemed worthy since Thanos thinks he's the only one who can save the universe making him arrogant, the main reason Thor becomes unworthy in the first place.

[u/Jdkeyes182]

It bothered me that MattPat dismissed Captain Marvel because she never really had a threat, but didn't address the fact that Vision was the second person in MCU canon to lift Mjolnir after Odin's enchantment. Viz was OP, and he knew confidently he could beat Ultron, yet he wielded the hammer with no problem.

If we look to the comics for inspiration (while yes, I understand technically they are not canon to the MCU), we see that Mjolnir has a degree of sentience and can choose who is worthy. I would argue that this is the case in the MCU as well. Black Widow's self-doubt would disqualify her, in the same way Steve's stopped him from fully wielding it until he went through such an incredible tragedy (The Snappening) that he knew for sure who he was and held no doubt in his purpose. This is why Spider-Man, a keystone of morality and responsibility in the comics, has never been able to wield the hammer. He is absolutely "worthy," but he doesn't believe he is. Steve couldn't wield it in AOU because he didn't believe he deserved to lift it.

[u/LockMangler]

That last bit just seems like stretching the facts to fit the headline. Clint's murder spree disqualified him, but us seeing Thanos leading planetary death squads for DECADES (probably more like centuries all told) doesn't? You can't have it both ways. If Thanos just needs to self-justify his much worse actions, then Clint could as well. And Clint outright fought Natasha trying to sacrifice himself for the greater good. Also Thanos didn't just "sit around" during the earlier movies, he dispatched murderers and armies to do his bidding.

Also, it's slightly creepy that he kinda just buys into Thanos philosophy in general, but that's beside the point.

[u/1SaBy]

By this logic maybe the older Thanos, the one from IW and the start of Endgame, is worthy, but the younger Thanos is definitely not. He "will enjoy it". Destroying the Earth that is. Because it's annoying.

[u/[deleted]]

Help! I’ve been looking for these for ages, and I just can’t seem to find it a please help me out. What is the song or track name in this DDLC video, at around 1:40 until 3:30ish? As well as the piece of music from 8:30 to 11:00ish?

If any help could be found, that would be amazing?

[u/Dormitorybasher]

If Thanos had the gauntlet he could just use the Reality Stone to remove the enchantment, boom theory over.

[u/LordJokester]

...except that Thanos wants to do the snap because he wants to "finally rest and watch the sun rise on a grateful universe"; he doesn't care about life in the universe in the slightest, all he wants from this is that everyone else sees that his point of view is correct. He wants to prove to himself and anyone else living that he was right about Titan, and that people should listen to him because he's intelligent and everyone else is not. He wants to be admired and revered for it. Not a very noble mission to me.

Besides, he isn't willing to include himself in the snap, so he's also not willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the universe. So there really is no "case to be made" for him.