Infinity War: Why Thanos is a Perfectly Written Villain

[Music] if someone were to ask me to recite Obadiah Stane z' plan of motivation from the original Iron Man film I would find it pretty difficult and they'll down exactly what his reasons were for being the antagonist of the story if I weren't a fan of the original source material I probably have a really difficult time even remembering his name same goes for a Malekith the dark elf from Thor 2 we're owning the accuser from the first guardians of the galaxy Justin Hammer from Iron Man to Alex Pierce from the Winter Soldier and a slew of other Marvel films now please don't take what I'm getting at here as a knock against Marvel specifically the problem with expendable villains extends to pretty much every story in the modern age that uses malevolent force as plot device it's become a bit of a meme that Marvel has terrible villains well let me ask you this do you remember the villains name from the James Bond film Quantum of Solace do you members motivation do you remember why he was the evil character whether it's a big-budget franchise like taken or The Fast and the Furious or the DCE you modern films in my view have fallen short of giving us villains that truly represent an unstoppable yet understandable force for the protagonist to overcome with a few exceptions however these examples both the good and the bad posed the question what makes a superb Dillon to answer this I think it's worthwhile to look at the general structure of a heroic tale there's a hero willingly or unwillingly tasked with being a force for good against the villain who wants to accomplish a malevolent goal even though this description is rather simple when you look at pretty much every single story involving a hero when you strip away all the other extraneous plot details the plot can pretty much be distilled down to this exact sentence this is why people refer to these types of films as formulaic or predictable because the obvious attempts of the hero necessitate the flow of the plot it's a given that the hero has to try and stop the villain if the here isn't try to stop the villain then well the world would have probably ended numerous times by now so the originality of these types of films then relies on the rest of the equation the villain again the malevolent goal almost always consists of the death of some people whether it's releasing a deadly virus hijacking nuclear codes bombing a city and pretty much every other tire disaster movie trope so there really isn't much originality in this front either where the originality lies then is the motivation behind the villains malevolence what pushes the villain towards carrying out this insane act and why does he feel justified in doing so too often movies go over-the-top and what a villains plan is and not why the villains plan is the way it is if a film doesn't explore the why behind the villains evil deed then they're just evil for the sake of being evil and without understanding the governing principles behind the villains motivation the audience will just see them as an empty and vapid plot contrivance what all this amounts to in my view is that a super villain cannot just be an evil force to be squashed they need to represent much more in the overall context of the story they need to be a force that can only be stopped by the might of the heroes in the story they need to be relatable they need to be sympathetic and while we may not have to agree with the motivations behind their dastardly plot we have to understand them and perhaps most importantly the best villains become the hero of the story when the events of the tale are looked at from the villains perspective now as big as a Marvel fan as I am I know that villains have not typically been their strong suit as of late however in their recent blockbuster infinity war Marvel seems to have taken the criticisms of their villains to hark and have truly delivered us a perfect villain in the form of Thanos so this is a pretty bold claim and you're probably thinking why the hell is this pretentious [ __ ] making such a massive claim well stick with me until the end of this video and I hope I can convince you that my claim is not an overstatement vanos has received a lot of praise in the recent months since the premiere of infinity war and it goes without saying that he is the best part of this movie Thanos doesn't just serve as an evil force in the story he is the main character aside from Josh Brolin's brilliant performance and some incredible CGI Thanos is a triumph of both screenwriting and cinematic execution and in my mind there are five reasons that earned him the title of the perfectly written done number one fan OHS is different from a source material this might seem counterintuitive and I know better than most that changing of villains origins or motivations almost always ends up disastrous but I think the cinematic manifestation of the mad Titan is far superior in terms of character development in relation to his comical counterpart and this is coming from a guy who's been a fanboy the comics for years but first what is thinnest like in the original comics from his first appearance in the comics Fanus earned his place in memorials characters as one of the most powerful and sadistic forces ever conceived in the universe born a genetically superior yet to form descendant of Saturn's moon Titan Thanos gifted with the power of an ancient race called the deviance became ostracized from his own people and developed a personal mantra of nihilistic destruction he was obsessed with causing death on a massive scale and his power clouded his vision of right and wrong later in the comics Fano stumbled upon marvel's personification of death appearing to him as a beautiful hooded woman he fell in love with her only fueling his obsession with causing death on a massive scale even more and sought a way to truly prove his devotion to her in the original Infinity Gauntlet storyline Thanos equipted the six infinity gems realized the only way to truly please death was to eliminate half to life in the universe which death saw as out of balance he does this by killing half of all life with the now iconic snaps fingers and here is with the manifestations of both the original Thanos and the cinematic fan are juxtaposed they both of a common goal of committing genocide to bring balance to universe that VC is volatile but their motivations for eliminating half of all sentient life diverge while the comic book Thanos aims to carry out his plan to satisfy his great love death Thanos and infinity war has a different guiding principle he's obsessed with causing death yes on a massive scale but not because he wants to attain some kind of sick pleasure out of it he does it because he truly believes that what he does will restore balance and order to the cosmos simple calculus this universe is finite its resources finite his life is left unchecked life who ceased to exist as a massive fan the source material I can't tell you how refreshing it is to have two manifestations of the character and both be completely valid unbelievable it goes to show that an adaptation of a character doesn't always have to be met with anxiety from fans in fact in some ways it can be even better which leads to my next point number two thanassis plan makes sense this is one of the most striking aspects about Thanos and the majority of people who saw the film seem to agree with me in summary Thanos seeks to unite all the Infinity stones into the Infinity Gauntlet ostensibly making him the master of the universe with this power he will be able to accomplish a singular goal when we first hear his plan for the murmurings of different characters in the beginning of the film he comes across as just another expendable baddie that deserves to get his ass kicked by the Avengers but through brilliant uses a flashbacks and logical exposition we realize that Fanus is not just bringing ruin for the sake of ruin in his mind--the anos is the harbinger of destruction because he does not want to see the universe destroyed further he seeks the save it's a simple calculus this universe is finite its resources finite his life is left unchecked life who ceased to exist as horrible of a method of natural resource conservation as this is Thanos does have a point agree or not he makes a compelling case for unchecked life in the universe being paradoxical to its nature but even still Fano still appears as an unjustified madman until we discover the underlying trauma that has blinded his judgment Titan was like most planets twenty miles to go around and when we faced extinction I offered a solution genocide they called me a madman and what I predicted came to Minos once we seen here the story of Thanos is home of Titan being destroyed due to overpopulation the audience can't help but follow his logic that couple with fan oaths saving gamora's homeworld by exterminating half of its populace serves as a maniacal proof of concept for his actions hungry scrounging for scraps your planet was on the brink of collapse I'm the one who stopped that you know what's happened since then the children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies it's paradise in his mind Fanus believes if this.method can save one world why can't it save every world and when you really think about it he may even save species from extinction if his plan work area doubt on a universal scale now obviously skeptics can look at his plan and say he has supreme power why can't he just double all the resources in the universe and not murder everyone well that leads into the reason 3 number 3 Thanos is flawed this sort of goes without saying but all villains are flawed they have deep-seated defects that come to fruition as evil and terrifying character traits if villains were perfectly rational people their malevolent efforts would probably be dissuaded with a simple conversation but in my view the best villains are written as understandable beings that are slaves to their imperfections despite me heaping praise and the big purple baddie for the logic of his plan Thanos is no different even though Thanos may truly see himself as an altruist and a pragmatist for his plan part of Thanos his aspiration stems in part from his own ego even before he assembles the gauntlet Thanos does believe himself to be an elemental force that is unstoppable mainly he views himself as a god [Music] and even further he believes that the universe will be instantaneously grateful for the mass extermination he wants to commit and the parallels between the Bible and Thanos are pretty undeniable with all six domes I could simply snap my fingers they would all cease to exist I call that mercy and then what I finally rest and watch the Sun Rise on a grateful universe but here's what the kicker is vanos believes that he's correct and you don't doubt that for a second in the film if you were to walk in Thanos his shoes I'm sure that you would see him as the hero of his own story a tortured warrior that seeks vindication from the past trauma of seeing his homeworld destroyed and my eyes Thanos doesn't truly embody the archetype of the supervillain bent on universal destruction and dominance which can be seen in characters like Brainiac loki Darkseid and Emperor Palpatine to me Thanos most closely identifies with a misguided religious extremists while he bears the character flaw of an unchecked ego and a literal god complex Thanos lives by an ideal that he truly believes in he's willing to destroy the fabric of reality to bring about his vision even if it means the death of countless innocent souls including ones he holds dear which leads into my next point yes but it it cost number four Thanos suffers a huge issue with expendable villains doesn't just stem from the fact that they are empty and vapid characters typically villains that are expendable do not sacrifice in pursuit of their goal if a villain is not willing to endure personal sacrifice then their evil plan no matter how horrifying lacks emotional weight a villain that has an evil plot can be menacing don't get me wrong and that's been shown by amazing villains like the Joker in the Dark Knight the sort of villain creates an unrelenting hatred from the audience and in this way we strive for them to be defeated by the hero but in order for the audience to not just hate the villain but to be somewhat sympathetic towards them the villain has to be ready to sacrifice in pursuit of their goal even if the sacrifice is everything they hold dear if I were to plot my emotional reactions towards Thanos throughout infinity war the two extremes would be hate and sympathy with understanding lying smack-dab in the middle of the two from the opening moments of the film when Thanos arrogantly proclaims his destiny man handles the whole stabs Heimdall and snaps Loki's neck there is very little you can feel for the character aside from fear and hatred as the phone progresses pivotal moments like the flashback on to Thanos adoption of Gamora and their subsequent conversation about the dangers of an unchecked universe lead some more understanding of a psyche Thanos is so convinced that he is correct that he is ready to give anything and everything to assemble the Infinity stones to carry out his plot he remarks this repeatedly throughout the film he's done the only one with the will to act on it I take it to Mars dead yesterday extracts the heavy toll and obviously this is explicitly shown in the emotional climax of the film in a beautiful scene where Thanos sacrifices his own daughter Gamora the only thing he has ever loved in exchange for the soul stone stone demands a sacrifice in order to take the stone you must lose that which you love I ignored my destiny once again even for you Mama's sorry in this way the closest thing we can feel the sympathy for a murderous tyrant comes to fruition after seeing what he's willing to give up for his perceived destiny after seeing that this monster is capable of losing what he loves it's hard to cast aside those emotions that you feel simply because Venice is evil in the latter parts of the film he even just respect for his adversaries which shows the intricacies of his character [Music] Venice is a madman and without question deserves to be stopped by the Avengers but he's a madman that warrants some level of sympathy even in a microscopic amount I was floored about how Josh Brolin's brilliant performance some mind-blowing CGI and above all a meticulously an emotionally written story could make a thirteen foot tall giant emotionally grounded complex vanos is willingness to do anything for his goal even the death of everything he's ever loved affirms his place in my view as a perfectly written character which makes the conclusion of the film so peculiar and so brilliant [Music] you should have gone for the head it's rare that a villain ever succeeds it's rare when the hero's efforts fall short in comparison to the power of the villain and it's even rarer that when that villain wins it instills a strange sense of calm the ending of the film is what cements Thanos as a transcendent villain and not just the superhero genre but in all of cinema throughout the entire film the audience has gone through a turbulent spread of emotions towards Thanos we've hated them slowly grown to understand them perhaps even sympathise with them and the film circles around those repeatedly and when he finally snaps his fingers and decimates half of all life in the universe there's no nuclear bomb to claim the lives of the innocent the deed is done and there's nothing the heroes can do to stop it well at least in the remaining four minutes of runtime while our beloved heroes are paralyzed with fear and confusion upon seeing their friends vanish from the universe our attention or at least mine wasn't focused on them it remained where it was for the entirety of the film on Thanos as the film came to a close seeing Thanos look upon the picturesque sunrise on a distant planet as he foretold earlier to Doctor Strange was an oddly unsettling experience for one the obvious realization surfaces that Thanos has to die for what he's done and yet we remember the respect that he showed to those who fought valiantly against him we remember that he sacrificed his own disciples to carry out his goal and they're perfectly willing to do so we remember that he has lost his daughter the only thing he's ever loved and we remember that he's finally been vindicated for the loss of his homeworld by carrying out his plan his destiny all the some more is put into the minds of the viewer with a subtle gesture of a smile [Music] hey everybody thank you for watching this video I hope I prove to you that Bannos is a perfectly written villain and if you agree please like share and subscribe if you didn't still share it and we can get into debates in the comments section so I wanted to give a thank you to my sponsor for this video so if you've been with you from the beginning my channel is obviously in its infant stages but you may have noticed that in the beginning of this video I showed a different logo from what I've had previously and that's because of my good friend Michael Penda so Michael Penda runs independent graphic design firm called Michael pen designs he does some cutting edge work with making logos and icons and graphics and any other kind of images you may need for a business or hobby or what-have-you so if a graphic or logo for your business or hobby is something you're interested in please go to his Instagram page at peanut-free panda subscribe and students and DMS and showing some love he does fantastic work at a really competitive price so please check them out and I will see you all next time this is Johnny the lone chemist signing off [Music]

Channel: The Lone Chemist

Views: 1,825,996

Keywords: thanos, infinity war, marvel, iron man, tony stark, stark, superhero, DC, comics, comic, comic book, video, essay, video essay, avengers, infinity stone, gauntlet, gamora, perfect, villain, perfect villain, best villain, best villain of all time, josh brolin, motion capture, DCEU, zack snyder, russo brothers, darth vader, star wars, lex luthor, infinity stones, kevin feige, endgame

Id: ROT6D1z5Bt0

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 14 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

And you get a subscription. Great job dude!

[u/taenerysdargaryen]

Great video. Thanos is my favorite villain, the one who never succeeds due to the fact he somehow never actually believes he will succeed.

[u/sgoel1]

This was really well done. Everything flowed really nicely and had my attention the entire time. Good work!!

[u/ApocalypticMelody]

Wonderful video!