Current Events > Thanos didn't really think his plan through (Avengers/face off spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why didn't he just wish for more resources?

And even If half of people die, the remaining half will just make more.

The population of Earth went from 1.5 billion to 6 in the 20th century

And travelling is easier now than back then

It reminds me of that scene in Face Off where John Travolta meets up with Nicholas Cage in prison and tells him his entire plan

I mean if he didn't do that and just did the plan, he would have won easily.

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All he really had to do was snap away all the Avengers first then snap away half the universe.

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Why Thanos doesn't just double all resources
Because it's about free will. Doubling resources, said McFeely, "doesn't solve the problem. We're just going to get there millions of years from now. This is an opportunity for people to get it right."
Instead, strikingly, Thanos trusts the universe to figure it out once everything is perfectly balanced.

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"I can't make more resources and just hope people figure it out . So instead I'll kill half of people and hope they figure it out."

erm

ok

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Choco posted...

Instead, strikingly, Thanos trusts the universe to figure it out once everything is perfectly balanced.

Which is fundamentally stupid.

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Yeah, the mistake people make is that they assume Thanos is thinking rationally. Certainly Thanos conducts himself calmly and insists on how rational and correct his conclusion is, but that doesn't mean you aren't wrong and/or crazy.
But the reason he just doesn't wish for more resources is pretty simple. First and foremost, Thanos sees trauma as essential to his plan: the shared trauma of half the galaxy dying suddenly en masse will force people to reflect and put aside their differences and behave better. This also plays into another fallacy: Thanos sees "The Snap" as something the galaxy deserves. The galaxy has not been rational, the galaxy has been full of war and suffering and its peoples have grossly mismanaged their resources. They have to be punished for their excesses, they must be taught a lesson, or they will never learn.
That last bit is why past-Thanos becomes so angry at the Avengers and swears to change his wish: the Avengers have foolishly and rudely rejected the great gift bestowed upon them by his alternate self. You see, Thanos actually expects that, once the dust has settled, the galaxy will be thankful. People will think about it and realize how wise and right Thanos was and give him the credit he is due for ushering in an era of unprecedented peace and carefully managed prosperity.

Keep in mind Thanos doesn't really...think like that. He's a very "glass is half-empty" kind of guy. He probably thinks it would take less power and effort to just kill a bunch of people than create a bunch of new resources.

Yes, the reasoning behind the snap is stupid from an actual logistics perspective, but consider the fact that Thanos was convinced of this because he saw short term results, and as the Mad Titan, went insane with power.

The second snap was going to be even more insane, essentially doing a hard reset on the entire universe so that he wouldn't be the only one who thought the way he did, or just keep life simple so he can rule unchallenged.

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In general Thanos was going to be a very challenging villain to write, especially given the original motive for the snap in the comics.

This I feel was a good enough revision so that people could understand it why he's doing it, but know that he's still clearly the big baddie, and the Avengers are the clear good-goodies of the story.

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Marvel should have stayed with Thanos's motivation in the comics for wiping out half of the universe's life: to get Death to notice him.
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Malcrasternus posted...

In general Thanos was going to be a very challenging villain to write, especially given the original motive for the snap in the comics.

wasnt he trying to impress a girl?

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1.) Stop being an insufferable
2.) He started his plan before the infinity gems doing it one planet at a time
3.) Stop being an insufferable
4.) Telling people to figure it out or you have a 50% chance of dying is more motivation then figure it out or I'll just solve all your problems
5.) Stop being an insufferable

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also, keep in mind that his plan had already worked on a smaller scale.

Gamora's world did supposedly prosper after Thanos half'd them the old fashioned way, and iirc, it's implied to not be the only one.

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Basic knowledge of population growth mechanics would have told Thanos that his effort would have been completely invalidated in like 60 years' time.

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Maze_ posted...

wasnt he trying to impress a girl?

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Death_(Earth-616)

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SevenTenths posted...

Hey you. Stop being insufferable.

also the snap doesnt make any damn sense since, realistically speaking, the vast majority of people would have no damn idea who Thanos was or why everyone suddenly turned into the Sandman from Spider-Man 3.

Not to mention, even if Thanos became a household name, the power vacuum hed create in all these governments would probably fuck them worse than they were gonna fuck themselves with over-consumption. the first thing that would happen would be power grabs by terrorist groups who dont give a fuck about Thanos.

and even THEN, the dumass broke the stones so what? If everyone in the galaxy doesnt figure it out Thanos, what are you gonna do about it? You just threw away your leverage.

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Maze_ posted...

wasnt he trying to impress a girl?

Yes.

That girl happened to be the a cosmic entity that was the embodientment of death.

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ElatedVenusaur posted...

Yeah, the mistake people make is that they assume Thanos is thinking rationally. Certainly Thanos conducts himself calmly and insists on how rational and correct his conclusion is, but that doesn't mean you aren't wrong and/or crazy.
But the reason he just doesn't wish for more resources is pretty simple. First and foremost, Thanos sees trauma as essential to his plan: the shared trauma of half the galaxy dying suddenly en masse will force people to reflect and put aside their differences and behave better. This also plays into another fallacy: Thanos sees "The Snap" as something the galaxy deserves. The galaxy has not been rational, the galaxy has been full of war and suffering and its peoples have grossly mismanaged their resources. They have to be punished for their excesses, they must be taught a lesson, or they will never learn.
That last bit is why past-Thanos becomes so angry at the Avengers and swears to change his wish: the Avengers have foolishly and rudely rejected the great gift bestowed upon them by his alternate self. You see, Thanos actually expects that, once the dust has settled, the galaxy will be thankful. People will think about it and realize how wise and right Thanos was and give him the credit he is due for ushering in an era of unprecedented peace and carefully managed prosperity.

All of this is correct.

Thanos isn't that deep.

Villains who think themselves the heroes and want to "save the world" are all the rage nowadays, so they all kinda seem the same. It was new back in 2000 when the villains just wanted to be evil and owned it. Now, not so much.
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Maze_ posted...

wasnt he trying to impress a girl?

Yeah, but it was a cruel twist when he got the stones she wouldnt speak to him because he was too powerful at that point.

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let's not gloss over the fact that thanos learned something by the end and he was willing to kill everybody and start all over from scratch..

edit: nvm... late to the party xd

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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

Yeah, but it was a cruel twist when he got the stones she wouldnt speak to him because he was too powerful at that point.

lol

She's such a troll

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Because snapping away half the life in the universe to please death sounded silly

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He could have just created another earth

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apocalyptic_4 posted...

Because snapping away half the life in the universe to please death sounded silly

the movies about big green angry guys and flamboyant space Vikings was already silly tbh

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He doesn't actually want to save the universe, he wants to be its god, and have everyone love him. His way of doing so is by mass genociding entire planets and insisting the people feel grateful for it.

He's the same delusional monster as Loki or Ultron, they were just man enough to admit they were selfish tyrants.

If you paid attention to the massive deforestation and other awful shit humans are doing, you'd realize he's got a point. Earth WILL wind up like Titan if we keep going the way we are going.

The real awful part about Thanos' plan is that it wipes out half of ALL life instead of just destructive races like humans. If he only dusted humans, all other species on Earth would flourish.

Endangered species like Siberian tigers which have very few options for mating and scarce prey would be completely devastated with Thanos' plan. But if he just dusted half of humanity, chances are the fuckers that poach them would get dusted or see a lack of demand for tiger parts. Their population would rebound.

Thanos used a hatchet when he needs a scalpel.

And in case you didn't actually pay attention to the movies..... Thanos is a really bad guy. Just look at how he treated Nebula all her life after he fucking kidnapped her to raise her as his assassin. Or how mercilessly he strangled Loki then dropped his corpse in front of Thor out of pure malice. Or the times even after tossing Gamora off a cliff when he's now Somber Thanos that he still gets pissed enough to try to go for kills. (When he chokeslammed Spider-Man shouting "Insect!" The meteor shower that undoubtedly would have killed anyone other than Iron Man if it hit them. Stabbing Iron Man.)

If the novel is to be treated as canon to the MCU, then there is indeed a level of spite to the whole thing. In the book there's a scene where he returns to Titan and A'lars left a message saying "You were right. But you can take these samples to revive our race." Then Thanos just destroys the samples.
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Endgame posted...

Thanos is a really bad guy

What a revelation!

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Thanos isn't called the Rational Sane Titan.

He's insane, he's not a rational thinker

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First, I'm still not sure the MCU stones were capable of doubling the universe's resources. It's not the gauntlet from the comics. In the movie any time Thanos changes reality, those changes revert back to normal when he leaves.

Second, I'm guessing that doubling the mass in the universe would have catastrophic consequences.

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apocalyptic_4 posted...

Because snapping away half the life in the universe to please death sounded silly

Her motives were rooted in the same overpopulation argument, even citing the old disproven chestnut of there are more being alive today than have ever died as part of it.

OT, It's been said already, Thanos doesn't believe that is a beneficial solution. I don't know what backstory they'd have given him for the movies, but I like to think Titan was going through things much like what were' going through now: everyone warring for stuff thinking they deserve it and the other does not with no desire for compromise. I can't even say for certain if he put forth his "kill half the planet" concept out seriously, or as a Solomon like "cut the baby in half" moment to shock people into rationality instead of going to further war, but either way, we saw how it worked out.

As such he snapped (I regret nothing), thinking the whole of the universe needed his solution, and even if generating more resources from nothing was possible with these gems, the universe didn't deserve it. It would be like giving more toys to fighting children that couldn't learn to share what they had simply thinking that enough toys would eventually sate them instead of reinforcing the idea that fighting with others gets them what they want.

Instead her felt the universe needed punishment to learn its lesson. A proven track record with the cullings he had already down cemented the idea he was right about everything in his mind, and he had accolytes to spread the word to everyone about what had happened and why once he was done and ready to life the simple life.

A well thought out plan? No. A temporary one? not in his mind while the alternative of creation would certainly be short term. Look online. People aren't happy and calm even if their needs are met if they feel someone else has more than them unfairly. We'd be right back to warring almost immediately, and he'd have to take a lifetime role of trying to fix everyone's little issues.

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Murphiroth posted...

Thanos isn't called the Rational Sane Titan.

lol

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My interpretation was that Thanos wasn't really trying to save the universe. He was trying to prove to a bunch of dead people on Titan that he was right.

Medussa posted...

also, keep in mind that his plan had already worked on a smaller scale.

Gamora's world did supposedly prosper after Thanos half'd them the old fashioned way, and iirc, it's implied to not be the only one.

FWIW, the prison scan of Gamora in GotG1 says she's the last of her species.

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I always looked at it like this: Taking half almost killed him. Creating more of everything definetly would have (and may have failed). Destruction is easy, Creation is hard.

But it's mostly because he's not actually the most wise being to live; he just thinks he is.

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Damn dude named the Mad Titan doesn't make rational decisions
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