Thor: Love and Thunder

[kerravonsen]

Yes, a post which is not about ice cream! I feel like rambling on about "Thor: Love and Thunder" as I finally saw it recently. But being me, I'm likely to wander off into worldbuilding thoughts as well as more direct topics.

(And there are spoilers in the following.)

Things I liked:

• Korg's happy fairy-tale narration.
• Jane Foster being BAMF.
  • Mjolnir being creative with its fragmentation.
  • Darcy being a good friend to Jane.
• Valkyrie being both competent and BAMF.
• "Maybe your arm is in Valhalla."
• Thor is really good at inspirational speeches. I guess the charisma hasn't fallen far from the tree.
  • He isn't good at plans, but he is good at speeches.
  • Thor did have a good point when he was trying to persuade Gorr not to wish for the death of all gods: what Gorr really wanted was his daughter back.
• Eternity was very pretty. And I loved that shot where the reflection of the daughter-brought-to-life was momentarily Eternity.

Things that were annoying:

• Thor is really rather an idiot much of the time.
  • Case in point, his terrible relationships with his sentient weapons.
  • His stupid lack of planning
    • And how he's terribly sorry AFTER causing huge amounts of collateral damage in pursuit of Bad Guys. Over and over and over again.
    • When will he ever learn?
• Thor "giving" Peter Quill's ship to Peter Quill. Is Thor delusional? Is that meant to be funny? Whut?
• So Stormbreaker can create its own Bifrost? Since when?
  • And apparently so can Mjolnir but somehow nobody is worried about Gorr using it to open a portal to Eternity?

I know that Thor, Peter Quill and Scott Lang are supposed to be gormless idiots and that that is supposed to be endearing, but I just find it annoying.

Things that made me cross:

• THEY KILLED OFF JANE!
  • I don't care that she got to Valhalla.
  • The way that magic is very handwavy means that Mjolnir could equally have cured Jane, TPTB just arbitrarily decided to kill her off.
• The depiction of all gods apart from Thor(*) being evil, sycophants or cowards, or all three.

(*) And Frigga, but Frigga is dead.

Rambling...

Okay, the gods thing... mind you, Marvel is not consistent about how they portray "the gods". (Yes, yes, no big surprise there, since when are Marvel consistent? But I am still allowed to point it out.)

We have a few different takes:

• Asgardians, who were introduced to us as aliens whom the Norse thought were gods. They aren't immortal, just very long-lived; they can be killed, and they can die of old age.
  • Though apparently in this movie they're supposed to be gods after all.
  • Though it isn't clear to me whether they're all supposed to be gods or just special ones like Thor.
• The Egyptian gods (in Moon Knight) who have withdrawn from the world and have Avatars.
  • I don't think I would actually call these guys cowardly; at least they do pay attention to the world, they just do it at one remove.
• Bast, who is apparently both in the Moon Knight group and is also separately worshipped by Wakandans
  • But it's unclear whether she actually pays attention to Wakanda.
• All the other pantheistic gods (let's call them the TLT (Thor Love and Thunder) gods) who are worshipped by particular groups of people.
  • It is implied that the only way to kill these gods is with a weapon such as the Necrosword; Zeus was speared through-and-through with his own weapon but turned out not to have died of it.
  • These gods may or may not live in the world; that's not entirely clear
  • These gods don't give a fig for any mortal who isn't one of their worshippers, and may not give a fig for their worshippers either.
  • Two groups:
    • The gods in Omnipotence City, who sit around having orgies.
    • The other gods who aren't in Omnipotence City for whatever reason, some of whom were killed by Gorr.

Several things here:

• I may be wrong, but I don't think pantheistic gods such as the Greco-Roman pantheon have ever promised their followers an "eternal reward". Did they even have an afterlife? Dunno.
  • Generally speaking, their worshippers pray and sacrifice to them in relation to their earthly mortal life, to either please them or appease them in the here-and-now.
    • Yes, appease them. Not all the pantheistic gods were supposed to be nice. You were supposed to be terrified of them. For example, the Furies.
• Mind you, both the Norse worldview and the Egyptian worldview do have an afterlife, but their gods don't promise their followers an eternal reward either. Judgement, and then their own versions of heaven and hell depending on how the judgement came out.
• Note that the Wakandan worldview also has an afterlife.
• The utter cruelty of Gorr's god Rapu, who thinks the only thing that gives a worshipper's life meaning is to be murdered by their god.
  • I'm afraid that that, combined with the "eternal reward" theme, makes me think that this is an attack on the Abrahamic God -- seeing as I can't think of any other god in any mythology who promises their followers an eternal reward -- and therefore they are saying that the Abrahamic God is malicious, cruel, and evil.
    • This makes me very very angry.
    • Yes, yes, it is only implied, but I think the message is pretty clear.
    • So angry.
  • Alternatively, the writers were just idiots.
• It is theoretically possible that there are TLT gods in the Marvelverse who do care about their worshippers... we just weren't given examples of any loving gods. At all.

Of course many things are not spelled out, because in a movie there isn't time to go into details. Which means one has to deduce and infer and tease out tiny little details and then weigh how significant they actually are. But then, that's what fans do.

Comments

[tptigger]

Would you like to know the comics thing regarding Jane that I sincerely hope they're planning to adapt?

[kerravonsen]

Actually, no. I think it would be even more frustrating to get my hopes up and then have them disappointed. They have no obligation to follow the comics if they don't want to. But thanks for the offer.

[vera_j]

I have not seen it yet - so I tried not to read this. Tried...
You are GOOD!

[kerravonsen]

But I put in spoiler-cuts...

[vera_j]

Heee. I do know...