Revenger Submission: “Infinity War: Who Really Screwed Over the Universe?“

By Brent Clark (@BrentacPrime)

[Warning: This post contains MASSIVE SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War.]

I’ve been thinking about Avengers: Infinity War a lot. As I write this, I’ve seen it three times. I’ve listened to a handful of podcast reviews and I’ve recorded two of my own; on my own show Fans Without Borders and with the guys over at Batman-On-Film. I still feel like I have things to say.

During the recording for Fans, I made a throw-away comment about Peter Quill/Star-Lord screwing over the universe in Infinity War. To set the scene you have to realize the team on Titan had actually managed to subdue Thanos, and rather impressively. They were clearly in control of the fight, and I was surprised at how well the Guardians and Avengers worked together. At one point Mantis and Nebula put it together that Thanos had killed Gamora, so that he could get the Soul Stone. This causes Peter to flip out, attack Thanos again, and breaks the hold that Mantis and the others had on him. To make it worse, Spider-Man had just about gotten the gauntlet when Thanos snapped out of it, and taking control of the fight. Clearly whatever advantage the heroes had, was gone.

And man, did I read that scene wrong. Or more accurately, I didn’t look at the larger picture. Like many people all over Facebook and Twitter I thought it was Star-Lord’s fault. How could he screw up so badly? How could he be so blind to the bigger picture? How could he put revenge for one life over the fate of half of ALL life?

I asked myself that a few times after listening back to when I said “Star-Lord screwed the universe.” How could Star-Lord screw up so badly?

Why aren’t we asking “How could Loki screw up so bad? How could Gamora screw up so bad? How could the Scarlet Witch and the Avengers screw up so bad?

Let’s look at how Thanos got the stones in Infinity War. Two of the Stones were acquired off screen. The power stone from Xandar and the Reality stone from the Collector on Knowwhere.

The first on screen acquisition, Thanos defeats Thor and the Hulk and threatens the life of Thor if Loki doesn’t give over the Tesseract/Space Stone. When Loki sees that Thanos absolutely was going to kill Thor, he hands over the stone to save his life. Loki, has seemingly redeemed himself trying to kill Thanos and saving the life of his brother.

The Soul Stone was found on the planet Vormir. Gamora had already said, and proven, that she was ready to die to keep Thanos from the soul stone. Or more accurately from learning of its location, which Gamora had discovered years ago. It wasn’t until she saw that Thanos was torturing, and threatening to kill, Nebula that she relented and took Thanos to Vormir. To save the life of her sister, Gamora gave up the information. Once on Vormir, to get the stone Thanos killed the only person he ever loved.

On Titan, after Star-Lord’s freak out on Thanos, to save the life of Iron Man, Dr. Strange offered the time stone to Thanos. It’s important to note that Dr. Strange had seen 14 million possible futures, and knew that only one path lead to victory. Which most (myself included) think means that Iron Man had to survive for that one winning outcome Strange saw. Of course it wouldn’t have come to that had Star-Lord not lost control.

On Earth, despite his willingness to sacrifice himself, Vision still has the mind stone. Scarlet Witch and the other Avengers refused to destroy the stone, even though Scarlet Witch was capable of doing exactly that. Of course, destroying the stone would destroy Vision as well which is why she refused. And as Steve Rogers says, “we don’t trade lives.” Ultimately when they decide to destroy the stone because they have run out of time, it’s too late and Thanos is able to take possession of it, completing the gauntlet. Had Scarlet Witch been willing to kill the man that she loved, Thanos would not have gotten the final stone.

So here is my new question for you. Why did I blame Star-Lord and no one else? Why is everyone blaming Star-Lord and no one else? Out of the six stones, four of them ultimately went to Thanos because the heroes didn’t want to “trade lives.” Now, I’m not arguing that they should have; They wouldn’t have been the heroes we’ve come to know over the previous 18 movies if they would have done that. But if we are going to conclude that Star-Lord is at fault, I feel we have to also conclude that Loki, Gamora, and Scarlet Witch are as equally at fault.

What do you think? Did Star-Lord screw over the universe in Infinity War? Or was that more of a team effort?

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