Why Avengers: Endgame and the MCU were a saga of failure

after Avengers: war in the infinite, everyone had an idea of ​​how the Avengers could have stopped Thanos. Why did not Dr. Strange use Time Stone? Why does Thor not aim his head? According to the YouTube channel How It should have ended, there are at least five obvious ways for the Avengers to defeat Thanos and prevent the breakdown.

Except that they have always been doomed to failure. Dr. Strange's plan depended on failure. Failure has been key to every moment of growth across Avengers: End of the game, from Tony Stark, who did not know who actually used Stark Industries' weapons, to Nick Fury who failed to reunite the Avengers in time to prevent Phil Coulson's death. Failure is a theme of the MCU. This is how the concept brought us to End of Game.

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Dr. Strange accepts death

Strange doctor has problems – the public has pleaded the whitening of the already complicated character of "Ancient One" and the trope of "white savior" – but the original story film has prepared us for the defeat of War of Infinity and redemption End of Game by suggesting that failure is a universal lesson.

Stephen Strange is very similar to Tony Stark in terms of pride and selfishness, but there is one essential difference: as The Ancient One said, Strange has excelled in life and in his career, fearing 'failure. As a doctor, he can take any case he wants, but he is satisfied with only the prestigious medical cases for which he knows he will succeed. He wants to heal people, but on his own terms and without possibility of failure.

Meanwhile, The Ancient One has its own problems of time and failure. She has lived for many centuries trying to change the future by preventing disasters and avoiding death. Unlike Kaecillius, his former student murderer, The Ancient One seeks eternal life, using dark means to achieve it, even if for good reason. She will not accept any failure, be it in the form of her death or a destructive Earth event. She uses the powers of the stone of time and the dark dimension to avoid them. Still, she is fully aware of her future, as Hulk realizes when he asks her questions about Dr. Strange and that she recognizes the name, even if they have years too early.

During the emotional climax of the film, The Ancient One realizes that there is no death that escapes and leaves Strange with one last lesson. "The arrogance and fear always prevent you from learning the simplest and most important lesson of all," she tells Strange. "It's not about you." Just as the old has learned to accept her destiny, she tells Strange to forget her ego, embracing failure and her ability to be a teacher. Facing the evil Dormammu, Strange sacrifices himself, dying again and again dozens of times in order to thwart Dormammu and defeat him. This would ultimately lead to Dr. Strange's plan for War of infinity.

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Ragnarok humiliates a hero

Among the original Avengers, Thor may have the most difficult start. Still a bit like a Tony Stark, the movies hit him on the wrists with his toys – mainly Mjolnir, his hammer. L & # 39; original Thor was well received, but still received a good deal of public criticism and criticism. then The dark world went out and all faith in the god of thunder was lost. Chris Hemsworth himself told Vanity Fair that he felt responsible for the character's failure, claiming that the character "was becoming predictable or overly serious, important and serious. Nothing unexpected. »Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok changed that.

Ragnarok is known to offer Hemsworth a comic advantage, but it goes even further, completely humiliating Thor in a way that we do not really see in superhero movies. The same Vanity Fair article states that it was actually Hemsworth's idea to shred our idea of ​​Thor by shredding his golden curls and destroying his hammer. After jumping Civil war To go into the universe to prevent Ragnarok, Thor ends up having to allow Asgard, the place that he swore to protect, to be destroyed by a giant lava creature that was destroyed. he had easily defeated earlier in the film, while forcing his people to become refugees from space.

Although he wins a brother, after finally being reconciled with Loki, Thor also loses an eye, as well as the ideal picture that he had of his father, Odin, who was He turns out to be a tyrannical colonizer who terrorized millions of people. Adding insult to injury, he learns that Jane Foster threw him off screen for an unknown reason. Although he brings out the relatively optimistic, funny and dignified character we knew deep inside us, Ragnarok Thor changes forever, opening the way for Lebowski Thor End of Game.

Thor: Ragnarok also continues the story of Hulk's Age of Ultron, with Hulk having crushed the Quinjet at Sakaar and become a gladiator champion. We see how Hulk completely took Banner back into the movie, using this time to develop his vocabulary to form more complex sentences. Yet, with superior intelligence for the green monster, higher emotional intelligence also comes, as Hulk reveals to Thor that he does not want to return to Earth because he hates him. In Sakaar, Hulk is the champion of the people. His muscles are a reason to encourage people to scream instead of screaming in terror. For once, Hulk is happy, although this is done at the expense of a greater separation than we have seen so far, which places them both on the path to defeat Thanos.

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Infinity War is the ultimate failure

If Thor and Hulk had not suffered enough Ragnarok, the opening scene of War of Infinity the boat of Thanos decimating the Asgardian population going towards the Earth. Loki, the last remaining member of his family, dies at the hands of Mad Titan.

It devastates Thor, who, he reminds Rocket and Groot, is 1500 years old. A poignant first scene, perhaps the strongest emotionally before shooting, shows a vulnerable side of Thor that we did not know existed. He had lost a lot in his previous films, but it was only when he met Thanos that Thor clearly expressed how miserable he felt, how scary he was, and how human the god of thunder was. This series of defeats then motivates our hero, placing him on the path of creating a new weapon capable of killing Thanos, avenging his people and replacing his hammer.

The only goal of Thor War of Infinity is to deliver the fatal blow to Mad Titan. When the time comes, Thor fails, injuring Thanos, but finally does nothing to stop him from snapping his fingers and decimating half of the universe. The last drop for Odinson, it breaks it and sends him on the road to self-hatred, regret and depression. Quill was more directly responsible for Thanos' success than anyone else, but he still considers himself the strongest Avenger who could not finally do his job.

Similarly, when Bruce Banner tries to attack Thanos, knowing that he is actually the most powerful avenger (as confirmed by the Quinjet security system), the gamma creature loses terribly against Thanos – and he panics. Remember, Hulk just left a planet that treated him like a celebrity and where he was the undefeated champion. He therefore probably saw Thanos as another puny titan that he could easily beat. And as we saw in End of GameThanos is always a formidable opponent, even without the stones. It is therefore perfectly understandable that Hulk is traumatized by his defeat, too scared to come back fight and lose again.

The path of failure leads to Stephen Strange. After considering all the possible results for the fight against Thanos and realized that success was almost impossible, Strange seems to be making the stupid choice of not even attempting to use the time stone to fight Thanos. Promising that it was the only way, he just goes ahead and gives the stone to Mad Titan, almost throwing away the towel and condemning half of the universe. As Antiquity taught him, to succeed, sometimes you have to fail.

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The second chances of the end of the game

What happens to someone who can not save the world? This is the question at the center of Avengers: End of the gameFilled not with sorrow, but with regret and anger, Thor begins his bow End of Game with one goal in mind: to cut the head of Thanos. Yet when he cuts Mad Titan's arm and head, he discovers how meaningless this goal was. He did not change anything. The stones are gone, his friends are still dead and he has failed again.

After the terrible loss and personal failure that Thor went through, he retired to "New Asgard" and spent the next five years absorbing pain and playing video games. His mind is broken, his plan is nonexistent and the old God is now a skin of his former being devastated by PTSD. His beard and hair are long and tattered, his bathrobe is dirty and his abs replaced by a huge belly of beer that makes him vibrate throughout the film.

Thor becomes the target of too many jokes, but he does not seem to care about that, he is crushed under the weight of what was expected of him and his inability to achieve what he was supposed to do. It's the lowest point we've ever seen a superhero, especially one who started so high and so powerful that his father sent him to New Mexico to learn how to become a person better. This is also the first time that the MCU has approached depression in such a nuanced way since the underestimated Iron Man 3.

Thor learns the same lesson that led Stephen Strange to give up the stone of time five years ago: he can not completely escape failure, because to fail is to be human. Frigga tells his son that he can never be what he is supposed to be, but that the best he can do is succeed in being what he is. It is at this moment that Thor calls Mjolnir and realizes that he is always worthy and free from his own expectations. From there, he opens the way to the self-acceptance that strengthens him, but does not correct his physical appearance as if by magic. Thor has his new look and the emotional scars that brought him here.

Hulk also goes through his lowest moment, though he unfortunately passes it off the screen. We can say that the only one out of War of Infinity better than it was before, Bruce Banner finally stopped trying to get rid of Hulk, but to accept it instead. This is a huge step forward for the man who has already tried to shoot himself before the other spits the ball. He discovered how to find balance and managed to associate the power of Hulk with Bruce's mind in the same body.

Hulk is a character defined by duality, a fear of himself. It is only when Banner and Hulk come up against a huge defeat that they finally realize that they can stop fighting and expect what is expected from them and that they are what they are. We can only hope that there is a deleted scene of 30 minutes where Bruce discovers that science will merge with Hulk …

On the return trip from Hulk to New York in 2012, when The Ancient One returns to the screen, we will finally understand Dr. Strange's plan. Just as he lost against Dormammu to defeat him, Strange realized that to defeat Thanos, the Avengers had to be extremely vulnerable and that they had to suffer their worst defeat.

Strange gives the stone of time to Thanos so that he can realize his plan to decimate half of the universe, knowing that he would probably have destroyed the stones so that the cliché is not canceled. Strange was relying on that to break the spirits of the spirits so that they would be desperate enough to follow Ant-Man's ridiculous plan. Whether or not Strange knows the rules of time travel and the branches of the timeline is unclear, but he knew he had to wait to see everything unfold. The key to the success of this plan was The Ancient One, which, we see, reacts in shock when it is said that Strange gave the stone of his own free will, breaking his oath of protection.

"He's supposed to be the best of us," says The Ancient One, and it's true. It is only when she realizes that Strange is allowing everyone to fail that she understands that everything has to be part of a more ambitious plan.

The plan works. If Strange had not given the stone of time, Tony Stark would probably be dead in War of InfinityThanos would probably still have managed to kill Strange and take the stone. The difference would be that without Tony, the Avengers could never count on their journey back in time, nor that Tony could sacrifice himself to save Thanos' Land. It is good that they failed, they managed to succeed and keep the promise they made so many years ago: "If we can not protect the Earth, you can be sure of to avenge him.

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Rafael Motamayor is an independent TV and film critic and journalist based in Norway. You can find more of his work right here, or follow him on Twitter @RafaelMotamayor.