Loves. Tears Streaming Down His Face, Thanos Throws His 'Daughter' Gamora Over the Cliff and Gets the 'Soul' Stone
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
loves. Tears streaming down his face, Thanos throws his ‘daughter’ Gamora over the cliff and gets the ‘soul’ stone. A team of superheroes fight Thanos to keep the ‘time’ stone away from him, and their plan to strip him of his power nearly works, however Gamora’s lover learns of her death, and deviates from the plan in his rage and desire to avenge her, and Thanos gets the ‘time’ stone. Now in possession of all but the last stone, the ‘mind’ stone, Thanos goes to Earth. The superhero Vision was created by both Tony Stark’s artificial intelligence ‘JARVIS’ and the ‘mind’ stone, which sits on his head. It’s part of what makes him who he is, and keeps him alive. Vision offers to sacrifice himself so that they can destroy the ‘mind’ stone, and prevent Thanos from achieving his goal. Captain America insists that ‘trading lives’ is wrong, and takes Vision to the country of Wakanda, where scientists begin working on separating him from the stone without killing him. The heroes battle Thanos’ forces, but they ultimately are unable to stop him. Thanos kills Vision and gets the sixth stone, and the film ends as he snaps his fingers, erasing half of all life in the universe. Infinity War is relevant to this study not only for the decisions made by superhero characters, but also by the villain, Thanos, who believes that the solution to universe- wide overpopulation is to kill half its inhabitants. A multitude of other popular science fiction films have explored the concept of world-ending ‘overpopulation’, also known as Malthusianism, including Inferno (2016), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Snowpiercer (2013), and Soylent Green (1973), along with many others (Rao, 2018; Shermer, 2016). While this concept makes for good sci-fi plots, ‘overpopulation’ the way 19 .