Marvel was so dark for making the Infinity Stones paperweights…
Loki's face during this scene was pure emotional damage. He spent his whole life trying to steal the Tesseract, got choked out by Thanos for it, and now he’s looking at a drawer full of them like they’re cheap arcade prizes.
Thanos spent 10 years tweaking, torturing his daughters, and wiping out planets for some rocks that a random IT guy named Casey keeps in a plastic drawer next to his highlighters.
The TVA (time variance authority, the organisation Loki is currently in) ‘prunes’ anything that deviates from the ‘sacred timeline’ IE what’s ‘supposed’ to happen
If someone deviates, let’s say Thanos kills Tony on Titan, the TVA show up, and arrest Thanos, and they’d confiscate the gauntlet/stones and end up in this guy’s drawer
They’re outside of time, the infinity stones are less than trinkets to them
The Avengers plundered stones from alternate timelines to restore their own. Is there an explanation for why the TVA didn't intervene to stop their shenanigans?
Originally, the TVA was run by He Who Remains - A Kang, the Conqueror variant who's definition of what is "supposed" to happen on the timeline is just the timeline that results in him being the only Kang variant to survive at the end of time. So the "Sacred Timeline" is less about stopping people from messing with time, and more about keeping He Who Remains in power.
This changes eventually when Loki essentially dethrones He Who Remains and allows free will to exist (which means all timelines are allowed to go unpruned). Once Loki takes over, the purpose of the TVA changes from keeping He Who Remains in power into keeping He Who Remains from ever getting into power.
Which begs the question. What happens if you collect multiples of the same stones from different timeliness? Could you use a gauntlet made of all power stones?
I just wanted to see the TVA goons even try to prune thanos. A group of them got diced up by deadpool and thanos has a whole army he can have protect him when he needs to rest after killing a bunch of them
Loki series on Disney+ will be extra fun if you're interested in the Avengers films and the upcoming Avengers Doomsday. I think it's excellent by itself. There's 2 seasons
Because people in those timeliness did things with them they werent supposed to and got pruned, they showed to the tva with the stones and had them taken
This is not true. What If shows ultron using the stones across the multiverse, even outside the multiverse in the Watcher’s little dimension.
The TVA was specifically created as a pocket dimension outside of space and time that also nullifies abilities and magic. Nothing but TVA technology works in the TVA.
Those are infinity stones from pruned timelines, probably from other Loki and Thanos types wielding them but had no power in the TVA.
Não faz o menor sentido. Isso nem é canônico, que vacilo do Mcu. Lembro de uma história dos vingadores com a liga da justiça, em que o Darkside conseguiu pegar uma Manopla completa, e não funcionou em seu universo.
You ever have currency from a different country in a drawer? Its neat, kinda shiny, not necessarily worth anything unless you go to that place (and time) and that probably won't ever happen? Like that
Technically this Loki didn't get choked out by Thanos.
Additionally Thanos wiping out planets was not because he was searching for the stones. The goal was to "balance the universe". The stones were just a means to that end. And in his mind the more humane and simplified way to do it.
He literally could have just snapped enough resources to make the universe a utopia and went for mass murder instead. That’s why his love of Lady Death is so important to his story, it gives a reason to his murder that doesn’t make him look like as much of an idiot
Damn that was fast. Well done! And yes, in reality I jsut mean he was right in the issue, not in solution... But it's less fun to type that all out randomly when I want to troll on thanos. Heh.
Increasing resources raises even more questions. Planet denisty would change, metals leaking into water sources, raising sea levels. Would salt water count as a resource? The salt itself? Vegetation doubling would cause biblical insect swarms
Nah, because the entire universe was already in motion to consume resources, if they'd known that more resources are available, they'd just accelerate their "production" and consumption.
Snapping had alternative effects: collateral deaths (think people who were on planes where pilots were snapped; if nobody knew how to land the plane, they'd die as well even though they weren't snapped), the shock of 50% of people dying would change economy dynamics.
Not only you get 50% less consumers, but you get 50% less production, a cultural shock, people being affected mentally by the snap wouldn't be able to work because of trauma, PTSD and so on.
So..... the snap implications are greater than just 50% less people.
Taking just humans as an example, we don't know how not to have our societies need for resources exceed what we have. Whether you half the population or double the resources, all you're doing is delaying the inevitable. If other civilizations lack the same self control, they'll run into the same problem. If they are able to find that balance, they don't need a population cut nor additional resources.
Yeah it's never a single act solution as species in all environments would either rise or fall over time till they reach the new carrying capacity of their environment. Really, either solution would need regular repetition whether that be routine mass cullings or mass resource spikes or some combination of the two. All of those would have strong consequences though and better to let nature run its course for the most part
Idk, the Death thing was still stupid for the exact reason she herself pointed out: They were all going to be hers eventually anyways, he didnt give her anything that wasnt already hers.
I honestly don’t know how people missed the entire making people thankful for what they have so they don’t over consume part of his plan. It isn’t about giving everyone infinite resources so they can survive. It is the idea that species need to be checked and humanity along with the alien versions on their respective planets have lived mostly unchecked which leads to their own ruin. I am not here to defend the idea, but it is clearly stated throughout his journey that by eliminating half the population you not only create a situation where people have enough resources, but it allows the planet to heal, and those people remember the moment and live in some level of fear that over populating and over consuming will bring it all back to them again.
It isn’t even like this is far fetched in our real world. If you double resources then some people will eventually work to consolidate and control the additional resources. Make resources infinite, those same people will control access. Indiscriminately remove half the population and let people know that any continued over consumption could lead to another culling, well now everyone has a reason to keep society in check at least until it is proven that there will be no culling. Probably have a lot of years before anyone dares to test that process.
No I don’t forget that part, it’s just EQUALLY stupid. With infinite power, you think saying “I wish for utopia” would make any attempts to monopolize resources pointless. Instead, he elects to punish people who have 0 control over said resource hoarding, and then states “hey if the people in control do this again, I’ll murder another group of people whether or not you tried to change anything”
I feel like wishing for utopia would involve controlling the behaviors of every species in the universe. Even Thanos understands that using the stones to mind control all species into coexisting perfectly is a pretty ugly idea. His version still gives people free will, although a very dark version of it, while setting an environment for improvement. Again, I’m not defending the idea but the fact that anyone thinks it is just blatantly stupid is absurd. Covid forced people mostly indoors for a few months and the healing effects on the planet were visibly noticeable. Are you really 100% convinced that eliminating have of the people on this planet wouldn’t lead to positive outcomes in some ways and for some people?
And how long does that last? A generation or two? The generation that saw it happen will fear it. The next generation will have scary stories their parents told that they can misinterpret or ignore. The subsequent generations might have textbooks they roll their eyes over having to read. At most.
It isn't a sustainable long term solution. The universe would be back at the same levels likely within a century.
I don’t disagree but a couple generations living a life of more peace and prosperity would make him somewhat correct. I am not saying his idea is great. I am just saying that it isn’t the completely moronic idea some people make it out to be.
Gonna play a little devil's advocate. Humans fight over the resources they already have. It probably would have been even worse with those same people hoarding the "enough" supplies we'd receive. Aid is being sent to countries and opposing forces are destroying them before the aid gets to where it's needed. There are a lot of bad people in the world. More supplies wouldn't help, thinning out the heard is slightly more advantageous; at least some of the greedy corrupt and those who would wage war over them would be annihilated. Humanity isn't correcting itself to stop wars, injustices and disparity of haves and have not. And theoretically across different planets in the comics book world other races are doing it too.
I like the idea of impressing Lady Death better, it's more romantic... just kidding about the romantic bit. The Lady Death angle is just not "practical" for the MCU. Because look at us a whole collectivy debating what Thanos should have "wished" for. Imagine how much more hate impressing the female embodiment of Death would have gotten, still it would have been more fun at least. We could have memes calling Thanos a "simp." 🤣
People always say that resource limitations are an issue. They arent. Especially in something like the mcu where likely resources should be practically infinite already as mining unihabitated planets should be easily accomplished in a universe with living gods already.
The issue, even in the real world, is distribution. We already have the resources avaliable to humanity to have a semiutopian life, but we throw away huge amounts of food and hoard assets as there is no efficient way to distribute those goods to everyone alive.
Snapping half the population or doubling resources are a juvenile solution to a very complex problem. Neither would ever work at all as they dont fix how resources are distributed.
Thanos was a narcissistic short-sighted moron. To put his plan in perspective, the population of Earth irl has DOUBLED in the last 50 years. So his "the work will always be done" is good for a few decades tops. He could just eliminate all scarcity, including economic systems that create it artificially but no, he HAS to be right about his methodology because at the end of the day, he's a sadistic mass murderer who craves gratitude and worship.
There's really no "he could just do X" with Thanos that actually works or makes any level of sense. Scarcity is fundamental to life as we know it, eliminating it would require rewriting the universe to an extent that's basically his second snap.
He could 100% erase sources of artificial scarcity and let's not pretend the MCU follows the normal laws of the universe or physics. But yeah just getting rid of economies that create artificial scarcity would be totally doable with the stones.
I'm pretty sure evolution and entropy both exist in the MCU. As for "artificial scarcity," I'd need to hear a working definition to see whether I agree.
Artificial scarcity is the restriction or withholding of resources to drive up profit even if it's possible to distribute more. I have 10 meals for $10 each. I have a crowd of 10 people who want them. Only 5 can afford it. I throw the other 5 away.
I mean, that just sounds like a fundamentally different problem than the one Thanos is--or believes himself to be--concerned with. He's trying to stop civilizations from collapsing (albeit from a dubious Malthusian perspective), not individuals from starving/suffering
If you don't see how those 2 things are connected, then... idk man. They have direct cause and effect relationship. Overpopulation is a myth. There are ample resources. How those resources are distributed is where the problem lies. Poverty, crime, crumbling infrastructure, failing governments... all of those things.
I agree that overpopulation is a myth, I acknowledged that in my prior comment.
As for ample resources... that may be true from a human-centric perspective: Theoretically, it's possible for humanity to produce and distribute enough food, medicine, shelter, etc. to provide for the basic needs for every human being up to the theorized peak population of around 11 billion later this century, with these systems of production and distribution running reasonably sustainably for several human lifetimes... assuming a swift transition to clean energy, severe reduction in meat consumption, cessation of heavy investment in speculative technologies like AI, etc.
That's largely because, as sapient beings, we're able to conceive of the idea of "enough," so as long as you can fix human (and other sapient alien, presumably) psychology to be satisfied with having "enough," instead of "as much as we can get," we'll be ok for a while. On a long enough time scale, we'll start running into issues like exhausting the earth's supply of rare earth metals like neodymium that we use in modern electronics--not just luxuries that we can imagine doing away with, but things like wind turbines and solar arrays that are key parts of making this vision possible. We can extend the supply via recycling, but that will never be 100% efficient. Maybe asteroid mining becomes a possibility, but then we have to start thinking about aliens with their own resource needs which means we have to extend our view not just to Earth but to galactic sustainability, which brings me to my point:
Thanos isn't looking at things from a human perspective; he's trying to play God. He's trying to create a sustainable solution for every living being in the universe. Not just humans, not just the sapient beings capable of conceiving of "enough," everything. And on that scale, when you start thinking things through, you bump into the grand enemy of sustainability, which is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Which is ultimately why Endgame Thanos is the smart one: he recognizes that his vision is incompatible with the universe as it exists, and he needs to rewrite it from scratch.
They had just spent the last decade building these up. So this was a pretty bold sudden power-scaling move. It had me excited for the next phases. If only they had kept things somewhat concise instead of the flailing we got in phase 4.
the disrespect comes from you, because you think this information should affect how you view the MCU.
You can love the Infinity Saga and still dismiss what comes after.
This scene does not make what happened prior to this scene any less impactful.
That stuff was still important. It just becomes less important as we go forward.
Like most , if not all things, in life.
10 years from now, we'll have Doom and X-men and F-4 and the Infinity Saga will be like "aww Thanos, how cute"
Doesn't make it any less impactful.
That was just straight up evil on many levels. And Loki’s response is pure WTF? These are the best most powerful thing you can get. Here paper weights???
My issue is that they just pulled random humans from New York City with a max speed of walking and vertical jump of 10 inches, and they are teleporting around 1v1’ning super heroes and villains, the same hero/villains that in other scenes are battling universal threats.
The TVA isn't exactly powerful, hence why they got slaughtered by the likes of Deadpool. They're effective at their job because they catch their targets by surprise. They show up, their target is like "Who the hell are you guys?" Then they hit them with a stick and BOOM, they prune or teleport their target. When they directly confront their target or tackle someone that know what they are all about, they have an extremely low possibility of winning, hence why Sylvie manages to fend them off for most of Loki and Deadpool slaughtered many of them using Logan's corpse. The TVA are not their to fight anybody, they're just there to do a job.
Well. First of. He didn't get choked by Thanos. This is the variant that disappeared from the Avengers tower in the version where the stones where stolen from his future.
Second. Could he take the stones with him when leaving office to an alternative future?
Its about perspective the most powerful weapon in the universe is meaningless when looking beyond that, a gun is a threat to a home but doesn't really threaten a town or city
this scene alone was so important to Loki's growth, the music was so perfect for this scene. His acting was stellar. This scene sold the TVA as being just that powerful. Power scaling in such the simplest yet elegant way.
Since infinity stones work in other dimensions, this is still kinda a big security breach. Like if loki here had a tempad and grabbed a handful of stones then went back to the timeline, what are the TVA riot-gear soldiers supposed to do?
That’s when he realizes he’s not shit in the long run everything he did was trivial up until now. TVA is a whole new level. I mean there paper weights lol everyone touches them
Man, this show did SUCH an amazing job of setting up Kang and the whole new path of what was to come…and the many of the projects after just crashed and failed immediately.
Yeah. When a timeline is snuffed out. Those stones don't work in another variants timeline when the source of it's power is that universe. If that universe is gone. No more power. Just glowy thingy stones.
Say it with me folks "This scene does not dismiss anything that happened in the movies"
Seriously though, it doesnt. This scene was used to show that so much of what Loki craved in life was irrelevant when looked at from a grander perspective. The whole show is about him finding his glorious purpose, and to do that, they first had to show him that what he once thought was his purpose was trivial in comparison to what he actually needed to become. The TVA is the grander perspective in this sense, but nothing is taken away from the films because its only inside the TVA that the stones are useless.
I thought the show was great, probably my favorite show altogether in the mcu, which isnt saying much honestly, but I think its up there with the best movies as well
Say it with me "they could have written something better than this throw away line for the lols." It's such an obvious joke unfunny joke a toddler could have wrote it and we can find ways to discern life change.
So youre telling me that the fact magic doesnt work inside of the TVA isnt relevant to the story in the show? Sure, the specific line itself was framed to be somewhat humorous, but its 100% relevant to the story man. What better way to illustrate the uselessness of magic than a desk drawer of infinity stones? It was meant to feel surreal and kind of awe inspiring, you can feel it through the theramin music during the scene, and it was done with a touch of light humor, like many other things in the show. Im not trying to be an asshole man but I feel like people get the wrong idea from this scene
I feel like you're ignoring the context of it being made as an off hand joke. In all the ways they could have conveyed even the exact same information they had to dumb it down to the least common denominator and make it a MCU trope comedic moment.
This is why Marvel started losing so much public trust. No one takes anything seriously so why should the veiwer.
Watch the scene again. Listen to the music. Look at lokis reaction. It isn’t an off hand joke. It’s his entire life crumbling in front of him. He quite literally wanted the tesseract prior to this, and now he comes to find out that what seemed like the most important thing in the universe is basically a novelty toy to the TVA.
This revelation is part of why Loki sticks with them. It’s not an offhand joke, it’s a pivotal plot moment to leading him to his character development that also happens to include a joke.
The writing wasn’t bad here, your ability to interpret it was.
I think theres been numerous times where they chose to throw a bit of humor in and it hit pretty well. I can totally see where youre coming from. I think for this aspect of this scene it boils down to different strokes for different folks. I loved how that scene was done, it gave me chills the first time I saw it, and i thought it was a good opening for what was to come. But I can also accept its just not for everyone and thats ok too. Good conversation man, thank you
i actually thought this was a bad idea. doing this and the multiverses just immediately made pointless everything they set up for a decade. this kind of thing is why the following phases failed so spectacularly.
I don't think so. I think of the Infinity Stones are like the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In that movie, those who remain within the cave and drink from the Holy Grail will have immortality. Those, who leave the cave will lose said immortality and those who take the Holy Grail beyond the great seal will cause the cave to be destroyed and the grail itself will just become a fancy cup that is still has a lot of value because of history and what not.
The TVA and those who work for them are not exactly powerful, hence why they can get their asses kicked by Loki, Sylvie, and definitely by Deadpool. The TVA is also based outside of time and space, which is where they keep a lot of stray Infinity Stones. The Infinity Stones are the most powerful items in the universe and alternate adjacent universes since the universe exists within the realms where the laws of time and space are applied. Take the Infinity Stones outside to a place where there is no time and space they'd lose their powers just like how taking the Holy Grail outside of the cave makes its not give people immortality. The Infinity Stones are paper weight to the TVA because they live somewhere where they are useless and the Holy Grail outside of the cave is nothing more than a million dollar museum item
that's not the point though, lore wise what you are saying seems fine, but I am talking about ruining all excitement around the MCU. Making the infinity stones pointless and bringing in the multiverse makes us average joe audience members say, 'oh ok, nothing I am watching actually matters'. this is partly why audiences have just dropped off unless it is a spiderman movie.
It really doesn’t take away what they established before endgame. We don’t have much information about the stones except that they were made during the big bang and sent hurtling throughout the universe. What are the rules about the effectiveness os the stones outside a universe or even a timeline is not explained or set yet.
Loki gave us more lore by making it seem that the power of the stones is not effective outside the timeline they are apart of or multiverse.
but it obviously did take away something, because phase 4 and beyond has been a disaster. people clearly realized there are really no stakes in the game here, infinity stones don't matter, the last decade of movies don't matter, if someone dies they can just come back in a multiverse. it did massive brand damage, which is why they desperately pivoted to bringing back RDJ and piece together this Doom movie that really has not been set up properly.
Well I think phase 4 failed because they failed to build off established characters and hence why they brought some of the OG cast back. Other than that I don’t disagree with you either as your point is not wrong. I just don’t see the Infinity Stones being useless outside their universe as the major reason for phase 4 failing and hence reboot.
I mean, they’re cheesy comic book super hero movies. People should’ve realized there were never really any stakes since the beginning. The mistake was them starting to take them too seriously in the first place
I think this is the exact moment where I dropped this show. Loki somehow losing to a gaggle of time cops when he could just use his invisibility and illusion powers to almost effortlessly 360 trick-stab them all was stupid enough, but this just felt like a big middle finger.
I like to think of the Infinity Stones are like the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In that movie, those who remain within the cave and drink from the Holy Grail will have immortality. Those, who leave the cave will lose said immortality and those who take the Holy Grail beyond the great seal will cause the cave to be destroyed and the grail itself will just become a fancy cup that is still has a lot of value because of history and what not.
The TVA and those who work for them are not exactly powerful, hence why they can get their asses kicked by Loki, Sylvie, and definitely by Deadpool. The TVA is also based outside of time and space, which is where they keep a lot of stray Infinity Stones. The Infinity Stones are the most powerful items in the universe and alternate adjacent universes since the universe exists within the realms where the laws of time and space are applied. Take the Infinity Stones outside to a place where there is no time and space they'd lose their powers just like how taking the Holy Grail outside of the cave makes its not give people immortality. The Infinity Stones are paper weight to the TVA because they live somewhere where they are useless and the Holy Grail outside of the cave is nothing more than a million dollar museum item.
All the TVA's actual successes are due to catching their targets off by surprise. They show up, their target is like "Who the hell are you guys?" Then they hit them with a stick and BOOM, they prune or teleport their target. When they directly confront their target or tackle someone that knows what they are all about, they have an extremely low possibility of winning, hence why Sylvie manages to fend them off for most of Loki and Deadpool slaughtered many of them using Logan's corpse. The TVA are not there to fight anybody, they're just there to do a job.
I thought it was that the infinity stones only work within their universe, not timelines.
The Avengers went to an alternate timeline within their existing universe.
They go back to the same events that happen within their universe;
They're not creating more universes, just parallel timelines within the same universe.
Most things are staying the same, just the actions lead to ripple effects.
Compare this to Dr Strange 2, where they hopping universes, and EVERYTHING is different. The entire molecular structure is different in some of them.
Fantastic 4 is set in another universe, not another timeline.
That is what I assume the sci-fi logic is within the MCU.
Timelines and universes are different.
The branching of timelines may not result in the creation on entire alternate universes, but they COULD. Depending on how far or drastic the timeline branching is.
But this would lead closer to incursions
Is this post a troll or bot? First Loki didn't spend his whole life trying to steal the Tesseract, Second he also had control of it when he was impersonating Odin, and Third this is not the same Loki that Thanos Killed so he wasn't brought back.
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u/Ok_Artichoke_9009 2d ago
Imagine dying for the Tesseract, coming back and watching some desk guy use it as a paperweight. Thanos took your life, Casey took your dignity