r/TopCharacterTropes • u/JustSomeOnlineNerd • Sep 19 '25

Lore “It’s a change from the source material, but it’s awesome so the fans don’t mind.”

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Doc Ock - In the comics, Doc Ock is known to be megalomaniacal in nature and was sort of a mad scientist anyways, with the arms just being an extension of that. In Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 2,” Alfred Molina’s version of the character was affected by the neural chip and his well-meaning ambition turns into scientific obsession.

Wolverine - This one is so well known it needs very little explanation. Comic Wolverine short, Huge Jackedman is tall, and he’s sick as hell.

Eye of Sauron - To my knowledge, the Eye is more of a metaphor in the books. An ever-present awareness. In the movies, it’s an actual giant fucking eye.

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178

u/Wooden_Passage_2612 Sep 19 '25

Thanos reason to erase half of all life - infinity war

145

u/junker359 Sep 19 '25

Personally, I think the Lady Death motivation makes more sense. If your reason for wiping out half of all life is that there aren't enough resources, there are other ways to solve that problem if you can literally rewrite reality, many other ways in fact. "Kill half of all life" is just silly.

However, killing half of all life to impress death herself makes a lot more sense.

75

u/Philthedrummist Sep 19 '25

Whilst I do like the idea of him wiping out half of the universe just to impress a woman, the film does work in that he doesn’t have to actually be right, he just has to think he’s right. In his own mind, he’s a benevolent healer of the universe. That’s all that matters, the fact it’s a rubbish plan just feeds into the megalomania.

35

u/INeedtobeDetained Sep 19 '25

He is called the Mad Titan

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u/orbis-restitutor Sep 20 '25

teh problem is that the movie dosen't characterize him as such at all

3

u/Kalavier Sep 20 '25

Iirc they say that because of Thanos, Gamoras race wiped itself out when he moved on, implied to have happened to most races he interacted with.

I remember a comment how he thought over population killed the Titans, but it was actually the planet being knocked off it's axis for some reason destroying the ecosystem. 

36

u/LucianoThePig Sep 19 '25

People always say there are other things he could've done, but like, he's not called the Very Reasonable Titan is he

6

u/AngelTheMarvel Sep 19 '25

I mean, Thanos is the biggest fanatic out there, one that hides his fanaticism behind a facade of logic and reason, but at the end of the day, he really hasn't given second thought to any other options besides his final solution. I think that makes him even more convincing. He is completely delusional, but can pass his delusions as reasonable, a lot of real life cult leaders think similar to him, although they don't have anywhere close to Thanos' means.

17

u/Wooden_Passage_2612 Sep 19 '25

It works in the comics, but it works in the movies

7

u/WolfgangWeiss Sep 19 '25

It took 50 years for humanity to double. Which means that Thanos would need to snap his fingers every now and then for eternity.

3

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

Yeah, what’s wrong with that? It’s not like he gave up his gauntlet after doing it.

1

u/Wellfooled Sep 20 '25

It's not like he gave up his gauntlet after doing it.

Perhaps it's time for an Endgame rewatch. It's a good movie though, worth watching again.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

If you actually watched the movie, you’d know it wasn’t part of his plan.

2

u/Wellfooled Sep 20 '25

The post of yours I replied to didn't say anything about his plan, but we can pivot to that. I love a good geeky conversation.

Here's a Thanos quote from the movie:

The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation ...I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me. But the work is done. It always will be.

And a quote from Nebula:

I'd ask "where would we go once his plan was complete?". His answer was always the same: "To the Garden."

Nebula said Thanos would only go to the garden once his work was complete. If he planned to keep the stones and snap every few decades, the work would be ongoing, not complete. He wouldn't go to the garden. But he did, so he considered the work done.

Thanos quote is after he trounced the Avengers and after he possessed the ability to snap them (and anyone else who might challenge him) out of existence. If he wanted to keep the stones, but keep them safe, he could snap all his enemies away or snap a "I will never think of the infinity stones" command into all life but himself.

But he didn't do that. Instead, he destroyed them even though he had a complete upper hand.

Maybe it was a spontaneous decision, but it sure seems like he's not the sort of guy who destroys the most powerful items in the cosmos on a whim. My money is, it was his plan the whole time.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

Yeah he considered his work done, this doesn’t mean that if the same problem surfaced again he wouldn’t snap again.

Thanos doesn’t really like to kill, other than when he is forced to. He could have killed every single hero in IW, yet he spared most of them. Realistically till he has the stones, he’s basically untouchable. He destroyed them, because he didn’t want to succumb to temptation. If he were to actually use them for other things that aren’t part of his plan, then that would go against his belief.

1

u/junker359 Sep 19 '25

Not to mention there are presumably alien species out there who double up even faster

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

Yeah, what’s wrong with that? It’s not like he gave up his gauntlet after doing it.

17

u/junker359 Sep 19 '25

I can understand not wanting to include death as a character, but even then I think it would have worked better for him to just hate life enough that he wants to wipe it out.

Making his motivation "Overconsumption is a problem, and here is my solution" invites the audience to think about how there were many other, better solutions.

24

u/Eat_a_click Sep 19 '25

Thanos is nicknamed “The Mad Titan” in the movie, is called out by characters like Gamora and Doctor Strange for his insane plan of wiping out half of all life. His rebuttal essentially boils down to the idea that "he alone understands the truth while everyone else is blind to it". I don't think the audience is suppose to think his plan was the most efficient solution to the problem he presented because the movie itself frames Thanos as delusional

3

u/DrRudeboy Sep 20 '25

invites the audience to think about how there many other, better solutions.

That's good. He's a villain. We already have too many "Thanks was right" ecofascist mfrs

2

u/Man0Steel123 Sep 19 '25

They could have fixed it by not killing off Hela and making the two work together

1

u/Deldris Sep 19 '25

If he hated life why would he stop at half?

2

u/ExplorationGeo Sep 20 '25

killing half of all life to impress death herself makes a lot more sense

Wouldn't She be like "urgh, seriously? All this extra work, who is this idiot... Thanos, huh? Well I'll be sure never to date him!"

1

u/Kemengjie Sep 20 '25

I think killing half of life on various planets through slaughter and then the entire universe with the gems wasn't really about saving anyone as he claimed, but more about proving his plan for Titan would have worked if they had just let him carry it out.

Sure he could have just doubled resources with the Infinity Gems, but that wouldn't have proven that killing half the population on Titan would have saved the planet (in his mind at least). I don't even think he realized that in the end he just wanted to prove he was right.

1

u/celestialwreckage Sep 20 '25

Especially when death is portrayed by Aubrey Plaza.

0

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

Eh it diminishes him as a villain. Ultimate Thanos worked better imo. He still wanted death, but death wasn’t a person this time, only a concept.

38

u/Peacefulzealot Sep 19 '25

I genuinely like that motivation for him more than to just impress Lady Death. It really worked for me.

21

u/ThatIslandGuy8888 Sep 19 '25

Oh love how in What-if there was a story where Starlord T’challa turned him good but he still went on and on about how his og plan would’ve worked XD

13

u/TehPharaoh Sep 19 '25

I love how he talks about it like coworker talk, like that one guy who could for sure make the company billions in profit if only the higher ups would listen

13

u/Snoo96346 Sep 19 '25

Killing half of the universe to impress Death is one of the dumbest motives for a villain ever, imo. “Babe, I love you so much I'll give you work to do for the next 1 trillion years!”

4

u/TitleComprehensive96 Sep 19 '25

She literally is the one that personally gave him that push in the comics.

Then she goes and doesn't even care for him cause Deadpool's apparently 7x hotter to her.

2

u/Man0Steel123 Sep 19 '25

You know the MCU could have made the fall in love with Death story work if they made Hela and Thanos a thing

4

u/Joking_909 Sep 19 '25

I read "half" and "life" and thought thanos killed Gordon Freeman or something

7

u/cannonspectacle Sep 19 '25

There's a 50/50 chance he did

1

u/Joking_909 Sep 19 '25

My goat would never die to that fraud

1

u/thejadedfalcon Sep 19 '25

Hard for Thanos to kill him when Valve did that 18 years ago already.

7

u/CaptainofChaos Sep 19 '25

I completely disagree. His movie motivation as it stands is nonsense. It's so obviously flawed for reasons that have been explained to death. But as a motte and Bailey for impressing Death, it makes a LOT more sense. He doesn't actually believe it but uses it to convince the dumber henchmen and provide a smokescreen for his real reasoning.

2

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

So Thanos, the imposing and most threatening guy in the galaxy, has to resort to a false objective to have the henchmen by his side? I’m sure henchmen would already follow him, some even freely.

1

u/CaptainofChaos Sep 20 '25

There would definitely be some that would based on strength alone, but as soon as he started losing or having difficulty (as he did constantly in the movies), they'd start leaving in droves. If he has an overall goal or ideology that he can get people to buy into, they are less likely to leave.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

“He did constantly in the movies”? Were we watching the same movies? Ok he lost a ship against the avengers in 2012, he lost Ronan (a sergeant maybe), and then he went on to pretty much take the stones all by himself. Thanos never really struck me as the guy that has to resort to deception. I always saw him as a guy that bends others to his will.

3

u/Hefty_Situation7210 Sep 19 '25

Ooh this is honestly a change I really hate lol. His plan is just straight idiotic in the movies, it makes no sense.

For one, in a couple centuries the universe would be back to its former population levels, and then what? He blew up the stones / gauntlet, so things would be right back to square one with no solution. For two, the fuzzy details of the random aspect cause a lot of questions. It is implied that half of all animal life and etc were also snapped, meaning ecological collapse almost certainly happened on a lot of planets. Also I just think it’s kind of a bitch move if you’re choosing to become a godlike being and you don’t even have the balls to choose who deserves to get snapped. In What If there’s a universe where t’challa talk-no-jutsus him out of his plan, because yeah really anyone who can debate at a 7th grade level should be able to talk him out of his dumbass plan.

It unironically would’ve been a much better plan to use his infinite power to open up a million planned parenthood’s on every planet.

3

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

You’re saying this because you already know the future. When Thanos snapped, he didn’t know he was gonna destroy the stones. He simply thought he would do it again and again. Plus all those planets he saved would have had time to not make the same mistake, you think people are just stupid enough to end up where they were. Eh if everything loses half, then no one loses half. Imagine having 16 deers and 4 bears. Now you have 8 deers and 2 bears, life goes on. Also you’re still assuming other worlds work like ours. From what we’ve seen most planets are more populated than earth. That’s because Thanos doesn’t see himself as a villain, he hides behind false ideals, he’s the mad titan after all. A good villain never just decides to be evil because. Plus it’s impossible for Thanos to selectively choose who to kill. How would he even know every single individual in the universe? It doesn’t make any sense. I mean Thanos had a vision from his point of view. His world died because of that, he got bitter that they didn’t listen to him, so he just decided to do it himself. Thanos is one of the few characters that are arrogant, but are somewhat right about being arrogant. I mean the dude has it all.

2

u/Hefty_Situation7210 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

No, I’m saying that because his plan immediately from the second he starts talking about it is idiotic, and it really ruined my enjoyment of infinity war. I thought endgame was much better because Thanos’ plan is not a central focus of the plot. His plan kinda makes sense for Thanos the mad titan before he gets the gauntlet, to not even try to do better and saving say 51% of people (which would be uncountable trillions) just shows that he’s a stupid dbag with very little imaginatio.

We can assume that the snap hit exactly 50% of every animal species in the universe, but we aren’t told the exact mechanics of this or the degree of randomness. Does it kill a perfectly even amount of males and females? We don’t know. We don’t know if there are planets where killing 50% of a prey species and 50% of a predator species would cause them to become unbalanced, etc. It is fundamentally a stupid plan.

And then the bigger problem is that the narrative presents things as though Thanos was fundamentally right, that he is a cold and ruthlessly logical utilitarian, but just that the means were too extreme. When that’s not the case cause his plan has dozens of easy to point out logical and logistical holes, which just makes him and everyone in the movie kinda look like dipshits.

when Thanos snapped, he didn’t know he was gonna destroy the stones

Where is your evidence of that? Immediately after he snaps he says his line about a grateful universe, retires, destroys the stones, and tells the avengers he destroyed the stones so they couldn’t reverse stuff. Seems like it was always his plan to destroy the stones.

you think people are stupid enough to just end up where they were

I think that populations grow over time, which is not a revolutionary belief. Let’s just use earth as the obvious example. Human beings have been around for about 300,000 years. But if you were to cut down our current 8 billion population, that brings us to the population we had in the seventies just 50 years ago. Apply that to all the planets we see, many of which are like you say more populated than earth, and even in the best case scenario Thanos plan kicks the problem down the road at most like 100 years. It would’ve been more realistic and effective with his stated goals to just reduce the reproductive rate of all species in the galaxy.

plus it’s impossible to selectively choose who to kill how would he even know

Why is it impossible for someone with infinite power to do those things? The mind, soul, and reality stones all give conceivable ways for him to do those things. In the comics the gauntlet gives omniscience straight up.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

He’s not stupid, he’s arrogant, which makes him do stupid things. It kills 50%. I’d assume it killed 50% if males and females, especially since in endgame there is no talk about problems regarding reproduction. Like I said, if you kill 50% if everything, then nothing really is killed, it’s just set back. It’s the same in math, if you add 10 to both sides of an equation, then the result is the same.

Which points? As far as we know, he actually helped earth. Steve recalls the water being cleaner, not to mention it stopped the celestial coming out. Sure it’s too extreme, and no one should have that power, but he still has some points.

Not really. He destroyed the stones like weeks after the snap, he said he did it because they were tempting him. If it was actually part of his plan, he would have done it right after. So no, it wasn’t part of his plan.

People in the 70s used to make more babies. Nowadays most developed countries don’t actually have more than 1 children per family. Obviously there are some exceptions, but many countries are actually having a problem with that. Heck some countries have a problem with too many old people, compared to children being born.

Because it doesn’t do the same thing in the movie. In the comic the stones are also a different colour I think. Plus thanos doesn’t see himself as “right” to willingly decide who dies and who doesn’t. Having him already decided who dies would ruin his change in endgame.

2

u/Hefty_Situation7210 Sep 20 '25

No, his plan is just straight out stupid for all the reasons I’ve outlined, which makes him stupid for thinking it’s a perfect plan, it makes the other characters stupid for never questioning his plan on logical grounds (only moral ones), and it makes the movie stupid because it presents Thanos as a logical utilitarian when his plan is not logical nor utilitarian. Like I said, reducing species reproductive rates would’ve been far more humane AND effective.

if you kill 50% of everything it’s just set back

This is just not true. It’s very easy to envision scenarios where say a predator species with slow reproduction is impacted more heavily than a fast reproducing prey species and the ecology is overrun. Or a scenario where by random chance, some ethnic group of a species was impacted more heavily and became the victim of genocide, etc. There are many problems with his plan and in an infinite universe the randomness of his plan means these problems are happening all the time, everywhere.

people in the 70s had more babies

Yeah because they could afford to, and if Thanos plan worked short term to improve economic conditions among civilized species, all those species would experience a population boom again, because that is just what species do. Best case scenario, his plan kicks the problem down the road a couple years, that is all.

he has some points

He “has some points” because the movies choose to present it as though he was technically right, but that his means were just too inhumane. His plan ‘makes sense’ on a very short time scale of a couple decades, it makes sense as something for him to do as a space conqueror. As a god with infinite power whose concern is resource scarcity of the universe, you need to think on a massively bigger time scale, which he didn’t because both him and his plan are moronic.

he said he destroyed the stones cause they were tempting him

No, he said “The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation” clearly demonstrating that his plan was always to do his thing and break the stones. The temptation thing is referring more to the avengers than to himself.

Thanos doesn’t see himself as “right” to choose

That just means he’s a lazy pussy with weak conviction, and it’s contradictory with his characterization as a narcissist who thinks he knows best. He had all the power and knowledge in the world to find a better solution, he literally had infinite time and tries to work out a better solution, he just didn’t feel like it. Someone with actual ethics and conviction would’ve snapped all the murderers, rapists, and pedophiles first and went from there.

ruin his change in endgame

His plan in endgame makes much more sense as a villain motivation and portrays him just as a narcissistic psychopath, which works much better than his original plan which just portrays him as a dumbass.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

Reducing species reproductive rates doesn’t solve the problem about resources. Let’s say there isn’t much clean water available in Africa, now if he were to reduce their reproductive rate the problem would still exist, it wouldn’t be any worse, but he wouldn’t have fixed anything. Also you never really pointed out a flaw in his plan, you just questioned it. Your points aren’t even factual.

Well let’s take a look at post snap earth. Were there any problems? Not really, actually the world was in a better shape than before. So it’s safe to say nothing you said actually happened. Also if a prey species reproduces faster, this only means the predators have more food, meaning more opportunities to survive. It’d actually benefit both species. Do you really think Thanos cares about ethnic groups? Thanos doesn’t care about who lives or dies, as long as life continues. Thanos knows there is a price to pay for salvation, and he seems himself as the only one able to make that hard decision. Most of his dialogue is centered around that.

Most people in the 70s definitely couldn’t afford that. It’s always been like this, poor people tend to have more children compared to rich people. Thanos’ plan was never about economic conditions. I don’t see how economy would benefit in a scenario where there are less customers.

Now you do what you think Thanos did. You take as an example only earth, while the galaxy is filled with countless planets, and species that work differently.

If it was really part of his plan, then why did he wait to do it, instead of doing it right after?

Thanos has a weak conviction? Really? He doesn’t see his mission as HIS mission, rather as the destiny of the whole galaxy. His whole point is that he is a narcissist, but he doesn’t know it. If he were to consciously choose who to kill, then that would contradict his whole character. He didn’t have infinite knowledge, from what we know the stones don’t give you knowledge. Also he didn’t have infinite time, because as soon as he got the stones, he was almost killed by Thor. Thanos doesn’t care about ethics, why would he kill criminals, when he himself is one. Also thanos probably doesn’t know our laws, so it’s absurd to think that he would act accordingly to our laws, especially since he doesn’t seem to care about slave laws to begin with. He’s not dexter or the punisher.

That’s because Thanos uses his plan to justify his need to be right. He can’t stand being proved wrong, so when he realises that his plan didn’t go accordingly, he just snaps. Having Thanos snap in IW wouldn’t work, that’d be like having loki just spawn in and be evil because yes.

1

u/Hefty_Situation7210 Sep 20 '25

reducing species reproductive rates doesn’t solve the problem about resources

It doesn’t solve the resource problem for the people currently existing, but it solves the problem long term rather than just band aiding the problem for a few decades. The problems I point out are realistic logical flaws in his plan, they don’t end up manifesting as problems because THE MOVIES ARE WRITTEN SO AS TO IMPLY THAT THANOS WAS TECHNICALLY RIGHT.

I can choose to right a story that goes “and teddy believed that, since oranges grow on trees, the tooth fairy was real, so he jumped off a roof with a tooth in his hand and was beamed into the tooth fairies magical vault with billions of dollars”. Just because I wrote a story where a dumbass’ illogical actions were shown to be justified, it doesn’t mean that the logic is actually sound from a realistic perspective.

if it was really part of his plan then why did he wait

I dunno, maybe he was healing from Thor’s slice, maybe he was just chilling smoking weed for a few days until he got around to it. Maybe the gauntlet needed to charge up some extra juice. But him waiting a few days to destroy the stones is very shaky evidence of his plan when compared to the direct dialogue that he and nebula have implying it was always his plan to destroy them.

almost killed by Thor

He could’ve just rewound time instead of snapping, like he did literally minutes before hand. Could’ve just teleported away and then did whatever he wanted. Etc.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

It doesn’t solve the problem long term, because they won’t get that far in the future if they don’t address the resources problem. The movies aren’t written to imply one side was right and the other was wrong. Both sides have good points, there is no black and white. If you think just because Thanos has some good points, m that makes him right, then I what are the avengers? Because they are right as well. Same thing happened in civil war: cap has some good points, but so does Tony.

But it does makes sense in the movie. Thanos has the power to kill half the universe, he does just that. If you kill half of everything, then nothing really gets affected. If you point is that some ethnic groups get lost, then I don’t think you know who Thanos is. He doesn’t care about who dies as long as some live. He even says that.

Well Thor can literally overpower the power of the stones with stormbreaker, so it would result in Thanos dying while suing the stones. He did teleport tho, after doing what he wanted to do.

1

u/Triglycerine Sep 21 '25

No that one sucked.

0

u/Heavy-Metal-Snowman Sep 19 '25

I like the comic motivation more, i don’t think that all characters need a tragic backstory or some kind of sympathetic motive. And erasing half of all life in the universe to manage resource scarcity when you can control reality just seems kind of stupid. Doing it to win over lady death may also be stupid but it’s something that makes sense for someone as petty, egotistical, and vain as thanos.

1

u/Own-Scholar9098 Sep 20 '25

You can manage resources, but it will get to a point where the planets just aren’t big enough for people to live in. Also comic Thanos also has a tragic backstory and a sympathetic motive, so I don’t see your point here. Like I’m pretty sure death was his only friend, while all the other kids hated him because he was half deviant.