Why Thanos is not the Hero (And that's the point) | MCU Character & Theme Analysis

This is something I've wanted to talk about for some time , but haven't really had the knowledge to critique before. Thanos, the Mad Titan, the bringer of death has become really popular both pre and Post Avengers: Infinity War's release. With that popularity comes interpretations of his character and his motives. Now interpretation is great, we don't always agree with each other on it, but if everyone came away with he same thoughts on the themes and characters in a movie, well it'd be nice at first, but the discussion would become stale. Luckily the never ending discussion about Thanos has some variety, however two takes on him keep coming up. On of which makes logical sense, which is about the practicality of snapping half the universe's life and how Thanos would need to be around to keep doing it. Or that he could have just created more resources etc etc etc.

However the other more popular to talk about take on the film, is that Thanos is the hero. You've probably seen one of the million video essay's or articles talking about how, 'Thanos deserved to win' or 'Thanos was right' or any other take on that. Now I will say you'd be correct in terms of him being a main character, who goes through his own trials and tribulations, he drives the story he has goals you understand. The 'he's the protagonist' narrative seems to have been overblown however, he is still the villain, a driving force who has nuance sure, but the Villain nonetheless. Being a protagonist doesn't make you necessarily right nor a good guy. However I do understand why people think this, even I have had thoughts on Thanos's perspective and it being a hard choice, but one that could solve a problem.

However I've come to realise the horrifically flawed logic behind solving the overpopulation question. Thanos isn't right but he is an eventuality, an idea that a some point might come to pass. He is relateable and understandable because we've heard these arguments before. The talks of eugenics of their not being enough food, fossil fuels are finite as well as plastic and minerals. He is in many ways 'human', because he represents the extreme of the fear that humanity will drive itself to extinction. So let's dive into what drove Thanos to this, why he believes it, what evidence he has to think balancing the universe works and why he is in fact wrong.

Let's begin with where this all started. Titan, home of Thanos. A once thriving race of beings now leaving Thanos seemingly the only survivor. A planet now desolate and during the film Dr. Strange learns why. Let's examine the key part of the scene.

Strange: Let me guess...your Home?''
Thanos: It was... and it was Beautiful.
Titan was like most planets. Too many mouths, not enough food to go around. And when we faced extinction I offered a solution.
Strange: Genocide
Thanos: But Random. Dispassionate, fair to rich and poor alike. They called me a madman. And what I predicted came to pass.
Strange: Congratulations, you're a prophet.

We learn that Thanos was the one to suggest balance to the people of Titan and yet rightly he was refused. Perhaps he was a philosopher or politician, someone who could suggest or say these things to a government or wherever he preached his genocide. Their are a few things missing, were the people of Titan trying to solve this crisis? Were their other solutions being considered that were too outlandish or came too late? Or perhaps like humanity today, the public and environmentalists offered plenty of solutions but the society, the corporations, food producers and the rich wouldn't acknowledge this or take action and risk the sea of power right now. These answers aren't given, and we can't expect a madman like Thanos to give them either.

Another question is what was it that let Thanos escape or survive this crisis. His own privilege? perhaps he had one of the few ships left, it makes sense to save fuel and ground spacecraft when your in a resource crisis. Whatever the case he outlived a civilisation that wouldn't save itself. However the lack of knowledge does tell us more than you'd think. This is Thanos's perspective, his view on why his race died. He offered a solution, they refused and died. It's only logical right? I mean billions of people, and not enough food or room for them all. They were the fools without the will to act. Thanos now the last of his kind, had to become the kind of person he preached to be. So when your race goes extinct because of it's lack of will to act, then what's left to save? What do you stand for when your the last one?

Simple. Their are other races, other worlds out there suffering their own crises. Some slowly declining, others going down the same path Titan did. Thanos can save them from themselves, only he has the will to do so. So he builds an army to wipe out half of each planet. One thing to note is that he does talk about it being dispassionate, both to rich and poor. Which at least shows he isn't just wiping out lower classes, still terrible but I guess it's fair? However he does take orphans like Gamora., Nebula, Corvus Glaive etc. He has some sick sense of love for them, but mainly Gamora who he sees himself in. It's a clearly abusive parenthood and with a lot of torture and death threats. 

Now during this aside the odd criticism of Thanos I've mainly been coming at it from his perspective. He does believe he is the universes savior, that it's resources are finite, he is saving worlds not destroying them. During the film we are given evidence that balancing a planet does work.

Gamora's planet Zen-Whoberi was balanced on the day of her 'adoption'. Half the planet was killed off randomly. Assumedly city by city. Later we learn when Thanos captures Gamora that his action did indeed save the planet, the hunger crisis was solved by reducing the demand/population. So we get why Thanos has reason to believe he's right, because it has worked. However we don't learn where it doesn't. I extremely doubt this worked on every world, it's possible sure but the chances certainly aren't 50/50. Killing half a planet doesn't mean they can restructure their government, society, resource management and food production. Nor solve any climate crisis overnight.

What it does mean is that is some cases it does work, they can use this balancing to restructure, perhaps introduce new ideas that were ignored before. Perhaps losing half a planet brings perspective/or fear that they need to change their economic system. Whatever the case It does work, but the thing is it's chance. Their are many variables and although every civilisation has corruption, and an expanding population, their are so many intricate reasons why even though a planet is dying, balancing it actually ends up worse for them. Now you could argue that the Russo Bros. intended this to work for every planet, I doubt it, they've already said he is crazy. I'm assuming the 'he's the hero' narrative originated from them when they talked about him being the protagonist and such. But that doesn't mean he's the good guy.

So the only reason, and I think it makes sense for Thanos given what we know about him. Is that he doesn't want to save the universe, not just saying that because he wipes out half of it. But he wants to to create the conditions needed for his own survival of the fittest, save yourselves narrative. We've seen this with the Dwarves that he doesn't care about killing a entire race, (save one) when it fits his personal needs. This isn't about saving anyone, its's about saving Titan. He couldn't save it when he knew he was right, and now he has to stop Titan from happening again. But if a race goes extinct because of it, it doesn't matter because they 'didn't understand' how to save themselves. He believes he is creating the conditions to save those willing to do so, not everyone. 

So snapping half the universe is a quick way of solving resource crisis in the short term, but those planets will have the same problems he didn't see before. He isn't a savior just a regretful person trying to save others in a naive attempt to avenge Titan or redeem himself. He's deluded himself into thinking after the snap, eventually these worlds will call it a blessing. But it does have precedence and it is a relateable motivation, but we cannot agree with him nor can we fool ourselves into thinking he is right. Solving some problems by doing something no one else can do doesn't make you a hero, it's a shortcut to solving what made those problems exist.

Let's talk about overpopulation. I'm sure you'v heard it from politicians, speakers and people who facebook. As well as more unsavory people talking about immigration. It is a concern, too many people cant be supported in one area it's true. However have you ever questioned who made the prediction in the first place. Isn't funny how it's never the west that's overpopulated but third world countries and china and whoever else but never us? Thanos was  prophet for his races destruction but have you ever questioned the environment that lea to him thinking that? Let's talk about Maltusian Theory.

Thomas Robert Malthus is humanity's Thanos. The one man who 'dared' to make the research into studying overpopulation. Something pretty new at the time, but what was his theory.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/malthusian-theory-of-population-growth-definition-lesson-quiz.html

Here is a link but the general idea is he made the correlation between population growth and birth rates. Stating that in times a boost in population and birth rates happen, food production grows arithmetically, so the amount of food in one period cannot match the amount of people. He introduced 2 population control variables on 'preventative check' which are ways of getting the public to control the population growth themselves, such as saying people should only have children when they are married and can support a family (clear religious beliefs their). The second is positive checks (pretty disturbing name for it), which concern element which reduce  populations such as disease, famine, drought and poor living/working environments. Too much of this and the population enters catastrophe. So he wan't genocidal but a lot of the conservative mindset he and others who believed i this conveniently focused on the poor and other races when it came to overpopulation.

Le't's take a look at some criticism of this outlook.

https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/malthusian-theory/

Malthius's calculations for arithmetic growth of food and population growth were not actually provided. So today we know that his predictions are not accurate. He did not predict the amount of trade other countries have with each other, food and resources are shared thanks to globalisation. It was all based on the amount of land to produce food versus the amount of land being taken up. But that is not as big of a problem today. Food production could not be higher, for example a mere 2% of america works in agriculture but as produced a 14 trillion GDP. Now some countries are less rich than others and don't have as many big automate farms for mass production. But the kind of countries Malthius was worried about have no problem on that front. Though currently the UK is suffering from the inability to realise it's trade power isn't what it was.

Finally the population growth in third world countries or in poor areas isn't nearly as massive as predicted. Eastern Europe has the advancements needed to sustain itself. Overpopulation might happen one day but not in our lifetime. Thanos did have a way out to save Titan but he fell for a conservative fallacy that its the poor and other countries that have the population problems and they are burdened with feeding them. It's a greedy way of viewing feeding the world. The inequality and rich-poor gap is the real problem. Without the money going into the lower 'classes' they are at a disadvantage an are staving and getting cramped in areas because of the economic situation they are in. Their is plenty of space for at least a few centuries, but without affordable living conditions, affordable housing and more money from the rich into the economy, millions will indeed starve to death.

We can save ourselves but only if we are willing to care for others and accept the corruption and end the overpopulation myth. It's used to excuse that we aren't feeding more people not to say that we can't.

Thanos is a warning. A warning to us about the kind of people that will be created if we refuse to solve our problems now. He was looking in the wrong place, the population doesn't control the resources, corporations and the government do.  The answer isn't eugenics.

Thanos is not a hero, he's wrong and we need to stop agreeing with him for the real greater good.