Who screwed up the worst in Avengers: Infinity War? It’s one of the many questions that the movie’s grim, cliffhanger ending left us with, and one that continues to spark debate.
Many would opt for Peter Quill, who failed to keep his cool in a crucial moment with Thanos. Others would point the finger at Doctor Strange, while conceding that his supposed errors may simply be part of a longterm strategy he’s playing. But whoever you think made the biggest mistake, the superhero who made the last mistake, allowing Thanos to carry out his genocidal finger-snap, was undoubtedly Thor.
After obtaining his fancy new Stormbreaker axe, the film sees the God of Thunder joining the final fight in Wakanda where he manages to land one last blow on Thanos before the Mad Titan’s able to complete his mission. Unfortunately, Thor drives Stormbreaker into Thanos’ chest, and in his target’s own words, he “should have gone for the head,” meaning that the intergalactic despot is still in a fit enough state to snap his fingers.
But while Thor has certainly caught a lot of flack from viewers for the mass disintegrations that followed, one fan theory suggests that the son of Odin actually did aim for Thanos’ head, but his efforts were foiled by faulty hardware.
“IW begins with Thor only having one eye because of what happens in Ragnarok. Rocket Raccoon gives him an electrical eye that Thor then uses, meaning he once again had both eyes. We all know, however, that when exposed to high voltage, technology can fail. In the Battle of Wakanda at the end of the movie, electricity is shown flowing through Thor, and his eyes. This may have stopped his electrical eye from working through a power surge, meaning he only had one functioning eye, impairing his depth perception. With poor depth perception, it is entirely possible that he did indeed aim for the head, but because he had trouble with the depth perception, he misjudged the throw.”
So, if this theory’s to be believed, then not only is Thor’s mistake more understandable, but part of the blame might even shift to his furry little friend Rocket. Nonetheless, this post directly contradicts a statement from the Russo Brothers themselves, who specifically said a few months ago that Thor aimed for the chest “because he wanted to tell Thanos that he got his revenge.” This implies that Hemsworth’s hero didn’t just go for the chest, but he did so specifically because he didn’t want the villain to die instantly.
Needless to say, Thor doesn’t come away from this scenario looking very good, but if you feel like clinging to a more idealistic image of the God of Thunder, then there’s no harm in buying into this Reddit theory. In any case, we’ll see if the surviving cast of Avengers: Infinity War can sort out the mess they’re in when Avengers 4 arrives on May 3rd, 2019.
