From the Mad Titan’s phony death scene on Knowhere, to Thor’s failure to go for the head, Avengers: Infinity War is littered with slightly sadistic fake-out moments designed to give audiences false hope, but arguably the harshest of them all is the final scene between Vision and Scarlet Witch, which takes a noble self-sacrifice and turns it into something far bleaker.
In order to keep Thanos’ big purple hands off the Mind Stone, this climactic exchange sees Wanda Maximoff reluctantly kill her lover, only for the genocidal conqueror to reverse time, kill the Android Avenger himself and retrieve the stone, rendering Wanda’s traumatic ordeal tragically pointless. In a recent video for Wired, Infinity War co-director Anthony Russo discussed this grim moment, singling it out as a highlight from the whole gloomy saga.
“One of the most tragic moments in the movie, one of our favorite moments of the movie of course is when she has to take his life in order to stop Thanos from getting the stone by destroying the stone that’s in his head. And to watch those two characters approach that moment in the way that they did, really one of the most inspiring parts of the story for us.”
The filmmaker then goes on to explain how actor Paul Bettany regarded this scene as a culmination for the character’s quest to understand what it means to be human.
“Paul Bettany has always said he thinks about Vision as his primary motivation is just someone who’s seeking to understand humanity and I think that with that final gesture Vision really achieved full humanity.”
The weighty significance of this moment in Vision’s arc makes it all the more tragic that his final selfless act was instantly nullified by Thanos’ intervention. And to make matters worse, while many of the slain heroes in Avengers: Infinity War are expected to return in next year’s Avengers 4, there remains a distinct possibility that Bettany’s character is well and truly out of the game.
