All in all, the events of Avengers: Infinity War turned out pretty well for Thanos, with the Mad Titan succeeding in his mission to eradicate half of all life from the universe. Nonetheless, he certainly didn’t come away from the fight unscathed, on levels both physical and emotional, and it’s likely that we’ll be seeing more of these negative repercussions in next year’s Avengers 4.
In the tyrant’s own words, his victory cost him “everything,” referring to the moment where the villain reluctantly sacrifices his adopted daughter Gamora. What’s more, the recoil from his genocidal finger-snap seemingly caused significant damage to both his arm and the Infinity Gauntlet, but according to a new theory on Reddit, we haven’t seen the half of it yet.
User TheLazerShell speculates that in the universe-changing moment that Thanos completed his mission, the conqueror suddenly became painfully empathetic towards the very people he was killing.
“[The Soul Stone] connects the user to the emotions of the person it’s being used on. So when Thanos used it in the snap, it connected him to every being in the universe, in that last moment he felt all the sadness, pain and suffering in the entire universe.”
From here, the Redditor suggests that Thanos will be a lot more hesitant about using the gauntlet in his next film. For evidence, TheLazerShell points to some leaked concept art that seems to go against the Russo Brothers’ assertion that Thanos no longer needs his armor.
“Remember the Concept Art of Thanos in Avengers 4? He has the Gauntlet on his hand BUT he also has the Armor AND a Giant Butter Knife, why need all of this if you have the stones? Because he’s not gonna try to use them as much as possible, he’s gonna keep them only for worst case scenarios.”
As for the origins of this drawback, TheLazerShell suggests that one particular Infinity Stone has developed a bit of a grudge against its current owner.
“Now, remember that the Mind Stone is a fully conscious, thinking thing. In Avengers 1 it makes the Avengers turn against one another and fight…In Avengers Age of Ultron Tony compares The Mind Stone to Jarvis, to which Banner says “It’s thinking. It’s like neurons firing”
So, I think the Mind Stone is actually what “Cursed’ the Gauntlet. It spent 6 years with the Avengers, learning, collecting information, thinking… It went back to Thanos, which it did not like, and after the snap, it saw that Thanos fears them after use, so it’s using his own fear against him.”
While little of this theory can be confirmed yet, there’s certainly plenty of evidence to back up the notion that Thanos’ finger-snap had some personal drawbacks, so don’t be too shocked if there turns out to be a few grains of truth here. Either way, though, we’ll find out just how much this Redditor got right when Avengers 4 arrives on May 3rd, 2019.
