**Spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder ahead**
In Thor: Love and Thunder, the character of Gorr finally makes the leap from Marvel comics to the live action cinematic universe. Played by Christian Bale, Gorr is appropriately scary. After acquiring the terrifyingly named “All-Black the Necrosword,” he sets out with the singular mission to kill all gods in existence. He’s determined, creepy, and frighteningly powerful. He’s also kinda right.
Thor: Love and Thunder (which gives us a simplified version of Gorr’s comic book backstory) opens on a desolate planet, with Gorr watching his young daughter die in his arms. He then stumbles across an oasis, which happens to be where his god Rapu, to whom he is incredibly devoted, is hanging out. Rapu has zero compassion for Gorr and straight-up mocks his religious fervor. Not only could this god not care less about his followers, but he informs Gorr that the afterlife he believed he was working towards—and where he would be reunited with his daughter—doesn’t exist. For Rapu’s followers, after death there is simply nothing. He tells Gorr this with derision, laughing at this man who has spent his life worshpping and trusting in him.
So yeah, I understand Gorr’s anger and his desire to do away with gods, who have just been revealed to his to be massive frauds who trick people into dedicating their lives to them in exchange for nothing but disappointment and suffering. Gorr’s turn to violence is even more justified when he renounces Rapu to his face and Rapu tries to kill him.
Obviously, Gorr’s methods (i.e. kidnapping a bunch of children) are not the best. And while we get to see that plenty of gods are just as disappointing as Rapu if not moreso, Thor’s very existence is supposed to serve as a #NotAllGods counterpoint to all the awfulness. (Although as a side note, the fact that Thor’s Valhalla does exist as an Asgardian afterlife, and other Marvel properties have confirmed certain other versions of an afterlife exist, but even Rapu’s most devoted followers just get an abyss of nothingness does have some weird implications for there being “right” religions and wrong ones.)
Wow, just found out the religion I happened to be born into is the correct one. This is huge for me.
— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 10, 2022
Both the MCU and the DCEU love a villain with lofty ideals backed up by unjustifiable methods. This exists in the comics, too (“eco-terrorist” Poison Ivy comes immediately to mind, as does fellow Batman foe Ra’s al Ghul) but it’s even more pronounced in the movies, where the nature of the medium means characters’ backstories and motivations are reduced to their basic elements. We’ve seen this sort of character pop up repeatedly in recent years—villains driven not by grief or rage or anything else on a personal level but a global one. Thanos fits this bill, driven by the threats overpopulation pose to the world’s resources, as does Aquaman’s Orm, who’s justifiably angry that human pollution is affecting life in the oceans.
Our Princess Weekes wrote about this trend of the “environmentalist activist” back after the release of Aquaman:
What’s so compelling, now more than ever, about this kind of antagonist is that we live in a time when climate change, pollution, and issues of protecting our future environment are coming to the forefront. Orm is wrong for wanting to kill billions of innocent people, and his war is truly just a way for him to deal with his sad “un-favorite” issues, but pollution in Atlantis is still an issue, and what is Aquaman going to do about that?
While Gorr’s motivation is less straightforwardly political than the environmentalists, the root cause is similar. Humanity itself is in dire need of strong leadership and the leadership in place is failing to act—or else their actions are causing more destruction. Humanity has been abandoned by those who were supposed to be guiding us toward a safe future. Yes, we’re meant to disagree with these characters’ tactics, but we’re also supposed to understand where they’re coming from.
(image: Marvel Studios)
