***SPOILER ALERT: This post spoils the ending of ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’.***
Thor: Love and Thunder premiered on July 8th, 2022, and marked the live-action debut of Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale). Bale masterfully brought the villain to life, perfectly capturing his bitterness, grief, and deterioration from the Necrosword’s corruption. Just like in the comics, Gorr is man deeply disillusioned with the gods. He spent his life worshipping them and holding onto his faith. However, they failed to save his daughter and ignored his pleas for help. As a result, he claims the Necrosword and vows to kill all the gods.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) becomes aware of Gorr after a wounded Sif (Jamie Alexander) warns him. However, he quickly learns that Gorr’s plan has become more sinister than attacking the gods one by one. Gorr wants to steal Stormbreaker from Thor to utilize the Bifrost and enter into Eternity. Upon entering, Gorr will be granted one wish. Gorr plans to wish for the destruction of all gods, thus, wiping them all out in a single blow.
While viewers have known for quite some time that Gorr would be appearing in Thor: Love and Thunder, none were quite expecting the twist at the end. After Gorr’s daughter dies in the beginning, few viewers expected her to appear again. She was the motive driving Gorr to kill all the gods, but she was gone and his destruction couldn’t bring her back. However, while Gorr couldn’t bring her back, Eternity could.
Who is Gorr’s daughter?
Gorr’s young daughter, Love (India Rose Hemsworth) passes away at the beginning of the film. When Gorr reaches Eternity, he begins to make his wish for the destruction of all gods. However, Thor then makes a startling proposition, urging Gorr to use his wish to revive his daughter instead. Gorr, who is dying due to the destruction of the Necrosword, expresses doubt, not wanting his daughter to grow up alone. Thor promises that he himself will look after Love and she will never be alone.
Gorr then uses his wish to revive his daughter. Now, she is not just the daughter of Gorr, but also the daughter reborn from Eternity. Gorr gets one final moment with Love before he passes away, content that his daughter is alive once more. Fortunately, Thor and Love’s story doesn’t end with them losing the person they love most. In their grief, they find each other and become quite the unstoppable duo.
Thor: Love and Thunder ends with Thor and Love adventuring together. Love now wields Stormbreaker, while Thor wields Mjolnir. Together, the two rush into battle, looking to rescue others and live out their lives as true Viking warriors. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Love is no ordinary girl. The role of Eternity in her rebirth has given her superhuman abilities. Her powers manifest themselves as a purple glow and she is seen shooting lasers from her eyes. Together, her and Thor are known as Love and Thunder.
Is Love in the comic books?
With Thor: Love and Thunder unexpectedly debuting a new, powerful child, who is the also sidekick of Thor, viewers were likely hoping to find answers in Marvel comics. However, the answers aren’t there as Gorr’s daughter Love is not featured in Marvel comics. In the comics, Gorr does not have a daughter. Instead, he has a young son named Agar, who dies of heat stroke.
In the comics, Agar is once seemingly resurrected by Gorr, along with Gorr’s wife, Arra. The two lived in the All-Black World of Gorr, helping Gorr enslave the gods and overseeing the development of the Godbomb. However, Agar was never actually resurrected, but was merely a construct of the Necrosword, modelled after Gorr’s lost son. After Gorr’s death, the construct fades into the living abyss, proving it was never Agar. Meanwhile, Eternity did spawn several children in the comics and they were called Empathy, Eulogy, Expediency, Entropy, Epiphany, Enmity, and Eon. None of its offspring were called Love, though.
Hence, Love is actually a wholly new original character, though Marvel likely did draw some inspiration from Agar and Eternity’s children. This makes Love’s future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) particularly exciting. It isn’t often we see a wholly original character in the MCU, but it means the creators aren’t restrained by comic book accuracy and can really make Love whatever they want her to be in the Marvel universe.
(featured image: Marvel)
