Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your STOOOORYYY: Infinity War Wrap Up

DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS

WHY ARE YOU READING THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS

SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY

DUH SPOILERS

LIKE SERIOUSLY COME ON NOW

AT THIS POINT YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME

I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN DAMMIT

Ok, hello there.  If you are here, then you have either already seen Infinity War or you don't care about spoilers.  I don't know why you are here if you haven't seen the movie, but ya know what?  I won't judge your life decisions.  In my last post, I predicted the following characters would/ could possibly die in Infinity War:

Black Widow

Captain America

Gamora

Nebula

Drax

Iron Man

Loki

Vision

So who actually died?

Heimdall - I had completely forgotten to mention Heimdall in my last post, but I actually figured he might die on the ship.  I did predict that Valkyrie would show up in a brief appearance guiding at least some of the Asgardians to safety, but that did not happen.  I still think that Valkyrie and possibly Korg are still alive until proven otherwise

Loki - Yep, I figured this would happen and he died pretty much as I assumed he would.  Rest in peace you beautiful, horrible jerk. 

Gamora - Did not die as I expected her to, and actually in a much more dramatic and emotional way than I expected her to, but I did expect that her ties to Thanos made her a target.  I was genuinely surprised that Nebula did not also die in this film.  

Vision - As I predicted, Vision died when Thanos took his stone, despite Scarlet Witch's attempts to save him.  Will he remain dead is a question for the next movie.  I believe Shuri imaged his brain before he died so that she could resurrect him in some capacity.  If anybody could it is her.  She is the smartest person in the MCU.

That's it.  The other characters who "died" in the film are: Spider-Man, Black Panther, Bucky, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Star Lord, Groot, Drax, and Mantis (and Maria Hill and Nick Fury in the stinger at the end).  I put "died" in quotation marks because it is pretty clear that Thanos' snap which killed half the universe's population in one swoop is going to be undone.  

A lot of people were very emotional at the end of the movie because of so much loss, but for me... I dunno.  As soon as they killed Spider-Man who is headlining his own sequel in a year I knew that these deaths weren't permanent.  This is a common trope in comics, but didn't work quite so well for me in a movie. It was impactful but not in the way, say, a death like Tony Stark's would have been.  In fact, when Tony got stabbed and nearly died my audience reacted much more strongly then the deaths of everybody all at once at the end, which left many people walking by me on the way out just saying "what the fuck?"  I'm not saying it wasn't necessary to the storytelling or will make the next movie really interesting, but, as an example, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 spent 10 minutes on Yondu's funeral only to have literally all the Guardians except Nebula and Rocket just die in a poof?  That just kind of hurt.  

The rest of the movie was absolutely spectacular.  I LOVED all the pairings of the characters, in particular Thor+Peter and Thor+Rocket.  I loved the Tony/ Strange/ Spider-Man dynamic too.  The movie even made me like Scarlet Witch and Black Widow which I thought would be impossible.  Pairing Natasha with Okoye was a good idea.  The writing was really fantastic and pulled together a lot of different threads very well.  There were 5 different plots/ locations at times and I didn't feel lost or that they were doing too much.  It definitely counted on you remembering certain details from previous movies, particularly Guardians, Thor, and Doctor Strange, but that is to be expected.  What was definitely NOT expected was how little Captain America was in this movie.  Really interesting how somebody like Rocket ended up with more lines in the movie than some of the original Avengers. It was WAY more of a space movie than the trailers let on.  I think that was for the best.  It brought the humor and tone of Ragnarok and Guardians to the rest of the Avengers and everybody benefited.  So many hilarious lines. 

I absolutely can't wait for the next movie and I can only hope that it retains at least some of the humor, though with everybody "dead" I know it probably won't be as much of a laugh riot as this one was.  

Who Dies? My Infinity War Predictions

Hey all!  So Avengers: Infinity War is coming out in just a few weeks and according to the Russos, there are going to be some of our favorite characters who don't make it out of the film alive.  How many?  Who will live and who will die?  Here is an alphabetic breakdown of who's who in the MCU and my predictions on how they will fare against Thanos. Now my guesses are not based on comics, simply based on what I know about the films, the actors, etc. The MCU really is its own beast.  Trying to predict what happens based on the Infinity War comics is pretty pointless as there are SO many narrative differences.

A
Ant Man - Given that Ant Man and Wasp come out this summer it is safe to say that Ant Man lives. Heck, I don't even know if he is in this movie much/ at all. His skill set doesn't really lend itself to intergalactic battles, but he could probably shrink down and scuttle away from any danger imho. 

B
Black Panther - Lives.  I'm gonna go ahead and jump right out and say that Shuri and Okoye live too.  There is no real logical reason why they would live against Thanos, but their movie was so super popular that I seriously doubt Marvel wants to get rid of them.  I think we are going to lose at least a few Wakandans though, maybe even audience favorite M'Baku.  He was a stand out in the Black Panther movie, but his death will raise the stakes.  Listen, Ragnarok killed off all the Warriors Three.  T'Challa has to lose at least one partner.

Black Widow - I strongly suspect Natasha will bite it this movie.  There is literally nothing about her skill set that screams "useful" in this fight.  She had a part to play in Civil War and definitely Winter Soldier but in every other fight she is just been pretty ineffectual.  The only way I can see her living is if she realizes this battle is too big for her and just gets out of dodge (see my entry about Hawkeye below)

Bucky - Lives.  I think Bucky will either take up the mantle of Captain America (see entry below) or will go on to become the White Wolf of Wakanda.  I would personally rather see him in the latter role as his chemistry with Shuri was really strong (not in a romantic way, just in a fun playful way) and I think it would be nice to see them interacting more.

C
Captain America - Sorry Steve, but you and your sexy butt are gonna die.  This has been pretty
heavily telegraphed for a very long time.  Who will take up the shield after he falls is up to debate, but Cap is not long for this world.  It is time to move on to different things.

Captain Marvel - Not a question of whether she dies but if whether she shows up.  I think they have to do some kind of appearance even though Avengers 4 is where she is really going to shine after her solo film.  Possibly just a post credits sequence appearance, though

D
Doctor Strange - Lives.  I think Strange has a lot more to do in the MCU and his magical skill set will keep him pretty safe in this fight.  Wong may die though, unfortunately.

F
Falcon - I think Sam will deffo make it out alive.  Will he become Captain America after Steve dies?  I think yes, though Bucky is a more popular choice.

G
Guardians of the Galaxy - I do think that some of the Guardians might die in this film, though not the entire team since they are going to be making a 3rd Guardians movie.  Rocket and Groot are safe, Groot especially since he just died.  Gamora and Nebula are definitely questionable though, particularly due to their ties to Thanos.  I think Nebula of the two is the most likely to die since her redemption arc is basically completed (see also Loki below).  Mantis is too new a character to die so unceremoniously.  Drax is an iffy for me.  He thinks he is stronger than he is, which lends me to believe he will do something stupid. After all the big emotional beats from Guardians 2 I think Star Lord is pretty safe, though he doesn't have the abilities he had in that film anymore now that Ego's planet is destroyed.

H
Hawkeye - Hawkeye doesn't even get a character poster for this movie.  He isn't in ANY of the marketing of the movie.  Poor Hawkeye can't catch a break.  For me, this is actually good news because it means that I think he is going to live.  In Age of Ultron Hawkeye basically said he was retiring and going to live on his farm up state.  While he came back for Civil War I strongly suspect he might just sit this whole fight out or get out of there when he realizes he is out of his depth. If not he will die pretty quickly, though the indignity of dying without even getting a hero poster is pretty sad.  I really want them to bring on Kate Bishop as Hawkeye and have him as a mentor figure.  This would be a good way to intro Young Avengers.

Hulk - I think it is a safe bet that Hulk makes it out of this movie ok.  He is one of the strongest characters in the MCU.  Less certain is Bruce Banner.  In Ragnarok, Bruce says that if he turns to Hulk another time he worries he won't be able to come back.  Given that Mark Ruffalo's contract is over, I suspect this is what is going to happen.  Hulk will remain in Hulk form and they can bring on somebody new to do the mocap for him.  Maybe at a later date he will go back to Bruce for a while, but it won't be Mark doing it.

I
Iron Man - I thought he was going to die in Civil War, though given his mentorship of Spider-Man I'm glad he didn't.  Still, I feel like he has worn out his usefulness as a character and given the events of the previous films he just doesn't have a place in the new version of the Avengers that will emerge from this film.  Obviously i could be wrong, but I don't want to be.  I'm over Tony.  Plus RDJ is getting on in years.  He can't play Iron Man forever.  Once his bro Mark Ruffalo is gone as Bruce and only Hulk remains, Tony won't have any "grown ups" to talk to either.  I think he's gonna go.

L
Loki - Loki is gonna die.  As with Nebula, Loki's journey from bad to good back to bad and back to good again is pretty much done.  I think he will actually sacrifice himself this time, giving him the heroic ending that he imagined for himself from Dark World (and Matt Damon). Without an Asgard to fight over, I don't know that his character has anything left to do in the MCU.  I also think Tom Hiddleston is done with the character and longing to do something else.

N
Nebula (see Guardians of the Galaxy above)

S
Scarlet Witch - I think she makes it, though her character in the MCU is soooo boring.  Still, I have a strong suspicion that they are going to do things with her and Vision's kids Wiccan and Speed and they need her to live for that to happen. 

Spider-Man - Lives.  Peter Parker has a nice long career ahead of him before they decide to bring in Miles Morales.

T
Thor - This is a SUPER iffy one for me.  The trailers put him in a pretty precarious situation, but I think he is a strong enough character to make it out of this alive.  I am pretty sure Loki will sacrifice himself (and that Tessaract) in order to save him somehow.

V
Valkyrie - Valkyrie doesn't have a character poster for this movie, which lends me to believe that she may only be in it for the briefest of appearances to get some of the Asgardians away somehow.  Hopefully that means Korg will live too, though the trailers make it look like Thanos kills quite a few people on board that ship.

Vision -  His entire self is powered by an Infinity Stone so once that is taken away I don't see how he makes it out alive. But like I mentioned with Scarlet Witch, I think his living and having kids with Scarlet Witch is necessary to create the new generation of superheroes.

W
War Machine - After NEARLY dying in Civil War I think Rhodes is going to make it out of this film alive.  To kill him now would be like an afterthought and I don't think they are going to do that.

So there you have my predictions. I will be checking back in after the movie comes out to see how right or wrong I may be.

A Millennial Memento Mori

When I was 16, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot up Columbine High School.   A fear grew in me then, a fear I had never experienced before, that at any moment something like that could happen to me.  The fear lingered in the back of my brain, its tentacles burying itself deep into my subconscious. But time went on. School rolled along.  I had other things to think about.  The fear was still there, though.  Always.

I turned 17 that summer.  By then all anyone could talk about was how the world was going to end on Y2K.  I didn't believe it, not really, but as December 31st drew nearer there was a very small part in the back of my brain that thought "maybe."  It was a small part, a silly part, and it went away as January 1st turned into January 2nd and on and on.  But it was a concept, wasn't it.  Not just that I could die but that everything could die, that the world could end.  It's a complicated thought for someone who is 17.  We had learned about global warming in school.  I had heard about the ice caps melting, about the hole in the ozone layer.  I would remember that as the years went on.  Maybe the Earth was going to die.

I was 18 when I campaigned and voted for Al Gore.  He lost.  I was worried about my rights as a woman, I was worried about Bush destroying our country, I was worried about the environment.  It felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't.  But I was confused.  What did it mean that Gore won the popular vote but didn't become president?  What kind of country was this anyway? Nothing seemed fair or right or as it should be.  I was afraid. I was angry.

I was 19 on 9/11.  That felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't, but it felt like it was for a while.  A new fear grew in me then, a fear that terrorists could bomb us at any moment, that the world was changing into something new, something scary, something I didn't understand.  The fear grew.  That fall I decided to lose my virginity.  Why then?  Because I was horny, because I was young.  All those things are true.  But the other part, the secret part, thought "What if it all ends?" Would I have waited if 9/11 never happened?  I can honestly say I don't know.  That day burned into me a sense of restless urgency, a need to do something quickly before it all went away.   As the years of war rolled on, as I grew accustomed to taking off my shoes at the airport, the fear dulled into something familiar.  I didn't live every day as if it were my last, but neither did I think all that long and hard about the future.

The years passed and there were more shootings, more terrorist attacks, more bullshit.  When Obama became president things felt differently but this fear of the end never really quite went away.  The Earth was still dying.  Global warming wasn't getting any better.  People kept killing people and nothing felt as safe and normal as it did when I was younger, in that time before I felt the fear.  Maybe that was part of growing older.  Maybe everyone looks back on their childhood as a time of hope and safety and normalcy and their adulthood as a time of fear and uncertainty. Or maybe it was the relentlessness of a neverending war, neverending hate, cable news.  I remember a time, long ago, when we wouldn't know anything until the 6 o'clock news.  And we would be anxious then, worried.  But the worry would end when the news did, and Jeopardy would come on and then the prime time shows.  You would go through your day and the horrible things would be out of mind until you saw it in those 30 minute increments.  Can you remember?  It is hard to sometimes.

I was 31 when my husband asked for a divorce.  That felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't.  In fact it was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time in the long run.  But it reminded me that nothing is permanent.  It reminded me that at any moment it could all go away.

I was 34 when Trump was elected.  It felt like the end of the world.  Maybe it will be.  I don't know yet.    It was the worst I had felt since 9/11.  Every day since has been a struggle, every day since the fear of the end grows stronger in the back of my mind.  Las Vegas, Florida, so many dead.  Our democracy at risk, our climate warming, my community on fire, floods destroying the highway, the doomsday clock ticking closer, Nazis, police brutality, pain, murder, death, disease.

Certainly those who grew up in the Cold War felt the world could end too.  The people who lived through World War II, who lived through World War I, who lived through the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, Napoleon thought that everything they knew could come to an end.  Was it any different?  Is this just what being in the world feels like?  But maybe this feeling is something that is unique to my generation, a generation who came of age at the dawn of the Millennium.  I think back, from time to time, to those three years 1999-2001 that seemed to define me, to define my generation.  I think something happened.  I think something broke.  I don't exactly know what.

I'm not anxious all the time, not in the same way I was when I was in my late teens and early 20s and went on medication.  A lot of people of my generation are on medication.  A lot of people of my generation are anxious.  I don't think its a coincidence.  I am stronger and feel more confident about myself and my relationship with my boyfriend than I ever did when I was younger and unhappily married.  I am happier now than I've been since my teens.  And yet... And yet.  One part of my brain thinks about my daughter 10 years from now, 20.  I think about her growing up and going to college and discovering who she is.  And then another part, the fearful part, the part that grew on my brain on an April day nearly 20 years ago and has only swollen since wonders whether hers will be the next school on the news, whether the future will even look anything remotely like the world now, whether we will even have country to live in, whether the Earth will have been warmed so much that our summers are intolerable, certain foods unable to grow.

I wish I could rationalize away my fear of the apocalyptic.  I wish I could tell myself that this too shall pass.  I wish I could remind myself that even in the time of Ragnarok, at the end of the world, the Norse believed there was a renewal, a rebirth, a new start.  I wish I could tell myself that its just anxiety trying to control me.  Then Trump makes jokes about nukes. The ice caps are still melting. The rich hoard their impossible amounts of wealth and children go hungry.  People are getting angrier.  It feels like eventually people are going to break.  Revolution?  Death?  What happens?  Maybe just another day.  Those are just thoughts.  Not new ones.

Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts
Vanitas Still Life (c. 17th century)

The Dutch masters created vanitas still life paintings, reminders that all things are transient, that all things must die.  It was an art form not made from fear of death but acceptance of it. How can you see friends and family die of plague, die so young, and not accept that death comes for us all?  We are a generation who has been forced to adapt.  We may have started our school years with no computers at all and ended them with internet.  We never had a phone, not even a pager, then we got phones and computers and smart phones and tablets.  One day there is a popular thing the next thing you know "that is so last year."  Then there is a meme and it is so last month, last week.  Constantly adapting, constantly changing, constantly having to change.  Everything is transient.  Everything dies. Sometimes I wonder if our morbid jokes about eating tide pods or "This is Fine" memes amount to much the same thing as Baroque skull drawings.  Perhaps we are a generation so inured to death that we have almost resigned ourselves to it.  So accustomed to constant change that changes almost mean nothing.  Another person shot, another day.  This is horrible, but we are joking it isn't.  So it goes.  Here is something different.  Here is something new.  Our Millennial Memento Mori looks like the schizophrenic nature of the online world:

A puppy

Someone's food

A dead body

A penguin wearing a sweater

Someone's children

Hate speech

A hot actor

A baby otter

A child covered in blood

In the Japanese tradition of mono no aware the beauty of a thing is defined by its ephemeral nature, by its impermanence.  Perhaps the path away from nihilism is an embrace of the fragile nature of our existence without fear, by seeing the beauty in the fallen leaf and not its tragedy.   Yet we have been asked to change so much, become so accustomed to change, that I think sometimes it is hard for us to remember that things can be different.  Sometimes it takes an external force to remind us who became jaded so quickly by all the horrors that we should not treat it as normal.  ICE isn't normal, its only 15 years old.  School shootings aren't normal, we were shocked by them just a few years ago.  War isn't normal.  We didn't used to always be at war. It is possible to recognize that death and impermanence are a natural part of life and also NOT accept that we must die at the whims of those in power, NOT accept that horrors are inevitable, but it is hard balance to find. It is that balance I am always striving for, for my sanity more than anything else.  I haven't found it yet.