MCU - X

[Kalbear]

I thought Thanos was going after earth just like he went after gamoras world. He would take it over and kill half the people and move on. It wasnt about the stones. 

[Corvinus85]

Thanos lent Loki his Chitauri forces to conquer Earth, and the mind stone in the scepter. Thanos promised Loki he would allow him to rule Earth, just like he promised Ronan he would destroy Xandar in exchange for the power stone. That's why Loki doesn't simply return with the Tesseract, he uses it to bring the Chitauri army, and in the process manages to lose both stones. It's the Avengers who really didn't know the mind stone was in the scepter until Ultron, otherwise Thor might have taken that, too, and hidden it somewhere. 

[Fez]

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I thought Thanos was going after earth just like he went after gamoras world. He would take it over and kill half the people and move on. It wasnt about the stones. 

If that's the case, why give up the mind stone, especially to someone as unreliable as Loki? My understanding is that Thanos has halved dozens, maybe hundreds, of worlds; going after Earth, especially Earth at the time, shouldn't have seemed like a big deal to him. Certainly not worth a stone to do.

11 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Thanos lent Loki his Chitauri forces to conquer Earth, and the mind stone in the scepter. Thanos promised Loki he would allow him to rule Earth, just like he promised Ronan he would destroy Xandar in exchange for the power stone. That's why Loki doesn't simply return with the Tesseract, he uses it to bring the Chitauri army, and in the process manages to lose both stones. It's the Avengers who really didn't know the mind stone was in the scepter until Ultron, otherwise Thor might have taken that, too, and hidden it somewhere. 

Did Thanos know Loki had access to the Tesseract at the time? I'm having trouble following what his plan was supposed to be through all this.

[The BlackBear]

25 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I thought Thanos was going after earth just like he went after gamoras world. He would take it over and kill half the people and move on. It wasnt about the stones. 

The Tesseract/Space Stone is 100% the reason Thanos is interested in Earth. Reinforcing what Corvinus said the go between is 'The Other' who also serves in that role with Ronan.

Giving up the Mind Stone is a very strange thing to do. I kind of question whether the scepter was always meant to be an infinity stone. It has some mind linked powers, but whilst the stone within is yellow everything else about it colour wise is blue, it's casing is blue, it fires blue energy, mind controlled peoples eyes turn blue. Visually it seems far more related to the Tesseract, which at that point might not have been intended as an infinity stone either. I recall everyone comparing it to a cosmic cube.

 

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

Did Thanos know Loki had access to the Tesseract at the time? I'm having trouble following what his plan was supposed to be through all this.

At the start of the film he doesn't have it, Thanos seemed to know a way to manipulate it (from a distance) to send Loki to Earth. Loki then uses it to open a more stable portal, that will allow Chitauri through. Thanos has to know the Tesseract is on Earth or he couldn't send anyone to it.

[Jace, Extat]

Might Loki have needed the mind stone to form a bridge to the Tesseract? 

Dr. Crazy compares it to a doorway, maybe it needed a key? 

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

The fact that Shuri is so young and chipper and OTT sassy is one of the reasons she's so fucking cool.

If you are a 12 year old girl I’d get that you’d feel that way, the writing by committee did it’s job. Anyone else thinking that way I’d be seriously worried.

 

1 hour ago, mormont said:

It's an amazing fact that despite the existence of years of solid social science research proving that we are all influenced to some degree by social biases, one only ever seems to meet the exceptions to the rule, people who are utterly immune to any such biases.

That said, it's definitely true that Shuri's age is the entire and only factor that influences HoI's perception here.

Would be useful if you were honest and brave enough to say what you mean here.

[Maithanet]

21 minutes ago, Fez said:

If that's the case, why give up the mind stone, especially to someone as unreliable as Loki?

It does seem like a huge plot hole.  I had forgotten that the Mind Stone was in the scepter (since this wasn't revealed until AoU) and that Thanos gave Loki the scepter in the first Avengers.  Why would Thanos even bring Loki along at all?  He has other powerful goons that must, almost by definition, be more trustworthy than Loki.  If the idea was that this is a "prove it" kind of mission, giving Loki the Mind Stone for the purpose of getting the Space Stone is very stupid.

15 minutes ago, The BlackBear said:

Giving up the Mind Stone is a very strange thing to do. I kind of question whether the scepter was always meant to be an infinity stone. It has some mind linked powers, but whilst the stone within is yellow everything else about it colour wise is blue, it's casing is blue, it fires blue energy, mind controlled peoples eyes turn blue. Visually it seems far more related to the Tesseract, which at that point might not have been intended as an infinity stone either. I recall everyone comparing it to a cosmic cube.

I agree with this logic.  Giving Loki a second tier magical artifact to get the Space Stone makes some sense.  It still seems like Thanos should have had a more reliable underling to use, but he does seem to struggle with finding good help.  Gamora, Ronan, Nebula, Loki, I'm starting to sense a pattern. 

[The BlackBear]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I agree with this logic.  Giving Loki a second tier magical artifact to get the Space Stone makes some sense.  It still seems like Thanos should have had a more reliable underling to use, but he does seem to struggle with finding good help.  Gamora, Ronan, Nebula, Loki, I'm starting to sense a pattern. 

It's the type of thing the Black Order is for. What were they doing while Thanos was chilling on his throne?

[DaveSumm]

I’m not sure if you’re all looking for an in-universe explanation, but the mind stone thing was a retcon. It was just a sceptre as far as the writers were concerned at the time of Avengers, I believe.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, The BlackBear said:

It's the type of thing the Black Order is for. What were they doing while Thanos was chilling on his throne?

Lying in wait for narrative purposes, obvs. 

[Fez]

34 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’m not sure if you’re all looking for an in-universe explanation, but the mind stone thing was a retcon. It was just a sceptre as far as the writers were concerned at the time of Avengers, I believe.

Out-of-universe that makes sense to me, but that makes it a really bad retcon because it doesn't make any narrative sense. It just makes Thanos look like a dope, and possibly gullible (for trusting Loki with something so precious).

[Kalbear]

They're accusing you of sexism and racism because your opinion of a movie character is steeped in sexist, racist themes. Your disagreement is immaterial. 

Consider: the same characteristics that annoyed you about Shuri could easily be applied to Peter Parker. Does he annoy you? They largely apply to Tony Stark as well. Does he annoy you?

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

I’m not sure if you’re all looking for an in-universe explanation, but the mind stone thing was a retcon. It was just a sceptre as far as the writers were concerned at the time of Avengers, I believe.

Yes, we're going with an after-the-fact, in-universe explanation, because, yes, as mentioned all these narratives were not firmly in place at the time of the first Avengers.

And on that, maybe comic book experts will tell us if there are other potential adversaries that kept Thanos and the Black Order busy, that the MCU could easily insert in the narrative later on. It would explain why he depended on proxies so much.

[polishgenius]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

And on that, maybe comic book experts will tell us if there are other potential adversaries that kept Thanos and the Black Order busy, that the MCU could easily insert in the narrative later on. It would explain why he depended on proxies so much.

I mean, it wouldn't be a graceful fit just coz they've never been mentioned before but yes, there are other cosmic Marvel threats. Heck, if the Fox deal allows it they could make it having been Galactus and his Herald/s slowing Thanos's roll. Or Annihilus which would be a great way to start an Annihilation Wave arc. Or even just Celestials, since we've already at least seen them and in this 'verse they seem to be connected to the Stones already.

 

Quote

 I said I couldn't imagine a feminist not liking Killing Eve because its one of the best made tv shows I've seen which is almost entirely centred around women. That was after a discussion about feminism and the show.

Yeah, which is a stupid argument clearly meant to try to morally shame people from admitting not liking Killing Eve, since it's perfectly possible for something to be intrinsically feminist and still not very good and you presumably do actually know this.


Also Mormont isn't accusing you of racism because you don't like Shuri, he's fitting your dislike of Shuri into your already extant pattern of blatantly racially motivated opinions.

[Heartofice]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They're accusing you of sexism and racism because your opinion of a movie character is steeped in sexist, racist themes. Your disagreement is immaterial. 

Consider: the same characteristics that annoyed you about Shuri could easily be applied to Peter Parker. Does he annoy you? They largely apply to Tony Stark as well. Does he annoy you?

Andrew Garfield's character annoyed me yes. Tom Holland is actually a great Peter Parker, he never comes across as unrealistically intelligent or cool. Toby Maguire was never presented as a super genius either.

Tony Stark is a far more well rounded and established character, he is well written and exceptionally well acted. He is also deeply flawed and his intelligence is balanced by his darker personality. 

You guys should actually be embarrassed by the stuff you are saying here.

 

Quote

Yeah, which is a stupid argument clearly meant to try to morally shame people from admitting not liking Killing Eve, since it's perfectly possible for something to be intrinsically feminist and still not very goodand you presumably do actually know this.

Again I think you want to be more concerned about someone making baseless 'male gaze' claims about a show than someone who is highlighting how a show is positive feminist show full of positive female role models.
( a strange thing for me to do seeing as how I am obviously a woman hater huh?)

[polishgenius]

41 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Again I think you want to be more concerned about someone making baseless 'male gaze' claims about a show than someone who is highlighting how a show is positive feminist show full of positive female role models.

It's almost as if I had a right old go at Zorral in that topic on precisely that subject.

But again I'd have no problem with you highlighting the positive femisim of Killing Eve (though I'd question how many positive role models there actually are in it) if you weren't doing so to try to shame people who disagree into not saying so.


And, as other people have said: you're complaining about people coming across as unrealistically intelligent in a comic book universe- except you're actually not, you're complaining about one person coming across that way, hence the backlash against you.

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, polishgenius said:

It's almost as if I had a right old go at Zorral in that topic on precisely that subject.

But again I'd have no problem with you highlighting the positive femisim of Killing Eve (though I'd question how many positive role models there actually are in it) if you weren't doing so to try to shame people who disagree into not saying so.
 

Thats really not what I did. I have no idea where you got that impression from reading that thread. Your own prejudices coming out there I think. 

2 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

And, as other people have said: you're complaining about people coming across as unrealistically intelligent in a comic book universe- except you're actually not, you're complaining about one person coming across that way, hence the backlash against you.

It's one of a number of complaints I had about the movie yes. It might have been more palatable had her character been well written, or grounded in any sort of depth, the issue is that she wasn't. I'm not going to bother to defend myself on this any more, I'm pretty sure you know how ludicrous your claims are, you can't back up a single thing you are saying and so its not worth dealing with by derailing this thread any longer.

[briantw]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

It does seem like a huge plot hole.  I had forgotten that the Mind Stone was in the scepter (since this wasn't revealed until AoU) and that Thanos gave Loki the scepter in the first Avengers.  Why would Thanos even bring Loki along at all?  He has other powerful goons that must, almost by definition, be more trustworthy than Loki.  If the idea was that this is a "prove it" kind of mission, giving Loki the Mind Stone for the purpose of getting the Space Stone is very stupid.

Wasn't Loki being controlled by the mind stone, at least in the retconned version Marvel has spoken of recently?  That would explain why he had it, as it was what Thanos was using to keep him under his control.

[Heartofice]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

Wasn't Loki being controlled by the mind stone, at least in the retconned version Marvel has spoken of recently?  That would explain why he had it, as it was what Thanos was using to keep him under his control.

That’s what I’ve heard, that Thanos used the sceptre to inspire Loki’s hatred on Thor and the Avengers. Him being mind controlled would make that a pretty safe decision 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

Wasn't Loki being controlled by the mind stone, at least in the retconned version Marvel has spoken of recently?  That would explain why he had it, as it was what Thanos was using to keep him under his control.

I'm not aware of that, but I hope that's not true, becuase that retcon strikes me as ridiculous.  Thanos was controlling Loki using the Mind Stone from across the galaxy?  Even though the Mind Stone was in Loki's possession, not Thanos's?