Love & Thunder Completely Ignored Part Of Thor's Infinity War Story

Thor: Love and Thunder explores more of the Asgardian’s battle with his past and his future, but it forgot a major element from his established arc.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder.

Thor: Love and Thunder tells the next step in Thor’s journey, and while it addressed some big parts of his character, it neglected a major part of his earlier story. As a member of the original Avengers lineup and having debuted in only the fourth MCU movie, Thor has a long complex timeline. While his story is internally consistent, Thor: Love and Thunder appears to have forgotten a significant part of his narrative.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has struggled with feeling worthy, both in himself and in the eyes of his Odin’s spell on Mjolnir, since the original Thor. Many of his previous stories have revolved around the idea of him feeling like he has failed in some way and working to regain his faith in himself as he learns to be a better hero. In Thor: Ragnarok he believes he has failed Asgard, but comes to lead them. Then in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame Thor believes he has failed by not stopping Thanos, but he comes to realize he needs to explore who he is more and define himself, passing leadership to Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) while he travels with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Storytelling in the MCU often uses symbolism to represent past traumas and struggles, such as the scars that are sometimes visible on the hands of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch). For Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, an important part of this symbolism is the loss of his eye to Hela, which sees him wearing an eyepatch for the rest of the movie and into Avengers: Infinity War. When he is traveling with Rocket and Groot, Rocket gives Thor a cybernetic eye that he stole. The eye is a different color to Thor’s original eye color, being brown rather than blue, but presents a part of his character journey as Thor begins to bond with the Guardians and continues his effort to defeat Thanos. While that eye remains visible in it’s brown/gold hue throughout Avengers: Endgame, the detail is forgotten in Thor: Love and Thunder with Thor once again having two blue eyes.

Why Thor Has His Eye Back In Love and Thunder

Several shots in Thor: Love and Thunder give closeups of Thor’s eyes and show them to both be a piercing blue with no discernable difference. It is possible that this is a simple filmmaking mistake, or was a change made to avoid the hassle of keeping up the effects. Whether Chris Hemsworth’s Thor had to wear a colored contact lens or the editing team had to go in and touch up on eye in most shots, the extra work would have been a nuisance for what might seem like a small detail. However, given the importance of the imagery for the character and Chris Hemsworth’s presumed memory of his own character’s appearance, there might well be an in-universe explanation as to why Thor has both eyes in Thor: Love and Thunder.

It’s not clear how Asgardian physiology works but there’s no reason to think that Thor’s eye would have grown back. However, it is possible that during his time traveling with the Guardians of the Galaxy he either found a magical way to repair his eye, or (more likely) Rocket stole another eye for Thor that matched his true eye color. Thor: Love and Thunder shows Thor trying to meditate and finding a degree of peace within himself and battling his trauma, which might explain why he begins to appear physically whole again. However, given that Thor’s loss of his eye and overcoming that was an important symbolic part of his story, it is ultimately strange that Thor: Love and Thunder might have intentionally replaced his eye without ever explaining the reason on screen.