Does Thor: Love & Thunder's Death Create An Infinity War Plot Hole?

Thor: Love & Thunder deepens the mythos surrounding Marvel's Gods, but one death in particular might create a plot hole from Avengers: Infinity War.

Warning: Contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder

Thor: Love & Thunder gives viewers a deeper look into the lives of MCU Gods, but this development could also create an interesting plot hole for Avengers: Infinity War. Thor’s latest stint in the MCU sees him go toe-to-toe with the menacing Gorr the God Butcher, a being who leaves a trail of dead Gods in his wake. But one death at the climax of Love & Thunder has left many wondering what the in-universe rules are when it comes to the demises of these powerful characters.

Throughout Thor: Love & Thunder, viewers are introduced to many new Gods in the MCU, with a plethora of them being involved in scenes taking place in Omnipotence City. The Gods feel safe in the city from the murder spree of Gorr the God Butcher, a man who renounced the Gods after losing his daughter, and they are apathetic to Thor’s pleas for an army, leaving the God of Thunder and his rag-tag team to take on the Gorr themselves. While not many Gods are seen killed on-screen, it’s shown that when they do die, the Gods seem to evaporate into gold dust. This was previously shown most clearly in Thor: Ragnarok, when Odin died and immediately turned to gold dust, just as Jane Foster does. The effects here cause questions about Gods seen in past MCU projects and their deaths.

During the opening scenes of Avengers: Infinity War, viewers are shown the strength of Thanos from the get go as he kills Loki and Heimdall after ravaging the Asgardian ship, but neither Loki nor Heimdall are ever shown to turn into gold dust like the Gods in Thor: Love & Thunder and the previous Thor movies. This isn’t the first time the Gods in the MCU haven’t followed the same rules as displayed in Love & Thunder either: the Warriors Three don’t disappear when they die, and while it could be argued that this happens off-screen after the fact as there is less focus on their bodies, there is no concrete clarification. In Thor: The Dark World, Frigga only turned to gold dust at her funeral, a long time after she had died. The delay before Frigga turns to dust is inconsistent with Odin in Thor: Ragnarok and Jane’s Mighty Thor and in Thor: Love & Thunder, and even if Loki, Heimdall, and the Warriors Three turned to dust off screen, that delay remains an issue that suggests the MCU is playing fast and loose with the rules about their godly beings.

The MCU Needs A Better Rule For God Deaths

The rules regarding Gods’ deaths in the MCU seem to be fluid from project to project, and with Thor: Ragnarok even within the same movie, and they ultimately don’t make much sense. It could be that all of the Gods do evaporate into gold dust, but that viewers just aren’t shown them all, however, it would make more sense for Marvel to lay out specific reasons for this event to happen to the Gods, that way, the deaths of some beloved characters wouldn’t be surrounded by so much confusion. Thor: Love & Thunder is the most consistent when it comes to this imagery, but it creates strange plot holes from previous MCU films that didn’t follow this pattern.

The mythology of the Gods in the MCU is an interesting one and is always developing, with the introduction of many more Gods in Omnipotence City in Thor: Love & Thunder. While the MCU first introduced the Asgardians as not really being gods, but simply being beings of great power who humans treated as gods, more recent properties like Moon Knight and Thor: Love and Thunder have made it unclear exactly what it means to be a god in the MCU. This is an artifact of Marvel’s consistently changing plan for the MCU, and it is likely that just as the rules for what consituted a god have been loose at times, the same is true for why Jane and Odin turn to gold immediately, Frigga turned sometime later, and the deaths of Loki, the Warriors Three, and Heimdall remain incongruous to the wider franchise and a better rule needs to be established.

Want more Thor: Love & Thunder articles? Check out our essential content below…