Thor: Love and Thunderis the latest adventure of the Norse God of Thunder, again directed byTaika Waititi. When the film’s primary antagonist, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), begins killing off different gods and goddesses across the galaxy, it’s up to Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg, and Thor’s former girlfriend-turned-Mighty Thor,Jane Foster(Natalie Portman), to save the day.
From Thor’s introduction in the firstThormovie through Norse mythology, the MCU has its own pantheon of gods and goddesses across its universe. From the Egyptian gods inMoon Knightto the Wakandans worshiping Bast inBlack Panther, there’s no shortage of deities or belief systems. InEternals, audiences see how the Eternals’ impact on humanity was the inspiration of many gods and myths celebrated across different cultures. Outside the fictional gods and goddesses,Ms. Marvelhighlights Islam as more than just background information, crucial to the character of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani).
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With belief in a higher power, how does that land with a hero becoming their own kind of deity? For all of these religious backgrounds, there hasn’t been a story about the internal struggle between faith and personal convictions since theDaredevilseries starringCharlie Cox. While we’ve yet to see this particular story in a movie, Gorr’s story of losing and restoring his faith inLove and Thunderis the closest an MCU movie has come to exploring faith in such a personal way. Though it’s not overt, his journey of grief is also a spiritual one, where he deconstructs his belief system and reconstructs it around something stronger to believe in.
AsThor: Love and Thunderbegins, Gorr and his daughter (India Rose Hemsworth) are seen in a barren wasteland trying to survive. There’s no sign of life around them. As they spend their days in the desert, his daughter is seen drawing while Gorr prays to Rapu (Jonny Brugh). He’s a devout man looking to his god for deliverance; he believes his unwavering faith will lead to an eternal reward. No matter how much he prays, there’s nothing to stop him from going through what no parent wishes to experience – he has to watch his child die in his arms from starvation. Love for Gorr has physically and metaphorically died. Gorr buries his daughter and lies next to it, presumably waiting for death to claim him as well.
This is not the MCU’s first foray into exploring grief. Phase 4 kicked off withWandaVision, an exploration of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), her grief, and her attempts to cope with it. Many of the characters we know and love are dealing with guilt and consequences. New characters being introduced are coming in with their own type of traumas that they wrestle with, whether it be familial or cultural. Through the trials of life, religions teach their followers that it’s important to hold on to your faith to see your way through grief, disappointment, and pain; holding onto belief will in turn help your faith increase more. However, some trials, trauma, or grief can push a person to a point where faith feels futile, leading them to rejecting it. This is what Gorr comes to face when he finally meets the sun god he’s spent his life worshiping.
When Gorr comes face to face with Rapu in an oasis, at first he is reverent to the deity. Even through the grief of losing his daughter, his belief in Rapu never wavered and now he believes all his suffering will bring peace. However, Rapu knocks this belief down completely – mocking him and showing no empathy for Gorr’s suffering and loss. He even tears down the notion that a reward is waiting for him. With his eyes opened to the reality of Rapu’s shortcomings, Gorr not only renounces his god, but kills him.
In recent years,the term “deconstruction"has been used to describe the process of people of faith dismantling statutes of their belief system in order to discern its true meaning. To put it simply, it’s a faith crisis. Followers from different religions are taking a look at what they believe in, breaking it down to its bare bones, and putting the pieces back together through reconciliation and reconstruction. There is a multitude of reasons why someone would want to deconstruct their faith; trauma within the religious community, political upheaval, grief, etc. Many religious leaders and followers fear deconstruction because it has led to people rejecting and walking away from their faith altogether. In Gorr’s case, in his grief, he looks to Rapu to find healing and peace. When Rapu scoffs at his devotion and his pain, Gorr makes his decision to walk away.
Some people deconstruct through reading books or processing with another person; for Gorr, he deconstructs by slaughtering the gods and goddesses of the universe out of existence. With the fallibility of one lies the fallibility of them all. The Necrosword calls Gorr out of the wilderness, and presents itself to him as he’s being choked by the sun god. It binds itself to Gorr and empowers him to dismantle the current system of gods and goddesses of the universe. Gorr physically and metaphorically tears them down, making it his vow that “all gods will die.”
Gorr wastes no time on his warpath to Eternity; across the galaxy, he makes a name for himself. Thor and the Guardians of the Galaxy see many distress calls asking for help against the God Butcher. As he kills another god, he draws further away from the man he used to be. His former self briefly pops up when Gorr talks with Axl (Kieron L. Dyer) and the Asgardian children on the way to the Shadow Realm; he sees a girl who reminds him of his daughter but he gets caught up in her memory for a moment before it passes away. The longer he’s connected to the Necrosword, the more Gorr continues to feed off of his own anger born out of his grief; yet love has the power to linger on even when we think it’s dead and gone.
Gorr attempts to bring others to his level of contempt and derision of the gods. When the Asgardian children show their hope in Thor coming to rescue them, Gorr mocks them. When he captures Valkyrie in the Shadow Realm, he reminds her how her sisters and girlfriend were killed at the hands of Hela (Cate Blanchett), the goddess of death, in service of another god, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). In a brutal way, he’s spreading the message of his new belief system and forcing others to look at it the way he sees it.
Thor’s journey inLove and Thunderwakes him up to see how the other gods have failed him, too, which, as a fellow god, is telling. With his trip to Omnipotence City, Zeus (Russell Crowe) is Thor’s hero who lets him down by not being the great god he believed him to be. When asked to help in their fight to protect the other gods, Zeus has no interest in getting in harm’s way to do the right thing. His apathetic approach is the same that Gorr experiences with Rapu. It also speaks to the larger narrative in the MCU that the pantheon of gods has tended to keep a hands-off approach to meddling in mortal affairs; they often choose warriors to fight in their name rather than face the battle themselves.
It’s interesting to note that Zeus publicly expresses his indifference toward the God Butcher and the deaths of lower level gods, and then, in the film’s mid-credits scene, privately laments how mortals have traded out their worship of the gods for worship of superheroes. The irony here is that he realizes that he’s become the lower god in the eyes of the universe for his lack of involvement in the events of the MCU. Whether he will strike fear and awe from mortals again with the help of Hercules (Brett Goldstein) remains to be seen.
In the final battle, Mighty Thor saves the day by destroying the Necrosword, sacrificing herself in the process, but the Bifrost portal opens enough for Gorr to make it to Eternity and fulfill his vow. As Jane lays dying and his own fate hanging in the balance, Thor realizes what Gorr has been searching for this whole time – Love. The God of Thunder reminds Gorr what life is worth living for. Thor understands the anger and despair that comes with losing the people in your life. Just to name a few, Thor has lost his father, his mother Frigga (Rene Russo), his best friend Heimdall (Idris Elba), and his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston); this is something Rocket (voiced byBradley Cooper) comments on while he, Thor, and Groot (voiced byVin Diesel) travel to Nidavellir inAvengers: Infinity War. Even though he’s about to die, instead of fighting, he turns his back on his adversary to be with Jane in what will be their last moments together.
This has a profound effect on Gorr. At the end of his life, he finds something to believe in again. Instead of completing his mission, Gorr uses his wish to bring his daughter back to life, even though he can’t be with her. He puts his trust in Thor to raise his daughter. He doesn’t know how it will go, but he has faith that his Love will be taken care of. As a wise humanoid, Vision (Paul Bettany), once said, “What is grief if not love persevering?” At the beginning of the movie, Gorr loses his faith in the sun god, but he dies by regaining faith in Love and Thunder, a duo who go on to be their own legend.
