pandalandalopalis:

killing someone you love is such a theme in infinity war and i feel like it’s a more important and subtle addition than we realize

gamora asks peter to kill her if thanos gets her. she asks him, because she trusts him, because she loves him. and he actually does it. he pulls the trigger, as much as it fucking hurts him, because he promised, because he loves her.

vision asks wanda to destroy the mind stone, something that could effectively kill him, and he asks her because she’s the only one who can but also for the same reasons that gamora asked peter to be the one to kill her. wanda, like peter, is so reluctant to kill him, because she loves him so much, but she does it because by the end there is no other way. he can be killed by someone he loves, or he can be brutally murdered by a psychopathic alien overlord. when wanda destroys the mind stone, nothing is left of vision. for her, it’s better that way. he didnt suffer. his last words to her were “i love you”, and then he was just gone without a trace, and it’s almost peaceful. thanos, though, when thanos takes the mind stone from his head, the life drains from his body and he turns grey; his eyes are completely blank with nothing left.

in both these scenarios, they killed (or attempted to kill) the person they love because they love them. now let’s compare this to the other situation in which a person kills someone they love: thanos and gamora

gamora is thanos’s favourite daughter. he does really love her, or else of course the soul stone wouldn’t have taken his sacrifice. but thanos did not kill her because he loved her. he killed her because he needed to in order to fulfill his mission with the infinity stones. 

i feel like gamora’s final words are important here: “no, this isn’t love” – because although he may have loved her, he didn’t love her the way peter loved her. he didn’t love her the way wanda loved vision. 

thanos didn’t kill gamora because he loved her. he killed gamora because she happened to be the one person he loved.

there’s an important distinction and parallel here that i felt was needed to be said thanks for coming to my ted talk