Was the 2nd Snap (Avengers Endgame) the Right Thing to do?

Great Debates
21

Well, the “boo fucking hoo” logistics issues is you have 5 billion people suddenly showing up with no way to feed and house a lot of them.

But that’s not really the point of the Thanos storyline (even though it is a major plot point in Falcon & The Winter Soldier). The latest trend with superhero stories seems to be this dark deconstructionist view where superheroes are shown as troubled anti-heroes (Batman), unchecked vigilantes (Watchmen), psychopaths who happen to only kill bad guys (Deadpool), bad guys coerced to do “good” (Suicide Squad, themselves under the command of a morally questionable government entity), or actual villains with better PR and marketing ( The Boys).

Not everyone agrees with this realistic take on supers. Richard Donner (creator of the original Superman film)'s take on Superman is that he wass meant to be an idealized proponent of “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow”.

It’s okay to have superheroes just show up and save the day from time to time without digging into the geopolitical consequences or implications of their actions.

22

I think the simple version of Thanos’ motivations, in either the movie or comic book version, is that he’s insane. That pretty well covers both.

And even granted all the side effects, and even if we can’t just unsnap all the side effects, well, you do what you can. The original Snap was unambiguously evil, and so the unSnap that undid it was unambiguously good.

23

A helicopter. But we don’t see anyone in it, or anyone underneath it when it crashes.

24

Pretty much everything you listed as a “latest trend” is from the 90s.

25

Is this really true? Maybe food would be a temporary issue but all those people used to live somewhere and it’s not as though we would have made 5bil new people in those years. Especially if you consider additional deaths post-Snap from accidents and general adjustment, it might even be zero population growth.

26

Yeah. You can just no-prize that in the MCU a hundred different ways like solving the food or housing issue with some Wakandan tech.

27

The Snap removed 50% of everything. So, with the Un-Snap, we’re getting back a ton of cows and pigs and chicken and soy plants and wheat and all the rest of it. Plus all the missing ranchers, meatpackers, factory workers, etc.

There would definitely be an adjustment to be made but it’s not as though we’re double the humans but only at 50% of all the things we were raising for humans to eat. While it won’t be smooth, it likely won’t be catastrophic either and certainly not to the level where the “right” choice is to leave 5bil murdered people dead if it’s in your power to un-do it. Plus, you know, handwavey MCU tech to help smooth the road.

28

You can’t imagine how much (though it is good , definitely an excellent super hero movie) how much I detest the “avengers” movies.

Fave Comic Characters in order… Adam Warlock , Silver Surfer , Thanos… Galactus… Mephisto…

Least fave super hero teams in order (though ignoring individual members cuz who doesn’t love HULK!) Avengers…

Fave comic series of all times in order… The infinity Gauntlet , The infinity watch… Deadpool(just included for funs)

if you know any of the above… you can see why the current movies broke my heart (although they are awesome and good “what if’s” which is how I view them heh)

Thanos as an Eco Terrorist was hilarious… someone who is a fan thought of that. The man mass murdered his own people , his mom the universe… chases death like alovesick schoolboy…

On the actual question. The movies just didn’t listen to their comic rep who tells them “is this like the comics or what” “snaps” sometimes do unknowns personally (Adam Warlock divesting himself of good and evil after taking the gauntlet from thanos after using the entire MCU as fodder… way to be Adam…). But 99.9% to my understanding understand intent. These are six sentient " almost q’s" if you will trapped in these gems. The Snaps would use a calculation I’d imagine (completely assuming here) that yes bob dies cuz he’s the driver and sally and sue will die but mary will live through the crash so 3 down 1 up… . Determinism if you will? I hope that’s the right word for that.

That’s how I viewed the movie version of the snap. In the comics it’s only I think two panels really and just kind of hints that it somehow knows not to create more by proxy deaths, so selected the ones unlikely to harm others through their absence. But he also does it for much more nefarious means. Just impressing your not even a girlfriend yet… yikes. Doesn’t work either… women amiright? (Just kidding ladies, don’t beat me! Ow , Ow , Ow).

The way it happens in the movies though , I think Deth is right , just cuz of the sideline of the hints from other movies etc. Definitely be a lot of proxy deaths. Wouldn’t go so far as some but maybe 60-65% mortality. That little extra (also remember its universe wide… the poor phalanx or other hive minds… what do you do when you’re truly only one individual… or if half the “brood” taken out (xmen) took out all their queens… yikes.

ALso in Snarky’s tent, most definitely the right thing to reverse it. “boohoo” as said.

29

Hopefully this doesn’t go against the spirit of the OP, but I think this question illustrates how so many superhero stories fail as the moral/ethical allegories they purport to be.

If the answer to “was it ethical to do X” is “well, let’s assume in-universe that doing X worked out in such a way that none of the negative consequences would have happened,” then I don’t think you’ve answered any question about morality- you’ve just created a context in which there are no moral questions at all.

30

I feel like there are so many unknowns about both snaps that it’s not really possible to answer the question, you can fill in the blanks in a way that justifies any choice.

31

Now I grant that the Second snap would have been great, had it occurred shortly after. The issue really is- after five years, everyone has gotten on the grieving and moved on. The world has adapted. Nature has returned. Etc.

32

Yeah, I don’t think anyone would be done grieving after five years if half your family died.

33

Ah, but, not trying to go a gotcha, we’re back to the duality inherent in your OP @DrDeth - your frame for the debate was the vast practical and social difficulties of the reverse snap, but the final question was about the ethical/moral implications.

Now, practical issues can and do inform and affect ethical considerations, but they are distinct and different nonetheless.

In a perfect world, with the God-like power of the snap, a ‘best case’ choice might have been to give all victims of the snap a “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment where the see the world as it is NOW without them and let THEM make the choice to return to how it is (warts and all). Thus only those who chose to return would.

Still leaving out the practical food / economic / etc issues, as well as those for literally everyone else outside of earth, but as @Elmer_J.Fudd pointed out, could probably be fixed with Wakandan or other supertech.

An additional moral / ethical question to add to the pile: Why didn’t the Avengers notify all the other non-human societies they have contact with of their decision (if they didn’t)? Multiply the practical issues times countless inhabited planets across the known universe (or more) and it gets complicated. The Avengers chose for everyone, and the only non-humans involved were the Guardians and Asgardians. Not exactly representative.

34

If indeed, Wakanda supertech could solve world hunger and housing for 5 Billion people, then the question is- why have they not done so for the Billion or so that live in hunger and no housing? Thus, either they can not or will not.

35

Who’s to say hadn’t? It’s the MCU; not our world.

36

I think the Black Panther movie made it almost certain that it’s more a matter of “will not” rather than “can not”. Part of the whole antagonist’s issue is that Wakanda chooses to do nothing in order to stand apart from the rest of the world. Which is an entirely different ethical issue to argue about, probably in another thread.

Which is why I always refer to Killmonger as an antagonist rather than a villain. Because, well, he’s not entirely wrong after all…

Back to the issue at hand though, with their own ox being gored, it is likely that Wakanda’s involvement (including the loss of it’s own King) would change it’s path going forward, especially after the key role they played in the failed original defense.

So perhaps that is one of the fixes they used, but having not watched the Disney Plus options or Wakanda forever, I lack the additional info to judge.

37

Didn’t that film end with a commitment to help the rest of the world with its problems?

38

Yes, which I pointed out is supported by their key defensive role in the first Infinity War movie. But culturally, it had certainly been a “will not” prior to the course of events in Black Panther.

Which is where I was disagreeing (most politely) with DrDeth, in that pending information revealed in other sources, that post Black Panther, post-First-Snap Wakanda’s likeliness to help is a very different question than it had been historically.

39

There’s also a matter that a lot (not all, but a lot) of the current problems we have with hunger, homelessness, etc., are due to deep-seated structural issues in society, which are not fixed so easily as just producing more food and houses. Even if the hunger and housing problems post-unsnap are larger in magnitude than the problems we have now, that does not necessarily mean they’re harder to solve.

40

While I completely agree with the first part (for example, food sent to starving people in Africa is often hijacked by warlords), I disagree with the second.

The reason being is that the 5B new population occurs instantly. The world has no time to prepare or adapt.

In America and Western Europe, sure the food sitrep is not so bad. But the housing is. It can be solved.

In parts of Africa and Asia, most/many of the returnees will simply die.

And sure were are talking about the MCU here to an extent. But bringing in magic/tech solutions that were not in the films or comics is a bit of a cheat.