SPOILER ALERT: Warning, this article contains spoilers from Avengers: Infinity War. Proceed at your own risk.
Avengers: Infinity War is by far the most expansive movie Marvel has ever made. The cast, the villains, the threats, the stakes, everything in this film is more elevated than it has ever been. Stakes on this scale come with real consequences and when characters come face to face with Thanos, it’s not likely they will make it out alive.
So let’s just cut to the chase here: a lot of characters die in Avengers: Infinity War. Safe to say almost half of the characters in the film suffer a version of death. We say a “version of death” because, to make a Princess Bride reference, some characters are what we would consider “all dead” and “mostly dead.” Keep reading to find out what we mean.
Asgardian Legends
The beginning of the film is BRUTAL and knocks two characters out within the first few minutes: Heimdall and Loki. Heimdall dies after he summons the last of his energy to open the bi-frost, which sends The Hulk back to Earth. Loki dies trying to outsmart Thanos.
Both characters die doing something heroic and valiant, which may be predictable for Heimdall, but is definitely new for Loki. Loki was the villain in the first Avengers movie, he was acting on Thanos’ orders to bring him the Tesseract (Space Stone). Loki could have surrendered the Tesseract as if he was fulfilling Thanos’ initial command. Not so. This time, Loki played the hero and paid dearly for it.
Half of Asgard’s refugees were also killed in the opening scene of the film. No word yet if Korg, Valkyrie, or other characters from Thor: Ragnarok made it off the ship, but Thor does say later in the film that “half of my people were slaughtered,” so those characters could still be alive.
The Soul of Thanos
The next on-screen death was even more brutal than the first two. Gamora, Star-Lord’s love, Guardian of the Galaxy, wielder of an Infinity Stone, was killed by her father’s own hand. Apparently, she was the only woman in the universe who knew the location of the final Infinity Stone — the Soul Stone.
Thanos sent her on a quest for the stone before she became a Guardian, but she hid its location from him. He discovered her disloyalty by torturing Nebula. Only then did Gamora give up the stone’s location. Together, Gamora and Thanos traveled to Vormir to find the last of the six stones.
While there, they encountered the Stonekeeper (a familiar face), who explained that one can only possess the Soul Stone if he or she can let go of what they love most. Gamora laughed because she didn’t think Thanos could love anyone. She was proven wrong, however, when he admitted that he loved her. He pushed her off the edge of a cliff and was given the stone in return.
This is a shocking end for Gamora, especially considering there is another Guardians of the Galaxy movie on the horizon. Hopefully, she can be saved in Avengers 4.
Without Vision the People Perish
We knew this one was coming, but it still hurt like hell. Thanos’ minions tried to get the Mind Stone out of Vision‘s head a few different times during the film, but he was protected by both Captain America and Scarlet Witch. However, when it came to destroying the stone so Thanos couldn’t get his hands on it, Scarlet Witch had to destroy it herself. OUCH.
That’s right, Scarlet Witch killed the man she loved to save the universe. This was a theme of the film, actually, since Gamora asked Star-Lord to kill her as well, but Thanos stopped him before he could. After Scarlet Witch killed Vision, Thanos used the Time Stone to reverse time so he could go back in time and rip the stone out Vision’s head and then he died again.
It’s hard to say if Vision can come back from this, considering he died twice. But, if the Avengers can re-write time in Avengers 4 to save Gamora, hopefully they can save Vision too. If not, we just lost the MCU’s best, most purest android and Wanda just lost the love of her life.
Oh Snap
Lastly, we have “mostly dead” characters. These are characters who vanished out of existence when Thanos snapped his fingers. This happened in quick succession at the end of the film, but we think we caught everyone. Hold onto your hearts because we lost A LOT of characters: Bucky, Black Panther, Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Scarlet Witch, and Groot all vanished into thin air.
THIS WAS SO HARD TO WATCH! Steve Rogers watched Bucky vanish. Iron Man held Peter Parker in his arms as he became dust in the wind. Okoye watched her King vanish into nothing. Even Nick Fury and Maria Hill vanished during the post-credits scene. DAMMIT THANOS.
That leaves Steve Rogers, War Machine, Wong, Rocket, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hulk, Okoye, Shuri and Thor to figure out what the heck happened and how to get everyone back. Nebula is also still out there, as are Hawkeye and Ant-Man. It’s funny that everyone was wondering if Hawkeye was going to be in this film because, even though he wasn’t, he is clearly going to be an important character in Avengers 4.
Did you think this many characters were going to die in Infinity War? Are you surprised that Tony Stark and Captain America are still alive? Let us know on social or in the community pages.