SPOILERS are ahead for Thor: Love and Thunder. If you haven't yet seen the latest Marvel movie, continues at your own risk
So… what has Thor been up to since Avengers: Endgame? After the Infinity War took a massive toll on the God of Thunder (he should have gone for the head), Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder finally catches up with the OG Avenger on the big screen following the Snap and Blip. And this one is a crazy, fun ride that unites him with his ex-girlfriend, Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster, and introduces him to a formidable foe in Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher. Now that we’ve seen the Thor: Love and Thunder ending, let’s break it down.
The fourth Thor movie follows Chris Hemsworth’s MCU hero where Avengers: Endgame left off. Thor briefly joins the Guardians of the Galaxy as Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie rules New Asgard back on Earth. The pair of heroes from Thor: Ragnarok reunite when Gorr begins a rampage to kill a number of gods, with Thor next on the list. We also catch back up with Jane Foster, who has Stage 4 cancer, like The Mighty Thor comics storyline, but starts to feel better once Mjolnir calls to her and she becomes The Mighty Thor. With that out of the way, it’s time to delve into how it all went down in the end.
What Happens At The End Of Thor: Love And Thunder
When Gorr the God Butcher reaches New Asgard, he kidnaps the village’s children and imprisons them into the Shadow Realm. Thor, Valkyrie, Korg and Mighty Thor go on a mission to save them from Gorr’s villainous grasp. At first, Thor decides to have them all go meet with Zeus and amass a powerful army of gods to defend themselves and defeat Gorr, but Zeus is uninterested and unreceptive to Thor’s plea for help. So instead, they steal Zeus’ thunderbolt, Thor seemingly kills Zeus and they rush off to go after Gorr themselves. In the process of this fight of the gods, Korg is crumbled into only a head, but is still alive and talking.
Gorr is on the way to the center of the universe to meet with Eternity, who can grant him the wish to rid existence of all gods. In their initial confrontation with Gorr in the Shadow Realm, Bale’s character is victorious, especially thanks to his ability to get into their heads and mess with their emotions. Notably. Gorr is able to sense that Jane’s bond with Mjolnir is not helping with her cancer, it’s actually making it weaker. He also injures Valkyrie. In retreat after the unsuccessful attack, Thor, Jane and Valkyrie return to Earth.
Jane is rushed to the hospital, in worse condition than ever. Thor, at her side, decides to return to battle alone to finish off Gorr, in fear that Jane will die if she becomes Mighty Thor one more time. At the site of Eternity’s gates, Thor finds the Asgardian children and arms them with a surge of his powers to fight off Gorr’s shadow creatures. In the knick of time, Jane’s The Mighty Thor reaches Eternity, and with Gorr's Necrosword destroyed and no longer curisng him, she and Thor together convince the antagonist to wish for his late daughter to be resurrected rather than kill all gods. Jane dies in Thor’s arms and Gorr dies in the arms of his daughter, who has been brought back to life. Thor takes in Gorr’s daughter as his own.
The blockbuster ends with Thor making breakfast for her, and, after a brief spat in the kitchen, the pair venture out to fight evil together with the heroic names Love and Thunder.
Explaining Gorr The God Butcher’s Motivations And Origins
Gorr the God Butcher begins as a devout follower of his god, The Bringer of Light, but when we first find Christian Bale’s character, he is starving in a desert and watching his final family member dying in his arms. Following this, he stumbles across an oasis and his god, and immediately believes he has been offered the “reward” of the afterlife he was hoping for following his struggles. As he tells his God, he has been following and praying to him his whole life devotedly. However, it is revealed that his god does not care about him and there was never an eternal reward for his lifetime of prayers.
A weapon called the Necrosword is lying on the ground during Gorr’s confrontation with his god and it calls to him like Mjornir later does for Jane. Gorr bonds with the sword, obtains great powers and kills his god before making his mission to kill many more. Possessing the weapon bestows a curse on the villain that in part motivates his mission to kill other deities, and ultimately clouds his mind when it comes to what he really wants.
Under the influence of the Necrosword, Gorr is driven towards hate and death, but that influence dissipates when the weapon is destroyed by Thor and Mighty Thor. Having been infected by the curse, Gorr can no longer live without it, but his thinking is no longer influenced by negative emotion. With Jane and Thor realizing at the end of her life, they convince him to choose love over hate, which is what influences him to change his wish: instead of wishing for the death of the gods, he wishes for the return of his beloved daughter – whom the God of Thunder agrees to raise and care for.
Gorr the God Butcher was introduced in the Thor comics in 2013 by creators Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, and in his arc is similarly featured after Thor in his larger mission to destroy all gods.
Who Is Thor’s Daughter And Is She Based Someone In The Comics?
Thor adopts the daughter of Gorr, who is resurrected by Eternity via Gorr’s wish. Eternity is also from Marvel Comics, and is described as an abstract entity that embodies the Marvel universe alongside its sister counterpart, Infinity. In the comics, Eternity is the personification of time, whilst Infinity is the personification of space. He assumes collective consciousness of all living things and controls everything in all planes of existence except for The Living Tribunal, who maintains the cosmic balance of power (and makes a quick cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness). In other words, he’s a super powerful being.
So when Eternity brought back Gorr’s daughter, she was resurrected with the powers of a God, since she was born of the all-powerful being. This makes her an instantly great kid to be Thor’s – you know, since he’s all about kicking butt with his powers. Gorr’s daughter being adopted by Thor is not something from the comics, and the character itself seems to be the movie’s own creative liberties to move forward Thor’s story. However, in Marvel Comics, Eternity does have two children called Now and Then, both of which have powers as well.
Gorr the God Butcher alters Thor’s life in many ways, but most of all the journey of the movie teaches the hero about the power of love. By confronting the love of his life and then selflessly taking in the daughter of an enemy, it embodies this message, but it also makes the God of Thunder a father for the first time, which is major. Though he lost Jane, he has gained a lifelong sidekick and someone to mentor... though he may have angered some major Gods along the way.
Thor: Love And Thunder, starring Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, and Russell Crowe, is now playing in theaters everywhere.
