Even if you are not a Marvel fan, you must have heard of one of the most fearsome villains existing in the Marvel universe: Thanos. Whether it be the comics or the Avenger movies, every fight and plot sequence in Phase 1 of Marvel slowly led up to the arrival of this warlord from Titan.
What follows is a gruesome battle of power as the Avengers try to defend Earth from Thanos’s wrath. Unfortunately, Thanos won the first battle, killing half the universe with the snap. Which leads us to ask the question, why did Thanos kill half the universe?
Thanos wanted the universe to be balanced. He wanted to bring stability to the universe and believed that wiping out half of the population was the way to that. Why did he want to bring balance to the universe is a question that still needs answering.
Thanos and the snap: Why did he wipe half the population?
Perfectly balanced, as all things should be, is what Thanos tells Gamora as he distracts her by balancing a knife on his index finger while his army wipes out Gamora’s planet. This dialogue sums up Thanos’s beliefs; he believes the universe will cease to exist if all species are left to grow without a check.
Overpopulation and unsustainable resources are a huge concern of many today, and Thanos had the belief that the overly growing, already massive population would use up all the resources of the universe. Ultimately, the universe would perish along with everyone in it as there would be no natural resources left for anyone to use.
For this purpose, he wipes out half the universe believing the other half would be thankful to him for saving the universe. Therefore, he took this step for the ‘greater good’ and to bring ‘balance’ to the universe.
To find out more about his motives you can also watch the video:
How did Thanos kill half of the universe?
Performing this feat was no easy task even for Thanos; he set out on his mission years ago when he wiped half the population on Gamora’s planet. As for us Marvel fans, we first saw him in the end credits scene of The Avengers (2012), where we realized it was Thanos who had allied with Loki to find the infinity stones. Later, we again saw Thanos enlisting the help of Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) to get the infinity stones.
We are sure you must have figured it out by now; Thanos sought out the six infinity stones to perform the task of killing half the population. Since the infinity stones are too powerful to be yielded, he forced the dwarves of Nidavellir (the same dwarves who made Mjolnir and StormBreaker for Thor) to forge the infinity gauntlet for him. Using the gauntlet, he wielded the six stones and performed the snap, which wiped away half of the universe, which was what he wanted.
So now you are aware of why and how Thanos performed the famous snap. It is still highly recommended that you watch the films to get some good entertainment, if anything else.
