thor’s character arc is basically ‘tony stark, if tony was actually a good person’.
please elaborate
they both start out as men with a lot of life experience but not necessarily the maturity that goes with it, who’ve been shielded by privilege and wealth, who have actively propagated their family’s legacy of blood-soaked imperialism and who are arrogant and self-important because of it. both believe their actions bring order, and more than that, they are the only people who can bring order because of their superior understanding of the context of conflict. they become heroes out of guilt over their actions. both of them are on journeys to reflect on how can a person with gifts of incredible intelligence/strength, born into immense privilege, use their power responsibly?
so thor spends his movie appearances throwing himself into the hands of other people, and people he does not necessarily consider his equals. earth teaches him that he doesn’t know as much as he thought he did, that the universe and its people are more complex than he ever bothered to know, that even the people he’s known all his life have complex histories and inner lives that he never cared to see, assuming his superficial understanding of his own goodness was all that mattered. thor starts to understand how much power he has to hurt others - his father, his mixed race brother, all the planets of “”lesser beings”” caught in the cross-fire of his family’s conflict, and starts to see how his own actions play into a system of violence and chaos.
the things tony learns in his movies? that he is the smartest person on earth. other people can appropriate his capacity for violence and power and direct it at places tony never intended. like himself. or at his fellow americans. tony learns that his actions have encouraged a system of violence and chaos and is mainly concerned that it’s outside of his sole control. he logically concludes that means he’s the only one smart and trustworthy enough to use his weaponry to protect people properly. he’ll just make himself the arbiter of righteousness, and that means whatever he thinks is right at the time is the best thing, even if it’s not the action he was championing six months ago.
when thor’s eyes are opened, he starts grappling with how to handle his capacity to harm while being part of a royal family caught in a cycle of abuse, with a father he respects and loves who is also a petty, vicious racist imperialist. thor needs to go on a journey before he sees his place in the system clearly, but he’s actively committed to making it, and he realises that he cannot achieve anything as a lone ruler like his father expects. thor tackles his privilege by seeking out communities, teams, valuing the input of different people with different experiences. he pushes to understand and champion people who his dad considers primitive animals. he starts to understand the reason the nine realms are falling apart every few years is because asgard is a coloniser who keeps them dependent and weak. that no one can grow as long as asgard fights to keep itself on top. like tony, thor also drops in and blows things up to keep order in the nine realms, but thor is searching for how to undo the tyranny and destructive power he’s responsible for while not neglecting his other responsibility to use his power to protect others.
tony will not admit to his role in the cycle of violence and abuse and imperialism. tony wants to take responsibility, but only for being a hero. tony is afraid he will be condemned because of the violent system he is a part of. because he went through personal change and now he deserves to be considered a good person. which means if he decides to consolidate his power as a billionaire and become the ultimate judge of righteousness upon earth, that’s the action of a good person. because tony cares about everyone, and he can act on the world’s behalf because his privilege and wealth and intelligence make him the only one who’s smart enough to know best.
ultron flat out tells us both of their deepest fears revolve around their own unchecked power. thor fears people will die because of it. tony is afraid they’ll die if he doesn’t have it. humility vs hilarious vanity.
which is why thor is the one who finally sees that his family’s legacy is nothing but a shiny gilded trash pile and must tear down the literal all-powerful embodiment of his ancestors’ imperalism because, unchecked, it will only grow stronger. he throws his lot in with people. with revolutionaries, freed slaves, common folk and forsaken warriors and his adopted brother. thor may still have some arrogance and superiority and can be an arsehole about it, but he also invites in people who aren’t necessarily nice to him, who disagree with him or dislike him, who keep openly challenging his ideas of how things should work. he’s constantly working at understanding his weaknesses and his place in a broken system and knows he needs to keep choosing to work with people, that collectively they will work to do better and achieve safety. he knows his own power, but he also believes unreservedly in the capability of other people and knows it’s necessary to trust them.
tony wants to keep gilding his trash. he wants the glitzy pr spin, he wants to pass responsibility for all the nasty things onto other people. like terrorists. or his company’s weapons division. or the UN. or the immaturity of fifteen year old boys. while also taking credit for single-handedly saving the world by passing responsibility for that onto an army of robot suits he created, instead of putting his trust in his teammates to do good without him. tony deludes himself into thinking he’s putting others first by saving them from taking on his burden of responsibility with ultron or the accords or his fancy iw suit, but all he’s showing is that the only person he believes in is himself. tony cares about the whole world, but that world always has himself at the centre, claiming the spotlight.
