the darkest timeline
I have some MCU worldbuilding thoughts. They are fairly dystopian.
So. Avengers: Endgame, the ending. This is kind of the darkest timeline, yeah?
I’m not talking about any individual characters or relationships, here. Actually, I think Steve gets the only happy ending by peacing out of our timeline entirely. Because let’s stop a minute and consider the worldbuilding implications.
Five years ago, the Snap happened. That sucked. That sucked a LOT. Half the world’s population - roughly 3.5 billion people, give or take - vanished into dust. And that doesn’t take into account all the actual deaths that occurred as a direct result: car/bus/plane crashes when the drivers got Snapped, people in hospitals whose doctors/nurses/surgeons disappeared, babies abandoned in their cribs and not found for days, etc etc etc. The five year jump meant that the movie didn’t have to deal directly with that, and that’s fine. The immediate chaos and nightmare of the few weeks/months immediately following the Snap are simply the collective trauma of all 3 billion-ish survivors. We don’t know exactly what kind of uneasy global consensus has developed in the meantime; we see empty stadiums, garbage piling up in Cassie Lang’s neighborhood, hear about whales in the Hudson river. There has been some breakdown in global infrastructure; some areas probably coped better than others. Some people fell apart; I imagine there was an epidemic of suicides at some point. Others rebuilt and even thrived. The world is still grieving, but also in the process of moving on. It’s been five full years.
Now the events of Endgame culminate in Tony Stark getting the gauntlet and undoing the Snap, sacrificing his own life in the process. It’s a tragic, noble death. I take nothing away from Tony in this moment. But instead of resetting the timeline to the point at which Thanos brutally diverged it - that moment of the Snap five years ago, or somewhere in that battle - he simply brings back everyone who had been dusted.
3.5 billion people reappear on Earth, with no warning, with no idea that anything in their lives has changed, or that five years have passed.
From what I’ve seen in terms of reactions in fandom so far, people have been very focused on the individual human level of relationships. What happened to marriages where one spouse was Snapped, and the other lived on? Children who lost parents, parents who lost children? Half the kids in Peter’s high school class would have graduated college by now. Etc, etc, etc. Some people are pissed at the movie for not really grappling with the implications of that; others are thrilled at the wealth of new, interesting storytelling opportunities.
I’m seeing a global catastrophe. There are now 3.5 billion refugees on the planet Earth. 3.5 billion people suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves homeless: either someone else now lives in their house/apartment/etc, or it’s in the part of town that has been abandoned and neglected for five long years, with no power, no water, no heat, no essential services. These are 3.5 billion people who were likely declared legally dead. They have literally nothing apart from the clothes on their backs and whatever was in their pockets. No bank accounts, no assets of any kind. Those who were in the workforce are also now unemployed, and many will have a great deal of difficulty readjusting to the modern demands of the workplace - and not just in terms of technological upgrades. In the devastating repercussions of the Snap, I’d imagine entire industries collapsed or were forced to adapt into nearly unrecognizable forms, and new ones likely also developed. And this is only addressing, like, best case scenario first world problems! Let alone the parts of the world that just plain devolved into civil war and chaos.
On an individual level, some people will likely be fine. Peter Parker, for example, will probably be supported by Pepper Potts and the Stark fortune for the rest of his life. Some people will be able to rejoin families who have desperately missed them (Clint).
But on a societal level? Unless some brilliant, visionary, and completely ethical leader emerges to rally the world, we’re looking at near-total societal collapse. (I think Wakanda will probably be fine, between the leadership of T'Challa and Shuri and the combination of its wealth and relative isolation from the rest of the world, but that’s a major exception.) The infrastructure and resources are not in place or in any way capable of reabsorbing the sudden influx of 3.5 billion people. That will be more than doubling the global population in an instant. Many people will not have immediate families to return to, because their un-Snapped relations did not necessarily all survive the past five years (between the initial devastation and also, you know, five years of normal life - old age, illness, accident, etc) or are not willing to take them back in (because while catastrophe can bring out the best of humanity, dear god can it also bring out the worst).
Just…how is this in any way a victory for the Avengers? How is this a happy ending for anyone? And this is how Endgame totally broke my suspension of disbelief, because they thought that was just a bittersweet but net positive ending, and as far as I can see, it’s going to collapse the universe into a dystopian hellscape for the foreseeable future.
Thanos was awful. This? This is so, so much worse.
Also posted on tumblr in the extremely unlikely incident that anyone wants to reblog, because venting my feelings I guess.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.
So. Avengers: Endgame, the ending. This is kind of the darkest timeline, yeah?
I’m not talking about any individual characters or relationships, here. Actually, I think Steve gets the only happy ending by peacing out of our timeline entirely. Because let’s stop a minute and consider the worldbuilding implications.
Five years ago, the Snap happened. That sucked. That sucked a LOT. Half the world’s population - roughly 3.5 billion people, give or take - vanished into dust. And that doesn’t take into account all the actual deaths that occurred as a direct result: car/bus/plane crashes when the drivers got Snapped, people in hospitals whose doctors/nurses/surgeons disappeared, babies abandoned in their cribs and not found for days, etc etc etc. The five year jump meant that the movie didn’t have to deal directly with that, and that’s fine. The immediate chaos and nightmare of the few weeks/months immediately following the Snap are simply the collective trauma of all 3 billion-ish survivors. We don’t know exactly what kind of uneasy global consensus has developed in the meantime; we see empty stadiums, garbage piling up in Cassie Lang’s neighborhood, hear about whales in the Hudson river. There has been some breakdown in global infrastructure; some areas probably coped better than others. Some people fell apart; I imagine there was an epidemic of suicides at some point. Others rebuilt and even thrived. The world is still grieving, but also in the process of moving on. It’s been five full years.
Now the events of Endgame culminate in Tony Stark getting the gauntlet and undoing the Snap, sacrificing his own life in the process. It’s a tragic, noble death. I take nothing away from Tony in this moment. But instead of resetting the timeline to the point at which Thanos brutally diverged it - that moment of the Snap five years ago, or somewhere in that battle - he simply brings back everyone who had been dusted.
3.5 billion people reappear on Earth, with no warning, with no idea that anything in their lives has changed, or that five years have passed.
From what I’ve seen in terms of reactions in fandom so far, people have been very focused on the individual human level of relationships. What happened to marriages where one spouse was Snapped, and the other lived on? Children who lost parents, parents who lost children? Half the kids in Peter’s high school class would have graduated college by now. Etc, etc, etc. Some people are pissed at the movie for not really grappling with the implications of that; others are thrilled at the wealth of new, interesting storytelling opportunities.
I’m seeing a global catastrophe. There are now 3.5 billion refugees on the planet Earth. 3.5 billion people suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves homeless: either someone else now lives in their house/apartment/etc, or it’s in the part of town that has been abandoned and neglected for five long years, with no power, no water, no heat, no essential services. These are 3.5 billion people who were likely declared legally dead. They have literally nothing apart from the clothes on their backs and whatever was in their pockets. No bank accounts, no assets of any kind. Those who were in the workforce are also now unemployed, and many will have a great deal of difficulty readjusting to the modern demands of the workplace - and not just in terms of technological upgrades. In the devastating repercussions of the Snap, I’d imagine entire industries collapsed or were forced to adapt into nearly unrecognizable forms, and new ones likely also developed. And this is only addressing, like, best case scenario first world problems! Let alone the parts of the world that just plain devolved into civil war and chaos.
On an individual level, some people will likely be fine. Peter Parker, for example, will probably be supported by Pepper Potts and the Stark fortune for the rest of his life. Some people will be able to rejoin families who have desperately missed them (Clint).
But on a societal level? Unless some brilliant, visionary, and completely ethical leader emerges to rally the world, we’re looking at near-total societal collapse. (I think Wakanda will probably be fine, between the leadership of T'Challa and Shuri and the combination of its wealth and relative isolation from the rest of the world, but that’s a major exception.) The infrastructure and resources are not in place or in any way capable of reabsorbing the sudden influx of 3.5 billion people. That will be more than doubling the global population in an instant. Many people will not have immediate families to return to, because their un-Snapped relations did not necessarily all survive the past five years (between the initial devastation and also, you know, five years of normal life - old age, illness, accident, etc) or are not willing to take them back in (because while catastrophe can bring out the best of humanity, dear god can it also bring out the worst).
Just…how is this in any way a victory for the Avengers? How is this a happy ending for anyone? And this is how Endgame totally broke my suspension of disbelief, because they thought that was just a bittersweet but net positive ending, and as far as I can see, it’s going to collapse the universe into a dystopian hellscape for the foreseeable future.
Thanos was awful. This? This is so, so much worse.
Also posted on tumblr in the extremely unlikely incident that anyone wants to reblog, because venting my feelings I guess.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you'd like.