Now imagine failing, failing the one time it mattered the most. Imagine losing everyone you have ever loved and annihilating your own planet to save your people. But losing all the same. 

You would be pretty bummed out, wouldn’t you?

Avengers: Endgame is a good film that gets a lot of things right and gets a few things wrong. 

But what hits the mark is the life Thor is living after having lost everything. 

After the lighthearted Ragnarok, we see the dark seas Thor Odinson has to navigate through just to keep going. 

Because, what more could he lose? 

He’s lost his mother to the dark elves, his father passed away.

He had to kill his own sister before blowing up his home planet and then Thanos slaughtered half his people and murdered his best friend right in front of his eyes. 

Thanos even murdered Loki as Thor watched helplessly. 

Since the beginning, Thor has always been vain and cocky. And much of that comes from the fact that he had never faced an enemy that he couldn’t defeat. 

Thor’s confidence had always stemmed from his strength, his power. But when none of that was enough to stop Thanos, he didn’t see a point in having them anymore. 

He actually had a chance to kill Thanos before the Mad Titan snapped his fingers. Thor had Stormbreaker buried in his chest but he wanted to gloat. 

So when we see him sulking at the beginning of Endgame, Thanos’ last words are playing over and over in his head, telling him what he could have done differently. 

Thor feels guilty. He feels like he’s failed. He was not supposed to fail!

Add all the tragedies that befell him in his long life and his depression makes sense. Mind you, he could also be suffering from PTSD, from survivors’ guilt.

So when Bruce meets him, he has fallen to alcoholism and playing video games with his friends Korg and Meik. 

The only time his people see him is once a month when he comes out to get beer. 

Even when the team gets back together for one last mission, Thor just gets along for the ride and it’s not until he meets his mother that he actually begins to process the loss and maybe just begins to heal. 

Again, the events of Infinity War meant every one of our heroes was suffering from loss and were barely coping. But they had ways to do so. Natasha got back to work while Captain America worked on helping others and tried to see the bright side. 

But Thor was utterly alone, even within New Asgard. Before this, he always had someone to go back to. I mean, for all his many sins, Loki was always a constant in his life. But even he was gone. 

And without any support, Thor just got into a shell where he felt most comfortable and stayed here. 

And as in many classic cases of depression, he pretends that he is fine. He smiles constantly and he jokes around. He calls up bullies playing Fortnite and threatens them. He tries to put on a happy face and hide his depression from those he’s supposed to protect. 

And throughout the movie, he doesn’t get much better. And that’s where Endgame does so well. It doesn’t try to fix him with a motivational speech or something like that. 

Depression is a serious issue. There is no killing the giant purple dude and getting over it. So Thor doesn’t. There is no snap and getting back into shape and getting rid of the booze. And Thor does neither. 

I understand the problem people had with the fat jokes but let’s be honest that wasn’t fat shaming. There was no ‘Oh, fat people are useless’. None of that. 

He is Thor, the God of Thunder. Being overweight is a problem he is dealing with but when the time comes, he pushes his limits and does what needed to be done. He fought Thanos and together they defeated him. 

At the end of it all, he joins the Guardians and finally does something he always enjoyed – going on intergalactic journeys.

And that’s the first step to getting better. 

Come Guardians 3, we might just see him as flawless as he always was, but Endgame’s Thor was the hero we never thought we needed.