Thor the God Butcher help me understand his powers 0

[bronze_rules]

So I read the much praised saga of the Thor and Gorr the God Butcher in Jason Aaron's omnibus.

Cool that this is the villain in the new film as I've never heard of him before. I have a question about him.

prelim) I get that he has a strong backstory of hatred and vengeance for his harsh upbringing.

what I don't get and I may have missed is.. spoilers ahead..

Q) How the heck does he, a non god, have the powers to literally slap around multitudes of gods like they are nothing (including gods of torture), absorb all their assaults and weapons like nothing.

Was it from eating rocks on a barren world? Scratching my head here.

 

I would think that modern books would become more plausible than their predecessors not less.

Edited June 12, 2022 by bronze_rules

[Ken Aldred]

He’s empowered by the sword he uses. A symbiote. That retcon occurs later in the Knull storyline.

Edited June 12, 2022 by Ken Aldred

[kav]

On 6/12/2022 at 1:55 PM, bronze_rules said:

So I read the much praised saga of the Thor and Gorr the God Butcher in Jason Aaron's omnibus.

Cool that this is the villain in the new film as I've never heard of him before. I have a question about him.

prelim) I get that he has a strong backstory of hatred and vengeance for his harsh upbringing.

what I don't get and I may have missed is.. spoilers ahead..

Q) How the heck does he, a non god, have the powers to literally slap around multitudes of gods like they are nothing (including gods of torture), absorb all their assaults and weapons like nothing.

Was it from eating rocks on a barren world? Scratching my head here.

 

I would think that modern books would become more plausible than their predecessors not less.

he has plot armor.

[Ken Aldred]

On 6/13/2022 at 12:26 AM, kav said:

he has plot armor.

Symbiotic augmentation.

[bronze_rules]

On 6/12/2022 at 4:20 PM, Ken Aldred said:

He’s empowered by the sword he uses. A symbiote. That retcon occurs later in the Knull storyline.

Interesting, thanks for sharing that. Although, half the time he's slapping them around or absorbing their full assaults sans any sword or device at all.

Even more interesting that a handful of mortals were able to slow him down enough for Thor to get in a hit, but yet, he's practically invulnerable to multiple Gods.

Disappointing that this villain can so easily defeat multiple gods without any kind of power whatsoever, and even more surprising that this story and villain have such a fan following.

 

Edited June 12, 2022 by bronze_rules

[MetalPSI]

On 6/12/2022 at 5:28 PM, Ken Aldred said:

Symbiotic augmentation.

What was it in that one D&D expansion. Had a character that had a symbiote mask, was a god on their homeworld, kinda sucked off world though

[Ken Aldred]

On 6/13/2022 at 12:34 AM, The Meta said:

What was it in that one D&D expansion. Had a character that had a symbiote mask, was a god on their homeworld, kinda sucked off world though

Never played the game. I’m a comparative newcomer to RPGs, starting with PS3 Oblivion in the early 2010s.

[ThatNerdyCanuck]

Really curious how they will explain it in the movies. Clearly he will have a sword of some sort. 

[wardevil0]

On 6/12/2022 at 7:26 PM, kav said:

he has plot armor.

This seems to be actually the best explanation. Gorr can do those things because the writer wants him too.  There was no logical progression from how he was a regular mortal to being a "god-butcher." If the symbiote sword he has was so all-powerful, how was he able to get it at all?  The god who had it before, Knull, fell to the unnamed golden god...?  A god wielding the sword was less powerful than a mortal wielding the sword... a sword that is a small fraction of Knull's total power... Knull who himself was killed at the end of King in Black... it's just nonsense.  They have to keep escalating to make weird, cool fight scenes because there's no worthwhile story.  Think of it like a boss fight in a video game, maybe.  He's powerful because he's powerful.

[WolverineX]

On 6/12/2022 at 4:55 PM, bronze_rules said:

So I read the much praised saga of the Thor and Gorr the God Butcher in Jason Aaron's omnibus.

Cool that this is the villain in the new film as I've never heard of him before. I have a question about him.

prelim) I get that he has a strong backstory of hatred and vengeance for his harsh upbringing.

what I don't get and I may have missed is.. spoilers ahead..

Q) How the heck does he, a non god, have the powers to literally slap around multitudes of gods like they are nothing (including gods of torture), absorb all their assaults and weapons like nothing.

Was it from eating rocks on a barren world? Scratching my head here.

 

I would think that modern books would become more plausible than their predecessors not less.

Never read about him but is he essentially a knock off of kratos from God of war?

[Qalyar]

So, gods in Marvel's universe have always been in sort of a weird place. In a lot of ways, it's more a profession than a power level. In the case of Asgardians, gods are a literal race of people, although it's clear that not all Marvel gods work quite that way. In any case, while we know that life on Gorr's homeworld sucked mightily, we don't really know much about his people.

That said, since they first provided the background for this character, I've always had a headcanon for him. His people believed that there were gods, and that faith in them was important, even though they never seemed to intervene. Gorr ultimately lost faith in those absent powers entirely, then learned that gods are real and gods can die. Add one evil sword, and we're off to the races. My take on it? Gorr's people were right. But the divine power they were waiting for... was Gorr. But as he succumbed to grief and nihilism, he became part of the problem, never realizing that he himself had the strength to lift his people up. In fact, in my take on the character, that's precisely why the people close to him died horribly, sometimes in really unlikely circumstances. The Sand Tiger attack? The earthquake that killed Arra? All happened right as Gorr was questioning the power of his people's gods to act on their behalf. Thus actually questioning his own ability to act on their behalf, and so bringing down the dooms he refused to believe could be forestalled.

And, yes, I know that probably isn't flawlessly compatible with his backstory in Thor: God of Thunder, but we're hearing that in flashback from Gorr's perspective anyway. So if the idea is that he has never realized that he could have been his people's god and savior, we wouldn't see any of that from his point of view.

I doubt Marvel will ever go that way with Gorr, especially after King Thor. But they should. It's a better story than Gorr just being really swole, or something.