10 Dumbest Decisions Ever Made By MCU Villains
1. Thanos Didn't Kill Tony Stark
When Thanos didn’t kill Thor, it may have been out of arrogance. As the Ebony Maw said, no being had ever held two Infinity Stones at one time, so maybe he felt invincible whether the God of Thunder was alive or not. With Tony Stark however, it was a different matter.
On Titan, Thanos fought the combination of the Avengers, the Guardians, and Doctor Strange for the latter’s Time Stone. The Eye of Agamotto was the fifth piece of the puzzle, and Strange had already made clear how serious he was about defending it. Thanos however, found himself a bargaining chip when he held Tony Stark’s life in his hands.
He easily could have killed Iron Man, but instead traded Stark’s life for the Time Stone, and honoured his word to keep him alive. Thanos only wanted to save the universe, in his own mind he didn’t want to kill unnecessarily, and this was his ultimate undoing.
Would anyone else have snapped their fingers? Sure. It seems like exactly the thing Captain America would do to save the universe, but the Avengers would never have had a chance of assembling the stones themselves in the first place without him. Had Thanos killed Tony on Titan after being given the Time Stone, his work would never have been undone.