10 Movie Villains Who Caused Their Own Defeats

The Defeat: Thanos actually gets defeated twice in Avengers: Endgame, but we'll be focusing on his second one for this entry (even though he was partly responsible for his initial decapitation too, having told Thor to go for the head the last time they met).

When 2014 Thanos discovers that the Avengers have assembled the Infinity Stones for him in the future, he travels to that timeline, bringing his armies with him and vowing to completely destroy humanity to rebuild a new world from the ashes. This, of course, doesn't go to plan, and he and his forces are snapped out of existence by a gauntlet-wielding Tony Stark.

How He Caused It: One reason why 2014 Thanos decides to travel to the future timeline is that he discovers the Avengers are trying to undo his snap, which we saw at the end of Infinity War: he wants to stop them from reversing that victory.

Crucially though, he also discovers that - eventually - he will win, and will get to snap away half of all life in the universe if he stays in his current timeline and pushes ahead with his Infinity Stone-gathering plan. Granted, he also knows that he'll get his head chopped off by Thor if he stays on his current course, but knowing what a pain in the neck the Avengers will be for him, he could plan ahead to counter their every move and kill them.

Instead, he chooses to risk it all, hopping over to an alternate timeline where the Avengers - who have never been more determined to win - are in possession of a fully-powered Gauntlet. For all Thanos knew, he could've been wiped out by another snap the second he set foot outside Avengers HQ.

While that doesn't happen, his impulsive and reckless decision to strike earlier than his own timeline told him to (i.e. when he saw Nebula's video that informed him of his future snap) was what led to his dusty death.

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Any other bad guys responsible for their own downfalls? Shout them out in the comments!