12 Dumbest Decisions In MCU History
7. The Aether Was Given To The Collector - Thor: The Dark World
The Aether was just the third Infinity Stone to be introduced into the MCU behind the Tesseract and Loki's Sceptre, and after Malekith was defeated and the Reality Stone was secured, it was sent away from Asgard to the Collector for 'safe keeping'.
With the Space Stone already locked away in Odin's vault, it was wise to send the Reality Stone away, but why would anyone entrust such an artifact to Taneleer Tivan? The clue is in the name, it was pretty obvious he would try and collect all six stones for himself.
Even though he ultimately failed in his quest, he almost secured possession of the Orb, bringing two stones so close together in a way that giving him the Aether in the first place was supposed to avoid. Not only was this unsafe from the start, the Collector offered little resistance when Thanos paid a visit to Knowhere, allowing him to walk away with yet another Infinity Stone.
Why couldn't this incredibly powerful object have been given to someone more trustworthy? Star-Lord said anyone who gave an Infinity Stone to the Collector must have been an idiot, while Thor said a genius... Star-Lord was right.