Avengers: Endgame - Every Mystery The Russos Have Answered (So Far)

12. "Fat Thor"

The Question

Thor's arc was a divisive one in terms of the way the film seemed to be exploring mental health issues and making light of Thor's condition. So why did the Russos choose to go with Thor's physical "degeneration" and turn to heavy alcohol use?

The Answer

According to the Russos, it was something that came organically out of discussing everything that Thor had lost:

"Of course, on one level, it’s very sad, but on another level, there’s humor to be found there. Because, where do you go when a character is that low? The only place to go is humor, because you can’t drive them down any more with pathos."

The Russos revealed elsewhere that Thor's condition was a response to him blaming himself:

"This came out of really intense sessions with the writers, Markus and McFeely. We just started circling this character, who was really blaming himself. If you look at the loss Thor suffers in Infinity War, it’s staggering... And all the way through to his failure to stop Thanos. We started thinking about how that would weigh on him and what that would do to him. We started circling this idea of depression and throwing that out in a way that we thought was really surprising and interesting."

Apparently, Chris Hemsworth also lent on the directors to make sure they didn't drop the humorous side of the character introduced in Thor: Ragnarok. And the Russos also revealed why they thought he fit the Guardians by the end:

"He just felt like he was in a very Guardians place, in the sense that he was this, sort-of, misfit. It just seemed like… well, where does a lost soul like that go? That’s basically what the Guardians are — a collection of lost souls."