The One Question Avengers: Infinity War NEEDS To Answer
Why is the genius mega-villain also an idiot?
When Avengers: Infinity War lands in cinemas at the end of April, it will address lots of things that have been seeded over the past ten years of the MCU. We'll see answers to the fates of several heroes, the reveal of some of the franchise's most compelling secrets - like the location of the Soul Stone - and hopefully the closure (at least in Avengers 4) that we've been promised ahead of the transition into Phase 4.
But there is one question beyond all others that really matters most: it's not where that final Stone is, or who will kill Thanos, or even who will die.
The really compelling question that the film needs to answer is why the hell did Thanos give Loki the Mind Stone?
3. Was Thanos Just An Idiot?
Some will bring up the idea that the Stones individually are not powerful enough to be of any use to Thanos, so he gambles in order to get the rest. And while none of them are as powerful as the Soul Stone (at least in terms of what Thanos wants to do), the Mind Stone created the Maximoff twins, was able to control Hawkeye and Selvig in The Avengers and came to be the power source for the Vision. It's no mere trinket.
If Thanos gambled the one Stone he had, despite being singularly committed to his agenda to rebalance the universe (which he has been since Gamora was a child at least) - especially on Loki, of all people - he looks like an idiot.
Sure, Loki seemed to convince him and The Other that Earth would be a push-over and wouldn't mount much of a defence, but trusting Loki in itself was a grave error of judgement not befitting a villain of his standing. Giving him an Infinity Stone on top of that was just silly.
So maybe we should just assume that he had no idea that the Stone was within the Sceptre, which, again, doesn't reflect well on him as a supposedly genius level villain. There has to be more to it: so what if he intended to give the Mind Stone to the Avengers and thought he knew precisely what would happen all along?
Read On to explore that theory...