Thanos' Plan Explained

Hopefully, by now, everyone has seen Avengers Infinity War and is ready for Avengers Endgame to be released in April of this year. This will contain spoilers so if you haven't seen Infinity War or are caught up on your Marvel Studios movies, now is the time to turn back. Ok you have been warned what happens after this sentence is your fault. Anyways, we were left with a lot of burning questions after Infinity War. How will our heroes bring everyone back? Why did Star Lord do that? Why did Doctor Strange do that? Why didn't Thor aim for the head? Well that one is easy, to taunt Thanos while he died. Besides these questions and many, many more there is one that I think a lot of people miss. Why did Thanos wait this long and how did he do this with such swiftness? As you should know Thanos was introduced in the first Avengers movie. Thanos also appeared in Guardians Of The Galaxy. So why did he wait? Especially since he took 5 stones in a mere day virtually unchallenged. To sell more movies? Probably. However it is much more complex than that and really concretes how brilliant Marvel Studios is. So I will explain

The Original Plan

So as we know Thanos made his introduction to the MCU in the first Avengers movie when he sent Loki to Earth to gain the Tesseract. Then he appeared again in Guardians of the Galaxy when he sent Ronin with the help of his daughters, Gamora and Nebula, to gain an orb. When Thanos sent Loki to Earth with a scepter to help him conquer Earth and retrieve the Tesseract. As we found out in Age of Ultron, the scepter contained the mind stone. Why did Thanos give up a stone to Loki? Well, stay with me. We found out in Infinity War that Thanos tasked Gamora with finding the soul stone, which no one has ever seen until Thanos had to sacrifice Gamora to receive. We also know The Ancient One guarded the time stone, so that would place three stones on Earth at one time. The scepter powered by the mind stone allowed Loki to brainwash a few helpers to gain the Tesseract, the space stone, to open portals and allow Thanos' army to decimate Earth and thus giving him access to three stones. So the original plan was to have others retrieve the stones for him. Loki would have given him the mind and space stone. With Earth badly hurt and equipped with two stones, Thanos would attempt to take the time stone from The Ancient One. Ronin was to give Thanos the power stone in exchange for destroying Xandar. Gamora was to find the soul stone, leaving Thanos to only needing to acquire the reality stone and with five stones, that would prove pretty easy. So what happened? Well, as we know the Avengers assembled in the Battle of New York and defeated Loki and his army. Ronin became power hungry and lost to the Guardians leaving the power stone in the hands of the Nova Core on Xandar. Gamora found soul stone but as we found out she was very unwilling to tell Thanos that. Trusting others to gather the stones did not seem to work very well. Recalculating...

The New Plan: Observe and Wait

At the end of The Avengers, Thanos' main advisors said: "To challenge them is to court death."

Meaning they underestimated Earth's mightiest heroes. Thanos has gone planet to planet wiping out half of their population virtually unchallenged. See why he wanted all six stones? Snapping your fingers and having your life work be complete or go planet to planet to planet to do it. Anyways, now he has seen the Avengers form and they are tougher than anything he could have imagined. So what now? Seems easy, destroy the Avengers. In Age of Ultron, Tony Stark gets a hold of Loki's scepter to finish his endgame plan, Ultron. Designed to protect Earth from cosmic threats so Avengers had a better chance when the next alien invasion happens. Long story short, Ultron gains consciousness and decides that the only real threat to Earth is the Avengers and tries to destroy them and wipe the Earth slate clean at the same time. So fast forward, Ultron fails, credits role and now we get to the post credit scene.

The Infinity Gauntlet is in a dark room, the door opens, Thanos walks in and put his hand in the gauntlet and says, "Fine. I'll do it myself."

So I would like to propose that what happened in Sokovia was act one of his new plan: destroying the Avengers. However, it is also the final attempt at letting someone else do his bidding. Loki gained the mind stone from Thanos. The mind stone is the only stone that is a living, thinking and learning entity. Thanos must have had this in his possession for some time, so it probably did some learning from Thanos. Thanos does tell Tony in Infinity War, "you aren't the only one cursed with knowledge." So when Ultron connected to mind stone it probably connected to what Thanos knows, half of life needs to be wiped out in order for life to continue prosperously. When Vision gets the mind stone it is probably easy to say that it is Ultron's plan to wipe out half of life without knowing who Thanos is. So when Ultron fails Thanos finally realizes that he needs to do this himself.

Why is he still waiting though? He needed the Avengers to split. Hulk and Thor left Earth and with the events of Civil War, Iron Man and Captain America did not leave each other on speaking terms. Boom! No more Avengers. Yet Thanos is still waiting. Why? There are other powerful beings that protect the realms and dimensions of the universe. The Ancient One protects Earth and Odin and the Asgardians protect the nine realms. In Doctor Strange, Steven Strange learns to be a Master of the Mystic Arts and with the passing of The Ancient One becomes the sorcerer supreme. In Thor: Ragnorak, Odin passes away which releases Hela and in turn destroys Asgard. Now Thor is king and protector of the nine realms. Doctor Strange becomes Sorcerer Supreme. Both are not nearly as feared and respected as The Ancient One and Odin. Suddenly, the Avengers are no more, the nine realms are left unguarded and there is a new, untested Sorcerer Supreme. That was his cue.

Taking the Stones

So now Thanos has what he needs for Operation I'll Do It Myself. First stop, Xandar. In Infinity War, when Thor tells The Guardians where Thanos is going and why he revealed that Thanos decimated Xandar a week before to take the power stone. The power stone needed to be the first one because it's the most powerful stone. Any stone's ability powered by the power stone becomes stronger. The stones feed off each other and the power stone is called the power stone for a reason. Anyways, we know from Thor: Ragnorak post credit scene his next stop was the Asgardian refugee craft to get the space stone. The space stone allows its user to travel wherever he needs to. The space stone powered by the power stone can get you anywhere you imagine instantly. I think what goes unnoticed is the events of Infinity War takes place over the course of maybe 12 hours. Less than a day, for sure. So now that I explained what he was waiting for, I am going to take a moment to explain why Thanos knew he needed to be so swift at retrieving the stones.

For one, he kills Heimdall because he sends Hulk through the Bifrost to warn Earth. Thanos knows if he takes his time that would give our heroes time to prepare, plan and potentially defeat him. The Black Order arrives at Earth at the moment Tony decides to curb his grudge with Steve to join forces. I would like to say that is not an accident. If the Avengers work together Thanos would not stand a chance, he knows this. So taking the stones in one swift motion does not give Earth's mightiest heroes time to prepare. Is there another reason though?

This year, Marvel Studios released a book Thanos: Titan Consumed. In this book, when Thanos finds out about the stones and their power he asks why no one has ever tried to get all the stones.

To which they reply, "Because it would awaken he whom the celestials fear."

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, we find out Star Lord's daddy, Ego, is the last celestial and explained why the Guardians were able to hold on to the power stone as long as they did. Celestials are powerful creatures that did use the stones, until someone or something wiped them out. So there is a being, or a couple, whose job is to assure balance in the universe and ensure that no one creature has too much power. Sound familiar? Maybe someone who could dust half the universe? So another key reason he acted so quickly is he knows there are powerful entities that watch the stones to ensure balance. Had Thanos took stone by stone over a longer stretch of time he would have raised his chance of failing. Either by the hands of the Avengers or by this powerful entity that watches the stones.

Needless to say, as this story will not be wrapped up until Avengers Endgame hits theaters, I wanted to explain my observations and why I think Thanos waited and worked so swiftly and fast. He needed all the protectors of the universe to be at their weakest and had to act fast before whoever watches the stones awakened. Now there are a lot of theories as to who this entity is. Seeing as how Endgame is supposed to wrap up the first decade of MCU movies they will not introduce anyone new, nor will they wish to take attention away from our heroes undoing Thanos' work.

However, they will also try to set the table for phase four, which is set to be more cosmically based. So we may find out who this entity, that even Thanos fears, is. I hoped I helped make sense of Thanos' plan, why he waited and why he attacked the way he did. There are so many Easter eggs in every MCU movie that it is hard to piece together. That's why I am here. Just a nerd helping out other nerds and casual Marvel Studios fans alike piece together the most carefully thought out series of movies ever. Seriously, when have you ever seen 20 plus movies get made that all interlock with each other? Thank you and be good to each other.