‘Thor: Love and Thunder’: Who Is Eternity?
***SPOILER ALERT: This post includes spoilers for the finale of ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’.***
Thor: Love and Thunder is finally in theaters, and includes the surprising live-action debut of a Marvel entity. The film sees Thor (Chris Hemsworth) attempting to discover who he is and the purpose of his life. As Korg (Taika Waititi) bluntly relates, Thor’s life hasn’t been very easy. He has frequently lost those who were closest to him and even watched his home planet Asgard be destroyed. However, after departing from the Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor doesn’t have much time for self-reflection.
A new and powerful threat, Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), has surfaced and seeks to destroy all the gods. Equipped with bitterness over his daughter’s death and the All-Black Necrosword, Gorr begins taking out the gods one by one. Just with himself and his sword, he is a force to be reckoned with. This is seen when Thor gets an urgent warning from Sif (Jamie Alexander) who has been badly wounded by Gorr. When Gorr attacks New Asgard, he even swiftly takes all of their children before anyone can stop him.
Not only does Gorr have the power of the Necrosword, but he can create dangerous constructs out of darkness and resides in the elusive shadow realm. With his powers and weapons, Gorr is practically immortal and very capable of taking down most gods. However, this level of power isn’t enough for him in his desperation to rid the world of gods. Hence, he seeks another entity that can further cement his plan – Eternity.
Eternity in Thor: Love and Thunder
In Thor: Love and Thunder, Eternity is both a destination and an entity. Eternity resides at the center of the universe, and the Bifrost (which Stormbreaker can summon) is the key to opening the portal to it. Whoever discovers Eternity first is granted one wish. While Thor and Jane (Natalie Portman) destroy the Necrosword, they can’t stop a dying Gorr from still making it through the portal and into Eternity.
Soon, the three are seen in Eternity – a barren, tranquil location doused in whiteness and with reflective water covering its surface. Eternity the entity has no physical body. However, it has warped space and matter into a form that can be seen by Thor, Jane, and Gorr. As a result, it appears to be made up of stars and cosmos. It seemingly never moves or speaks in the film. Gorr approaches it, preparing to wish for all the gods to be destroyed in a one final, swift blow. However, Thor persuades him to wish for his daughter to come back instead.
As a result, Eternity allows Gorr’s wish to revive his daughter and she is brought back to life. She spends her last moments with Gorr, before Thor takes her under her wing. While the two leave Eternity, Eternity’s mark is still seen in Gorr’s daughter, Love (India Rose Hemsworth). She is not only the daughter of Gorr, but also technically a daughter of Eternity. As a result, she has superhuman abilities that manifest themselves with a purple glow and can take the form of laser beams shot from her eyes.
Who is Eternity?
While Thor: Love and Thunder marked Eternity’s live-action debut, the entity has figured into Marvel comics before. Essentially, Eternity is an abstract entity that embodies Earth-616. The Eternity of Earth-616 is the one seen in the film, but each universe actually boasts its own Eternity. All of the countless Eternities across the galaxy form into a multiversal iteration of Eternity.
Eternity predates time and was born, alongside Infinity, during the Big Bang. As a result, it assumes the collective consciousness of all living things in its specific universe. It has total control over practically everything, except for the Living Tribunal. This means they are the second highest level of authority in the multiverse. While Eternity can manifest itself as space and matter, as seen in Thor: Love and Thunder, it can also actual manifest itself as any living force in the universe’s dimension.
Eternity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)
Meanwhile, Eternity is much more than a wishing well. It is an immortal embodiment of the universe, meaning its powers are practically limitless and it is near omnipotent. In the comics, Eternity spawned seven offspring – Empathy, Eulogy, Expediency, Entropy, Epiphany, Enmity, and Eon. Not much is known about these separate, independent entities, but they are believed to embody what their names represent. For example, Empathy is the embodiment of emotion and the feeling of empathy.
While Love isn’t one of Eternity’s offspring in the comics, the MCU could still be modeling her off of them. We don’t know what the MCU will do with Eternity, or if it will appear again. However, now that it brought back a girl who was once dead, it wouldn’t be surprising if other MCU characters begin seeking it out. As an immortal entity with near omnipotence, the MCU really has no limits to what it can do with Eternity.
(Featured image: Marvel)
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