Thor: Love and Thunder's Eternity Plot Hole Could Be a Setup for Secret Wars

I think Thor: Love and Thunder might have created a major plot hole in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to believe it was Marvel Studios setting up the cosmic entities, and possibly Secret Wars. Spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder follow.

This plot hole reaches beyond Thor: Love and Thunder. It touches Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame and the wider MCU. It didn't exist before Love and Thunder, because that film created it, and it centers on Eternity.

Thor and Valkyrie knew exactly what Eternity could do

Eternity was by far one of the coolest things about Thor: Love and Thunder. I didn't think we'd see a true cosmic entity in the MCU so soon, but we did, and we learned a lot about who Eternity is in this universe. Eternity is an ancient cosmic being that grants the wish of the first person who reaches it.

In the film, Gorr wants to reach Eternity so he can wish for all the gods to die. Gorr does get there first, but instead of wishing for the gods' deaths, he wishes for his daughter to come back. Now Thor more or less has a daughter who is more or less a god. I have no problem with that whatsoever. I think it's cool that Thor will have Love going forward, and Love could even be part of the Young Avengers down the line.

My issue is with how Thor and Valkyrie react to Eternity. The second Zeus mentions Eternity in Omnipotence City, both of them are immediately alarmed. They instantly know what Gorr is trying to do. They both seem to know exactly who Eternity is and what Eternity does, and that's what I consider the plot hole.

Why didn't Thor ask Eternity to reverse the snap?

If Thor and Valkyrie both knew about Eternity, why didn't they seek it out after Thanos snapped away half the universe in Avengers: Infinity War? In that film, Thor didn't go for the head. He drove Stormbreaker through Thanos's chest, and that allowed Thanos to snap. Thor took the blame on himself for that.

In Avengers: Endgame, the Avengers go after Thanos and find him, but he has already destroyed the stones and there's no way to get them back. Thor cuts off his head in a rage and realizes it's his fault and that there's nothing else he can do to reverse it. Except there was something he could do. He could have gone to Eternity and asked it to reverse the snap and bring everybody back.

By then Thanos was dead and the stones were destroyed. Thor could have asked Eternity to return everyone who was snapped, Thanos wouldn't have come back, and there wouldn't have been a five year gap. At first I considered this a big plot hole, but I came to think Marvel Studios was setting things up for the cosmic entities.

The MCU still needs a reason Thor stayed away

Obviously, people will say it's simply the writing, because Eternity wasn't brought into the equation until Thor: Love and Thunder, unless you believe Star-Lord saw Eternity in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Setting that aside, Eternity wasn't part of the story until Love and Thunder. But as I see it, "in the mcu there has to be some type of continuity", along with reason and logic.

So what's the real reason Thor wouldn't have gone to Eternity in Avengers: Endgame? I think it's a setup for the future of the MCU that could have big consequences, consequences I'd personally love to see. I believe it's a major setup for the next Endgame level movie, Secret Wars. Kevin Feige said we would start to see all of this come together soon and see which direction the MCU was going. He also said many fans could probably see where it's going.

When Gorr asks Eternity to bring Love back, it appears that Eternity is no more, and is in fact somewhat inside of Love.

How Eternity works in the comics

Marvel Studios changes things from the comics, but there, Eternity is the embodiment of the universe and has essentially unlimited power. There is an Eternity for each universe, so the multiverse has separate Eternities, unlike the Living Tribunal, which exists everywhere at once. When Thanos had the Infinity Gauntlet in the comics, he ranked Eternity right below the Living Tribunal.

Eternity typically shows up only when there's a huge threat to the universe in the comics, such as when Dormammu threatens the entire universe, or when Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet, the Infinity Gems and the Heart of the Universe. So why didn't Eternity, or any other cosmic being, step in when Thanos had the gauntlet in Infinity War and Endgame? Since Thanos only threatened half the universe, Eternity may have been okay with it, and might not have thought it was a big enough reason to step in.

In the comics, Eternity is summoned by Galactus and Mister Fantastic, and Eternity makes Reed Richards see that Galactus is part of the natural order of the universe. Thanos could have been that in the MCU, which could explain why Eternity never stepped in.

If Eternity is gone, incursions and Doctor Doom could follow

It looks like Eternity is now gone, and "that is very very different and very very bad." This is a big part of Secret Wars in the comics. It's how incursions are able to happen, and why Eternity can't stop our Earth from combining with other universes' Earths.

In Secret Wars, the Eternity of our Earth and its counterparts in other universes were eventually annihilated by the Beyonders. When incursions started, Eternity and its counterparts weren't there to stop them. They also weren't there to stop Doctor Doom, which is how Doom was able to seize the power of the Beyonders and reshape several realities into Battleworld. So there are major repercussions to Eternity no longer being around in our universe.

If Eternity is awake, the cosmic entities are stirring

But let's say Eternity isn't gone. Say it granted the wish and simply went away. That has major repercussions too, because Eternity seemed to be resting, meditating. Now it's somewhat awakened, and the cosmic entities are becoming more and more important in the MCU. In Thor: Love and Thunder, we saw the gateway to other cosmic entities like Death, the Living Tribunal and the Watcher, and those were put there very intentionally.

In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Doctor Strange and America Chavez seemingly pass into a universe full of Living Tribunals. I think that was the Living Tribunal watching what Doctor Strange was doing to see if it needed to step in. Keep in mind that all three heads of the Living Tribunal have to agree before it steps in, which could be why it hasn't stepped in with the incursions yet.

A side effect could explain why Thor never went to Eternity

If Eternity isn't gone but is now somewhat awakened, that could be a bad thing, and it could be the reason Thor never went to it. There could have been a major side effect to Eternity granting a wish. Thor is Asgardian, a god over 1,500 years old, and his father was the all powerful Odin. I'm sure Odin taught him about the cosmic entities and who Eternity was.

Neither Valkyrie nor Thor thought to go to Eternity, yet they knew exactly who it was and were scared of Gorr reaching it. Perhaps they knew there would be major repercussions to Gorr asking for a wish. Not only would he probably ask for the gods to be eliminated, but it could be that if Eternity grants a wish, Eternity is gone. If Eternity is gone, much like in the comics, this could set up God Emperor Doom to come to power. It could also be how incursions start to happen with nobody stepping in. There's still the Living Tribunal, but I expected it to be addressed very soon as well.

Marvel appeared to be building toward the cosmic entities

I believe Marvel Studios was building up to the cosmic entities finally getting involved in the events of the universe and, ultimately, the multiverse. They were teasing other gods. It started in Moon Knight, which even mentioned different afterlife realms. Then came the Greek gods and Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, and finally Eternity. There were other Easter eggs too, like the staff of the Living Tribunal in the first Doctor Strange.

How do you go bigger and better than Avengers: Endgame? Adding cosmic entities to the equation, then removing them so all the chaos of Secret Wars can happen, would be fantastic, and that's what I ultimately think was happening in Thor: Love and Thunder. I think there will be major repercussions to Gorr making his wish.

That would explain why Thor never thought to go to Eternity after Infinity War. If Thor knew Eternity could grant a wish, it would make sense for him to at least try, even without knowing exactly how to get there. Thor and Valkyrie clearly knew the gate was at the center of the universe, so even without knowing how to unlock it or what the key was, as Zeus says, they should have given it a shot. They didn't, and Eternity was never even mentioned. You could view this as one of Marvel's biggest plot holes ever, but I don't think that's the case. I think it's setting something up for Secret Wars.