How Did Asgardians Manage to Survive Thanos’ Attack?

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ started off with a bang. Literally, a few minutes into the movie, the audience already knew how ruthless and powerful villain Thanos is. When he intercepted the Asgardian refugee ship and attacked everyone onboard, it was clear that the Avengers won’t have an easy task to stop him and his grand plan. For a moment there, it seemed like Asgardians were no more. Luckily, they survived, so let’s see how that happened. How did Asgardians survived Thanos’ attack in ‘Infinity War’?

When Thanos boarded the Asgardian refugee ship in pursuit of Tesseract, he killed half of the passengers immediately and used the Power Stone to completely destroy the whole ship afterward. Joe Russo explained that Asgardians survived using the deployed escape pods even after Thanos attacked them.

After their home planet was destroyed, the last thing Asgardians needed was a mass murderer intercepting their ship and giving them a hard time. But that happened, and after that, nothing was the same for Thor and his people. Let’s see how it all went down in more detail.

How did Asgardians survive after Thanos blew up their ship?

We know that ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ starts where ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ left off. Asgard was destroyed, and the prophecy of Ragnarok was fulfilled when Thor unleashed Surtur as the only way to defeat Hela. Thor’s sister was defeated but with a great price. Asgardians no longer had a place to live and were forced to flee in a giant ship, roaming the vast space in search of a new home.

Unfortunately, before they could settle on a new planet, the Asgardian ship was intercepted by Thanos and his army, searching for the Infinity Stones. Thanos knew that the Tesseract was on Asgard, so their chances of having the Space Stone were high. And even though many, including Thor, believed that Tesseract was destroyed in Asgard’s destruction, Loki retrieved Tesseract before that happened.

When Thanos arrived on the Asgardian ship, he slaughtered many passengers onboard and threatened to kill Thor if Loki did not give him the Tesseract. Hulk tried to defeat Thanos in a one-on-one fight, but he was no match for the mighty Titan. Heimdal used the last of his powers to send Hulk to Earth so he could warn the Avengers that Thanos was coming for the Infinity Stones on Earth.

Loki finally gave the Tesseract to Thanos and then tried to trick him in an ultimate attempt to kill him. That did not go well, and Mad Titan killed Loki. Thanos then got what he came from and deployed his minions to Eearth to obtain two Infinity Stones located there.

Thanos used the Space Stone to get to his ship and, with the might of Power Stone, destroyed the Asgardian ship. That explosion should’ve killed anyone onboard, but we know that did not happen since the remaining Asgardian population later developed New Asgard on Earth. So, how did they survive Thanos’s attack?

Joe Russo answered that question in one of his interviews. He stated that the portion of the Asgardians on the ship fled using the escape pods that were a part of a grand ship all the Asgardians traveled in. There was also another ship inside the Asgardian refugee ship, and it was a spacecraft Thor and Valkyrie stole from Grandmaster so they could arrive at Asgard in ‘Thor: Ragnarok.’

So, when the grand refugee ship was destroyed, some Asgardians saved themselves using the escape pods while others were in Grandmaster’s spacecraft, and they most likely then collected all the Asgardians that survived the explosion.

Did Thanos spare half of the Asgardians?

It is no secret that Thanos is a genocidal maniac, but he has his way of doing things. Led by the belief that the Universe is facing extinction due to overpopulation, he traveled from planet to planet and killed off half of the population. That was his way of ‘saving’ those planets from the same destiny that happened to Titan, his home planet. Of course, the habitants of those planets did not consider him a savior but a ruthless killer and a tyrant.

When Asgard was destroyed, the grand refugee ship became a new home for Asgardians, and the passengers of that ship were all that was left of Asgard’s population. Thanos did not care and did the same thing he did with any other planet and its people. When he arrived on the Asgardian ship, the first thing he did was kill half of the passengers on it.

Thanos and his followers perceived that as salvation, of course. Ebony Maw gave a speech to the remaining Asgardians, stating that they should be happy because they had the privilege of being saved by Thanos. As he walked over dead bodies lying around, he was determined that this slaughter was nothing else but salvation.

So, yes. Thanos deliberately left half of the Asgardians alive because he was true to his cause. That was his initial intent, at least. One could argue that later on, when he used the Power Stone to completely destroy the Asgardian refugee ship, he did not care if anyone would survive.

What do you think of this topic? Is the explanation Joe Russo gave valid, in your opinion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!