Fat Thor

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Part of a series on Avengers: Endgame. [View Related Entries]

This is an article about Avengers: Endgame meme. For the God of War: Ragnarok character, please visit Thor God of War: Ragnarok

About

Fat Thor refers to numerous references to the character Thor's appearance in 2019 Marvel superhero film Avengers: Endgame. In the film, Thor is portrayed as depressed and over-weight, which has spurred both a series of jokes by those who enjoyed the change and criticism from those who found it insensitive.

Origin

On April 22nd, 2019, the film Avengers: Endgame premiered in the United States. In the film, after defeating Thanos, Thor (portrayed by Chris Hemsworth) wallows at his home in New Asgard, Norway, where he becomes overweight (shown below).^[1]

Precursor

Prior to the film's release, Fat Thor had been the subject of various forms of fan art. For example, he was included in a collection of illustrations entitled "The obese Superheroes of Alex Solis" from 2014.^[2] Additionally, on April 18th, 2019, a subreddit entitled /r/fatthor launched.^[4] The subreddit focused on Thor's portrayal in the film, using speculation based on trailers and leaks from the film as the basis.

Spread

Following the film's release, people reacted both positively and negatively to the character. Twitter ^[2] user @desolation5row tweeted, "Me seeing Thor in endgame knowing that fat depressed people are the butt of a joke once more." The tweet received more than 45 retweets and 370 likes in less than one week (shown below, left).

Others compared the character's appearance to the character The Dude from the film The Big Lebowski. Twitter^[3] user @OeziIIusion posted a series of images of the Dude with the caption "Thor in Endgame" (shown below, center).

Some seem to prefer the overweight Thor. For example, Redditor^[5] IDoNotExplain posted a Drakeposting meme, comparing the old Thor and the current one (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered the meme, discussing the controversy and divisiveness of the character's depiction, including Polygon,^[6] Cosmopolitan,^[7] the Mary Sue,^[8] New Now Next^[9] and more.