Why Wasn’t Thanos Punished For Using Infinity Stones But Red Skull Was

Avengers: Infinity War was packed with surprises and shocking moments, among those the reveal of what happened to Red Skull after he vanished at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger – but if he was punished for his misuse of an Infinity Stone, why wasn’t Thanos punished too? The Marvel Cinematic Universe reached its peak with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which saw all the active heroes at the time joining forces to defeat Thanos and bring back half of life in the universe after Thanos vanished them with the snap of his fingers.

After being teased multiple times throughout the first three phases of the MCU, Thanos finally acquired the Infinity Gauntlet and all the Infinity Stones in Avengers: Infinity War and fulfilled his plans of wiping out half of life in the universe to bring balance to it. Infinity War saw some of this universe’s most beloved characters vanish, but there were other important reveals in the story that left many questions that haven’t been fully answered yet, mostly those about Vormir and the Soul Stone. When Thanos arrived at Vormir with Gamora to get the Soul Stone, they met the Stonekeeper, who turned out to be none other than the Red Skull.

Johann Schmidt was the villain in Captain America: The First Avenger and was obsessed with the Tesseract and the idea of it helping him control the world. At the end of The First Avenger, Captain America damaged the Tessaract Cradle and so Red Skull grabbed the Tesseract, which reactivated and opened a wormhole into the cosmos while Red Skull burned and screamed in pain. Red Skull was believed to be dead, but Infinity War revealed he was teleported to Vormir and as punishment for abusing the Space Stone’s power, he was cursed into becoming the guardian of the Soul Stone. If there was such thing as punishment for abusing an Infinity Stone’s power, then Thanos should have been punished as well, but it’s possible that the Mad Titan was saved by one important element in his use of the stones as well as how quickly he got rid of them.

Thanos used the Infinity Stones in different ways in Avengers: Infinity War, and he didn’t wait to have them all to start using them, but unlike Red Skull, he didn’t manipulate the Stones with his bare hands: he had the Infinity Gauntlet to mount them in and channel their power in a safer way. It’s possible that the use of the Infinity Gauntlet could have saved Thanos from being punished in a similar way as Red Skull, and there’s also the fact that Thanos got rid of the Stones three weeks after the snap by reducing them to atomic level, which also ruined the Gauntlet. Thanos might have saved himself from a curse similar to that of Red Skull in Vormir thanks to the Gauntlet and the destruction of the Stones, but there are other characters who should have also been punished for abusing the power of an Infinity Stone… had they survived, as is the case of Malekith and Ronan, but as they both died in their debut movies (Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy) it’s unknown what kind of punishment they would have been given.

Thanos definitely had everything planned and made a smart decision when he destroyed the Stones, as he not only saved himself from the temptation of keep using the power of the Stones but also saved himself from a potential curse like that of Red Skull. However, Avengers: Infinity War still left many questions about why Red Skull was teleported and not killed by the power of the Space Stone and his punishment was guarding another Stone, and this also raises the questions of what would have happened to those other characters who also abused the power of the Stones and what other punishments there could have been.