Thoughts on Fat Thor (Avengers:Endgame Spoilers!)

I've seen Avengers: Endgame twice now - I loved it, and I'll probably go see it again. But I keep seeing posts about the direction that Endgame took Thor. Thor has never been my favorite Avengers but I had some thoughts I thought I'd share.

Spoilers for Endgame - don't read any further if you don't want to be spoiled!!

I thought Thor was brilliant and not a joke. It was a bit of shock for sure to see him all fat and drunk, but honestly it made a lot of sense for me.

Thor has had it rough. Both of his parents died, his mother died violently. Seemingly Loki is dead for good this time. Heimdall was murdered in front of him by Thanos, right after Asgard was destroyed with more death, including two of his friends from the Warriors Three.

Thor was struggling in Infinity War, but trying to put a brave face on it. After the Snap, he just fell into the depths of some serious PTSD. And instead of seeking out help, he drowned his sorrows in alcohol.

Beyond the first scene in new Asgard, no jokes were really made about him. Yeah, Tony make the Big Lewbowski comment, but that was just Tony being Tony. Rocket was not very gentle with him, but Rocket was hyper focused on the mission because he lost everything too.

The scene with Thor and his mom was brilliant, even the "eat a salad" line, because that isn't a joke - it's such a mom thing to say. She was super concerned about him, both mentally and physically.

And then Thor begging to be the one to snap everyone back, just showed how bad his PTSD was. The guilt he had and his overwhelming need to fix it. It showed what a complex character Thor was, and let's be honest, he was a bit one-dimensional in the beginning.

In the end, Thor is still a bit lost. I think him going with the Guardians will be good for him, though may annoy Peter to no end. His fatness was just a symptom of his overwhelming conflicted mental state.

As someone who is fat and has mental illness, I thought he was well done. His teammates didn't mock him, but I'm sure where concerned. 

Scheduling and Children

Things are different now than when I grew up in the 1980's. I remember walking to school in elementary, and it was a bit of a walk. I remember playing outside all day in the summertime. I do remember a lot of days playing on the original NES too, but electronics weren't a prevalent back then. One thing that seems to be overdone these days is extracurricular activities.

Kids are often scheduled with scouts, and sports, and other things to the point that it can make both kids and parents crazy. Add in more kids, and the crazy goes up for the parents. Back in the day, I did play soccer and softball. It wasn't my choice to do those things, because I suck horribly at sports. I also was a Campfire Girl, but that was an activity I loved. But it wasn't too much that I didn't have any free time.

I knew when I had Emily that I wasn't going to over schedule her. She's ten and in the 4th grade. She's in Girl Scouts, chorus at school and involved with choir and youth group at church. All of these activities are things she really enjoys doing. I've asked her if she wants to do a sport, gymnastics or karate and she has said no every time.

With school chorus, I did make her join because she was on the fence. I knew she would love it and she does. Beyond that, I give her the option continue with all of them, and she wants to.

I suppose some would say that I'm not making her well-rounded by not making her do a sport, but I can understand why she doesn't want to. She's just not a sporty girl, and tends to be more interested in the arts - just like I was as a kid.

Even with this little amount of groups she is involved in, it seems like we are constantly on the go during the school year - especially in December and May. I can't imagine if we added more to it.

Last night at Girl Scouts, several other parents and I had a discussion about activities. One said that she is fine with her daughter joining activities but even if she doesn't like it, she has to stick it out for the season. I think this is a good rule to have, especially with sports. Yeah, rec leagues aren't super serious but you could still put your team at a disadvantage if you quit in the middle of the season.

And then another one was talking about being on traveling teams. Apparently there are some teams you can get your kid on and they travel all over. From what they said, it can eat up all of your weekends with traveling to meets. That sounds like a nightmare to me, and completely not doable for our family since both Todd and I work on the weekends.

For now, I think we have a good home-school-activity balance going on for Emily. This summer, she'll have VBS at church and then she'll be going to Girl Scout camp twice. Once for the week and one overnight with me that she earned selling cookies.

Do you think your kids are over-scheduled?