And then the movie ended. The credits rolled in complete silence. No end-credits scene teasing a joke or a future suit-up. Just a vacuum of silence and the sound of 2,000 people in a theater trying to remember how to breathe.

Let’s be real. Going into Avengers: Infinity War in 2018, we all had a theory. “Don’t worry,” we told ourselves. “Nobody is really dead. They have sequels coming out. It’s a two-parter. The snap gets reversed.”

But here is the interesting defense:

We were smug. We were clever.

In that moment, he isn't thinking about the multiverse or the fate of trillions. He is a 30-something year old man who finally found a family, and the purple monster in front of him just told him he killed the only woman who ever loved him. Quill didn't fail because he is stupid. He failed because he is human. Sometimes, the hero loses because they lose their temper. That is infinitely more interesting than "oops, I tripped." Infinity War is the Empire Strikes Back for a generation raised on quips and post-credit cookies. It is a three-act tragedy disguised as a blockbuster.