If Thor, the Norse god and Marvel Comics superhero, set his hammer, Mjolnir, down on a boat, would the boat sink? A stranger recently asked this question on an Internet discussion board, and I initially thought it a silly question. In the second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, Thor clearly sets Mjolnir on a coffee table, and the table isn’t crushed. Therefore clearly the difficulty in lifting Mjolnir isn’t about weight.
Another stranger, though, complicated the question: leaving Mjolnir in the boat, could you pull the boat ashore? Could you successfully row the boat with Mjolnir aboard? Only Thor can lift Mjolnir, but could others move Mjolnir indirectly, as by moving whatever it’s sitting on? When Thor sets Mjolnir on Loki’s chest, in his first movie, Loki is incapacitated, but not destroyed. What force, then, makes mortals unable to lift Mjolnir?
Philosophically, these questions seem trivial. Except I’d argue they’re not. Plato, in The Republic, uses the Ring of Gyges myth to test theories of human morality. Fables, including comic book fables, have the capacity to push moral principles to their breaking point, without the complicating friction that reality inevitably provides. Questions about Mjolnir may have no practical value, but they open doors for other, more useful philosophical inquiry.
Start with the question of merit. In the first Thor movie, Odin exiles Thor from Asgard, and casts his hammer to Earth, proclaiming: “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of THOR!” This enchantment includes no meaningful definition of “worthy.” In the movie, Thor sacrifices his life to protect humanity, and is resurrected as an Asgardian. Worth, therefore, apparently means willingness to die on principle.
Except several heroes who die fighting, like Iron Man or Black Widow, can’t lift Mjolnir. Being worthy of Thor’s power evidently involves also resembling Thor’s principles, something that, in the final battle, only Captain America can match. Thor, apparently, deserves Thor’s powers, because he’s the being who most completely resembles Thor. Thus a common problem with purely theistic morality: God is righteous because God is God.
Being divine and untinged by human venality, Thor can lift Mjolnir. Tony Stark, who uses alcohol and promiscuity to plug his daddy issues, can’t. On balance, maybe that makes sense. When applying this morality to inanimate objects, it therefore extends to explain why Mjolnir doesn’t crush that coffee table, crash the SHIELD helicarrier, or plunge through multi-story buildings. Inanimate objects simply exist; matter alone is morally neutral.
This puts MCU morality in opposition to Greek gnosticism. Matter cannot be evil, because matter isn’t purposeful, only existent. This would confirm both Steve Rogers’ Christianity and Tony Stark’s atheism, both of which see matter as simply what is. That hypothetical boat would never sink, because it has no motives or purposes in itself. Though built by human hands, that boat, while floating idly, has no necessary morality.
The moment humans attempt to move that hypothetical boat, though, the movement (though not the boat itself) gains moral direction. Machines, technology, and manufactured products don’t have morality, but humans do. We can use our built environment to improve humanity and protect nature, or we can willfully cause harm. That moral judgement doesn’t accrue to the technology used, though tech might make immorality easier; judgement only applies to humans.
Our hypothetical boat, therefore, wouldn’t be immobile. It would drift on a river’s current, or rise on an ocean’s tide. If it hit a sandbar, it would still be grounded. Nature, being matter enacted by principles of physics, wouldn’t impede that boat’s progress. Mjolnir isn’t an anchor, holding that boat in one place. If it did, think how awful the consequences of Earth’s rotation would be!
Humans attempting to move that boat, however, would incur moral judgement. Either pulling the boat ashore, or rowing, would be futile efforts, except for the minority of humans pure enough to share Thor’s worthiness. Every action humans perform has purpose, even if that purpose is pre-conscious or transitory. Therefore every such action incurs judgement. In the MCU, where effect very closely follows cause, morality is always imminent.
Sadly, this creates more questions. If humans dam a river, have we imputed morality onto the altered current? Well, if the current destroys somebody’s home, perhaps. Matter may simply exist, but humans change it; that’s our nature. Therefore matter isn’t morally neutral, once humans exist. Thor’s hammer might not destroy a coffee table, but what about setting it aboard a Nazi battleship? I feel a headache coming on.
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