Hall of Stories

Black Widow

The Consent of Sacrifice

The Marvel character Black Widow, or Natasha Romanoff, is a strong female lead who searches for redemption throughout the franchise. She finally gets her wish in Endgame when she is able to be a sacrifice for the greater good.

In class, a Critical Consideration note stated, “Asking who consents, who benefits, and who bears the cost of creation.” Through the lens those questions create, comparisons can be drawn between the positions of Tiamat in the Enuma Elish, Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame and Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War.

Mother vs. Monster

In Babylonian culture, the creation of the world came from a violent death. It began when Tiamat’s husband Apsu wanted to murder their children, who were being loud, so he could get some sleep.

The first tablet reads:

“[41] When Tiamat heard these words,

She raged and cried aloud…

She… grievously…,

She uttered a curse, and unto Apsu she spake:

[45] ‘What then shall we do?

Let their way be made difficult, and let us lie down again in peace.’”

Since those are her children he is talking about, she is upset. It is not an anger of evil intent, but rather of anguish. Her raging and crying suggest she is feeling pain over the thought of losing her children. As a mother, she has instincts to nurture, care, and do anything for those children. Grievously is another adjective describing the severity of what she is feeling. Those who are writing her story could potentially be trying to put hysterical qualities on her to suggest instability, therefore painting her as insufficient to lead.

She is a mother, not a monster. She does not want to kill everyone, or anyone at all. By asking Apsu what they should do rather than murder, she proposes a compromise of making the children’s ways hard to challenge them into a quietness, while Apsu disagrees. She loves her children and does not want to see them perish. Tiamat would rather they be punished or their lives made harder in some way than to see their lives ended.

In the second tablet, Apsu is killed by the younger gods, and perhaps from a state of loyalty, [3] “to avenge Apsu, Tiamat planned evil.” She takes a second husband, Kingu, and wages war. Multi-vocal texts can include the voices of those who have been oppressed. She takes steps to protect herself and her kingdom, but her actions are described as evil. By stating her plans as “evil”, the Babylonians portray Tiamat as a monster as a way to give reason to her death, as if she is something that needs to be conquered. Written as “avenging” her husband, her voice is taken which might suggest she was trying to protect her stance on the throne.

In the third tablet, her life is taken and she is sacrificed against her will. However, from her body, the world was created. The world and mankind benefit from her death as they would not exist without that event. She bears the weight of giving life from her own demise. There was no honor nor consent. She was the sacrificial lamb, but not off her own accord. It is a role forced upon her, as her right to live was violently ripped from her.

In the Marvel movie Avengers: Endgame, half of all living creatures had been wiped off of the earth (or rather turned to dust). In order to bring all of those people back, it was necessary for all six Infinity Stones to be reunited. The Soul Stone itself required a sacrifice of a loved one.

Natasha Romanoff, Black Widow, and Clint Barton, Hawkeye, found themselves at the cliff’s edge facing the decision of which one of them would die for the stone. They each want to be the one to do it, with Barton thinking he made too many mistakes to be allowed to live. Barton’s entire family were some of those who turned to dust. The loss of them became the reason he went rogue on a meaningless murder spree. Romanoff disagrees, stating no one should be judged by their worst mistakes.

That statement means a lot coming from Romanoff because she is a trained assassin who spent most of her life killing people; good, bad, otherwise. Becoming an Avenger and fighting for the greater good gave her a better purpose. “Whatever it takes. If we don’t get that stone, billions of people stay dead,” she said. “For the last five years, I’ve been trying to do one thing — get to right here. This is all it’s been about. Bringing everybody back.” This quote shows her desperation for redemption and desire for the sacrifice to be her. She has felt guilty about the lives she’s taken over her lifetime and wants to be able to finally feel like she has done something good with her life. It is a large and noble cause to bring back half the planet’s population.

After a physical fight between the two, both end up dangling from the cliff’s edge. In a tear-jerking scene, Romanoff pushes off the cliff side and forces Barton to drop her. Her death grants Barton the Soul Stone.

Romanoff consented to sacrificing herself for the Soul Stone that would achieve the Avengers’ goal of bringing the half of the population back that turned to dust. Half of the population benefited because they were brought back to life. She bore the cost of the recreation of the world, in a sense. She willingly gave her life so that billions of others could have theirs back, and for the other billion still there to get their loved ones back.

Her selfless sacrifice is a testament to her agency and heart for others, specifically Barton and his family. Between them and their inevitable and only option, she wanted to be the one to go. At this point in the franchise, Romanoff had just rediscovered her own family after years of not having them: mother, father, and sister. She neglects her own love and happiness in rediscovering those people for Barton, his wife, and three young kids. It can be interpreted from their years of friendship that Romanoff felt like Barton’s family needed him more than her’s needed her.

Directors, the Russo Brothers, “saw Black Widow’s final act as a chance to redeem her assassin past, as someone who once took lives rather than saved them. ‘The theme of the movie, ‘Can you change your destiny, and what does it cost to do it—and are you willing to pay that cost?’ Joe said’ (Breznican). Romanoff was willing to pay the cost of sacrificing her life and future in order to bring back everyone else. It might have been her destiny all along that led her to that cliffside.

Daughter Lost

In Avengers: Infinity War, antagonist Thanos sacrificed his daughter, Gamora, for the Soul Stone. She knew her father was looking for the stones, and she was under the impression that he was forcing her to help him. She did not know the logistics of how she would be of aid, she only knew the location of the stone.

When it was learned that a sacrifice of something the person loved was required, Gamora was joyous, reveling, saying, “All my life, I dreamed of a day…A moment when you would get what you deserved. And I was always so disappointed. But now…You kill and torture…And you call it mercy. The universe has judged you. You asked it for a prize, and it told you no. You failed. And do you wanna know why? Because you love nothing. No one.”

Her comments fell on deaf ears as she was apparently wrong. She thought she was safe because she had never felt love from Thanos. Her “father”, whom she did not even know truly loved her, grabbed her by the arm to drag her over the ledge. She dug her feet into the ground to fight, but to no avail. He flung her seemingly weightless body over the edge. 

Her death for the Soul Stone was not consented to. She did not know her own life would be taken from her in a matter of seconds, all for her father to gain the power he craved. Her strength in her identity as a warrior was diminished to nothing as she did not stand a chance against Thanos’s size or brute strength. The text of the script demonstrates how she was unaware of the rules behind retrieving the stone as well as even the potential that her power-hungry, adoptive (via kidnapping) father figure could have an ounce of love in his body and it was for her.

While Tiamat’s death brought on the creation of the world and Natasha’s death brought back billions of lives, Gamora’s death was utilized to destroy billions of lives.

Tiamat, Natasha, Gamora

Between these three strong females, the event of being sacrificed is contrasted with the sacrificing of the self. Tiamat and Natasha bore the cost of creation and life while Gamora unfortunately bore the cost of her father’s power.

Tiamat was a mother who was portrayed as a monster. She was a good being, made out to be something evil. The loss of her life was against her will. Gamora’s life was also taken from her against her will. She was an innocent daughter manipulated for a power-hungry evil. Natasha gave her life willingly, aware of the greater good that it would bring and allowing that to outweigh her own innate desire to stay alive. It gave her a chance to solidify to herself that she had reformed and got a second chance.

While both sacrifices of Tiamat and Natasha brought about life, Gamora’s brought more death. It was nothing of her intent, but rather she was used as an unknowing pawn for evil. The only person to benefit from her death was Thanos, while the world benefited from Tiamat’s death and billions of people benefited from Natasha’s sacrifice.

My positionality: I write as a critical reader attentive to how the female antitype in modern films corresponds to history and a sacred religion. I approach this comparison valuing sacred culture while seeking to understand the concept of sacrifice within differing stories.

Works Cited

Breznican, Anthony. “Avengers: Endgame Secrets Revealed.” Entertainment Weekly, no. 1562/1563, May 2019, pp. 16–17. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=f2826ed8-627f-3af2-ab5d-d604144a41e4.

Lambert, W. G. (2013). Babylonian Creation Myths. Eisenbrauns.

Markus, Christopher and Stephen McFeely. Avengers: Endgame Adapted Screenplay, 2019, https://script-pdf.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avengers-endgame-script-pdf.pdf

Russo, Anthony and Joe, directors. Avengers: Endgame. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, 2019.

Russo, Anthony and Joe, directors. Avengers: Infinity War. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, 2018.