Who Is Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok?

At time of writing Marvel studios is entering into their much vaunted phase 3 with…less than a full deck of cards, to put it delicately.  The Marvel brand is still a pretty unassailable seal of financial success but its standard as a seal of quality and, most of all, audience interest has become decidedly tarnished in the 3 years since Avengers cemented them as the entertainment kings of the 2010s.  There have been some major cultural hits like Guardians of the Galaxy or Ant Man, and Winter Soldier has done a lot to cement Captain America as THE superhero of this moment in time, much like Spider-Man in 2001, Batman in 1989, or Superman in 1978.  Additionally they’ve finally managed to make some in roads on the issues of diversity that’ve been dogging their brand for awhile thanks to the twin hits of Agent Carter and Jessica Jones. 

Unfortunately, a pretty heft bundle of disposable, forgotten, or underwhelming and underperforming entries have also blighted the Marvel stable.  Stuff like Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., have all done a serious number on the Marvel brand and losing out key box office battles to rival franchises like Jurassic World and Hunger Games has definitely not helped.  The crowning example of the tarnished Marvel star would have to be Thor: The Dark World, the lackluster and underperforming sequel to one of Marvel’s greatest successes of phase 1. 

The failure of Thor: The Dark World is far too cumbersome a topic to fit into 1 article but Marvel have certainly taken note of it and have done a lot to try and avoid a similar fate for Thor: Ragnarok.  They’ve given the film a wide berth till release, emphasized the connection to Thanos and Avengers: Infinity War, courted Kenneth Brannagh about returning to the project, added additional heroes like Valkyrie and Hulk, and now they’ve reached out to Cate Blanchett about a leading role of some kind.  

Blanchett’s involvement is still unconfirmed as she’s only officially “in talks” but given the amount of pull Marvel has demonstrated over the years it feels like a matter of when she’ll be announced rather than if.  This has gotten a lot of folks speculating about what role she’ll play, after all the Thor franchise has never been brimming with female parts but Lady Sif and Jane Foster hold special distinction as some of the most prominent Marvel women outside Black Widow.  Given that, and what a high caliber actress Blanchett is, it stands to reason that she’s playing a major part in the film.  Given that this film will deal with Thanos, the Infinity gems, and the Norse Apocalypse I’ve narrowed down the possible roles into a handful of likely suspects.

VALKYRIE

Valkyrie is probably the most likely role for Blanchett.  Her involvement in the film was announced a couple months ago alongside the revelation that the Hulk would have a major co-starring role in Thor: Ragnarok.  Valkyrie in the comics is a lot like Sif is in the films, a powerful shield maiden of Asgard and one of the few Norse warriors who could go head-to-head with Thor.  I’m not sure that’s the same role she’ll have in the films as Jaimie Alexander’s Sif has been working that angle really well in both the previous Thor films and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but it’s still possible.  However, Valkyrie’s role would require a lot of movement and action from Blanchett, which would certainly be possible but maybe not advisable. 

One of Marvel’s big, unsung secret weapons is their excellent second unit directors and choreographers so I have no doubt Blanchett could believably fit into the Valkryie role but I’m also not sure it’d be a good use of her acting talents or even Valkyrie within the story.  Overall, I wouldn’t be surprised if Valkyrie took rather a different place in Thor: Ragnarok, perhaps serving as an evil counter-part to Thor, someone just as powerful and strong but working for the villains of the piece, the Norse Goddess of death…speaking of whom.

HELA

In Norse Mythology, when you die there are essentially two options.  If you died a warrior’s death in battle you ascend to Valhalla to await the final day of Ragnarok, feasting and toasting alongside the greatest warriors the world has ever known where the brave live forever.  If you die the straw death of sickness or old age, you’re condemned the realms of Hel, an icy realm of torment for dishonored souls ruled over by the villainous Goddess of the same name.  In the Marvel comics all of this has translated pretty much one-to-one, with Hela as the queen of the underworld and a constant enemy of Thor and Odin.  In the films, however, the more mystic elements of the Asgardians have been decidedly downplayed, with a lot of the cosmology that defines these aspects stripped almost completely out of the film version. 

So, if it was revealed that the realm of Hel, one of the 9 realms, was actually some rival planet locked in a parallel orbit to Asgard and ruled over by Hela as an anti-Odin with her champion Valkyrie as an anti-Thor, it’d make sense to cast a titan of fantasy and exposition like Cate Blanchett as Hela.  Making Hela the central antagonist of the film would be a nice way to force Thor and Loki back into interacting, which has really proven to be this franchise’s bread and butter, and give a more scheming and definable face to the bigger threat of Surtur, the fire demon who is prophesized to destroy Asgard.  Thanos still has to be involved somehow due to him needing the Space Stone from within Asgard’s vaults but there’s no reason he couldn’t use Hela’s assault as cover for his own activities.  However, Hela isn’t the only powerful female villain of the Thor franchise who might show up.

KARNILLA

Though certainly far less likely Blanchett would work perfectly as Karnilla, queen of the Norns.  In Norse myth the Norns were essentially akin to the Fates of Greek myth but they’re also a prominent part of the Thor comics, mainly through the schemes of their queen Karnilla.  Karnilla never really threatened Asgard directly but preferred to subtly aid Loki as her proxy, giving him his most powerful weapon from the comics the Norn Stones.  The Thor films really seem to love their big, mystic, McGuffins between the casket of the ancient winters and the space stone in film 1 followed by the reality stone in film 2 so if the Norn Stones were to pop up as some new Infinity Stone (probably time) it would fit very well into the series ethos and the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe plans. 

At the same time, this change would get back to emphasizing Loki as the big bad, which seems like something Marvel would want to do after the mixed response to Dark World’s admittedly boring villain Malekith.  Still, Karnilla is hardly “end of the world” material for a film and it’d be weird to cram yet a third Infinity Stone into the Thor series given that Marvel likes to use the stones to pep up more risky franchises like Guardians of the Galaxy or Dr. Strange.  Speaking of Dr. Strange, there’s actually a majorly important character from his mythos with a key role in the Thor universe that needs to be filled.

GAEA

In Thor: The Dark World Thor’s mother, Frigga, was killed.  However, in the comics it was at one point revealed Frigga wasn’t actually Thor’s biological mother.  Instead, it turned out Odin had joined with the incredibly powerful Elder God Gaea to produce his favored son.  The Elder Gods are a big part of the Dr. Strange mythos, serving as one third of his patron deities the Vishanti and given rise to the reoccurring evil God of chaos Chthon.  They usually play second fiddle to Dormammu in terms of marquis value but they’re still a major segment of the story alongside other mystic yet non-denominational beings like The Old Ones or the Octessence. 

If Marvel wanted a way to tie Dr. Strange more directly into the overall cinematic universe having him pal around with Thor’s real mom would be an interesting way to solve that problem and make for a nice set-up for Thor: Ragnarok.  This is definitely one of the more unlikely possibilities given how weird and convoluted the Marvel mystic cosmology is but at the same time I could see Marvel jumping through these kind of hoops to add more female characters and wrong-foot the decisions made in Thor: The Dark World.  However, if they are willing to intro weirder and more esoteric characters like Gaea there’s a more likely possibility for Thor 3 that’s actually tied into the overall Thanos saga. 

DEATH

One of the weird things about Marvel’s cosmic mythos is that it’s full to the brim with weird, esoteric embodiments of platonic ideals, like how the Infinity Stones seem to be physical iterations of vague ideas of “time” and “mind.”  That kind of idea also extends in a big way to Thanos, the mad Titan, in that his central character motivation is that he’s in love with death.  However, it’s not that he’s in love with the concept of death or causing death but rather he’s in love with the humanoid physical manifestation of Death, who is a woman in the Marvel universe.  It’s still unclear how much of that craziness will make it into the Marvel films but a lot of folks have supposed that Thanos’ smirk at the end of Avengers when his aid mentions that facing the Avengers is to “court death” is a hint that Death will appear in the films as an actual character. 

Even if Death is coming she’s usually mute in the comics so it’s unlikely Marvel would cast such a big name as Cate Blanchett in such a role but certainly not impossible given that Blanchett would be perfect casting.  She’s always embodied a kind of other worldly beauty that was all at once stunning but kind of creepy and inhuman and going from Galadriel to Death isn’t that big of a stretch.  The only reason I might suspect not is that Marvel already scooped up the even better actor for the role Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in Dr. Strange.  Still, the possibility of the apocalypse brings a lot of Death with it and establishing Thanos’ love of Death in Thor: Ragnarok would be a good way to get it out of the way before Infinity War Part 1 rolls around. 

ATHENA

Going back to an earlier point Marvel has always played very fast and loose with how exactly the Asgardians are connected to magic, myth, and the idea of “Gods” in general.  We know that they aren’t literally Gods and that they don’t possess the kind of innate cosmological mechanics of an after life or omnipotence that you would usually apply to a Pantheon of Gods but they’re also a group of incredibly powerful ancient aliens whose abilities conform to those ascribed to Gods by ancient man.  This has always left the back door open for their being MORE pantheons and Gods outside the Norse pantheon within the Marvel cinematic universe like there are in the comics.  In fact, there was originally a scene in Age of Ultron where Thor commented on the Greco-Roman myths claiming they were false but it was cut for unaccountable reasons. 

This has given rise to the theory Marvel would like to bring in fellow Godling Hercules and the Olympian pantheon, perhaps as a way to replace Chris Hemsworth now that the Thor franchise isn’t generating the same level of buzz and money as it did in phase 1 and Hemsworth has been demanding more money.  If that is the case bringing Athena into Ragnarok in some way would be a stroke of genius, especially if it was involved in some kind of council of the Gods.  Though, if Marvel really does want to shelve Thor in favor of a less expensive and fresher fantasy figure there is one other possibility. 

FEMALE THOR

This is probably the least likely possibility given that the character is still very new, someone totally different in the comics, and casting Cate Blanchett as the “cheaper alternative” for an action heavy role strikes me as a bad business decision but none of that matters, because “Would You Like To Know More” is a brand that thrives on wild speculation.  Very recently, as in last year recently, Marvel shook up their status quo in a major way with a series of diversity minded reshuffles for major Marvel heroes.  Hulk became an Asian American named Amadeus Cho, Captain America became Sam Wilson, Ms. Marvel is now a Muslim girl, and Thor became a woman. 

It was eventually revealed this female Thor was actually Jane Foster, wielding the Mjolnir after Thor proved himself unworthy of its power.  Her time in the saddle hasn’t been very long but it has been extremely popular, owing in a big way to the work of Jason Aaron who has turned her comic into one of the truly must read books of the Marvel line.  Though it’s highly unlikely will see a change of this level on the screen and there’s every possibility Jane Foster Thor will be a thing of the past by this time 2016 it’d still be pretty great to see Cate Blanchett swinging around the Hammer of Thor in full armor and a cape. 


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