As April looms ever closer, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are clamouring for any morsel of information they can glean from the various titbits and releases from Marvel. The most often recurring variant of question is ‘will X die in Infinity Wars?’. And it’s not an entirely illogical question. The word ‘war’ is right in the title and people die in wars. And this is supposed to be the greatest threat the Avengers have ever faced. So, it would make sense that someone on the team is going to die, right?
Couple this with the fact that an official poster and a second trailer for the film dropped this week and there’s a wealth of new material for fans to obsess over and extract theories from. What’s amazing is that some eagle eyed fans actually managed to spot Peter Dinklage’s name in the vast cast listed at the bottom of the poster. The Infinity War post is already very busy, with almost every recognisable character getting a spot somewhere, as well as some side characters for some reason (I’m looking at you Wong), and I find that there’s a little bit too much orange and red going on to be comfortable for the eyes. But amongst that, some fans still found Peter Dinklage’s name.
Of course, the reason that Dinklage’s name is important is because we have no idea who he is in the film. One of the most common theories is Pip the Troll, a character closely associated with the space gem The only problem with this is that Pip the Troll is a joke character and in a two and a half hour film that already has to pack in a dozen or so more Avengers and their own comedic side characters like War Machine, Falcon and, again, Wong, the question should be asked whether we need a joke character. And the answer should be no. Though there’s always the possibility that Marvel is trolling us, keeping us speculating about Dinklage’s role, only for him to show up in a post credit scene as Pip the Troll, in much the same way Howard the Duck did. But that would be equally infuriating.
Iron Man doing the Jesus Christ Pose = definitely gonna die.
Hopefully then, the reason for Dinklage’s inclusion is more important than Pip the Troll. And I don’t say that just because I like the actor. But if this film needs to be two and a half hours, then any unnecessary characters should be on the cutting room floor. Maybe if this was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, I could get behind Dinklage as Pip the Troll, as that film already seems set to feature Adam Warlock. But for Infinity War, Dinklage’s presence needs to be something more valuable to the story in order to be worth the addition. Besides, the space gem, in the form of the tesseract, is already likely in the hands of Loki, following the destruction of Asgard. Having Loki simply switch sides, like the underhanded rogue he is, saves time and doesn’t require needless complexity and extra characters.
Given that Infinity Wars is set to feed into the next Avengers film in the same way that Civil War feeds into this one, we can assume that Thanos is either defeated or in some way routed by the end of this film. His defeat could in some way be brought about by the interference of Utat, a watcher, who are cosmic beings and the oldest in the universe. This could feasibly feed into the fourth Avengers film if the threat in that one was Aron, the Renegade Watcher. In this scenario, Dinklage could play Utat. However, while this theory is more interesting than Pip the Troll it still seems unlikely.
First of all, the road to the fourth Avengers film has been set out for quite some time. Consider that along with the fact that the Watchers are generally tied to the Fantastic Four which was under rights to FOX until recently. While, maybe, they could include a one off character from the FOX properties they just bought, it’s improbably that the entire fourth film would be based off of one of those properties. So whoever Dinklage is, it’s not someone that has just been bought in by Disney. That also eliminates Bolivar Trask, the character Dinklage played in Days of Future Past. It’s also unlikely then that the X-Men will swoop in to help save the day.
Not shown: Avengers Infinity War
As such, the most likely answer to who Peter Dinklage will play in Avengers: Infinity War is also the most obvious. Since speculation began about Dinklage’s role in the film, theories have abounded that he’ll play one of Thanos minions, known as the Black Order. The probable pick would be Black Dwarf. Notably Black Dwarf is not a reference to his height, in case you were thinking that it would perfect casting to cast the actor famous for Tyrion Lannister as another Dwarf. If anything the name is a reference to a theoretical star end of the same name.
If true, what this means is that Dinklage might not actually appear on screen and will instead be present in the film mostly through voice acting, like James Spader did for Ultron. This is a good idea because henchmen can sometimes be rather one note, especially if they’re mostly CGI. A commanding voice actor can help audiences engage with the character even if all they’re doing is following orders. Or, this could just all be wrong and Dinklage is playing someone we haven’t even thought of.
Got an idea who Dinklage might be playing? Or think that he’s reprising his role as Bolivar Trask and the X-Men are totally in Infinity Wars? Then hit me up in the comments below and let me hear your opinions. Or you can use the social media option of your choice. I’m on almost all of them. If you liked this article and would like to stay up to date with content like this, follow this blog and you’ll be notified when new articles are posted. In the meantime, check out the wealth of other posts on this site, such as the Black Panther film review or the review of Jessica Jones season 2. If you’ve still got a hankerin’ for readin’ after that, you can also find my own original fiction novel, Carrion Youth, available to read for free, over at swoonreads.com. Until next time, thanks for reading.
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