Spoilers ahead for Thor: Ragnarok. 

Before Thor: Ragnarok headed into production, there were rumors that it would be the biggest shakeup to the MCU since Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that disbanded S.H.I.E.L.D. and one of the few instances of the films actually affect what happens on a Marvel TV show. While Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t quite reach the major shifts created by Winter Soldier, it still makes some fairly impressive moves.

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Image via Marvel Studios

Right off the bat, the biggest surprise is that Thor loses an eye. During his fight with Hela, she strikes it out of his face, and there’s no sign of him getting it back. At the end of the film, he’s got an eyepatch on, and for the time being, it looks like the patch is here to stay. It was impressive that Marvel was able to keep that under wraps for so long, especially with scenes appearing in the trailers where Thor has both peepers and yet in the final film one of his eyes has been cut out. Additionally, Marvel kept the one-eyed Thor out of its Avengers: Infinity War trailer that it showed at D23 and Comic-Con, so unless Thor magically gets his eye back, expect his new look to be the status quo for a while.

An even bigger surprise is the destruction of Asgard. Thor realizes that the only way to stop Hela is to fulfill the prophecy and create Ragnarok, destroying his sister in the cataclysm created by Surtur. In a vision, Odin reminds Thor that Asgard isn’t a place, but a people, and as long as those people are protected, Asgard will live on. Nevertheless, an entire realm is destroyed along with everything it contained. This means the bodies of the Warriors Three (whom Thor never seems particularly bummed about), all of its technology and weaponry, and more are gone. The Tesseract would have been destroyed as well, but it’s strongly implied that Loki pocketed it when he went to the treasure room.

That being said, we only go to Asgard when there’s a Thor movie, so it’s not like its destruction impacts the rest of the MCU too much. And if Thor only has one eye, well, so does Nick Fury and he gets by. Surprisingly, Thor is still without Mjolnir and it’s unknown how he’ll forge a new one. But before we can even really consider his new, Asgard-less life, the post-credits scene shows Thor’s ship encountering Thanos’ ship. In six months time, we'll be in the middle of Avengers: Infinity War.

What did you think of the Thor: Ragnarok ending? Do you wish it had impacted more of the MCU or were you glad it was just contained to Thor? Sound off in the comments section.

And to catch up on all of our Thor: Ragnarok coverage, peruse the links below:

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Image via Disney
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Image via Marvel Studios
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Image via Marvel Studios