Eternals' Biggest Death Confirmation Avoids A Big Sequel Problem

Screen Rant

By Adrienne Tyler

Published Dec 1, 2021

Now that the biggest death in Eternals has been confirmed, the writers have avoided a major sequel problem that would have hurt the story.

Eternals saw two of the title team’s members die, but there was speculation about the fate of one of them and his possible return – and the confirmation of his death has now avoided a big problem Eternals 2 could have had. The MCU’s Phase 4 is continuing the stories of established characters (both on the big screen and streaming) and introducing new ones as well, and it recently brought a new team in Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, which changed the history of the MCU.

The Eternals are an alien race created by the Celestial Arishem and who were sent to Earth centuries ago to protect it from the Deviants, the Eternals’ evil counterparts. The Eternals stayed on Earth waiting for a sign to go back home, and so they helped humanity progress, but they never interfered in any of their conflicts, including Thanos’ snap and the following battles. However, following the death of their leader, Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan) was appointed the new leader and she learned the truth about their origin and purpose: they were sent to Earth to make sure humanity met the prerequisites needed for the birth of the Celestial Tiamut, whose seed was planted on Earth, and his “emergence” meant the destruction of Earth.

However, that wasn’t the Eternals’ plot twist, as Ikaris (Richard Madden) later confessed to the rest of the team that he had known about the Emergence for centuries as Ajak told him about it, and he was the one who fed her to the Deviants six days prior to the Emergence to prevent her from stopping it. That didn’t stop most of the remaining Eternals, who teamed up and brought together all their powers (thanks to Phastos) to stop Tiamut, which Sersi eventually achieved. Moments before their triumph, Ikaris fought his teammates and tried to kill Sersi, but he couldn’t, and so he ended up flying into the Sun. While this was a pretty clear demise for Ikaris, many viewers debated whether he survived or not, leaving the door open for his return in a sequel, but with Eternals co-screenwriter Kaz Firpo confirming Ikaris is dead, an Eternals sequel has dodged a big problem.

Ikaris went from defender of Earth alongside the rest of the Eternals to their biggest traitor, but he was still unable to kill Sersi due to their past together and his love for her. Ikaris, then, went through a whole journey and his arc came to an end in Eternals, so his death – which also matched the myth created for him in the movie – was a fitting ending. With that in mind, his return in Eternals 2 would hurt his story and the movie, but the confirmation of his death has completely avoided that. In addition to that, if his death wasn’t confirmed, the sequel would have had to reference it or explain it, which would have been quite awkward, especially as his story came full circle in the first movie.

An Eternals sequel doesn’t really need Ikaris anymore, as his arc came to an end and the rest of the team have moved on: Sersi, Phastos, and Kingo were abducted by Arishem and taken to an undisclosed location, Sprite was turned into a human, and Thena, Druig, and Makkari left to find more Eternals and came across Eros (Harry Styles), so Ikaris' time is officially over.

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