Warning: Contains spoilers for Eternals.

In Marvel’s Eternals, Phastos’ LGBTQ+ relationship made headlines, but other characters like Thena and Gilgamesh represent an important and underserved part of the queer spectrum. Marvel had repeatedly come under fire for a failure to provide main characters that were representative of the LGBTQ+ community in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A large change started for the MCU in 2021 when Loki included two main characters discussing LGBTQ+ identities, Eternals released, and plans for a queer relationship in Thor: Love & Thunder were confirmed for 2022.

In Eternals, the group of immortal superheroes demonstrates a range of different types of relationships between themselves. Thena (Angelina Jolie) is believed to be experiencing Mahd W’yry, an illness where the Eternals can become divorced from their current reality and become a danger to themselves and others. When Thena first enters this phase, it is Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-Seok, credited as Don Lee) who is able to use his abilities to stop her. Rather than allowing her to have her mind wiped, Gilgamesh chooses to watch over her for centuries, calming her when she has a Mahd W’yry episode.

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Gilgamesh’s care for Thena becomes a lifelong bond. The two declare their love for each other in Eternals in a way that goes beyond even the love that Ajak (Salma Hayek) claims to have for the group. However, in a huge break for Hollywood, the relationship remains platonic throughout and ultimately represents an aromantic, asexual relationship in Eternals. The pair are never shown to have a physical relationship, but their speech, body language, and choices represent the intimate nature of their relationship. When Thena has a Mahd W’yry episode, the pain that Gilgamesh clearly experiences goes beyond upset over his friend, and when Gilgamesh dies Thena’s reaction is understandably more marked than the other Eternals’

Gilgamesh holding Thena's hand in Eternals

While LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream media is on the rise, its portrayal of the aro and ace communities ranges from scarce to non-existent. Though the nature of Thena and Gilgamesh’s relationship is never explicitly called out in the script, it is well represented through their actions. In fact, the incidental nature of the portrayal helps their relationship to feel natural in Eternals, a movie where love of different kinds plays a crucial part in the main story and thematic messages.

Disney and the MCU still have a long way to go in terms of LGBTQ+ representation, but the release of Eternals and their current future plans provide a great starting point. There was a lot of media buzz around the LGBTQ+ representation appearing in Eternals and it has resulted in the movie being banned in some countries after Marvel refused to censor the scenes. However, within Eternals itself, the different relationships are portrayed as incidental to the larger characters and entirely normal in a way that will help the queer community to continue to garner wider acceptance in the world.

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