One of the things that we already know in the MCU is that whoever is worthy of wielding Mjolnir will possess the powers of Thor, and that was what we have seen from the likes of Steve Rogers and even Jane Foster. However, one of the most surprising parts of Thor: Love and Thunder was the fact that Thor was able to bestow his powers to the Asgardian kids for a limited time. So, how was Thor able to give his powers to kids?
Thor was able to give his powers to kids because he enchanted their weapons. Due to his bloodline as Odin’s son, he is capable of enchantments, although he may not be on Odin’s level yet. And by making use of Zeus’s Lightning Bolt as a conduit, he was able to grant powers to the Asgardian kids.
It was during Thor: Love and Thunder that we were able to see Thor making full use of his powers of enchantment for the first time. Thor has always relied on the fact that he is stronger than any Asgardian and has thunder powers. But it was surprising to see a different side to the character when he granted his powers to the Asgardian children. And that is what we are here to look at.
How Was Thor Able To Give His Powers To Kids?
Thor: Love and Thunder is the newest chapter in the Thor movie franchise and is the first standalone MCU movie to reach four film installments. This movie also allows us to see the latest development in Thor’s life as he embarked on his newest quest of defeating Gorr the God Butcher so that he could save the gods of the universe and rescue the Asgardian kids that he kidnapped.
During a certain part of the movie, Gorr was able to set up a trap for Thor, Jane, and Valkyrie in the Shadow Realm. While the trio was able to put up a good fight against him, they were forced to retreat. And while retreating, Thor lost Stormbreaker to Gorr, who needed the axe so that he could use it to open the doorway to Eternity and make a wish to the powerful cosmic being.
Valkyrie got injured in the fight against Gorr. Meanwhile, Jane Foster was severely weakened because of her cancer and due to the fact that Mjolnir was draining her life force the more that she wielded it. As such, Thor was forced to rescue the kids and fight Gorr on his own with nothing but Zeus’s Lightning Bolt.
Of course, Gorr had the upper hand because he made use of the Necrosword to summon shadow creatures that severely outnumbered Thor. That was when Thor told the Asgardian kids to arm themselves with any weapon they could find.
After that, he used the very same words that Odin used on Mjolnir when the All-Father enchanted the hammer. However, Thor added the words, “for a limited time only,” as he was able to allow the Asgardian kids to possess the powers of Thor. But how was Thor able to grant his powers to the kids?
Basically speaking, Thor was merely enchanting the weapons that the kids used in the same way that Odin enchanted Mjolnir back in the events of the first Thor movie. It was the fact that Thor used the same words that Odin used that gave us a clue that he was enchanting the kids’ weapons. But if that was the case, why was this the first time Thor used this trick?
The answer we can think of is the fact that he was wielding Zeus’s Lightning Bolt when he was enchanting the weapons. There is a good reason to believe that this Lightning Bolt is the strongest godly weapon in the universe as it is probably stronger than Stormbreaker. This is the very reason why Thor asked Zeus to lend him his Lightning Bolt in the battle against Gorr, as Thor understood how powerful the weapon is.
Odin explained to Thor back in Thor: Ragnarök that the weapons that they use merely allow them to focus their powers and use the weapons as conduits. Think of the gods like Thor and Odin as electric guitars and their weapons as amplifiers in the sense that the powers come from Thor and Odin, but the weapons serve as the amplifiers that they need to further improve the effects of their powers.
The fact that Zeus’s Lightning Bolt had something to do with the powers of the kids can be seen in the fact that the thunder that the kids were using was golden yellow instead of the electric blue that Thor uses. This supports the theory that Thor was only able to enchant the weapons because he was channeling his power through Zeus’s Lightning Bolt, which is incredibly powerful and potent.
Can Thor Enchant Weapons?
Throughout Thor’s existence in the MCU, one of the things that we saw from him was the fact that he was steadily learning more about his powers. In Thor: Ragnarök, he discovered that he didn’t need Mjolnir because he had the ability to control thunder inside all along. Then, it was in Thor: Love and Thunder that we saw the next step of his evolution when he enchanted the weapons that the kids were wielding. So, does that mean that Thor can enchant weapons?
We cannot forget about the fact that Thor is, first and foremost, the biological son of Odin, a powerful god that was adept at enchantments during his prime. And this only means that Thor himself has the capability to enchant.
But the thing is that Thor was always the mightiest out of all of the Asgardians because his strength was beyond any other god in Asgard. On top of that, he also relied a lot on his ability to control lightning. This left little to no room for him to understand what he was truly capable of.
However, in the comics, All-Father Thor was capable of doing not only the things that Thor was doing but also what Odin was capable of because he had now risen to the status of All-Father. This could mean that Thor, given time and practice, is also capable of the things that Odin was capable of. And this logically includes the power to enchant weapons.
We did see Thor unknowingly casting an enchantment. In the flashback scene of the time when he was still with Jane several years prior, he seemed to have placed a new enchantment on Mjolnir when he told the hammer to always protect Jane. And this gives us a clue of what he is capable of when he makes use of his full potential.
Then, in the scene wherein he enchanted the weapons of the kids, he was most likely able to enchant at such a grand scale because he channeled his powers of enchantment through Zeus’s Lightning Bolt, and that could explain why he wanted to borrow it from Zeus from the start.
However, we aren’t sure whether or not Thor could do the same with Mjolnir and Stormbreaker at this point in time, considering that there is a reason to believe that neither of those weapons is as strong as Zeus’s Lightning Bolt. But with practice and experience, Thor might end up being as good at enchanting as Odin was.