WHAT IF...? Puts A Crazy New Spin On The MCU's History By Asking "What If...Hela Found The Ten Rings?"

WHAT IF...? Puts A Crazy New Spin On The MCU's History By Asking "What If...Hela Found The Ten Rings?"

Today's episode of What If...? takes a deep dive into the Marvel Cinematic Universe's history, revealing what would have happened if Hela had been banished to Earth by Odin and met Ten Rings leader Wenwu.

By JoshWilding - Dec 28, 2023 03:12 AM EST
Filed Under: What If

Thor: Ragnarok revealed Asgard's secret history and the role Hela played in Odin's conquests, but "What If... Hela Found The Ten Rings?" 

That title barely scratches the surface, but in this reality, Odin doesn't banish Hela to Hel because he believes her disregard for life makes her unworthy of ruling the dead. Instead, he strips his daughter of her crown and, like Thor on Earth-616, banishes her, powerless, to Earth (she throws Mjolnir at him during their exchange, only for the King of Asgard to destroy it). 

If Hela can prove herself worthy, she will once again be able to wear her crown, but for now, she and it are stuck in Midgard. The leader of the Ten Rings, Wenwu, finds them both and a fight ensues which ends with the Asgardian being captured after she fails to lift her old headpiece. 

While in captivity, Hela listens as Wenwu suggests an alliance and explains the role of the Ten Rings. Instead, she knocks him out and escapes, taking Morris - yes, that Morris - with her for the ride. Travelling through the bamboo forest, she encounters Jiayi, a woman we're assuming is one of Ying Li's ancestors. 

Brought to Ta Lo, Hela vanishes from Heimdall's sight, leaving Odin to conclude that the Ten Rings - and, more importantly to him, humans - must have killed his daughter. 

Hela listens to Ying Li and forms a tentative alliance; she wants to take Wenwu's Ten Rings so she can destroy Odin. However, the Goddess most desires her freedom, something her father has never allowed (proving there's more to this character than being a baddie). 

After training at Ta Lo, Hela intervenes when Odin attacks Wenwu. They team up and Hela ultimately wields the Ten Rings to defeat her father; he attacks when offered peace, and with a new appreciation for life, Hela is deemed worthy and her crown returns. Now decked out in a white costume, she takes Odin's throne and forms an alliance with Wenwu that offers freedom to all and spans the cosmos. 

In fact, aeons later, we see Hela and Wenwu lead an army to stop Thanos on the day he destroyed half of Gamora's planet as The Watcher explains even the darkest of hearts can find peace. 

Cate Blanchett reprises her role as Hela and Idris Elba returns as Heimdall. Beyond that, the major recasts are Jeff Bergman as Odin and Feodor Chin as Wenwu. 

What did you think about What If...?'s new take on Hela? 
 

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ObserverIO
ObserverIO - 12/28/2023, 3:59 AM
Hela as Odin's daughter is crazy.
URCOMMENTSUCKS
URCOMMENTSUCKS - 12/28/2023, 5:40 AM
@ObserverIO - Yeah, awful idea. Much like making the Mandarin into a sad dad cliche to give Shang-Chi a villain.
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 12/28/2023, 4:00 AM
Best episode so far
lazlodaytona
lazlodaytona - 12/28/2023, 4:11 AM
I have no idea what any of that meant
Kurban
Kurban - 12/28/2023, 4:14 AM
Kind of annoyed that the central takeaway from this is “actually Odin is a bastard and didn’t deserve a peaceful death with his sons, Hela was actually abused.” Like why the [frick] would you take any sort of justice out of Thor: Ragnarok like that?
Ravenous
Ravenous - 12/28/2023, 4:29 AM
@Kurban - I kinda see all these What If episodes in a tragic yet enlightening way. I think its purpose is more to show how one difference could've changed so much for better or worse and makes you look at the originals in new lights after.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 4:37 AM
@Kurban - Odin was never this benevolent god. Hela made that clear in Ragnarok.
Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 5:13 AM
@Kurban - because Odin is a white man and hela is a woman, of course.

Ignore the whole, killing the people of asgard who had nothing to do with what happened to her thing.
Kurban
Kurban - 12/28/2023, 5:15 AM
@FireandBlood - No one said he was, but Hela isn’t some misunderstood character who was just “one bad day” away from being a good person worthy of the throne, either.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 5:20 AM
@Origame - You fragile little man 😂

Odin was never established as this benevolent god. He’s a warmongering conquerer, and celebrated as such, who kidnaps and imprisons children to broker ‘peace’.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 5:21 AM
@Kurban - Why not? Odin was. Thor was. But Hela can’t be? The entire point of ‘What if?’ Is to show how a single deviation can change a character/story, and that’s what this is.
URCOMMENTSUCKS
URCOMMENTSUCKS - 12/28/2023, 5:34 AM
@Kurban - Thor Ragnajoke was garbage, so not a big deal. However, the problem is that they did such an awful What If when they could've done a decent one: have Hela as Loki's daughter, as she always was meant to be.
URCOMMENTSUCKS
URCOMMENTSUCKS - 12/28/2023, 5:39 AM
@FireandBlood - >Odin was never established as this benevolent god.

Yes, he was, dipshit. In the Kenneth Branagh's superior, objectively the only good one take on Thor. In Kenneth Branagh's superior take on Thor, the last words we hear from Odin's prologue speech is, "It was Asgard which brought peace to the universe."

"He’s a warmongering conquerer,"

No, that's a shitty, badly written, never explored retcon from Thor Ragnajoke. Much like Mandarin as some stooge was a retcon that then also got retconned. The MCU is bad at this retconning stuff.

"and celebrated as such"

When did anyone celebrate MCU Odin at all?

"who kidnaps"

Okay, so if I'll see a dying kitten on the road and will decide to take it home with me and take care of it, that means I kidnapped it, gotcha, moron.

"and imprisons children to broker ‘peace’."

Bitch what? Loki tried to wage genocide on two planets, murdered innocent men, women and children over a hissy, and was not gonna stop until someone taught him a lesson. You forgot to mention that little fact. Loki was an awful person who deserved to have his head met by an axe in an execution ceremony. Never liked that such a vile awful person got redemption he never earned.
Kurban
Kurban - 12/28/2023, 5:41 AM
@FireandBlood - Because that’s now how she was established in either Ragnarok OR the source material. If What If is just making shit up, then there’s no point in the concept at all.
Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 5:52 AM
@FireandBlood - oh ffs. Odin and the asgardians regularly saved innocent people throughout the 9 realms, for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. In fact, the first thing we see asgard do is save humanity when the frost giants attacked.

Also, as for the kidnapping and imprisoning, you're exaggerating it to children when it was just loki. And you left out the part where loki was abandoned for being small. Odin legitimately adopted him and raised him as his son. So what if he thought a frost giant in asgard could foster peace?
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 5:54 AM
@URCOMMENTSUCKS - Loki wasn’t a dying kitten. It’s established in Thor 1 that Odin only took Loki to broker peace between the Jotun and Aesir, by Odin himself. Loki was nothing more than a political prisoner.

Loki: No. You took me for a purpose. What was it?... TELL ME!
Odin: I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day. Bring about an alliance, bring about permanent peace... through you.

And Loki was awful, no doubt. But so was Odin, who murdered far more than Loki ever did in his conquest of the nine realms.

I don’t know why you guys do this. Odin is a great character (not so great in the movies, tbf) because he is far more complex than the Christian nature of good and evil would ever allow him to be, yet you try bound him to it as some sort of benevolent figure of justice, which he is not.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 6:01 AM
@Origame - They protected the 9 realms because the realms belonged to Odin by right of conquest. You do understand what conquest entails, right? Where do you think all the gold came from?

Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 6:03 AM
@FireandBlood - lol, Odin did not conquer the 9 realms. Hence why the people of Midgard, earth, didn't even know he existed until the events of the first Thor movie.

You don't even understand the retcon in ragnarok. The conquest is how asgard came to being. Not how they "conquered the 9 realms".
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 6:13 AM
@Origame - “The conquest is how asgard came to being. Not how they "conquered the 9 realms".”

Lolwut? You can’t be this dumb. The conquest of the nine realms is HOW they came into being. There weren’t nine realms before, ffs 🤣



“So what if he thought a frost giant in asgard could foster peace?”

That’s called taking a political prisoner of war, not an act of a benevolent king. For a so called ‘teacher’, you are woefully uneducated. Look it up. Learn something today.
Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 6:14 AM
@FireandBlood - again, Midgard is one of them. And for a conquered people, we sure didn't know about this.

And what did you expect him to do? Let loki die? Because, again, he was abandoned for being a runt.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 6:18 AM
@Origame - “And for a conquered people, we sure didn't know about this.”

It’s called Norse Paganism. Look it up.
Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 6:24 AM
@FireandBlood - ...so us viewing our "conquerors" as myths for most of our existence proves anything? Hell, if you weren't in Norway at the time of the conquest you wouldn't even know about them at all.

It's amazing how you guys have to pretend things were always this way to make your crappy modern stories better.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 6:32 AM
@Origame - The proof is in the mural above Odin’s throne, and the fact he hid it. The proof is in Hela quite literally telling you what Odin and her did. And the signs a primitive race of humans were conquered by Odin are there in the fact they quite literally worshiped him.

All of which you’re ignoring, because you would rather play pretend and make yourself look like a bigger prat because not only can you not admit you’re wrong, like a petulant child, but you can’t accept that maybe Odin, the white god king, isn’t this benevolent force for ‘good’ you deluded yourself into thinking he was.
Origame
Origame - 12/28/2023, 6:37 AM
@FireandBlood - so I gotta accept the word of a guy who admitted to hating Thor when he was hired to direct? Nah brah.
FireandBlood
FireandBlood - 12/28/2023, 6:47 AM
@Origame - And now you’ve resorted to outright lying, wow. Waititi never said he “hated” Thor. He said he’d never read a Thor comic.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/taika-waititi-no-interest-thor-wanted-to-be-an-auteur-1234929596/

Either way, Ragnarok is canon, and to argue against the canon as it’s been established in favour of whatever bollocks you’ve made up instead is just straight delusional.
WhateverItTakes
WhateverItTakes - 12/28/2023, 6:47 AM
@Origame - the guy is a tool don't fall for it
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