'Thor: Ragnarok' Ending Explained

A King's Power

In the final battle against Cate Blanchett's Hela, Thor finds himself hopelessly outclassed. Within minutes, Hela has Thor beaten down and on his knees, and even adds injury to insult by slashing out his eye.

While Hela is going for the kill, Thor enters a vision where he meets his father Odin, in the field in Norway where the All-Father died. Odin reveals to Thor that his broken hammer Mjolnir was a power conduit, not a power source, thereby awakening Thor's true internal powers as a god of thunder.

With that power, Thor becomes stronger, can fly without Mjolnir's help, and is able to call down and wield lightning in a variety of ways. While this new power isn't enough to defeat Hela, it does set Thor up to be a living weapon, with more godlike power than he's ever had before.

Welcoming Ragnarok

When Thor's newly-awakened power isn't enough to defeat Hela, he once again searches his vision of Odin and has another realization: he needs to think less like a superhero, and more like the new King of Asgard.

As Odin explains, Asgard is a people and a culture, not a physical place. Thor spent two years after the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron trying to decipher and stop the Ragnarok prophecy from being fulfilled; but as he's watching Hela and her undead soldiers slaughtering the last of the Asgardian people, Thor realizes that sacrificing Asgard (the place) to save its people is the only real choice to be made.

While Thor distracts Hela in battle, he sends Loki into Odin's vault to place The Crown of Surtur on The Eternal Flame, which was the prophesied cause of Ragnarok that Thor worked so hard to avoid. When Loki puts the crown on the The Flame, it restores Surtur to a giant, all-powerful form, and the fire demon then lays waste to Hela and all of Asgard.

Thor, Loki, Hulk, Valkyrie, and Heimdall all escape Ragnarok with a spaceship full of surviving Asgardians. Their destination is the Norwegian site where Odin died; a place where the All-Father felt Asagard was destined to be reborn. However, the journey is barely underway before the sons of Odin run into a big problem, during a post-credits button scene:

NEXT: Thor: Ragnarok Post-Credits Scenes Explained

Thor: Ragnarok is now in theaters. Other upcoming MCU movies include Black Panther on February 16, 2018, 2017, Avengers: Infinity War on May 4, 2018, Ant-Man and the Wasp on July 6, 2018, Captain Marvel on March 8, 2019, the fourth Avengers movie on May 3, 2019, the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming on July 5, 2019, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2020.