I am a very recent worshiper of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. By the time I watched Infinity War, I was completely obsessed with the MCU. What I (and so many others) love about the MCU is the powerful storytelling and the intricate thought and planning that goes into every single movie.
Which brings me, inevitably, to Endgame, and to Captain America. I was convinced he was going to die, especially after Stark snapping at him upon return. I was even more convinced when he finally lifted Mjolnir and took on Thanos. And yet I was actually a bit relieved that he lived in the end, because I have really grown to like his character.
In Infinity War, I joked that Thanos probably exerted himself at most 5%, and still decimated all of the Avengers.
In Endgame, without any of the stones, he is seemingly even stronger. That felt a bit of a plot hole to me at first, but I thought about it more and had appreciation for how they developed Thanos across the two films: a study in escalation, where the threat grows precisely as the heroes do.
It is the same instinct I bring to a score or a kutcheri: the joy is not only in the moment itself, but in seeing the architecture underneath it, the planning that makes the payoff land.