What Every Thunderbolts* Character Saw In The Void Explained

Warning! This article contains major SPOILERS for Thunderbolts*Thunderbolts* was one of the MCU‘s most unique installments, with a final act that saw all the movie’s main characters battling with their most shameful memories instead of the movie’s arch-villain, the Void. The Thunderbolts* ending certainly flew in the face of convention by foregoing the classic brawl between heroes and villains, and it seems to have paid off. Thunderbolts* has been lavished with praise across the board, making it one of the most highly regarded MCU movies in the entire Multiverse Saga.

It also vindicated most theories about how the titular team could ever hope to face the Void, as it became a matter of nurturing positivity. Unsurprisingly, a healthy dose of creative license was deployed to ensure the Void didn’t just eviscerate the team (and half of New York) as the powerful Marvel entity might have done in the comics. Instead, when the Void turned his victims into shadows, he was essentially banishing them to a realm comprising “shame rooms,” where victims were forced to live out their most shameful memories in perpetuity. Here’s exactly what each of them saw.

Yelena Belova Sees Her Early Red Room Training & Her Struggling After Natasha’s Death

Yelena Experiences Three Shame Rooms

As the star of Thunderbolts*, it is no wonder that Yelena Belova’s experiences in the Void’s hellish realm were given the most screen time. After experiencing her first while inadvertently touching Bob’s hand during the movie’s first act, she willingly approaches the Void’s encroaching shadow to re-enter the memory and fight her way through to Bob. In this process, Yelena visits three distinct shame room experiences, which include:

A memory of her luring a friend, Anya, to her death in a snowy forest, calling Anya towards her before an adult man approaches and assassinates her.
A memory of her Black Widow training, where she and her fellow trainees are tasked with speedily assembling a gun. After assembling her gun first, Yelena is excluded from the punishment where her peers have their hands whipped.
A memory of herself passed out drunk in a bathroom while holding a half-empty bottle of vodka.

The first two of these three memories are related to Yelena’s training in the Red Room, which was first depicted in Black Widow. Both appear to be training exercises where Yelena puts herself ahead of the well-being of her peers, for which she now feels immense guilt. Yelena talks about her third memory earlier on in the film as she discusses being caught in a cycle of coming home, reflecting on her past mistakes, and drinking. This scene also seems to depict Yelena struggling to cope with the death of her adoptive sister, Natasha Romanoff.

Bob Sees His Childhood & Void Origin

Bob’s Tumultuous Childhood Gave Rise To The Void

Bob Reynolds is one of the most interesting characters introduced to the MCU. He is immediately revealed to be struggling with drug addiction, which leads him to undergo what he thought was a medical trial, but which turns out to be the Sentry program. Bob’s heart-wrenching backstory leads to the fragmentation of his mind, causing him to suffer from severe depression and delusions of grandeur that conspire to create the Void when he is imbued with the powers of the Sentry, with the Void being a ruinous manifestation of his darker emotions.

It’s here that Bob stages a showdown with the Void, turning violent and nearly letting the darkness envelop him before the Thunderbolts band together and provide him with the love and care he always needed.

This tragic backstory is depicted in Bob’s first shame room. Although his experience in the Void has led him to find a place of relative refuge in an attic-like space, he sits above an early memory of his abusive father lashing out at his family at a dinner table. A young Bob’s attempt to stand up to his father is met with ridicule and derision, with his mother compounding the tragedy by accusing him of making everything worse. A second shame room, played largely for comedic effect, shows Bob when he worked as a sign-spinning chicken while addicted to crystal meth.

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Bob tells himself that he always makes things worse in his early appearance in Thunderbolts*, showing that this traumatic memory lingers and taints his adult life.

Bob later takes the Thunderbolts to the “worst” shame room, which shows his first transformation into the Void. In the same Malaysian lab that Yelena destroyed in the opening sequence, Bob can be seen hunched over in a lab room, with two shadows flanking him, suggesting that the Void manifested particularly early in the process of turning him into Sentry. It’s here that Bob stages a showdown with the Void, turning violent and nearly letting the darkness envelop him before the Thunderbolts band together and provide him with the love and care he always needed.

John Walker Sees His Struggles As A Father & Husband

John Walker’s Obsession With His Downfall Leads To The Breakdown Of His Marriage

John Walker also experienced his shame room earlier than most other characters as he hoists Bob up from an elevator shaft during their first act escape. This is all we see of John Walker’s memory, although as Yelena revisits the same memory she saw when touching Bob, it’s safe to assume Walker also returns to his. This memory shows John Walker reading a scathing article about his disgraced tenure as Captain America on his phone, neglecting his infant son and sparking an argument with his wife, Olivia.

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John Walker misleads the team into thinking that he has a stable home life during his first scene in Thunderbolts*. This is later exposed as a lie by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, and John’s memory could be the immediate precursor to the breakdown of his marriage. The memory helps to humanize Walker further as a vulnerable man riddled with shame over his past mistakes that manifest as a brash and prickly persona in public.

Valentina Sees Her Father’s Death

He Seems To Be Targeted By Nefarious Figures

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Valentina Allegra de Fontaine touches Bob’s hand when trying to beguile him after learning he successfully endured the Sentry program. This brings her to a memory of her childhood in Italy, where she inadvertently invites her father’s murderer to their house. After her father reassures her, she watches as he opens the door to a visitor, and is shot and killed at point-blank range.

The details of Valentina’s dark memory are not made clear. However, it seems as though her father was targeted by nefarious forces and that de Fontaine still struggles with the notion that his death was her fault. This is likely what molded de Fontaine into being the hardened head of clandestine operations, hellbent on ensuring she has every base covered and carries superior firepower.

Bucky Likely Saw One Of His Winter Soldier Missions

Bucky Barnes Unwittingly Committed Many Shameful Acts

Bucky Barnes’ shame room memory isn’t depicted on-screen, with the erstwhile Winter Soldier instead quipping that his past was harmless. This sarcastic allusion to his decidedly harmful history as the Winter Soldier suggests that one particularly violent or shameful job was the focus of his experience. This could have been any one of the over two dozen assassinations he committed (according to Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier), like his hit on Tony Stark’s parents. Alternatively, it could have been his nearly-lethal brawl with his best friend, Steve Rogers, in the Triskelion.

Ghost Probably Saw Her Early SHIELD Days Or The Death Of Her Parents

Ghost Was Also A Clandestine Operative

Ghost remains one of the least fleshed-out members of the Thunderbolts, especially as there was no hint of what she experienced in the Void’s shame rooms. Based on Ghost’s appearance as the villain in Ant-Man and the Wasp, however, it is likely that Ava Starr relived the death of her parents, as she asserts that she regrets not dying with them during the quantum accident that granted her her powers. Alternatively, she, like Bucky, sports a spotty history as an operative for SHIELD, which could have involved some heinous deeds.

Red Guardian Most Likely Saw Yelena & Natasha

Red Guardian Surrendered His Daughters To A Heinous Marvel Villain

Red Guardian offers one of the most heartfelt moments in Thunderbolts* in his heart-to-heart with Yelena, and spends half of the movie extolling her virtues and showering her with love. Because of this, Red Guardian likely relives the moment he surrendered her and Natasha to the Red Room’s nefarious mastermind, Dreykov, as depicted in Black Widow. This is easily the most shameful memory the audience will be privy to, as Red Guardian spends the other half of Thunderbolts* fondly reminiscing about his entire tenure as the Red Guardian in the 1980s, suggesting he has no regrets about that era.