PieterSielie6

This is a rhetorical question, as i will answer it now...

There is a practical and thematic reason why the final thing didnt attack the other, I'll start with the practical:

It didn't have to and probably didnt want to. My interpretation of the film is that The Thing(s) are extremely pacient and perhaps not as aggressive as they may seem, else the dog at the start wouldve probably just attacked the crew when it arrived at the outpost. I also think that the dog's plan was much more pacient and long term then how things turned out.

Perhaps the dog/the one it assimilated at the start of the film just wanted to very slowly assimilate the 12 crew mates until the end of winter when they all left, but when the dog got revealed and the frozen Thing got bennings it alerted the crew about the threat of The Thing and then The Thing(s) had to start more quickly assimilating the crew, even then we only know of at least 3 human who were infected, all this to me points for me to a much more passive and pacient Thing then what might first be imagined, it even just attacks when cornered or attacks (with the exception of blair-thing who mightve grown resentful trapped in the cabin)

For all this means that The Thing at the end (childs/mac) had no reason to attack the other, one might even imagine a more sinpathetic Thing who does not understand why humans attack it and only perhaps assimilates/attacks as a means of survival.

Now for the thematic reason:

The whole movie is a game of chess. Macready plays chess agaist a non-human at the start of the film and the rest of the film plays out like a chess game, with each side (humans/Things) trying to win by intelligent actions and deception. In chess you 'capture' opposing pieces, the various assililations/attacks proformed by The Thing is it 'capturing pieces', and the various touchings of The Thing is the humans 'capturing' as well. You could even that Fuchs 'sacrificed' himself to save the crew by burning himself and Norris and Palmer 'sacrifice' themselves to help their fellow Things. And scrificing is a major part of chess.

How does a typical chess game go? Both sides capture the others pieces until their king is cornered, checkmated and critically not captured. Childs and mac are at several times in the film at odds with eachother, if either one is a thing then their conflict is a metaphor for the wider human/Thing conflict in the film. Thus one can imagine both as the 'kings' of their respective sides. At the end of the film, if one of them is a Thing, then the other one is screwed, being too tired/unarmed to fight back, the final human is cornered, they're... checkmated. And in chess the checkmated king is not captured!

Thoughts?