Crazy Infinity War theory - spoilers alert
Alright guys I just came out of Infinity War and I have a theory. Hear me out.
TL;DR: Thanos created an alternate reality where none of the deceased characters ever existed. Captain Marvel is the only one whoâll know whatâs going on because one of her powers is cosmic awareness. Ant-Man is gonna help save the day. Dr. Strange knew all this and thatâs why he sacrificed the stone.
We see butterflies at two points in the movie. One is when Dr. Strange creates a small explosion of blue-green ones.
But more importantly, thereâs a scene where as a character (Banner, if Iâm not mistaken) is hurtling through the earthâs atmosphere and he sees something very strange. An orange and black butterfly.
And my mind immediately went to the butterfly effect. For those of you donât know, the butterfly effect is a theory, often cited in science fiction, which talks about how everything affects everything else. Small initial differences lead to large unforseen consequences. A butterfly flaps it wings, causes a wind which grows in strength till it forms a hurricane, which kills thousands.
Can a butterfly really do that? Maybe not. But the point is, itâs a metaphor and a crucial part of the chaos theory (not really relevant for now).
And I have no doubt that this is what the directors intended to reference, because a butterfly drawn next to the earth, so it appears to be a powerful force, is a very common way of illustrating this.
And the butterfly effect is most applied to time travel. Change a small thing in the past and the future is completely different.
Now why am I citing this? Why would they put that into the movie?
Well, as you hear very often in the movie, Thanos wants the Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe from all existence.
Now, all existence is a very interesting phrase. Because âallâ means everything. Three dimensions of space and one dimension of time are what constitute existence. Which means that when half these characters die, they never even existed in the alternate reality. And this makes a whole lot of sense.
âWhat did it cost you?â Gamora says. âEverythingâ Thanos replies. And Iâm pretty sure he doesnât just mean the fact that he lost Gamora. Because Gamora is one person and she canât possibly be Thanosâ everything, because then he would have been satisfied with just her and he wouldnât have sought the Infinity Stones. No, what it cost Thanos was everything - reality and time as he knew it.
âWhat did you doâ Thor tells Thanos. But if you notice, it wasnât curiosity or wonder. It was a tone of shock, like oh nononono this is not happening. Thor wouldnât be shocked exactly if Thanos wiped out half the universe, he went into this knowing that might happen. He seems to be shocked at something else.
âI hope they remember youâ Thanos tells Iron Man. Of course surviving humanity would remember arguably the most famous avenger! Whatâs there to hope about it? But no, I donât think the directors would put in lines like these for nothing. This is a very enigmatic line, and it definitely supports this theory. Because he says how he admires Tony Stark. And he genuinely sounds regretful, as though thereâs a possibility that they may not remember him. And they may not remember him in the alternate timeline because who knows whatâs going to go on there?
The alternate timeline is what the illustration of the butterfly effect alludes to. If Bucky Barnes never existed, Steve Rogers may not have had an initiative to enlist, and he may never have become Captain America, Redskull would have succeeded and the Nazis would have one. Helmut Zemo wouldnât have been able to divide the Avengers. Nick Fury wouldnât have been around to create the Avengers. Star-Lord wouldnât have been around to stop Ego. Ronan, if he wasnât part of this half, would have gotten the power stone and possibly succeeded in turning on Thanos. T'Challa wouldnât have stopped Killmoger. And this isnât even counting all the other half-the-universe people who have been wiped out.
So where does Captain Marvel come in? Because we definitely know sheâs going to save the day, thatâs why Nick Fury contacted her and thatâs why theyâre going to introduce her just before part two.
But why her, specifically? Why introduce her now of all times when she could have saved the world so many times before?
The only possible answer is that this war can only be one with her help. She is the last resort, the only option.
Letâs go over her abilities. Superhuman strength/speed/energy and flight. But thatâs all vanilla and common enough. What is relevant to us is her power of cosmic awareness.
The superpower wiki defines cosmic awareness as âpower to be aware of anything that affects the user on a universal scale.â And cosmic awareness as far as we know is unique to her, meaning that thatâs what makes her special and relevant. Which means that the movie is going to need her to be aware of something universal.
That means that Captain Marvel is quite possibly going to be the only one who can realize the full extent of these repercussions. Sheâs the one whoâll realize that something is definitely wrong, and that means itâll be her job to track down the relevant people to help fix this wrong.
Now, weâve been told that if we donât get enough of someone in this movie, weâll probably see them more in the next.
Ant-Man and Hawkeye. We havenât seen them at all, so theyâre going to have a hell of a lot of screen time in part two.
Now hereâs what I read online when I was researching background for this theory: âOther authors suggest that the butterfly effect can be observed in quantum systems. Karkuszewski et al. consider the time evolution of quantum systems which have slightly different Hamiltonians. They investigate the level of sensitivity of quantum systems to small changes in their given Hamiltonians.[27] Poulin et al. presented a quantum algorithm to measure fidelity decay, which "measures the rate at which identical initial states diverge when subjected to slightly different dynamicsâ. They consider fidelity decay to be âthe closest quantum analog to the (purely classical) butterfly effectâ.â
Put simply, quantum systems are the purest version of the butterfly effect.
Who has the power to access the quantum world?
Iâve already established that Ant-Man, along with Hawkeye are going to have a lot of screen time, so theyâre obviously going to be doing something very useful. Useful such as accessing the quantum realm, changing things there to help right the universe to the original timeline?
Quantum systems are also very relevant to awareness, but not in the same way as Captain Marvel. By going into the quantum system, Ant-Man can essentially enter a pocket universe. And being present in the quantum universe means that heâs aware on as infinitely small Ă scale as Captain Marvel is aware on an infinitely large scale. Together, they have the tools they need.
Moreover, why did the directors have Dr. Strange surrender the Time Stone? He specifically said that he would protect the stone if it ment letting Tony and Peter die, yet he saved Tonyâs life. People have already surmised that it was the way to achieve that 1/14000605 outcome they needed. But Time? Is that possibly relevant to the theory Iâve mentioned so far?
What if he created smuggled time loop before he handed it to Thanos? In doing so he might be pulling something similar to what he did with Dormammu. Have Thanos relive this over and over again, experience this suffering over and over again. He already confessed to Gamora that this venture cost him "everythingâ. If my theory is right then he meant reality as he knew it. How many times do you think he can stand to lose everything before he snaps and gives in? Of course, Thanos could always use the Time Stine to escape the loop himself. But to realize that he would have had to relive this at least once. And based on what Mantis said about the depth of his anguish that could be one time too many. Also⊠The Infinity Gauntlet is kind of destroyed.
TL;DR: Thanos created an alternate reality where none of the deceased characters ever existed. Captain Marvel is the only one whoâll know whatâs going on because one of her powers is cosmic awareness. Ant-Man is gonna help save the day. Dr. Strange knew all this and thatâs why he sacrificed the stone, creating a time loop so Thanos would have to relive losing everything.