History Awesome / DoctorStrange2016

---> '''Dormammu''': [[YouHaveNoChanceToSurvive You will never win.]]\\

---> '''Dormammu:''' '''[[AintTooProudToBeg No! Stop!]] ''[[AintTooProudToBeg Make this stop!]]'' [[AintTooProudToBeg Set me free!]]'''
--->'''Strange:''' No. ''I've come to bargain.''

** Remember [[Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger the Red Skull]] touching the Tesseract and disintegrating? Remember the Aether being [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld barely controlled]] by an EldritchAbomination from the ''darkness before the universe was born??'' Remember the Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy needing all their members to channel the energy of the Power Stone - the one actually touching the stone the son of a '''[[GeniusLoci sapient planet]]?''' Well, Stephen Strange, JustOneMan, a PunyEarthling, IncompletelyTrained, is using an Infinity Stone to manipulate time like he was winding a watch, though he doesn't come in direct contact with it. Truly, this is a man to be careful of.

*** To drive the point home: Doctor Strange ''annoys'' an EldritchAbomination into submission. Before it was stated that Dormammu's Dark Dimension has no concept of time. So Strange introduced him to the concept of time and he simply... couldn't stand it. Doctor Strange [[BeyondTheImpossible did the impossible]] and [[MindRape mind fucked]] [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu a cosmic entity into submission.]]

* The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJbFq4L3oU4 new Marvel Studios opening sequence]], which features incredible illustrations and footage of pretty much every major Avenger we've gotten to know so far.

** It’s not just the line itself. It’s how Strange ''says it.'' He starts out timidly asking it, since he is fearful that the plan won’t work. The next few times he says it, it’s now be spoken in an casual, almost ''upbeat'' tone. By the final time, Strange makes it clear he isn’t asking for mercy. He’s ''telling the enormous, inter-dimensional demon to'' '''''go away and never come back.'''''

* The Cloak Of Levitation. Between it viciously beating the shit out of a zealot, being a SilentSnarker JerkWithAHeartOfGold to Doctor Strange combined with its unflinching loyalty to him [[note]]All those many deaths Strange suffers against Dormammu? It suffers through it all alongside him.[[/note]], quite a few people found themselves loving the cloak more than Strange himself. And as seen on this very page, that's not a mark of how bad Strange is, it's a mark of how well-written the cloak is. To reiterate: Marvel made a movie where an unspeaking piece of clothing is people's favorite character.

* Five Words: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrHTR22pIhw "Dormammu, I've come to bargain."]]

** It gets even more awesome when you consider that Strange confronted Dormammu, fully prepared to die and setup the loop to trigger with his own death. Even after [[TheManyDeathsOfYou Strange suffers from being impaled, vaporized, crushed, and many more horrifying deaths]], he keeps coming for more every time. By recognizing his own weakness and surrendering to itself, he was able to find the strength, not to win, but to ''allow'' himself to ''lose'' to Dormammu, ''forever'', as long as that means that the Earth is safe.

** Eventually Dormammu can take no more and is ''begging'' him to stop. Let's make that abundantly clear, Dr. Strange pushed ''[[EldritchAbomination Dormammu]]'' past its breaking point.

*** To drive the point home: Dr. Strange ''annoys'' an EldritchAbomination into submission. Before it was stated that Dormammu's Dark Dimension has no concept of time. So Strange introduced him to the concept of time and he simply... couldn't stand it. Doctor Strange [[BeyondTheImpossible did the impossible]] and [[MindRape mind fucked]] [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu a cosmic entity into submission.]]

'''Strange:''' No. But I can lose. [[GroundhogDayLoop Again...and again...and again...and again]], [[AndIMustScream forever]]. [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu And that makes you my prisoner]].

** It’s not just the line itself. It’s how Strange ''says it.'' He starts out timidly asking it, since he is fearful that the plan won’t work. The next few times he says it, it’s now be spoken in an casual, almost ''upbeat'' tone. By the final time, Strange makes it clear he isn’t asking for mercy. He’s ''telling the enormous, inter-dimensional demon to'' '''go away and never come back.'''

---> '''Dormammu:''' '''[[AintTooProudToBeg No! Stop!]] '''[[AintTooProudToBeg Make this stop!]]''''' '''[[AintTooProudToBeg Set me free!]]'''

---> '''Dormammu:''' No! Stop! ''Make this stop!'' Set me free!

** Strange trapping himself and Dormammu in an endlessly repeating duel until the abomination agrees to his demands to retreat and never threaten his home again.

* While it may seem mundane compared to what he can accomplish later as a sorcerer, at the start of the film Strange shows off exactly ''why'' he's considered one of the greatest surgeons in the world by extracting a bullet from the brain of a man who other doctors had already written off as a hopeless case, saving his life.

** Bonus points for having Michael Giacchino's score hit max bombast at just the right moment.

* Strange having Christine hit his physical form with an over-charged defibrillator to channel that energy with his astrally projected self into an astrally projected Zealot, electrocuting him so hard that his astral self ''explodes''.
* The last battle against Kaecillius and his zealots takes place as time is being rewound thanks to the Eye of Agamotto's power, so instead of seeing Hong Kong being destroyed because of the battle, we're actually seeing everybody fight while everything is getting rebuilt around them. And Strange and Mordo are using this to their advantage, trapping their opponents in the reconstructing structures, albeit temporarily.
* "Dormammu, I've come to bargain."

* Strange trapping himself and Dormammu in an endlessly repeating duel until the abomination agrees to his demands to retreat and never threaten his home again.

** In previous MCU films, we've really only seen the Infinity Stones used for fairly [[MundaneUtility mundane applications]], generally as a power source for something else like Loki using the Tesseract to power the portal, Ultron using the Mind Stone to power his new body, and so on. For the first time, we're seeing the truly [[RealityWarper reality bending]] powers that these artifacts can unleash.

* A subtle one in the first [[TheStinger stinger]]: Strange casually mentions to Thor that he keeps a list of other dimensional visitors to Earth, showing that he has definitely taken over for the Ancient One, and changes Thor's drink into an automatically refilling beer mug as they talk. He does nothing close to this during the movie and achieves it here without so much as a twitch of his fingers.

** Dormammu threatens Strange with [[ToThePain an eternity of agony]] for his audacity, and Strange calmly replies with the utterly [[BadassBoast fearless declaration of defiance:]] "Pain's an old friend."

** People love this sequence, and they love it for good reason, yet it has serious depth to it. The "I can do this again. And again. And again." is a reference to Creator/AlbertCamus, who once said about Sisyphus' absurd task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll down at the end of the day, "One has to imagine Sisyphus happy." A task may be painful, impossible, and ultimately meaningless... but what matters at the end is our ''choice''. Strange has finally made his choice, out of a willingness to fail. Again. And again. And again.

** Another thing to note - in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Captain America talked about how a hero must be willing to [[HeroicSacrifice take one for the team]]. Strange wins by being willing to take one for the team several times a minute, every minute, ''forever.'' Because as long as the abomination is killing him, it can't harm anyone else. Don't forget, Dormammu is ''outside of time'' - if Strange ''ever'' faltered, Dormammu would still claim Earth, and Strange wouldn't have delayed it by a single moment. Dying to save the world is something most would only have to do '''once'''. Strange -- '''knowingly''' -- chose to do exactly that ''forever'' until the monster got ''tired of killing him''.
** So, to sum it all up: Doctor Strange demonstrated himself in this scene to be quite possibly the single most badass character in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. First of all, he waltzes right up to [[EldritchAbomination Dormammu]] and brazenly declares that he has come to bargain, which is so astonishingly presumptuous that it's tantamount to [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu insulting him]]. Dormammu, of course, [[CurbstompBattle swiftly kills him]], only for the good Doctor to come right back and declare that he has come to bargain. As Dormammu proceeds to [[TheManyDeathsOfYou kill him again and again]], it slowly becomes clear that when Doctor Strange says, "Dormammu, I've come to bargain," [[ThatWasntARequest it's not a request]]. It's an ''ultimatum''. Those five little words become the ultimate BadassBoast; not only does Doctor Strange, a mere mortal, [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu have Dormammu trapped as his prisoner]], he also demonstrates staggering [[NervesOfSteel resilience]] in being willing to endure many, many, ''many'' gruesome deaths to defend the Earth, [[AndIMustScream possibly for all of eternity]]. WordOfGod is that Dormammu killed Strange ''millions'' of times, not just the handful that were depicted on-screen. In the words "Dormammu, I've come to bargain," Strange pulls off a XanatosGambit in the form of [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse an offer Dormammu can't refuse]]: he can either retreat and abandon his siege upon the Earth, or he can be a ''mortal man's'' prisoner in his own tiny little time-loop infinitely. Quite possibly one of the most awesome moments to date in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.
** People love this sequence, and they love it for good reason, yet it has serious depth to it. The "I can do this again. And again. And again." is a reference to Creator/AlbertCamus, who once said about Sisyphus' absurd task of pushing a boulder up a mountain only to have it roll down at the end of the day, "One has to imagine Sisyphus happy." A task may be painful, impossible, and ultimately meaningless... but what matters at the end is our ''choice''. Strange has finally made his choice, not merely out of a fear of failure, but as something to strive for. Again. And again. And again.

** Another thing to note - in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Captain America talked about how a hero must be willing to [[HeroicSacrifice take one for the team]]. Strange wins by being willing to take one for the team several times a minute, every minute, ''forever.'' Because as long as the abomination is killing him, it can't harm anyone else. Don't forget, Dormammu is ''outside of time'' - if Strange ''ever'' faltered, Dormammu would still claim Earth, and Strange wouldn't have delayed it by a single moment. Dying to save the world is something most would only have to do '''once'''. Strange -- '''knowingly''' -- chose to do exactly that ''forever'' until the monster got ''tired of killing him''. He might not be an official member of the Avengers yet, but he's earned his spot.

** Not just an EldritchAbomination but the closest thing the MCU has, or rather has shown given [[ComicBook/{{GhostRider}} Mephisto]] is implied to exist, to the devil. To reiterate. He made a being comparable to an eternal keeper and tormentor of souls not only beg him for mercy, but bargain for his ''own'' freedom.

** Eventually Dormammu can take no more and is ''begging'' him to stop. Let's make that abundantly clear, Dr. Strange pushed ''[[EldritchAbomination Dormammu]]'' past his breaking point.

** Another thing to note - in ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Captain America talked about how a hero must be willing to [[HeroicSacrifice take one for the team]]. Strange wins by being willing to take one for the team several times a minute, every minute, ''for as long as it took to make Dormammu give up.'' Because as long as the abomination is killing him, it can't harm anyone else. Don't forget, ''time is not moving forward'' - if he ''ever'' faltered, Dormammu would still claim Earth, and Strange wouldn't have delayed it by a single moment. "Laying on a wire and letting the other guy crawl over you" is something most would only have to do '''once'''. Strange -- '''knowingly''' -- did exactly that ''until the monster got tired of killing him''. He might not be an official member of the Avengers yet, but he's earned his spot.
** So, to sum it all up: Doctor Strange demonstrated himself in this scene to be quite possibly the single most badass character in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. First of all, he waltzes right up to [[EldritchAbomination Dormammu]] and brazenly declares that he has come to bargain, which is so astonishingly presumptuous that it's tantamount to [[DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu insulting him]]. Dormammu, of course, [[CurbstompBattle swiftly kills him]], only for the good Doctor to come right back and declare that he has come to bargain once again. As Dormammu proceeds to [[TheManyDeathsOfYou kill him again and again]], it slowly becomes clear that when Doctor Strange says, "Dormammu, I've come to bargain," [[ThatWasntARequest it's not a request]]. It's an ''ultimatum''. Those five little words become the ultimate BadassBoast; not only does Doctor Strange, a mere mortal, [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu have Dormammu trapped as his prisoner]], he also demonstrates staggering [[NervesOfSteel resilience]] in being willing to endure many, many, ''many'' gruesome deaths to defend the Earth, [[AndIMustScream possibly for all of eternity]]. WordOfGod is that Dormammu killed Strange ''millions'' of times, not just the handful that were depicted on-screen. In the words "Dormammu, I've come to bargain," Strange pulls off a XanatosGambit in the form of [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse an offer Dormammu can't refuse]]: he can either retreat and abandon his siege upon the Earth, or he can be a ''mortal man's'' prisoner in his own tiny little time-loop of a hell forever. Quite possibly one of the most awesome moments to date in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse.

*** To drive the point home: Dr. Strange ''annoys'' an EldritchAbomination into submission. Before it was stated that Dormammu's Dark Dimension has no concept of time. So Strange introduced him to the concept of time and because he didn't understand it, Dormammu couldn't get out of his loop. Doctor Strange [[BeyondTheImpossible did the impossible]] and [[MindRape mind fucked]] [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu a cosmic entity into submission.]]

** It gets even more awesome when you consider that Strange confronted Dormammu, fully prepared to die and setup the loop to trigger with his own death. Even after [[TheManyDeathsOfYou Strange suffers from being impaled, vaporized, crushed, and many more horrifying deaths]], he keeps coming for more every time. By recognizing his own weakness and surrendering to itself, he was able to find the strength to win against Dormammu.