Avengers Endgame spoiler thread

The Ancient one also said that she made a mistake later in the conversation.

Anyway, we are dealing with a multiverse. That has been established multiple times by now.

When Banner says “erase,” he’s not referring to the timeline in its entirety. He’s talking about he problems created when the Stone was taken. It’s a direct response to the Ancient One asking him if he can prevent that suffering.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2019 at 10:01:44 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

That's true only if you assume time travelers have No Ontological Inertia. Remember: changing the past doesn't change the future. There is no ripple effect that causes the future to be different, regardless of what you do in the past.

Since Gamora is in the present, she continues to exist after the timeline is prevented from branching. This is because there's no mechanic in place that would prevent her from doing so. So yes, it does matter that she's in the present - the point in time which cannot be changed no matter what happens to the past.

The present does not "reset itself". It refuses to change. Period.

The conversation is accompanied by a visual demonstration of the timeline branching. When Banner offers his solution, the visual timelines coalesce back into a single timeline.

So, yes, he is talking about erasing the timeline.

The Ancient One: Remove one stone and that flow splits.

This is what makes a timeline branch.

Bruce Banner: So, chronologically, in that reality, it never left.

This is what prevents a branch from occurring. It's all about the Infinity Gems, the super-special MacGuffins that create time and thus have their own special rules.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 27th 2019 at 11:13:59 AM

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That doesn’t make that interpretation any less contradictory to what the characters are actually saying / the movie is actually telling is the case. So we should look at it first with how it coincides with the film, before we try to attach it to the theory.

Given what they’re saying, the most logical way to interpret that is that it’s simply representing the timeline going back to normal/the pre-removal state, not being erased entirely. .

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2019 at 10:25:20 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

The split is caused by the removal of the Infinity Gem, but retroactively prevented from occurring by the return of the Infinity Gem at the exact second it was taken.

We're not running on San Dimas Time here. The Ancient One's timeline did not continue to exist for an afternoon while the Avengers fought Thanos. They went back and prevented the timeline-splitting change from occurring and thus no timeline split ever occurred.

That's why Bruce makes such a fuss about "Exact Second" in the epilogue. He's not worrying about Infinity Library Late Fees. The Gem has to return at the exact second it left, thus effectively preventing there from ever having been even a single moment where it was missing from the timeline, or else a timeline split occurs.

It's all about the Gems.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 27th 2019 at 11:20:49 AM

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The assumption you’re making is that the timelines only split when the stones are removed, which goes against how the movie tells us how it works. As Banner’s helpful exposition notes, time travel creates those splits, period.

In particular, you’re conflating “the Infinity Gems create time” with “time travel only matters if an Infinity Stone is affected” which the movie at no point ever states or gives support to. As I mentioned above, you’re rather creatively interpreting heir conversation to support your theory, rather than tailoring your theory to coincide with the film’s exposition.

Also, San Dimas Time doesn’t really apply here even in comparison like that.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2019 at 10:25:58 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

If time refuses to change, that means, logically, the Heist is useless. If time refuses to change, they shouldn't be able to change anything, which means half the movie shouldn't have happened. But it does.

Hell, Captain America goes back in time and lives his life with Peggy Carter. Either you believe that "time can't be changed," which means there was no way he could have done that or he came from a parallel timeline. There is no other way — either the timeline has to be changeable or branching timelines exist, because otherwise, they wouldn't be able to do anything in the past.

This whole "timeline just resets itself" thing is silly. And it doesn't work with what Captain America did in the end of the movie. He had no Infinity Stones and either changed the past or created a split timeline.

Here's a line from Doctor Strange the movie:

Notice how Mordo doesn't say "the Time Stone," he just says "temporal manipulatons can create branches in time." We were already introduced to this type of time travel in Doctor Strange and we didn't even know it.

Also, since my edit was ninja’d, here’s the backup about that conversation:

This makes sense especially since, as the Ancient One’s diagram goes, that split that is specifically shown is the one caused by the removal of the Infinity Stone itself: the diagram is a representation of how removing the stones, specifically, skews things away dramatically.

But it’s already a given, by the exposition both characters long since gave us, that the timeline already exists regardless. Returning the stone just reverts the timeline back to not being doomed by a lack of balance.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

That is explicitly how the movie tells us it works. Here are the quotes again.

• The Ancient One: The Infinity stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one stone and that flow splits.

How a branch is made.

• Bruce: Once we are done with the stones, we can return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken. So, chronologically, in that reality, it never left.

How a branch is prevented from being made.

This is the canon of the film. If you disagree, then show me the quote where they say that any act of time travel creates a timeline split. I've cited my source. Citation needed on yours.

No, that logic is what made the Heist useful in the first place. The premise of the Heist is based on the idea that you can't change the past, but you can bring things from the past into the future. It has no adverse effects since the past can't affect the future.

The Ancient One introduced Bruce to an adverse effect he wasn't aware of, created by the special nature of the Infinity Gems. So, at the end of the film, Steve has to go back and return the Gems to prevent that adverse effect from occurring.

Gamora, Loki's broken scepter, and the smashed Tesseract casing do not have to be returned, however. On account of those things not being Infinity Gems, they operate under original Time Heist assumptions: they can just be in the present without having any adverse effects on the timeline.

What Cap did at the end of the movie doesn't work no matter which way you slice it. He doesn't time travel in from another universe and he shouldn't be able to just get here the Long Way.

I know some people have written elaborate mental fanfics about Cap's adventures in a split timeline and eventual decision to time travel back, but none of that exists in the film. Even the filmmakers can't agree on how that scene came to be. It's not "Ironclad proof of Multiverse Theory"; it's just a plot hole.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 27th 2019 at 11:37:04 AM

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And where you’re going wrong is in assuming that’s the only way to split time, despite the movie itself expositimg that there are other ways to do it.

Essentially, you’re jumping from “removing the Infinity Stones will skew the timeline into the darkest future” to “timelines can only be split by removing the Stones in the first place.”

Consider someone being told that they can catch a fish with a net, and then assuming there’s no other way to catch fish but with nets and thus eschewing rods, traps, flies, etc: it’s a conclusion jump

And, again, he’s referring to the damage caused by the removal of the Stone, not to the existence of he timeline itself. His comment is in direct response to the Ancient One asking if he can prevent that damage.

Hell, his wording here very blatantly notes the continues existence of the separate timelines in itself. Note “it’s own timeline” and “in that reality.”

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2019 at 10:42:55 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Steve also returns with Mjolnir, so he can return it to Thor in The Dark World right after it was taken. I mean, if it doesn't matter that Mjolnir was taken from the past, do you really think Thor would let it go again? He had a very special relationship with it. But they know that they have to return it to Past Thor.

Again: the real reason this doesn't work is that it destroys all narrative tension. Oh, you lost someone? Just get them from the past, it doesn't matter. (Except it does, it creates an alternate timeline.) Once you introduce consequence-free time travel, nothing matters. Which is why the movie says that time travel does have consequences.

(Also, you're just going to ignore the whole "branching timelines" thing from Doctor Strange?)

Where?

Show me the exact quote where the movie claims there are other methods to split the timeline outside of removing an Infinity Gem.

I've shown you the quote where it claims that removing a Gem is what splits the timeline, where it backs up that claim by explaining how the Gems have a special relationship with time, and where it claims that returning the Gem prevents the timeline from splitting.

The onus is on you now. Show me the quote where they say there are other methods of splitting the timeline.

His comment is about erasing the timeline/damage, it's accompanied by a visual effect of the timeline being erased, it proceeds to explain how in effect the timeline-creating action would never have taken place once they're done, and it then proceeds to be the impetus of Steve's return trip.

I'm curious. Based strictly on what is in the film, what do you think would happen if the Space Gem returned to 2012 two seconds late? According to the Ancient One and Bruce, it would create a split timeline and that's a bad.

But since we're ignoring that, if the Space Gem fails to exist for precisely two seconds before returning to the timeline, what devastating catastrophe are you saying would happen? According to the film, why is Exact Second so very important if not to prevent the timeline-splitting effects of the Gem being gone?

Any answer is purely speculative. They never talk about Mjolnir's return. For all we know, it's going because Cap might need to defend himself, or because Loki hocked a loogie on it and it grossed Thor out. There is no concrete statement in canon as to why Cap took Mjolnir with him, as opposed to the concrete statements in canon about the Infinity Gems' importance and the necessity of them not having been missing from the timeline for even a second.

That you don't like it doesn't make it not canon. I don't like Quill and Gamora's romance. I think it's stupid. But it's still canon.

A throwaway line from a different movie by an underling to the person whose interpretation we're discussing? Yeah, I'm going to ignore what Mordo thought in some other film. It's not a very compelling counterargument to what the Ancient One clearly states in this one.

Endgame's rules are not complicated and they're very clearly laid out. They're stupid, and I think that's really the point of contention here, but they're not ambiguous in the slightest.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 27th 2019 at 11:58:09 AM

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The mention of branching timelines in Doctor Strange was specifically in regards to using the Time Stone. So that fits with the idea that the Infinity Stones create/maintain the flow of time, and only messing about with them can create branching timelines.

Again, if making any change to the past creates a split timeline, then Steve returning the Stones to the past should create yet another split timeline: he'll be creating timelines where the Stones returned the instant they disappeared, but the original split timelines they created will still be Stoneless.

As for why Steve took Mjolnir to the past with him, you can interpret that a couple different ways. One is that Steve plans on returning Mjolnir while he returns the Reality Stone. The other is that, as of the final battle with Thanos, Thor has officially bequeathed Mjolnir to Steve, and he's taking his new magic hammer with him.

I’ve already explained that no, it’s not, And hat your conclusion as such is a result of missing the context of the quote, largely by cherry picking the quotes rather than following the conversation, and that - given what’s actually being spoken about in the conversation (the danger that removing a stone would put the people of that timeline in), the visual effect especially has little to do with what you’re taking about.

The actual thing you quote even notes how Bruce’s language reflects that, as the dilemma here is in how to save his timeline without dooming another - his conclusion is, outright, that returning the stones will save “that reality,” reflecting in turn what the Ancient One’s concerns are. Ignoring that in favor of just repeating yourself as if it was never acknowledged doesn’t change the fact that the context of the scene does not - in fact - support your theory.

Given how much of your theory is based around similar cherry picking, I wouldn’t be so dismissive.

That’s actually the big issue here: you’re dismissing every bit of continuity in both Endgame and in the rest of the MCU that doesn’t line up with the theory you’re pushing, and or taking tenuous steps to try and prove they aren’t actually significant.

Edited by KnownUnknown on May 27th 2019 at 11:16:25 AM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

If Bruce is talking about simply erasing the damage to the timeline, not erasing the timeline itself, then why does the Ancient One's magical graphic show the alternate timeline disappearing?

The Ancient One’s graphic shows a skew being caused by the removal of the Stone, while her simultaneous exposition clarifies this as danger caused by the removal of her plane’s defenses (in this case the Time Stone, so implicitly Dormammu).

She then asks if Bruce can prevent that damage, to which Bruce responds in his simultaneous exposition that he can return the Stone, and thus it will be like those defenses were never removed. Looping back to what the Ancient One was specifically referring to (the doom of her people without the Time Stone), interpreting the skew as the existence of her entire timeline is rather missing the forest for the trees. Context is important.

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.

Someone mentioned it a while back, but while the writers of the movie agree with Tobias' interpretation, the directors agree with the "every change makes a new timeline" interpretation.

I think we'll just have to wait for the two to resolve what's right, and/or wait for Spider-Man: Far From Home to clear everything up.

Endgame establishes that:

1. You can change the past in a way that it affects your present.

2. If you remove an infinity stone - specifically the time stone - from the past, the timeline splits and is then doomed.

3. But if you bring the stone back, the timeline moves back where it was beforehand.

4. It also says that in general the stones are anchoring the reality/time/whatever.

It does NOT specify:

1. If there are other ways to split the time stream other than removing a stone.

2. If the destruction of the stones in the mainline will have consequences eventually.

But thankfully, there is more we can look into than just this movie. After all, the writers for Ao S have dealt with the question how time in the MCU works for three seasons now. And Doctor Strange established that there are things like time loops aso.

I know, Ao S is only supplementary canon, but I think it is save to say that with something as important as time-travel, the writers would double check what they are allowed to do and what not.

So, Ao S works with two models of time at once. One is the spacetime theory, meaning that time is just another dimension we are unable to perceive. In this model we can't influence past OR future because both already happened, we just aren't able to see it. Unless you are a seer, then what you see WILL happen. Most of the time. We have one exception so far. And in this exception the characters were basically stuck in a time loop...meaning, they travelled in the future, saw what happened to earth in a reality in which they tried to stop what was fated to happen but failed to do so. That is a little bit complicated, but long story short they did manage to prevent that future for themselves, but the reality in which they failed still exists. And apparently there are other realities out there, but indicates that there are more worlds out there than the ones we know.

So, to go REALLY complicated: It is possible that the minor changes the Avengers made in 1970 and 2013 were ALWAYS part of their timeline, they just didn't know it. But the changes they did in 2012 and 2014 certainly were not, so we know that in those cases the timeline split.

If removing an Infinity Stone eventually destroys said timeline, then how come Thanos was able to destroy all six without there being any negative repercussions to the space-time continuum in the five years since? Is it only bad if you remove an Infinity Stone from the past? Why? If changing the past doesn't affect the present, then that means the absence of the Stone themselves are the problem, not the mucking about with the timeline. How come the present's assumed to be fine if destroying the Stones should cause more trouble than taking them to the future?

I personally don't think removing the Stones doom the alternate timeline by causing it to break down or anything, but by ensuring potential threats to the universe can't be stopped. I assume the Ancient One knew the Time Stone was the only way to stop Dormammu (even if she couldn't see that far into the future, she did know of Kaecilius's future plans), so that's probably why she was so hesitant to have it removed.

I guess maybe the writing was too vague on the details, but that's another issue altogether.

Edited by chasemaddigan on May 27th 2019 at 3:04:08 PM

He destroyed the stones but the atoms are still around and will eventually recolesce in a long time

Removing them entirely from a timeline is way different

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Explain why "Exact Second" is so important then.

This conversation has looped around multiple times over the last couple weeks and to date, nobody pushing the "All past changes create new timelines" idea has ever been explained why it is so vital that the Gems return at the exact second they left.

Bruce explains it in that scene. Having the Gem return at the instant it left makes it as though the Gem was never missing. It prevents the consequence of taking the Gem that the Ancient One spoke of: the splitting of the timeline.

That is the film's reason for returning each Infinity Gem at the exact second it was taken. That is your context: not a single second can pass in which the Gem was missing. Not one second.

So. Since we're ignoring the literal assertion from the film that exact second matters because it prevents the time-splitting consequence of the Gem's absence from the timeline. Explain to me the devastating and important-to-avoid consequence that would happen if the Soul Gem was three seconds late returning to Vormir.

To note: the writers actually wrote the scenario in question, while the directors made sure the actors performed it well.

Edited by TobiasDrake on May 27th 2019 at 3:01:09 AM

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Exact second to minimize the divergence. As far as anyone is concerned, if the Time Stone is missing for like a minute or a day, Dormmanu would barge in early and devour that timeline’s world. It’s unlikely but every second increases that likelihood.

Nothing supports this but I feel like if the infinity stones regulate the flow of time, removing one of them entirely from the universe might cause things to get a little wibbly

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"Exact second" is an exaggeration — there is no possible way that you could return the Stone the exact second it was taken, because otherwise Bruce and Steve would have shown up at the exact moment, one to take the Stone and one to return the Stone. And that doesn't happen.

So Steve actually has to wait until Bruce leaves, then come in to return the Stone. Bruce saying "exact second" is, again, an exaggeration — there's no need to return it in the exact second, as long as they have it within, like, the same hour.

By the way, the Ancient One says taking an Infinity Stone will split the timeline, but she never says it's the only way to split the timeline. Ignoring Mordo's line in Doctor Strange and the time travel in Agents of SHIELD is just ignoring evidence that proves a big change (like the Earth being destroyed or not, Loki escaping with the Tesseract, or Thanos and his armies disappearing) can cause a timelime split.

Probably meant "exact second it leaves this universe", not "exact second it lands in Bruce's hands."