Endgame Theory: What Doctor Strange REALLY Saw In The Future

http://bit.ly/2SI7FY6

The shock of The Avengers: Infinity War's defeat is enough to shake the MCU's heroes, but at least Tony Stark knows this timeline is the one that eventually leads to victory over Thanos, as promised by Doctor Strange. But we have a theory that Doctor Strange's prophecy isn't what Iron Man or Marvel fans think. Especially since there's really only one future that would make sense for Doctor Strange to see... and he definitely wouldn't describe it to anybody.

Fortunately, we've weighed the evidence in not just Infinity War or The Avengers: Endgame trailers, but Doctor Strange's own movie. It's there that the rules of the Time Stone were explained, along with the one character trait that may define Strange's sacrifice. Fans can still spin theories of Avengers: Endgame time travel, or hope that Captain Marvel can defeat Thanos on her own. But based only on what is actually shown in the films themselves, we think a different theory may make as much, if not more sense.

This Page: The Doctor Strange Lesson Fans Are Forgetting
Next Page: What Strange REALLY Saw in The Endgame Future

Despite how pivotal Doctor Strange is to the ending of Infinity War, and just about every theory currently being debated by fans, many have ignored or forgotten one of the most important and poignant moments of his own origin movie. Because Stephen Strange isn't the only sorcerer to use the Time Stone locked in the Eye of Agamotto to see into the future. And for our theory on just what role Doctor Strange will end up playing, it's important to remember the one restriction placed on the Time Stone's gift of foresight.

The other sorcerer who used the Time Stone is of course The Ancient One, Stephen's mentor. Even if audiences never saw The Ancient One using the Time Stone to watch one future after another play out in her mind, she revealed her final conclusion to Stephen in the moments before her death:

I've spent so many years peering through time, looking at this exact moment... but I can't see past it. I've prevented countless terrible futures, and after each one there's always another. And they all lead here, but never further. I never saw your future, only its possibilities. You have such a capacity for goodness. You always excelled, but not because you crave success, because of your fear of failure.

Arrogance and fear still keep you from learning the simplest and most significant lesson of all... it's not about you.

That distinction tells viewers exactly what Doctor Strange could see in his millions of alternate visions of the future, and more importantly, what he couldn't. But factoring in the actual lesson The Ancient One was trying to teach him, and his cryptic final claim that "there was no other way," we may know the real reason Strange traded his life for Tony Stark's.

Knowing that The Ancient One could see countless possibilities, and knowing how analytical, brilliant, and neurotic Doctor Strange is by comparison, it's easy to believe that he could even process the minor permutations of millions of outcomes (especially with so many main characters involved). But the sheer ratio of failures to successes - 14,000,605 to 1 - demands that the audience ask one particular question. No, not 'How do they beat Thanos?' The real question is why Strange envisioned 14,000,605 different versions of the future specifically. Why not 14,000,606? Why not 15 million? Why not 20 million?

The simplest answer is that Strange stopped once he finally arrived at 'the one way they win.' The one solution that presented itself when he remembered The Ancient One's simplest, but most important lesson: that it's not about him. It just took him 14 million tries to get there.

Page 2 of 2: What Strange REALLY Saw in The Endgame Future

Earlier in the movie, Tony, Stephen, and Peter all board the ring-ship headed for Thanos and agree to see the journey through. While Doctor Strange is willing to go along with the plan, he makes it clear to Tony that his duty is to protecting the Time Stone... even if it means letting him, Peter, and anyone else die. Even accepting how much Tony can irritate a fellow genius, that's not exactly the 'enlightened, selfless' Strange that emerged at the end of his origin film. Certainly not the man who would cough up that very Time Stone hours later to spare Tony Stark. But that's only because audiences missed the middle step linking the two moments of self-importance, and self-sacrifice.

We propose that Doctor Strange spent an unknown amount of time playing out 14,000,605 different ways that he could fight Thanos with the other heroes, attempt to deprive him of the Time Stone, even live through the snap to continue the fight, and ultimately fail each and every time. That is, until he recalled The Ancient One's lesson. And noting just how startled and distressed Strange is upon seeing it - breaking his concentration and thumping down from levitating - there seems only one thing, or one future singular enough to have that effect: the one in which Strange uses his own life to bargain for Tony's, creating a future that he can't see at all.

The theory supports both of the major takeaways from Doctor Strange's key scenes in the final act of Infinity War. First, that he chose to play out millions of different sequences of events before arriving at ONE that he wouldn't even consider until he had no other choice. And finally, his apology to Tony suggesting that he wasn't completely honest when stating their odds against Thanos. Factually, Strange could not have seen beyond his death in this timeline he helped to create. Which means his last words - "Tony... there was no other way." - clarify his earlier meaning. Fourteen million destinies all leading to ruin is more than a certainty... meaning the only hope of victory lay in the future that Strange wouldn't be able to see. Even if it, too, led to ruin.

But before any fan misconstrues Doctor Strange's deception as erasing any sense of destiny, or fate, the narrative parallels with his own movie or Tony's can't be overlooked. Remember, The Ancient One had seen the moment she was destined to die and still gave her life to rescue Stephen. By accepting his death earlier than he was destined to, and using that sacrifice to guarantee that Tony would live, Doctor Strange placed the fate of the universe on the one man determined to prove the impossible is possible. Not a god of thunder, or a super-soldier, or any superhuman or alien hero. Just the human who refuses to accept defeat (as others call him stubborn, delusional, or obsessed).

The one genius who might actually laugh when Doctor Strange tells him he didn't know if the plan would work. He simply knew that "there was no other way" and even a chance of success was better than certain failure. In the process, granting Doctor Strange the humility of The Ancient One, and confirming once and for all that Captain America may be the first, but Iron Man is Marvel's true Avenger.