At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel fans were devastated when the mighty Titan Thanos destroyed half of the universe’s population with a single life-altering snap of his fingers. Many fan favorite characters, including the cosmic wizard Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), disintegrated into dust, leaving the fate of the universe quite literally in Thanos’ fingertips. However, one Marvel fan may have discovered another trick up Doctor Strange’s sleeve.
According to a new fan theory shared on Reddit by pdgenoa, it’s possible that Doctor Strange may have survived Thanos’ snap based off of a reexamination of the first Doctor Strange film.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Doctor Strange uses the Time stone to view 14 million different possible outcomes of the ensuing conflict between Thanos and Earth’s mightiest heroes. Out of all of those options, Strange reveals that there is only one possible future where they are actually able to defeat Thanos. As he is turning to dust, Strange says to Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), “This was the only way.” Here Strange is reassuring Tony that, even though he made this controversial decision to hand over the Time stone to Thanos, it is the one possible future where they win.
In the original Doctor Strange film, which debuted back in 2016, the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) reveals to Stephen Strange that, even with her magical abilities and clairvoyance, she could never see past the moment of her own death. With this in mind, it would then stand to reason that Doctor Strange shares these same limitations and cannot see into the future past his own death.
Since Strange was able to see their possible victory in the future, it's clear that this path would also include his survival. Using his magic, Doctor Strange could then have created the illusion that he turned to dust along with the other 50% of the population in order to operate behind the scenes out of Thanos’ radar.
While pdgenoa does make a very astute observation, one user named AsianSutu found a simple flaw in the theory. While the Ancient One was limited within her own abilities, Doctor Strange had the power of the Time stone, which may have granted him the ability to see past his own death and, unfortunately, means Strange is gone for good.
Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, Infinity War stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, and Chris Pratt.
Avengers: Infinity War is now playing in theaters!