Endgame Doubts about time travel and infinity stones

[Giacomo Rossi]

Can someone explain to me why Black Widow is gone for good whereas Gamora is back? I know she's past Gamora but if so can't they just go back in time before BW sacrifices herself and bring her back? Isn't the process to obtain the infinity stone irreversible as Hawkeye explains? How does Captain America bring it back to its "original place" if it is a soul for a soul? I just can't figure this out

 

[MahvelBaby!]

We will be speculating for a long time. I for one don't really care to be honest. If they elaborate some day it would be cool. As long as they don't start reviving everyone.

He could have also easily gone and stopped loki from disappearing with the tesseract if he wanted too.

Time travel is impossible so making sense of every single little detail is tough.

 

[metaphysician]

Gamorra *is* gone, just like Black Widow. Gamorra', a completely different person from a different timeline, just happens to be stuck in the "main" timeline.

You could, I suppose, go back in time and yank out a Natasha' from prior to her death. Of course, by doing so, you'd be at least kidnapping her, and possibly also causing the victory of Thanos in that timeline.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

but is Gamorra back? we never saw her again after that scene, as far as we know she got

Spoiler

snaped away with the rest of {past}Thanos army

tho I have a theory about that as well

Spoiler

that Tony didn't actually kill Thanos's army, but just set them back to when they came from and wiped their memory's... I mean we're talking about he power of the Infinity Stones here

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

And he did so in a manner that just so happened to look like the way Thanos destroyed his victims in IW?

Gamora is listed as missing when Thor gets on board the Guardian's ship.

It's pretty obvious the set up for Gamora. The seeds are there in her meeting Quill on the battlefield.

 

[DrCosmic]

Yeah, Gamora got rebooted to the beginning of Guardians 1. If she had gotten dusted, Nebula would know, and also if Tony dusted "everyone that came with Thanos" then Nebula would be dusted too.

Black Widow is gone "for good" because her future is now in the soul stone and time flows through the infinity stones. Pulling her out would be like pulling the stone out of the timestream and would create one of those really dark F'd up timelines that The Ancient One warned Hulk about. Gamora on the other hand is not connected to the stones, she's just a random thing from the past, like Mjolnir or Thanos' army. They don't mess up the time stream of the MCU if they don't go back, because time doesn't flow through them because they aren't infinity stones.

Now, Cap can return the soul stone just like any other. Even if Red Skull can't put it back in the sky (no rule says he can't, btw), worse case scenario, Red Skull just holds the stone in his hand. Boom. Timeline still has a soul stone, no broken timeline.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Yeah, Gamora got rebooted to the beginning of Guardians 1. If she had gotten dusted, Nebula would know, and also if Tony dusted "everyone that came with Thanos" then Nebula would be dusted too.

Black Widow is gone "for good" because her future is now in the soul stone and time flows through the infinity stones. Pulling her out would be like pulling the stone out of the timestream and would create one of those really dark F'd up timelines that The Ancient One warned Hulk about. Gamora on the other hand is not connected to the stones, she's just a random thing from the past, like Mjolnir or Thanos' army. They don't mess up the time stream of the MCU if they don't go back, because time doesn't flow through them because they aren't infinity stones.

Now, Cap can return the soul stone just like any other. Even if Red Skull can't put it back in the sky (no rule says he can't, btw), worse case scenario, Red Skull just holds the stone in his hand. Boom. Timeline still has a soul stone, no broken timeline.

Well Cap still had to return the hammer because that too would cause a branch if he didn't get it back for Thor to use against the Dark Elves. I think that is more what the flow of time meant. The movement of historical events.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

And he did so in a manner that just so happened to look like the way Thanos destroyed his victims in IW?....

yes... the look on Thanos face said it all as he watched his army turn to dust, like "so, this is what it felt like for anyone as they watched they family's disappear, feelsbadman" Tony wanted him to feel/experience that

but, a brilliant mind like Tony's would know better then to just wipe them out... the time displacement of them being there would completely undo everything they worked for, you'd still have to preserve the timeline by sending them back, other wise why wasn't everything that happened not just be undone from past him being killed
(gained part of me would have preferred this ending, if everything was just reverted back to before the snap, as if Thanos never got the Stone in the first place... but that would make the rest of the film totally pointless, as well as change events of a lot of other films)

Gamora is listed as missing when Thor gets on board the Guardian's ship.

It's pretty obvious the set up for Gamora. The seeds are there in her meeting Quill on the battlefield.

just cause he believe's she's still out there somewhere doesn't mean she is
(if that version of past her never went back to her time, then the events of the other GOG movie never happened, he never would have met her in the first place) yes, I know the past isn't changed just branches to new/alternate timelines yada yada yada, but, still

altho, I guess we don't know what happened to the soul's in the Soul Stone realm when it was destroyed? maybe they were somehow able to free themselves

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

yes... the look on Thanos face said it all as he watched his army turn to dust, like "so, this is what it felt like for anyone as they watched they family's disappear, feelsbadman" Tony wanted him to feel/experience that

but, a brilliant mind like Tony's would know better then to just wipe them out... the time displacement of them being there would completely undo everything they worked for, you'd still have to preserve the timeline by sending them back, other wise why wasn't everything that happened not just be undone from past him being killed


just cause he believe she's still out there somewhere doesn't mean she is

altho, I guess we don't know what happened to the soul's in the Soul Stone realm when it was destroyed ? maybe they were somehow able to feel themselves

But the "timeline" doesn't need preserving. This is what some aren't getting.

The branching theory allows for any action. Nothing actually affects the future that the Avengers brought the stones to. They could keep the stones forever and nothing would change for them. The moment they set foot in the past they created a branch though as that action alone is NOT how the actual flow of history went. First time around the Ancient One never ran into a time traveling Hulk for example. Having done that what was accomplished by sending the stones back was to ensure that reality/timeline had the stones where they needed to be for instances like say, Dr. Strange to stop Dormammu in the same way he did in his film.

Thanos and his army though? They don't fall into that category. If anything on balance, their removal from the past creates a better branch. This isn't like taking the Time stone away for good, in which case Earth is overrun because Strange doesn't have it to use. The down sides of Thanos and the Black Order et. al disappearing one day are a bit hard for me to see as being that dire. Or at least on the surface they aren't as bad as some other outcome. And regardless of what happens this still doesn't affect the prime MCU Earth as evidenced by past Nebula being killed by the Nebula we know from the present.

Tony wiped Thanos out with zero compunction because it was immaterial to anyone's good whether this tyrant and his minions existed or not and it would have no affect on the history and flow of time he had lived through.

I'm not sure you got the theory of time travel they employed in this story.

 

[DrCosmic]

Well Cap still had to return the hammer because that too would cause a branch if he didn't get it back for Thor to use against the Dark Elves. I think that is more what the flow of time meant. The movement of historical events.

That makes sense in current real world quantum theory, but the movie explicitly states the flow of time is a function of the Infinity Stones, and gives a little power point presentation that shows removing a stone is what causes an funky timeline.

Now there obviously should be a timeline where Thanos and his entire army disappeared, and another where Loki is of dicking around with the Tesseract. Maybe there still will be, but according to the Ancient One, those aren't 'bad' or 'broken.' Even in the case of the hammer, we actually know what happens to Thor when he loses his hammer... it's not actually a bad thing. Still, it was nice of Steve to return it anyway.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

That makes sense in current real world quantum theory, but the movie explicitly states the flow of time is a function of the Infinity Stones, and gives a little power point presentation that shows removing a stone is what causes an funky timeline.

Now there obviously should be a timeline where Thanos and his entire army disappeared, and another where Loki is of dicking around with the Tesseract. Maybe there still will be, but according to the Ancient One, those aren't 'bad' or 'broken.' Even in the case of the hammer, we actually know what happens to Thor when he loses his hammer... it's not actually a bad thing. Still, it was nice of Steve to return it anyway.

No... I don't think that's what the ancient one meant. Besides which we know time and existence flowed just fine five years after Thanos destroyed the stones.

The flow of events, causality, was what was being talked of in the film. Not having the stone there for Strange to use was the issue, not merely it existing in that timeline.

 

[jolldan]

I think if you look for holes in a story including time travel you're gonna find them lol

 

[DrCosmic]

No... I don't think that's what the ancient one meant. Besides which we know time and existence flowed just fine five years after Thanos destroyed the stones.

The flow of events, causality, was what was being talked of in the film. Not having the stone there for Strange to use was the issue, not merely it existing in that timeline.

This is cheating a bit, but the director's pointed out that the stones still exist, just as scattered atoms.

I just disagree, I kinda took The Ancient One at her word and held it as superior to the more limited point of view of the scientists. She was very specific about the stones, not just the ones that were used to protect (many are used to hurt), but all of them, even though her example was one of protection. Not only that, this space magic interpretation makes the film make sense. If everything affects the flow of time like the stones do, then you have the Butterfly Effect problem, which makes the validity of the entire enterprise questionable. You also can't have Cap go back in time and travel the old fashioned way in the end, because just him taking up space makes it a different timeline than the one he traveled from. Natasha can't be locked away forever, because taking her out of the timeline before she falls is no more significant than taking Gamora out of hers, better actually because now that timeline is one where the snap is impossible. I really think the plot breaks down if you don't take TAO at her word. In order to have stakes with timelines you have to remove the possibility of infinite timelines, and I think TAO's speech does that by creating a limited number of 'prime' timelines, that is, those of the infinity stones.

 

[Zarex]

My thinking is there is a difference between the "broken" timelines, which lead to branching, and those that are merely bent. The universe (Eternity?) can accommodate a mild change - something like Thor and Tony having heart to hearts with their respective parents or Professor Hulk chatting up the Ancient One. But an incident that can't be painted over leads to branching.

So until a future writer confirms otherwise, I am going to believe that Steve was always Margaret's husband, and his time travel to the 40s merely corrected a time anomaly. Thanos' dusted army was sent back to 2014 - perhaps with some other child of Thanos filling Gamora's role. The only new timeline then, as opposed to one that was slightly rejiggered, would be Loki's.

 

[Spider-Fan83]

but if you say pulling certain people out of the timeline doesn't have any side effect on the current timeline, it sets a precedent to question, whats stopping them from just going back and getting the past version of any of the other characters they've lost? why don't they go back in time to get Quicksilver back/ Vision back/Black Widow back/Tony back...

okay maybe Vision fits into the he had "Mind Stone" part of that theory

but, my point is it overly complicates things on saying it works for this person, but not for that person

 

[Zarex]

but if you say pulling certain people out of the timeline doesn't have any side effect on the current timeline, it sets a precedent to question, whats stopping them from just going back and getting the past version of any of the other characters they've lost? why don't they go back in time to get Quicksilver back/ Vision back/Black Widow back/Tony back...

okay maybe Vision fits into the he had "Mind Stone" part of that theory

but, my point is it overly complicates things on saying it works for this person, but not for that person

Well, I'm no time theoretician. But by my simple, down home way of figurin', pulling a character from the past into the future COULD cause massive upheavals, including a universe under the thumb of the dreaded Dog Hitler. That's why it's best not to travel through time unless you are completely out of options.

But our current reality - which Marvel fans know of an actual thinking being known as Eternity - will fill in the cracks in the case of relatively minor disruptions and things will go on as they always oughta. Post Endgame, the events of GOTG 1 & 2 go on as before but with no Gamora on the team and Nebula dead. And Thanos tosses Cull Obsidian off of the soul stone cliff.

Up until Loki absconded with the Tesseract, the 2012 Time Heist would have had no impact. Both 2012 Cap and the Hydra elevator guys would have come to the realization that they were dealing with a shape shifted Loki and the events of Winter Soldier would have gone on as planned. But the events of Infinity War become impossible with the missing space stone, so a new timeline has to be created.

Any criticism of this extremely well reasoned and fact based position is impossible!

 

[Spider-Fan83]

Well, I'm no time theoretician. But by my simple, down home way of figurin', pulling a character from the past into the future COULD cause massive upheavals, including a universe under the thumb of the dreaded Dog Hitler. That's why it's best not to travel through time unless you are completely out of options.

But our current reality - which Marvel fans know of an actual thinking being known as Eternity - will fill in the cracks in the case of relatively minor disruptions and things will go on as they always oughta. Post Endgame, the events of GOTG 1 & 2 go on as before but with no Gamora on the team and Nebula dead. And Thanos tosses Cull Obsidian off of the soul stone cliff....!

we're kinda ignoring the must sacrifices someone you love, rule here, aren't we?
(or does Thanos relationship with Cull goes deeper then I know of?)

one could argue that they ignored it for this movie as well, but of all the remaining avengers Widow and Hawkeye probably have the closes relationship (love comes in many forms, doesn't have to mean your "in love" with that person) and they were the most likely to be willing to make the sacrifice...

make's me wonder did Nebula know about the "soul for a soul" when she sent them there? did she think they had the highest probability of making the sacrifice?

 

[Spider-Fan83]

^also, if Nebula did know{or even if she didn't at the time, but once she found out) what she should have done is gone back and grabbed the weakened Thanos from his garden (just after he destroyed the stones, but before the rest of the avengers showed up) and brought him to Vormir, and thrown him off the cliff to get the Stone lol