Avengers: Endgame's Most Confusing Plot Holes EXPLAINED

3. Does Thanos Time-Travelling Negate His Own Snap?

Avengers Infinity War Thanos
Marvel Studios

Next up: How does Thanos getting beamed from 2014 to 2019 NOT negate the Snap? If in 2014, Thanos never collected the Stones and instead leapt straight into the final fight, the Snap doesn't happen, and that future doesn't exist, right?

Wrong.

At least, "wrong" inasmuch as the only explanation is the version of time I'm going with.

With this "Schrodinger's time" explanation, Thanos being plucked from 2014 doesn't change reality, because it CAN'T. The timeline we're dealing with fundamentally has a version of Thanos that used the Infinity Gauntlet to snap away half of existence, only to get beheaded. Those events cannot be changed, either through a younger version of him being killed (which Banner confirms wouldn't do anything and Nebula surviving shooting herself proves too), or destroying the stones.

Endgame is about forward momentum, so we can assume Stark's dying request was one of two things:

1. He wished to destroy Thanos and all his followers right there and then. The surrounding environment doesn't reset, so his decision definitely centres on population control, rather than reshaping the damage done.

2. He wipes them from the present and sends Thanos back to 2014, with no memory of his failure. This way, all the events of the main timeline happen as expected, and it all (eventually) leads back to Stark's snap saving the universe.

Also note that Gamora goes missing and Quill is seen running a search program for her. If situation 2 had happened, Gamora would have died by Thanos' hand and Quill wouldn't have any vital signs to search for.

It's more likely then, that reality is set, and 2014 Thanos just got wiped out in the present, with everything that's happened still being mapped out in one chronological direction.

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Gaming Editor
Gaming Editor

WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.