[Short Read] Defeating Thanos — Thor’s Credit, or the Stormbreaker’s?

In the beginning of Avengers Infinity War, Thor has been defeated by Thanos in the Asgardian spaceship. But this picture has changed later after Thor acquiring the Stormbreaker. He has thrown the weapon through Thanos’s chest, seriously injuring the mad Titan. Even later, in Avengers End Game, he has used the Stormbreaker to chop off Thanos’s hand in a single blow; and to decapitate Thanos in another single blow. These incidents may raise a question : how much credit does Thor have in defeating Thanos? Does the full credit of this victory go to the Stormbreaker?

The answer to this question is more fundamental than what you may think in the beginning. At first we need to see Thor’s power level without any special weapon (Mjolnir and the Stormbreaker). Then we need to see the Stormbreaker’s capabilities. And then only we can understand the credits of Thor and the Stormbreaker properly.

Thor has beaten up the Hulk without the special weapons. He has fought Hela and her evil soldiers while carrying the burning wound of his damaged eye. He has also forcefully hold the iris of a cosmic engine while simultaneously bearing the full power of a star. All these things have clearly revealed the immense physical strength, determination and the inner god-like thunder powers of Thor.

In the Asgardian spaceship, Thanos has been at an advantage of using the power stone, which is an infinity stone that can destroy worlds. On top of that, Thanos has been accompanied by four very powerful warriors. With Thor fighting without any special weapon, the battle has not been an even one. So it is completely understandable why Thor has not been able to win. He has been defeated like a brave warrior; and this defeat can never infer any weakness of Thor.

Then the Stormbreaker, one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, has come into the picture. Thor has used it to summon a Bifrost, which cannot be done just by using his thunder powers. Thor has used the weapon to obliterate hordes of monstrous alien creatures, and to destroy multiple alien space-vessels. Doing these with bare hands and raw powers would be extremely difficult. And finally, the Stormbreaker has resisted the combined power of all the infinity stones and has hit Thanos in the chest. Doing this would be impossible for Thor without the Stormbreaker, as we have already seen in the fight inside the Asgardian spaceship. These incidents clearly show the capabilities and importance of the Stormbreaker.

Now, the point is, the Stormbreaker cannot fight a battle by itself. It is Thor, who channels his own powers through the weapon to fight a battle. As Thor himself says, not everyone can wield a weapon like this. Wielding the Stormbreaker requires an extremely powerful warrior. How powerful? Eitri the dwarf has said that the Stormbreaker could summon a Bifrost ‘in theory’. Thor has provided the weapon with enough power to turn that theory into a practical fact. His immense thunder powers have been focused through the Stormbreaker to destroy the alien creatures and space-vessels. He has given the weapon enough push so that it would resist the combined power of all the infinity stones and hit Thanos hard.

Thor’s only problem is that he cannot control and focus his powers properly all by himself. He needs a special weapon like Mjolnir or the Stormbreaker to do that with full potential. Once he does that, he can do wonders!

Thus, we have established the connection between Thor and his Stormbreaker. Now we have to find out what it takes to defeat Thanos (other than using the infinity stones).

Think about how many hits Thanos has taken at the battle on Titan. From punches to gunshots, from explosives to mystic powers, from rocks to spaceships — Thanos has been hit by all possible means in all possible ways. As for the end result, a single blood-drop has seeped out of a small scratch on his skin. If THAT is the toughness of Thanos’s skin, how tough is his whole body? To give him a serious injury, a weapon has to pierce through his muscles and bones. Doing this using any weapon made of any regular material is fundamentally impossible, because the weapon itself would get damaged due to the impact with Thanos’s body. Only an axe made of Uru metal, forged at Nidavellir, can get the job done. The Stormbreaker it is!

Also, this weapon needs a push so forceful that it would keep piercing through Thanos’s body and not simply stop at his skin. Only someone like Thor with god-like strength can provide such a force. And he has done that three times in the two movies. On top of that, he has done the job with a single blow each time. That is an immense amount of force indeed!

In fact, we have also seen the other side of the same coin. During the final battle in End Game, Thor has not been able to fight Thanos properly, even using the same Stormbreaker. This has happened because he has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for a long time, and has not been in a condition to unleash his full power.

Thus, it is neither Thor alone, nor the Stormbreaker alone, who can defeat Thanos. Thor and the Stormbreaker depend on each other. It is like a symbiotic relationship, where Thor needs the Stormbreaker to control and focus his powers; and the Stormbreaker needs Thor to channel the immense amount of required powers. Thor and the Stormbreaker beautifully enhance each other’s capabilities to defeat the enemy and win the ultimate battles.

List of 8 Mahabharata Heroes and their Equivalent Avengers

The Mahabharata is one of the finest texts of ancient India. It tells a vast story of life, war and peace, extending up to several generations. It has a huge literary significance, cultural and religious importance, and even modern interpretations and controversies associated with it. For this article, however, I shall not dive into any of these deeper contexts; and focus only on the simpler descriptions of heroes in the story.

On this day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has gained huge popularity as a series of stories about larger-than-life heroes. Many of us choose to take rightful breaks form our everyday lives to embrace the beautiful fantasies of our inner child through these stories. Also there are some of us who question the credibility of cheering for on-screen heroes. But once again, I shall not dive into any of these deep contexts; and focus only on the regular descriptions of the MCU heroes.

Having said that, now I shall come to the topic of this article. I have observed some interesting equivalence between some of the MCU heroes — the avengers, and the central Mahabharata heroes. I am going to discuss these here. I shall use the word ‘God’ with a capital-G to refer to the supreme Gods of Hindu mythology. I shall use the word ‘god’ with a small-g to refer to Indra and other deities, Hanumaan and Thor.

1.       Lord Krishna : Thor

In the Mahabharata, Lord Krishna is a human incarnation of one of the supreme Gods — Lord Vishnu. In Hindu mythology, Lord Vishnu is the protector of the universe. He has lived a human-life on earth as Lord Krishna with a great purpose. Throughout this human-life he has fought alongside humans, to protect the human race from the evil residing within the human race. He has used the Sudarshan Chakra as his primary weapon, which is one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. Though in human form, Lord Krishna is actually the same divine being as Lord Vishnu. He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. His true universal form (referred to as Vishwaroop in the Mahabharata) is way beyond human-comprehension.

In the MCU, Thor is the god of thunder, an Asgardian protector of the nine realms. He is the owner and primary user of the enchanted hammer Mjolnir, which he has acquired through a choice of selfless sacrifice. Here you have to understand that I am not going to compare true power levels, because Thor is not omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. (No offence please, Thor fans!) But my point is, among the avengers there is a god — Thor — who has cosmic level powers. He wields Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, which are among the most powerful weapons in the universe. Thor is strong enough to decapitate the mad titan Thanos with a single blow of his Stormbreaker; and to survive the full power of a star. He fights battles alongside human heroes to protect all living beings in the universe. Thus, the characterization of Lord Krishna in the story of the Mahabharata and that of Thor in the stories of the MCU are comparable.

2.       Yudhishthir : Captain America

Yudhishthir is the eldest among the five Pandava brothers. His whole life can be defined by his principles of life. He is the prime symbol of truth and honor in the Mahabharata, with his grandfather Bheeshma being the other person with similar principles. In his lifetime Yudhishthir is known to have lied only once, which was actually a cleverly spoken truth but not a lie. As for fighting skills, Yudhishthir masters in spear-fight and spear-throwing.

In the MCU, Steve Rogers / Captain America is not just an army captain, but a symbol of patriotism. His principles of duty and honor are unmatched. For fighting skills, he has superhuman strength and stamina; and he uses his vibranium shield as his primary weapon. But his true power resides in his principles of life, due to which he finds a place among the very few people in the universe worthy of lifting Mjolnir. Incidentally, he is also the eldest in age among the human avengers. So, Yudhishthir in the Mahabharata and Captain America in the MCU are comparable.

3.       Bheem : The Hulk

Bheem is the second Pandava brother. He is a hulking man, whose specialty is brute strength. Though he is not a match for the ape-god Hanumaan; Bheem is probably the strongest known human in the entire Hindu mythology. With his brute strength Bheem can easily defeat giants and monsters, smash rocks, and do all sorts of things doable by brute strength. He is also immune to poison.

Bruce Banner in his Hulk form is the strongest human on earth in the MCU. (I know, he is not really a human when he is the Hulk!) The Hulk is so strong that a fight between Thor and the Hulk becomes a tie if Thor is not using his special thunder powers. From defeating monsters to smashing alien soldiers — the Hulk can do anything that you can imagine doable with brute strength. And also, he is immune to gamma radiation. So, Bheem in the Mahabharata and the Hulk in the MCU are comparable.

4.       Arjun : Iron-Man

Arjun is the third Pandava brother. He is one of the highest skilled warriors not only in the Mahabharata, but also in the entire Hindu mythology. In some sense you may say Arjun is a skilled archer. But an uninitiated reader will not be able to comprehend Hindu mythological archery simply by the word ‘archery’. So let me first describe this mythological art of archery.

In Hindu mythology, there are regular arrows; then there are mystic arrows which can defeat the enemy in all ways you can imagine; there are mystic arrows which can control weather and other natural phenomena; and then there are arrows of the Gods (the Brahmastra, among others), whose descriptions in the mythology match those of modern day nuclear missiles. A warrior does not need to carry these weapons all the time, but can summon them to appear in the warrior’s hand whenever necessary. So, a warrior not only needs to have access to these arrows, but also has to know how to summon each of them.

Arjun masters the skills of using all these arrows. He has even received some of the extremely powerful arrows as gifts from the gods. Most importantly, he owns one of the most powerful bows, the Gandeev, with which he can shoot arrows of all power-levels. This bow is also a gift from a god. Arjun is known to have defeated Indra, the king of the deities. His warrior skills probably makes him more important than even his elder brothers in the Kurukshetra war.

In the MCU, Tony Stark / Iron-Man is a person with a genius-level intellect. Over the years he has acquired great knowledge and expertise in physics and computer science. He has built the AI powered Iron-Man armor (several upgraded versions of it), which is an all-purpose battle suit. The word ‘armor’ usually gives us the sense of a bulletproof armor. But for the Iron-Man armor, being bulletproof is just a rather added advantage. The actual function of the armor is way beyond our regular knowledge. So let me first describe the power of this sophisticated armor.

The older mechanical version of the armor has discrete components, which are programmed to arrange themselves to build the armor within seconds. These components include protective metal plates, various missiles, lasers, thrusters; and most importantly the AI circuitry with a holographic user-interface. Now, the newer nano-technological version has nano-particles confined in a small chest-piece, which are also programmed to arrange themselves to build the armor. But the point is, the use of nano-particles gives a huge advantage of making a lot many types of components. Except for the most essential components like the AI circuitry and protective plates, most of the components need not be present in the armor all the time, but can be created in seconds by rearranging the nano-particles whenever necessary. All computational actions in the armor can be initiated by voice commands; the AI takes care of the rest. This armor essentially bridges the gap between science and magic via nano-technology. And finally, there is a Hulk-buster version of the armor, which is specially design to fight the Hulk.

The genius creator of this armor is also the sole user of it. Iron-Man has perfected his battle skills with this armor. He can fight Thor, the Hulk and Captain America. He has also fought a battle with the mad titan Thanos for a reasonable amount of time, even when Thanos was using his infinity gauntlet with four out of six infinity stones attached. Great knowledge and skills with highly advanced weapons makes Arjun of the Mahabharata and Iron-Man of the MCU comparable.

       

5.       Nakul and Sahdev : Black Widow and Hawkeye

Nakul and Sahdev are the two youngest Pandava brothers. They do not have superhuman strength and sophisticated weapons. But they have exceptional combat skills. Their primary weapons are swords and axes. With these weapons and their combat skills they can easily defeat hordes of enemy soldiers. Also, they have great knowledge about medicines.

Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow and Clint Barton / Hawkeye are like best buddies. They do not have superhuman strength, god-like powers or sophisticated weapons. But their combat skills are unparallel. Black Widow uses guns an several other gears as her weapons of choice. Hawkeye uses custom-made bows and arrows; with explosives and other gears attached to the arrows as necessary. With these weapons and combat skills they can easily fight alien soldiers and killer robots. So, the two youngest Pandava brothers in the Mahabharata and the two best buddies among the avengers are comparable.

Now if you ask me for an individual comparison here, I would say Nakul and Black Widow are comparable. Nakul in the Mahabharata has charming looks; and so does Black Widow among the avengers!

6.       Draupadi : Captain Marvel

I know I am not making a one-to-one comparison in power levels. But still this comparison may look odd. Draupadi, the wife of the Pandava brothers, is not described as a warrior in the Mahabharata. Whereas, Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel in the MCU is equivalent to Thor in power level. The power of the lightspeed engine (actually powered by the space stone) was absorbed in her body. She has god-like strength and the power of photon blasts. She can fly through space and hyperspace really fast. She is so strong that she can fly through huge alien spaceships to turn them into exploding junks, but then she comes out without a scratch. She scouts through planets across the universe to help all known civilizations to fight evil and survive.

So, the comparison between Draupadi and Captain Marvel looks odd at first. But somehow the list of central Mahabharata heroes feels incomplete without Draupadi! And that is when the true role of Draupadi in the Mahabharata comes to our realization.

The true role of Draupadi is there in the battle of life. Her life is probably the toughest one in the Mahabharata. She has stood strong in all adverse situations of life. She has always happily shared the fate of the Pandava brothers. She has stood bravely at the game of dice when the Pandava brothers lost. She has stood by the side of the Pandavas during the exile. She has seen deaths of her five children in the Kurukshetra war, and has beard this without breaking. Thus, in the battle of life, she is probably a greater winner than the Pandava brothers themselves. Her strong determination, willpower, bravery and sacrifices make her one of the strongest characters in all of Hindu mythology. This is the same unbreakable spirit, which is described beautifully in a compliment to Captain Marvel from her best friend : ‘you were the most powerful person I knew, way before you could shoot fire from your fists.’ So, the characterization of Draupadi in the Mahabharata and that of Captain Marvel in the MCU are comparable.

7.       Abhimanyu : Spider-Man

I am going a little off-grid here, from the central heroes of the Mahabharata to a not-so-central one. But I cannot escape noticing this comparison, and that’s why I am including him in this list.

Abhimanyu is the son of Arjun and Subhadra. To take forward the legacy of his father, Abhimanyu has become a skilled warrior in a very young age. He has participated in the Kurukshetra war very soon after finishing his training. He is not an extremely skilled and experienced warrior like the Pandava brothers; but still he has joined the war to make whatever contribution he is able to make. He has chosen to ignore his own fate to join the ultimate battle of saving the humanity. Finally, at the face of a cruel death he has happily stood strong.

In the MCU, Peter Parker / Spider-Man has started his journey as a local hero. His motivation is his uncle Ben’s quote : ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ (not shown in the MCU movies; but we all know it, right?) Later he has found Iron-Man as his mentor. He has learnt a lot along the way, and he keeps learning from new experiences. He already has extreme combat skills, unparallel reflexes and his very special spider-sense. And then, he has also received the AI powered Spider-Man and Iron-Spider suits as gifts from Iron-Man. These suits have greatly enhanced his overall power-level and fighting abilities. He may not have god-like powers or extreme weapons; but with his limited abilities and experiences he is willing to come out of his neighborhood, and fight larger battles to save the universe. This willingness brings him one of the greatest rewards of his life as a compliment from Iron-Man himself : ‘You are an avenger now.’ In the long run Spider-Man will have the responsibility to carry forward the legacy of Iron-Man.  Such selfless willpower to fight the ultimate battles even with limited abilities and experiences makes Abhimanyu of the Mahabharata and Spider-Man of the MCU comparable.

Do you agree with my list? Do you have your own thoughts about the different characters? Let me know in the comments below. Also, click here to read my alternate storyline of Avengers Endgame. 

P.S.  Arjun : Hawkeye? Draupadi : Black Widow?

Some people compare Arjun to Hawkeye, because both are archers. Some compare Draupadi to Black Widow, because both are female characters. I can see their point. But personally, I have focused mainly on the relative impact of the characters. I feel that the true weight of Arjun in the Mahabharata can be represented by Iron-Man, but not by Hawkeye. The same goes for Draupadi, Captain Marvel and Black Widow.

Can we rewrite Avengers End Game storyline, based on THIS reinterpretation of Dr. Strange’s plan? (Part 2 of 2)

In Part 1 of this article I have discussed why Dr. Strange’s plan was not as simple as it might look like. You must read Part 1, if you have not already, before proceeding further.

In Avengers Infinity War, Dr. Strange had seen 14,000,605 possible outcomes of the upcoming war, with only one way to win. He seemed to knowingly drive the chain of events so that the one winning outcome could be reached. But strangely enough, he did not choose any of the ways in which either Thanos could be easily killed, or at least his hand could be chopped off. If killing or disabling Thanos as soon as possible was the way to win, Dr. Strange could have made it happen in many ways, as I have discussed in Part 1 of this article. This means, killing or disabling Thanos was not the intended ‘winning’. The actual winning meant something else.

This reasoning is of course valid for the actual Avengers End Game movie; because several other significant things happened there besides killing Thanos. I shall discuss those in a future article. For now, I am interested in exploring a possible End Game storyline that is different from the actual movie, but logically consistent with the events of Infinity War.

In Part 1, I have reasoned that Dr. Strange’s plan was to show a dream to Thanos. When Mantis put Thanos into a semi-sleep condition, she actually induced Thanos to see a dream as per the instructions of Dr. Strange. So, among the events we saw in Infinity War after Mantis’s action, only the non-Thanos parts of the Wakanda battle happened in reality.  But all the other events involving Thanos, including the finger snap, happened in Thanos’s dream.

Now, questions are,

(1)   What did Dr. Strange see in the future as the winning path?

(2)   What did he want Thanos to see in the dream and why?

In my version of the storyline, Dr. Strange saw one of the next big villains of the universe — Galactus. (Let’s face it, we all know that Galactus is coming, right?)

Dr. Strange saw a cosmic-scale invasion by Galactus. Galactus would keep devouring planet after planet to sustain his own life. Then eventually he would face all the heroes of the universe. It would be totally impossible for an individual hero to defeat Galactus — even for Captain Marvel with her cosmic-level powers, or for the god of thunder wielding one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. Even with their combined might, the heroes would find it extremely difficult to defeat this cosmic entity.

Difficult, but not impossible; especially when they would get help from another powerful being with another one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. Yes, you guessed it right — it would be Thanos, wielding the infinity gauntlet with all the infinity stones!

But why? Why would the mad titan Thanos help the heroes? The answer to this question can be found if we see things from Thanos’s perspective. The troubled mind of Thanos was not able to understand the importance of each living being in the grand scheme of things in the universe. He was only able to see a statistics that, if half the livings beings were destroyed, the other half would get plenty of resources to live. He thought of this act as a salvation. Now, if you think carefully, this thought of Thanos reveals something else about him. Somewhere deep down his heart he knew the importance of life. He firmly believed that life should exist in the universe. He never wanted life to be destroyed completely; instead, he believed that life had to be carefully preserved. Only because this feeling of his heart was overpowered by his troubled mind, he came up with his plan of half-half statistics.

But when Galactus would threaten to destroy all life in the universe, he would certainly know what to do. Preserving life would always be his priority. So he would willingly join the heroes to fight against Galactus. The combined effort of all of them would ensure the defeat of Galactus.

But, could Thanos actually be there at the time of Galactus’s invasion? Unfortunately, Galactus was not around during the events of Infinity War. Thanos was up with his finger snapping plan. So the heroes were in full war mode to stop Thanos. This means, in one way or the other, the heroes would surely have defeated Thanos. I have described some of these ways in the previous part. There were millions of other ways. And hence, most likely he would not be available to join the battle against Galactus in the long run.

To be precise, if we take Dr. Strange’s words for it, there were 14,000,604 ways how Thanos could be either killed or disabled. All those paths would eventually lead to the ultimate destruction of all life in the universe by Galactus. But there was one particular path, where Thanos would stay alive and well to eventually join the battle against Galactus. In that path Galactus would be defeated, and all life in the universe would be saved.

THAT is the one winning path Dr. Strange was referring to.

Now Dr. Strange had to lead the chain of events towards this path. This path would require Thanos to understand his own mistake and dismiss the finger snapping plan forever.

Fortunately, Dr. Strange already knew what he had to do, because he had seen it already in his future vision. He asked Mantis to look into his own mind to observe one of the futures where Galactus would destroy all life. Then he instructed her to impart the memories of this future into Thanos’s mind through the dream. Note that, the events inside the dream would not happen in real time. The actual future events would span several years of time. But all Mantis had to do was to register memories of that future into Thanos’s brain, which she could do within a few seconds, or a few hours, depending on her power level and expertise. Thus, when the dream is complete, Thanos would have completely different realizations about the universe and life.

In the dream, Thanos would see from a third person’s perspective that the combined might of all the heroes would hugely overpower him and defeat him. Life would go on flourishing in the universe. But then, one day, Galactus would begin the invasion. Worlds would be destroyed, life would disappear, heroes would fall. One day, no more life would be left in the universe. In this dream, Thanos would be shaken to the core of his heart. He would not be able to bear the disappearance of all life in the universe. He would crave to see at least one living being somewhere in the universe, but he would not find one. And then, he would wake up.

This dream would change Thanos forever. The memory of the cosmic-scale destruction of life would haunt him. He would totally get rid of his thought of half-half statistics, and realize the true value of life. He would realize that every living being has a role to play in the grand scheme of things in the universe. He would realize how beautiful life is. So he would end his quest for the finger-snap and come in terms with the heroes.

This is how the dream shown by Dr. Strange and Mantis would bring Thanos to the right path; ensuring the future safety of all life. Thus, Dr. Strange’s plan would follow the only one path that would lead to the ultimate win.

This is the way I have sketched my version of the main storyline. Now it is time to address some smaller details. You may look back once at the points I raised in the beginning of Part 1 of this article, and then proceed further.

(1)     The events inside the dream started with Star Lord punching Thanos out of the semi-sleep. This was shown to Thanos to convince him that Mantis did not put him into any kind of dream. It was very unlikely for Star Lord to act like this in reality, since he knew that they had to remove the infinity gauntlet from Thanos’s hand.

(2)     If one of the simplest possible ways to defeat Thanos was shown to him in the dream, he would quickly realize that it was not happening in reality. The dream had to include extensive battles and complicated consequences, so that Thanos would think that it was real.

Notably, the events inside the dream did not include Dr. Strange using the time stone. The question did arise in Thanos’s mind why the time stone was not used against him. But the battle was so realistic that he did not give much thought to it.

(3)     If Thanos would come back to the right path, then Thor would have to drop the thought of revenge forever. Could he find peace with that? The answer is, yes! Thor is one of the very few people in the entire universe who are worthy of lifting Mjolnir. People like him would always sacrifice their personal interests for the greater good. So, even if he would not forgive Thanos ever, he would choose to find peace with Thanos.

However, there is something Thanos might do. He might try to put the infinity stones in good use by trying to resurrect the Xandarians, Asgardians and different other people whom he had killed before. In this way he would be able to compensate for the mistakes he had done.

(4)     Finally, Dr. Strange said that there was a price to pay. The price could be the fall of some of the heroes in the battle against Galactus. But I think, the price would be the fate of Mantis. Keeping a powerful being like Thanos in a dream would drain Mantis off her powers. She would either die in the process, or lose her powers forever. We don’t know if Dr. Strange told her already about this fate; but if yes, then she willingly chose this fate to save the universe.

This is my version of the complete End Game storyline. What are your views? Do you have other versions or interpretations in mind? Let me know in the comments below.

P.S. Possible connection to the actual End Game movie

What if I told you that the events in the entire End Game movie happened inside Thanos’s dream?

Don’t worry! I shall not ask you to further complicate the End Game storyline. I have written the article based only on the events of Infinity War, excluding any reference to the End Game movie. But just in case you ask me if the actual End Game movie can somehow be included in my storyline, this is what I have to say. End Game and some of the future MCU movies may happen inside Thanos’s dream; eventually showing the ultimate destruction of all life in the universe by Galactus. Then, in a future movie, Thanos may wake up and face the reality.

The entire chain of events to resurrect half of all life in the universe was started by a random rat that randomly walked into the right van and randomly pressed the right button to rescue Ant-Man — sounds like a dream, right?

Can we rewrite Avengers End Game storyline, based on THIS reinterpretation of Dr. Strange’s plan? (Part 1 of 2)

I believe that you have already watched Avengers End Game. So you already know how the events of Avengers Infinity War led to the events of End Game. But imagine that we are given a chance to rewrite the story, given that we have watched only Infinity War. Can we come up with a really mind-bending plot to write an entirely new End Game storyline? Yes, we can. We shall explore one such storyline here in this article. We need to do some serious reinterpretation of Dr. Strange’s plan to come up with a new storyline.

What was Dr. Strange’s plan? In Avengers Infinity War, there was a point where Dr. Strange looked into the future. He saw 14,000,605 possible outcomes of the upcoming war. He made some plan along with Iron-Man, Spider-Man and the Guardians. However, we, the audience, did not get to know the plan. The next point where we saw them was at the battle on Titan.

This kept us wondering, what Dr. Strange’s plan was.  Several ideas and theories regarding Dr. Strange’s plan surfaced on the internet after Infinity War. That was the time when I got my own idea too. Obviously, my idea did not match with the actual End Game movie. But as I said, we want to explore a possible storyline that is different from the actual movie. So I am going to share my idea here; and then we can explore the alternate possibility.

Instead of jumping directly into the idea, I shall go step by step to describe certain events from Infinity War, whose analysis led me to this idea.

(1)    Let us start with Star Lord’s reaction. After the heroes got hold of Thanos, and Mantis put him into semi-sleep, Star Lord realized that Gamora was killed by Thanos.  Then, in one of the most frustrating moments in the movie, Star Lord punched Thanos out of the semi-sleep. So the heroes failed to take the infinity gauntlet away from Thanos’s hand.

Now, the problem with this occurrence is that, Star Lord was already mentally prepared for Gamora’s death, because he promised her that he would kill her if Thanos got hand on her. Even he attempted to kill her at Knowhere to keep his promise. Then why did he react like this when he got the news?

Again, let us agree that he lost his mind, since he loved her. But in that case, Dr. Strange already saw this in future. Since taking away the gauntlet was an obvious way to stop Thanos, Dr. Strange could have stopped Star Lord beforehand so that the gauntlet could be taken safely. Then he could have teleported the gauntlet and all the heroes to earth, to avoid the immediate wrath of Thanos. However, Dr. Strange let the things happen the way they seemed to happen. Instead of many ways to stop Thanos at Titan, he chose the path where Thanos would win the Titan battle.

(2)   Dr. Strange was ready to sacrifice his own life, even others’ lives as well, to protect the time stone. He also knew that, if he did not give the time stone to Thanos, the quest of Thanos would never be completed. But he decided to give the time stone to Thanos anyway, to save the life of Iron-Man.

The problem here is that, Dr. Strange already knew that this situation would arise. He could have warned Iron-Man beforehand about this, so that this situation would never come. Or at least, he could have planned to teleport Iron-Man somewhere else to save him form Thanos. But he did not do any of those. Which means, he actually wanted Thanos to have the time stone. In fact, he already knew that Thanos was going to use the time stone to resurrect Vision, and then take the mind stone. Dr. Strange seemingly wanted this to happen.

(3)    Among the 14,000,605 possibilities, there must be one where Thor chopped off Thanos’s head; and there must be another where Thor chopped off Thanos’s hand, disabling Thanos to use the gauntlet. But obviously, according to Dr. Strange, those were not the ways of winning. This means that the death of Thanos was not the win Dr. Strange was referring to. The win was something else.

(4)   Among the 14,000,605 possibilities, there also must be one where Dr. Strange chopped off Thanos’s hand by using a portal. But he chose not to do that. Instead he fought Thanos with some other set of magic powers. Now, he obviously knew what moves he was going to make, and how Thanos was going to counteract his each move. This means he already knew he was going to fail to stop Thanos using those moves; but still he gave Thanos the fight. Why? To keep Thanos busy?

The list may go on. If you look carefully to all the events in Infinity War after Dr. Strange’s vision, you will see many possibilities how Thanos could be stopped. But none of those happened. In fact, if you notice, winning suddenly became too easy for Thanos after Mantis put him into semi-sleep. Why?

The solutions to all these problems come down to what Dr. Strange’s plan was. And my alternate interpretation (where I divert from the actual End Game movie) is that, these fights did not happen in reality. When Mantis put Thanos into the semi-sleep, she actually induced Thanos to see a dream where all the above incidents happened. Mantis was powerful enough to make the living planet Ego, a Celestial, fall asleep. So, with some effort, she could do the same to Thanos too. She induced the semi-sleep to Thanos and let him dream what he needed to see. And THAT was Dr. Strange’s plan, in my alternate version of the storyline.

Pause reading here. Go back to your copy of the Infinity War movie. Watch the moment where Mantis got control of Thanos. I know you will believe this interpretation.

Now, what did Dr. Strange wanted Thanos to actually see, and why?

We shall come to that later. First we need to sort out what were the events which happened in reality, and what were those which happened in Thanos’s dream. Keep fast forwarding your copy of the Infinity War movie to keep track.

In reality, when Thanos was being kept in Titan, the non-Thanos parts of the Wakanda battle really happened. Thanos had four companions. Ebony Maw was killed by Iron-Man and Spider-Man in the beginning. In Wakanda, one of the companions were killed by Vision and Captain America. One of them was killed by Bruce Banner. One of them was killed by Black Widow, Okoye and Scarlett Witch. Thor destroyed all the alien monsters and spaceships. And the Wakanda battle ended there. Thanos never really came to Wakanda. The finger snap never happened; half of all life in the universe was never really destroyed.

In Thanos’s dream, he saw one of the 14,000,605 possible futures where he would accomplish his mission. Dr. Strange instructed Mantis to show him all the fights to make the dream as realistic as possible. Thanos saw himself winning in the dream. He collected all the stones, defeated the heroes, escaped being killed by Thor, and finally snapped his fingers to destroy half of all life in the universe. Not only these; from a third person’s perspective he saw what was happening in various places in the universe, like half the people turning into dust everywhere and Nick Fury summoning Captain Marvel. In fact, the events in Ant-Man and the Wasp happened in reality except for the mid-credit scene where Dr. Pym’s family turned into dust. That happened in Thanos’s dream.

Infinity War ended here. Now, if this was the interpretation of Dr. Strange’s plan, then we still need to understand what he wanted Thanos to actually see in the dream, and why. This would establish the intended alternate storyline of End Game. Let me know in the comments below what you think. Then go on to read my version of the storyline in Part 2 of this article.