# Avengers: Endgame SEEN IT thread - SPOILERS AHOY! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies, disney-hulu\ **Created:** [April 24, 2019, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981 "2019-04-24T08:50:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/361 "2019-05-01T17:28:00Z")
What if Captain America just gave the Soul Stone to Hawkeye and Black Widow? Sure you may get a time loop there but it would save a life. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/362 "2019-05-01T17:28:42Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I think one can at least debate the ethics of actually changing anything in the past. Let’s say Cap saves Bucky, but in doing so, proverbial butterflies flapping their wings, prevents the creation of the Avengers, and Earth is obliterated by Loki’s forces (or whatever unknown threat may occur). Plus, after having changed something, his foreknowledge is going to be unreliable, at least; you can’t save Bucky and expect that the infiltration of SHIELD by Hydra is going to take place in the same way. > So Cap is faced with some tough questions: > [ol] > [li]When do I have the right to create a new timeline?[/li][li]Am I confident that righting some wrong now does not lead to greater wrong down the road?[/li][li]Which wrong is great enough to be righted—do I prevent, say, Kennedy’s death, accepting the possibility that I won’t be able to stop Hydra, because they’re going about it differently than they did in my timeline?[/li][/ol] > > The first one is more hairy than one might think. Does the suffering in the world outweigh the pleasure? If so, then a simple utilitarian calculation would suggest that it’s actually morally wrong to bring into being new copies of people who will experience suffering, since you’ve thereby increased the total suffering in the world (‘multiverse’). I don’t think Steve is remotely a utilitarian. Also, that logic seems like it leads pretty directly to “Thanos was right,” territory. If adding people to the world is unethical, because they will experience suffering, wouldn’t painlessly snapping them out of existence be an ethical act, since they won’t be able to experience pain anymore? > [@](#): > > The other two essentially highlight the issue that the timeline isn’t going to stay congruent with what he knows once he starts changing stuff. People seem to think about this as if he could just fix every disaster of the past fifty years, but that’s not how it works—any change he introduces could lead to a timeline wildly different from what he remembers. Save Kennedy, and the Cold War turns hot, with near-term nuclear armageddon. Sure, there’s a lot of future events that will get invalidated pretty quickly if he starts acting on what he knows about the future. (How much you want to bet that, in the MCU, Kennedy’s assassination was a Hydra plot?) But he also knows a lot about what happens on other planets, that won’t be effected by any changes he makes on Earth. No amount of smashing Hydra cells on Earth will prevent Thor from being exiled to New Mexico in 2011, for example. And he knows about people and organizations that pre-date the bifurcation of the timeline, but that he didn’t personally encounter until the early 21st century, like the wizards of Kamar Taj. Your second point in particular bothers me, because how is that not a question that applies to literally everything you do, regardless of time travel? How did he know stopping Hydra in Winter Soldier wouldn’t lead to a worse outcome than letting them win? Maybe if he’d let Red Skull win WWII, the Earth would have been in a better position to stop Thanos in 2018? He sure as hell was taking a big risk with the future when he opposed the Sokovia Accords and split the Avengers. Any action you take in any context could potentially have unseen disastrous consequences. This isn’t an argument against meddling the time stream, this is an argument against doing anything, ever. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/363 "2019-05-01T17:30:22Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > What if Captain America just gave the Soul Stone to Hawkeye and Black Widow? Sure you may get a time loop there but it would save a life. But he couldn’t get that Stone until Black Widow died. At best, you would create an alternate timeline. At worst, you create a paradox that rips the multiverse apart. No matter what, Widow will always have had died in our timeline. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/364 "2019-05-01T17:34:00Z")
So when we first saw Thanos in Endgame - armor hung up to make a scarecrow, slowly picking a few vegetables for dinner, painfully making his simple stew - were the Russos trying to present him as a sympathetic character? ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/365 "2019-05-01T17:43:34Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > But he couldn’t get that Stone until Black Widow died. At best, you would create an alternate timeline. At worst, you create a paradox that rips the multiverse apart. No matter what, Widow will always have had died in our timeline. Naw see, it could just go like this: Red Skull: You should know, it extracts a terrible price. Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say, it is a certain wisdom. To ensure that whoever possesses it, understand its power. The stone demands a sacrifice. Clint and Natasha look at each other, they tense up, each preparing to make the sacrifice so the other can have the stone. Suddenly, Captain America flashes in front of them. Captain America: Oh, hey guys. Why don’t you take this? Clint and Natasha look at each other again, they look at Captain America and then over to the Red Skull. Natasha: Yoink! Clint and Natasha run off with the Soul Stone and back to the spaceship while Captain America flashes away to return the next item on his list. Red Skull: Well, nuts… ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/366 "2019-05-01T17:52:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I don’t think Steve is remotely a utilitarian. Also, that logic seems like it leads pretty directly to “Thanos was right,” territory. If adding people to the world is unethical, because they will experience suffering, wouldn’t painlessly snapping them out of existence be an ethical act, since they won’t be able to experience pain anymore? I’m not a utilitarian either. But it doesn’t go into Thanos’ direction: bringing something into being is quite different from ending its existence. In particular, it’s possible to both hold that it’s wrong to bring new life into the world, and that it’s wrong to end existing life (not a position I hold, but not an inconsistent one, either). And I wasn’t talking about the level of individual lives, but about the aggregate. > [@](#): > > Your second point in particular bothers me, because how is that not a question that applies to literally everything you do, regardless of time travel? How did he know stopping Hydra in Winter Soldier wouldn’t lead to a worse outcome than letting them win? It doesn’t apply to literally everything we do because we can’t help but act on the knowledge we have, which is, in our case, exclusively past knowledge. In Cap’s case, that’s not so: he knows that if he doesn’t do anything, then things will come out mostly OK—or at least better than on lots of alternatives, which include, say, total global annihilation. So our choice is always just to make our best possible guess as to bring about things we hope will end up being OK, while Cap’s choice is between options one of which he knows for a fact will turn out mostly OK. There’s a world of difference. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/367 "2019-05-01T17:59:28Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > So when we first saw Thanos in Endgame - armor hung up to make a scarecrow, slowly picking a few vegetables for dinner, painfully making his simple stew - were the Russos trying to present him as a sympathetic character? He was as we found out when we see him, injured. Plus we saw him retiring to the simple life at the end of _Infiniti War_. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/368 "2019-05-01T18:06:34Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > He was as we found out when we see him, injured. > Plus we saw him retiring to the simple life at the end of _Infiniti War_. Sure, but all he does in IW is walk out of the hut & look at the sunset. We don’t find out he’s actually farming his own food, etc. My question is whether the directors were actually trying to make us feel bad for him. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/369 "2019-05-01T18:17:39Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Sure, but all he does in IW is walk out of the hut & look at the sunset. We don’t find out he’s actually farming his own food, etc. My question is whether the directors were actually trying to make us feel bad for him. I think it was to demonstrate that Thanos was getting his ‘reward’ - what he had wanted and what he said he would do after the snap. The only bit that I found ‘redeeming’ at all was Thanos destroying the stones to prevent it occurring again (or however he said it) - but I didn’t see any of it as intending for us to ‘feel bad for him’. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/370 "2019-05-01T18:19:04Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > Sure, but all he does in IW is walk out of the hut & look at the sunset. We don’t find out he’s actually farming his own food, etc. My question is whether the directors were actually trying to make us feel bad for him. I think they were showing that he was no longer a threat or an enemy, mostly to rob the heroes (particularly Thor) of any catharsis for defeating (killing) him. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/371 "2019-05-01T18:20:20Z")
Is anybody else annoyed that when Old Cap returned to the present/main timeline, he didn’t arrive on the portal? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/372 "2019-05-01T18:24:34Z")
> [@simster](#): > > I think it was to demonstrate that Thanos was getting his ‘reward’ - what he had wanted and what he said he would do after the snap. The only bit that I found ‘redeeming’ at all was Thanos destroying the stones to prevent it occurring again (or however he said it) - but I didn’t see any of it as intending for us to ‘feel bad for him’. Except he destroyed the stones so that no one could use them to switch things back, basically. Oh, he SAID to take away the temptation, but the real reason that he obviously had been thinking of for a long time (since earlier Thanos brought it up) was so no one could come along and undo what he had done. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/373 "2019-05-01T18:26:33Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Except he destroyed the stones so that no one could use them to switch things back, basically. Oh, he SAID to take away the temptation, but the real reason that he obviously had been thinking of for a long time (since earlier Thanos brought it up) was so no one could come along and undo what he had done. good point. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/374 "2019-05-01T18:27:09Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Is anybody else annoyed that when Old Cap returned to the present/main timeline, he didn’t arrive on the portal? No. Why would he? He used the Pim particles to basically spin off a new timeline where he could have a life with the love of his life, then, probably when she died, he used (the last? He had 6 vials I think, though he could obviously get more) one to come back to our timeline. As he didn’t need a portal to enter those other ones, he didn’t need one to re-join ours, unless he wanted to come back at a precise moment. There are a lot of things they play fast and loose with in these movies. This one didnt’ even get on my radar. YMMV of course. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/375 "2019-05-01T18:28:37Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I think they were showing that he was no longer a threat or an enemy, mostly to rob the heroes (particularly Thor) of any catharsis for defeating (killing) him. Ah, thank you. That makes a ton of sense. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/376 "2019-05-01T18:29:28Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Is anybody else annoyed that when Old Cap returned to the present/main timeline, he didn’t arrive on the portal? No, because, as I interpreted the scene, he wasn’t “returning” to the present through the quantum realm – he was arriving at that moment in the scene from having lived through the previous 70 years. Presumably, he’d driven to the area near the destroyed Avengers base, and then walked over to the bench, for the appropriate moment when Bruce, Bucky, and Sam realized that he wasn’t coming back through the portal. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/377 "2019-05-01T18:33:38Z")
> [@XT](#): > > > [@begbert2](#): > > > > Is anybody else annoyed that when Old Cap returned to the present/main timeline, he didn’t arrive on the portal? > > No. Why would he? He used the Pim particles to basically spin off a new timeline where he could have a life with the love of his life, then, probably when she died, he used (the last? He had 6 vials I think, though he could obviously get more) one to come back to our timeline. As he didn’t need a portal to enter those other ones, he didn’t need one to re-join ours, unless he wanted to come back at a precise moment. > > There are a lot of things they play fast and loose with in these movies. This one didnt’ even get on my radar. YMMV of course. 🙂 He didn’t need the portal because he just lived the years in between when he went back in time and when they sent him back in time. He just then had to travel to that location to meet them. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/378 "2019-05-01T18:36:21Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > He didn’t need the portal because he just lived the years in between when he went back in time and when they sent him back in time. He just then had to travel to that location to meet them. I don’t think so. At least, if that was the case, then it would break what they were saying earlier. Basically, if you change anything in the past you spin off a new timeline. Cap going back to have a life with Sharon Carter would spin off a new, completely different timeline that would not intersect with ours. If he wanted to give the shield to Falcon from our timeline and have his good bye moment, he had to use the time suit and Pim particles to jump to our reality. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/379 "2019-05-01T18:37:49Z")
Just to post again, per the Russos: > [@](#): > > Q: Did Captain America’s action at the end affect the timeline? Does that mean there was a time where two CA existed in a same universe? > > A: To me, CA’s action in the end wasn’t the fact he wanted to change anything, it’s more like he has made a choice. He chose to go back to past and lived with the one he loved for the rest of his life. The time travel in this movie created an alternate reality. He lived a completely different life in that world. We don’t know how exactly his life turned out, but I’d like to believe he still helped many others when they were needed in that world. Yes, there were two CA in that reality, it’s just like what Hulk said, what happened in the past has already happened. If you go back to past, you simply create a new reality. The characters in this movie created a new timeline when they went back to the past, but it had no effect to the prime universe. What happened in the past 22 movies was still canon. > > Q: EG’s plot, is it a parallel universe or a closed time loop? > > A: Nope, not a time loop. Both Ancient One and Hulk were right. You can’t change the future by simply going back to the past. But it’s possible to create a different alternate future. It’s not a butterfly effect. Every decision you made in the past could potentially create a new timeline. For example, the old Cap at the end movie, he lived his married life in a different universe from the main one. **He had to make another jump back to the main universe at the end to give the shield to Sam**. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2019, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981/380 "2019-05-01T18:43:06Z")
> [@AlsoNamedBort](#): > > Just to post again, per the Russos: Exactly. I hadn’t seen this before, but glad the folks doing the movie stayed consistent. It also opens up a whole bunch of things they could do. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if this lets them bring in the X-Men, or Fantastic 4, or have a whole new timeline with Loki and, perhaps, even be able to have those converge or some cross over using the Pim particles and suits to access parallel realities. They already touched on this with the Spiderverse and have put in the hooks for it in this movie specifically. Since I always liked the multi-worlds and multiverse concepts, I think it’s fairly cool. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/avengers-endgame-seen-it-thread-spoilers-ahoy/832981.md?page=20)