Doctor Strange and His 13,999,999 Mistakes
By: Charlie “the professor” Esser
Thirteen million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine futures Stephen Strange saw, and only one, only one, where the heroes save the universe in whole.
Thirteen million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine out of infinity.
That’s right, that is out of every possible outcome for the universe, of which there are literally a quintillion quintillion quintillion more, (that’s not even counting the ones were there are only subtle quantum mechanical differences between them). So what is Stephen looking at? What choices is he using as his starting point to observe these 13,999,999 possible outcomes?
He can’t be looking at every option (again so many will be simply ones were a single photon spun left vs. right) he is looking at the choices he might make to safeguard the time stone. Each universe he is looking at isn’t based on choices of Star Lord or Iron Man or even Drax. He is looking at his choices.
Why do we think this? Well look at him as he contemplates what is going to happen. We see Dr. Strange moving out of sync, back and forth, observing the actions he might make to perform his duty as the sorcerer supreme of the universe, and keeping his vow to protect the time stone at any cost, including, logically, the cost of half the universe. He could be watching every possible plan that he, Tony, Nebula, Drax, or, Peter, come up with, but he isn’t going to have time for all that. Each choice you make, each option you follow, it’s going to lead to another quintillion possibilities as going left or right can make all the difference in the universe, littereally.
We’ve only got 13,999,999 options to go through, which when you start to break it out is a ridiculously small amount of options. Remember we know from Endgame that Dr. Strange could leave at any time, and quite frankly, isn’t that the first reality he is going to explore? Not only can Dr. Strange Leave at any moment, he can bring in others for the fight.
So that is what he is exploring, he is seeing if he runs, where can he hide? If he brings in other heroes, who should he bring, and what happens to the rest of the universe while he is recruiting? If he brings in the earth heroes to Titans, does that bring the rest of Thanos’ army to Titan? More to the point, what does a world without heroes means to all the thousands of threats we know are at play throughout the planet and the Universe?
We see in Endgame that without the stones, both Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel are both significant threats to Thanos, but this is a Thanos with four of six infinity stones. He can leap out on a whim if the battle turns against him, and has nearly infinite strength from the power stone, he can alter reality (at least in a limited space) at a whim, as powerful as even the most powerful characters are (Mantis is clearly far more powerful than people think, but that’s another theory) with three stones, it is likely that there was no way to defeat Thanos on Titan.
Which leaves 13 million odd other ways to run away. At the end of the day, Thanos has no interest in any other hero but Strange and Vision. If Stephen runs, Thanos could follow, or come to earth early to get his stone (and his team is already there). Once he has five of the six stones, it is just a game of hide and chase for Stephen. Really, once Dr. Strange leaves the planet, Thanos can just leave Tony and his team on Titan to starve. Meanwhile Stephen has no choice but to run, everywhere and anywhere, avoiding Thanos, while also fending off Dormammu or Mephisto or any number of other cosmic entities seeking to break through.
In the end, that leaves Stephen with only his last trick, coming to bargain.
He knows, that the heroes will likely fail. Nothing against the heroes, but it is Thanos. He also knows that once the snap occurs, it will be almost impossible to reverse. Interestingly enough, he also likely knows that once Thanos snaps, Thanos will be done. He’ll destroy the stones, and retire, and eventually get dealt with by Thor. And then the real threat to the universe occurs.
See, remember Dormammu? He’s still out there, so is (if not canonically) Mephisto, Nightmare, etc. The most powerful weapon in the Sorcerers’ arsenal is gone, unless, it can be brought back.
Now, he likely knows, given enough time, Scott will avoid the snap, and statistically, it is likely that within five years, that rat is going to wander across the control panel (Film Theorist Crunched the numbers on this), and drop him off in the future.
That’s going to lead to time travel, yadda yadda yadda, and then comes, the thirteen million mistakes that Stephen made again, and again, and again. Without giving up the stone, there is no way that the Avengers could ever reclaim the stones. Everytime they would go back, they’d have no way to convince the ancient one to give up the stone without knowing Stephen gave the stone away.
And Stephen in thirteen million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine universes, Stephen fought to his last breath, and then lost. While delaying the inevitable might have lead to a number of possible victories, the final victory could only be achieved if they were able to bring back all six stones to reverse the snap.
Stephen had to make the choice that worked against everything he believed he was supposed to do, and that was the hardest choice to make. Once made though, the story would progress. The Scott comes back at some point, Time Travel gets invented (again, since the Agents had time travel last season anyway) and the only way to convince the Ancient One, is to make sure she knows, that this was the one way it worked, and in doing so, convince her that it would work.
Now obviously in the infinite number of realities out there, in at least one, Thor went for the head. But counting on that Universe to come into being is a big risk. Really, when Dr. Strange says there is only one way he is saying there was only one universe where he made the right choice at the right time, because that was the only thing he could control. He could only see his own actions, he could see what he had to do to save the universe. And once his choice is made, the universe will unfold, and really, Tony asking if this was the one, and Stephen saying if he told him it wouldn’t be, was really just Stephen saying I have no idea, but I’m not going to shake your faith that we can win this.
And the real secret story of Infinity War and Endgame is Doctor Strange learning that he can’t protect the universe alone. He needs a team, he needs other heroes, he needs the Avengers, and most importantly he needs to drag out the fight long enough for Scott to fall into the quantum realm.
And once Scott does fall into the quantum realm, and once Stephen gets over himself and realizes you can’t always win by yourself, but you can always rise again, you and your team, and then maybe you can win. that’s when Dr. Strange truly becomes the greatest of us all, as the Ancient One said. That’s when he truly becomes and Avenger, and that is the Endgame.