"It was Steve Rogers All Along" is more of a 'Word of God' explanation than it is a personal interpretation of events.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
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It's an interpretation of the writer's intent, not the directors' nor the producer's. That's why I clarified what canon was a while back so everyone is in agreement that canon (although some people don't want to use that word) is what is on screen. Everything beyond that is someone's interpretation.
I was wondering why it looked so weird.
He's Schrodinger's Captain America, until another movie gives a definitive answer he's both livinging in an alternate timeline and living in the Sacred Timeline.OMG--- I laugh in your general direction!
All of you are being pretty hilarious. There is no reason why any one interpretation of this film is definitive until something on screen in the future proves otherwise. Why does everyone have the need to have their personal theory validated only by other people agreeing with them?
Personally I prefer the alternate timeline possibility since it, 1) lines up better with the time travel rules established earlier from the movie, and 2) it's the directors' preferred interpretation and with movies directors are have the final say on creative decisions like that.
That second sentence is a contradiction in terms. "Multiple realities" is just another way of saying "multiple timelines." There are multiple labels used in fiction -- alternate timelines, parallel universes, quantum realities, timestreams, etc. -- but they all mean the same thing. Vernacular is far less precise than scientific terminology, so having two words for a thing doesn't mean they're different things. (Heck, even Many-Worlds quantum theory has more than one term for them, including "measurement histories" and "observational realms.")
And the "Sacred Timeline" was artificial. That was the whole point of Loki season 1. There's nothing "sacred" about it -- it's just that it's the timeline where He Who Remains existed, so HWR created the TVA to artificially "prune" all the other timelines to prevent the rival Kangs from existing, and he created the fiction of the Sacred Timeline as propaganda to convince the TVA that they were doing the right thing rather than committing genocide on a horrific scale. As we saw in episode 1 of Loki, the TVA promptly pruned the branch Loki created when he disappeared with the Tesseract, and presumably did the same with the other alternate branches created in the movie (sorry, Alternate Ancient One). Once the pruning was stopped, the multiverse reverted to its natural state of having many branching timelines.
Except, again, a single timeline cannot be changed; a change will branch off a separate timeline. So if Steve was part of the "Sacred Timeline" all along, it wouldn't be a change, it would be the way it had always been, and thus he would have had no reason to "preserve" it by not intervening. Looked at another way, nothing he could do would possibly erase it, only create a parallel branch alongside it, so there'd be no reason not to change things for the better in that parallel branch. So that logic doesn't apply to this model of time travel. You're making the mistake of applying the BS "history changing" logic you've been conditioned by fiction to expect to the more plausible consistent-history theory of Endgame, and that leads to a nonsensical conclusion.
"It was Steve Rogers All Along" is what ended up onscreen, as was intended by Markus and McFeeley, the Russo Brothers' differing interpretation notwithstanding.
This is a completely backwards way of looking at it.
If the single timeline interpretation is true, then it follows by every description in the movie that he could not change his own past no matter what he chose to do because he - and all his choices - were always a part of the single timeline.
Therefore there is no problem whatsoever with his characterization because there is absolutely no reason to assume he just sat around and did nothing while all the bad stuff we know about happened.
He undoubtedly told Peggy everything and worked with her - under a different name, obviously - to make the world as safe as they could. But they also undoubtedly had to make choices about which threats and problems to prioritize (which Steve Rogers absolutely would choose to do as fairly and righteously as possible, even if that meant his best friend got the short end of the stick because other innocent people were in even worse danger) and they also undoubtedly could not just perfectly fix everything just because they wanted to (rooting out Hydra out of Shield, for instance, could've been a far more political affair than anything solvable with action and heroism and if Hydra had the right backing, Peggy and Steve may not have been able to do more than limit Hydra's maneuvering room and lay the foundation for Fury to eventually take them down). They even could have actually fixed some things only for them to be undone later on (they might've actually believed they'd ended Hydra only for someone to rebuild it after they retired, or they might've actually rescued Bucky only for Hydra to recapture him).
In the video you see multiple realities; however, they all go in the same direction with only minor variations. The Steve at the end of the movie could be from a slightly different timeline but since all timelines are almost the same it really makes no difference in the end because he is essentially the same Steve Rogers.
Whatever can this mean?
The multiverse in fiction has been kind of limited, anyway, in order to focus the audience. Multiverse of Madness, at least, did show a little bit of what is actually possible, with universes that have totally different laws of physics to ours.
But the fundamental idea behind it is that divergent timelines are created with every new possibility, with every choice, with every option. That means there's an uncountable amount of new timelines born every single moment, even if we were just considering those concerning Earth.
That moment in Loki, when the Multiverse returns, and we see that screen with the new timelines diverging from the Sacred Timeline, that was in order to not overwhelm the audience, to more easily communicate visually what was happening. Because, really, that should have been an explosion of new timelines.
As for possible diverging timelines during Endgame, I think it is important to remember that the events of the Loki TV show happen mostly outside of the proper space/time continuum. Therefore, the reestablishing of diverging timelines could easily be considered already in effect during the events of Endgame, even with that Loki just escaping.
But the fundamental idea behind it is that divergent timelines are created with every new possibility, with every choice, with every option. That means there's an uncountable amount of new timelines born every single moment, even if we were just considering those concerning Earth.
That moment in Loki, when the Multiverse returns, and we see that screen with the new timelines diverging from the Sacred Timeline, that was in order to not overwhelm the audience, to more easily communicate visually what was happening. Because, really, that should have been an explosion of new timelines.
As for possible diverging timelines during Endgame, I think it is important to remember that the events of the Loki TV show happen mostly outside of the proper space/time continuum. Therefore, the reestablishing of diverging timelines could easily be considered already in effect during the events of Endgame, even with that Loki just escaping.
I'm not sure I understand the idea that "old man Steve" changed the timeline. The way I see it is he was always there, keeping a low profile under a fake name.
Some aspects of The Winter Soldier arguably go against this, but Peggy had advanced Alzheimer's at that point, and just might have forgotten at that moment that they had spent an entire life together.
Some aspects of The Winter Soldier arguably go against this, but Peggy had advanced Alzheimer's at that point, and just might have forgotten at that moment that they had spent an entire life together.
Which annoyed me, because that's not how alternate timelines work, and a lot of them were just silly.
Well, the multiverse theory in physics just says that the universe is a superposition of multiple probability states; it doesn't say that every single possible state is required to exist. I mean, the idea that the universe splits with every choice doesn't make sense, since most choices are not simple coin flips. There's usually a reason for preferring one choice over another. For instance, if you have a reason to turn left at an intersection (because that's the way to your destination), it's illogical to think that you'd gratuitously turn right in an alternate timeline. And many choices are constrained by initial conditions; even if you might want to choose to do a certain thing, it might not be possible to. So the number of possible alternate realities is probably finite, and splits don't necessarily happen with every choice.
(Although in quantum theory, the splits happen due to quantum-level events on the subatomic level, and human decision has nothing to do with it because it's a classical-scale process. But fiction makes it about decisions because fiction is about people rather than particles.)
Well, it's meaningless to talk about a "before and after" causality when talking about time travel, which enables effects to precede causes. The idea in Loki was that once the TVA was stopped from pruning timelines, the proliferation of timelines happened throughout time and had always been there -- which is how the multiverse can include "old" timelines like those of the past X-Men and Spider-Man movies.
The point of the Endgame theory, again, is that you cannot change a single timeline. Physics and logic say that's an impossibility, and the makers of the film chose to adopt a physically plausible model because it suited their narrative needs (to take a past Thanos and Gamora out of time without erasing their actions in previous movies), and perhaps just because they wanted to do it right for a change instead of settling for the cliche. So there's no reason for a time traveler to "keep a low profile" to avoid changing anything. He can't change anything. Either he was in the original past all along and his actions were a natural part of it, or he's in a parallel timeline and his actions can't affect the original one. Either way, there's no reason to inhibit his actions. So since there was no evidence of his actions in the past of the original timeline, he must have been in an alternate one. That's the only interpretation that's compatible with Endgame's time travel logic.
nope.
Actually, yes.
Actually, no.
Yes to either he's in an alternate timeline or he was always in the past all along.
No to 'since there's no evidence he was in the past all along he *must* have been in an alternate timeline'. There's 'no evidence' because that part of the past was deliberately never shown. You can't just assume it must look like what you think it should look like and then use that assumption as proof you're right to think that.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and all that
Except for the rules laid out perfectly clear by Banner in the movie itself. The action of simply going into the past to meet up with Peggy would have created an alternate timeline. It doesn't matter whether or not he changes anything. The simple fact that he's there creates the alternate timeline.
Banner was wrong in his understanding of the mechanic functionality of time travel.
Its really that simple, and Steve doing what he did is the proof.
Here's what happened:
Steve went into the past, married Carter, and they were happy together.
That's the story. It's a great end to a great saga.
Timelines don't fucking matter. Not even a wee bit.
Oh, BTW, Steve can be Captain America back in them days if he wants to be, too. Who knows how far back, exactly, he decided to go?
Steve went into the past, married Carter, and they were happy together.
That's the story. It's a great end to a great saga.
Timelines don't fucking matter. Not even a wee bit.
Oh, BTW, Steve can be Captain America back in them days if he wants to be, too. Who knows how far back, exactly, he decided to go?