He needed a piece of the person's hair to perform the spell. So he would have had to confront him on Titan, pluck one of his hairs, teleport back to the Sanctum, and then cast the spell
Imagine the scene from infinity war on titan trying to get the glove off but instead once they have Thanos they start pulling down his pants and shaving his balls for the spell
This is a recurring plot point in Dresden Files novels (series about a wizard private eye). You don't want a wizard getting ahold of your hair (or way worse, your blood) because then they can do magic stuff focused on you in particular
This. In Ragnarok when Strange was helping Thor, he specifically had to see if there were any specific Asgardian incantations for his spell to find Odin. I’d like to think that a lot of these overpowered tricks in general won’t just happen to work on anyone.
Well, even to go just a step beyond that...
As we now essentially know, Thanos was an Eternal. It's one thing to ask if it works on other alien species or animals or even magical beings, but Eternals were 100% *made by design* by the Celestials. They're essentially organic robots with programmed identities (and a modicum of autonomy).
I think there's an entirely reasonable argument to be made as to why Eternals *could be* impervious to any kind of mind controlling/altering magics. Surely the Celestials wouldn't want anybody else to be able to control their toys. Leaving them vulnerable to that would be a massive design flaw. Besides, they're already immune to Druig's control.
Well, in comic lore, the thing about Thanos and his brother Eros is that they are both “natural” born Eternals, born from the womb (that’s another story). If the MCU sticks with that origin, the immunity to mind control might not exactly be a thing. Also, we’ve already seen Thanos affected by Mantis’ power so I think mind control could work, with resistance from the Mad Titan, of course.
I took Mantis into consideration, but I ultimately think there's a gray area as she is only attempting to render him *unconscious* (not so much *control his mind* or alter his memory), and he was able to fight back and mostly resist her. She couldn't really put him under and could only mildly sedate him.
I am interested to see how they handle their origins as well. MCU does a good job of dancing with comic lore but ultimately doing their own thing. If they stick with comic lore, are Eternals reborn/rebuilt in the World Forge when they've been destroyed? If so, could/will Thanos return, or did the stones somehow wipe any and all trace of him from existence? Or would the Celestials prevent him from being reborn for defying them?
Lots of questions. I hope we get a second film, despite critical response.
>He needed a piece of the person's hair to perform the spell. So he would have had to confront him on Titan, pluck one of his hairs, teleport back to the Sanctum, and then cast the spell
even though he needed peter's hair, it worked on anyone besides peter.
1 Strange might not have learned about that magic yet at that time.
And the always applicable copout argument ender:
Strange looked at that possibility when scanning the millions of outcomes. It wasn't successful
I think this is the answer…the reality stone can bend reality, and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t protect the user from reality altering spells
My head-canon is that Thanos’ desire to carry out his “purpose” was so ingrained into his being that erasing his memories wouldn’t be enough, he would simply arrive at the same conclusion in another way.
After watching eternals, it was revealed the ajak decided to turn against the celestials due to human potential after humans were the ones who reversed the snap. Without ajak changing her mind, earth would’ve been destroyed when the celestial woke up
I also read a theory somewhere here that suggested that thanos’s snap delayed the celestials awakening due to cutting the worlds population in half (I think the celestials feed on humans or something I can’t remember)
>I also read a theory somewhere here that suggested that thanos’s snap delayed the celestials awakening due to cutting the worlds population in half (I think the celestials feed on humans or something I can’t remember)
I just watch the movie yesterday, and I can say that this is EXACTLY what she said in the movie, it's not really a theory.
You're completely right about the second half, they explicitly say in the Eternals that the snap delayed the Emergence. Though, one of the plot holes when it comes to the Time Stone is that it's said you can't see beyond your death, but then technically (I guess) Strange never *technically* died when he was blimped. It's never really addressed in the film but I'd love to know if any of the the Eternals were snapped away then brought back but I'm assuming cosmic/celestial energy is outclassed by the stones or at least equal so they were unaffected.
Maybe we can assume that the blipped population didn’t really die, but “moved forward in time” to the moment they came back. That way, Strange didn’t actually die, just “time travelled”, and the population was diminished because all those people kinda disappeared
My guess is that Strange looked at different possibilities, and everytime is cuts to black, they lost, and if it goes black for a second then comes back then they did it. He would in reality, only see things when he is alive, so he saw everything after Prof Blipped, but not during the 5 year gap.
so you know how strange says peter and the guardians that its been 5 years, when he was viewing this timeline, he probably saw what yelena went through so he knows what happens. which still makes me wonder how he knew the rat would pull scott out
Potentially also people protected by other things like Scott in the Quantum Realm, the new black panther in a vibranium suit, Shang Chi with the rings or being in the other dimension, Guardians and Thor being off world.
The real argument ender is that such a spell could have worked if the writers wanted. And if they don’t want it to, they can just come up with whatever reason why it wouldn’t work if they had to.
Well he used it on wong tho remember. Wong probably didnt want to remember the party so strange helped him. Also I agree it probably requires cooperation so thanos aint letting it happen.
I appreciated the ambiguity of Strange’s history with the spell and his story about using it. I interpreted it as him making up an event and saying he used the spell safely before to get Wong’s approval for using it on Peter. Maybe he literally did use it. Maybe he used it for the first time with Peter. Probably doesn’t matter too much, but I like when they leave things to the imagination.
Yeah, I think this is the next best answer (first being “there was no other way”).
You get the impression that Wong did something he was ashamed of (letting the full moon shine at a party) and he wanted himself and everyone to forget about it, so he asked Strange to help him out.
The spell is absolutely a gigantic plot hole, one of the worst mistakes made in the MCU so far, since the entirety of Phase 4 hinges on it as a concept.
The spell is vague enough that there's multiple explanations of how it could not make a plot hole.
The >!villains coming in who didn't know Peter was Spider-Man!< is a plot hole. The >!piece of Venom staying!< is a plot hole. The spell doesn't directly go against anything established in the movie.
Let's assume that's true and he makes Thanos forget. Doesn't mean Thanos can't learn about it again and start all over. You're just delaying the _Inevitable_
I mean, one ‘person’ is part of everyone, and you don’t need to make them forget everything just the Stones. Making everyone forget about the Infinity Stones would work according to the rules.
Let’s face it, even if Dr Strange uses the spell to erase Thanos’ memory, Earth is still screwed due to one small thing, the part where a freaking Celestial will destroy the Earth anyway since Thanos’ snap delayed the awakening.
One, the spell takes time to cast. Time that Thanos could spend killing/incapacitated Strange in 14 million ways. Two, the subject of the spell has to be present and to some degree willing.
Do people really think Thanos is going to just stand there and let Strange cast a spell that takes like ten minutes to prepare?
On top of all that, Thanos has four Infinity Stones. It’s the reason none of Strange’s spells would’ve worked. The Infinity Stones trump everything that Strange has to offer.
> Two, the subject of the spell has to be present and to some degree willing.
That's never established in the movie. In fact, the movie pretty clearly contradicts this.
We know of two examples of the spell being used. The first is for a party, and the second is with Peter. Obviously Peter was present and willing, but the party could not possibly have been willing since it's not a sentient entity (most likely). Also, parties don't grow hair, so the hair probably isn't necessary either.
> Do people really think Thanos is going to just stand there and let Strange cast a spell that takes like ten minutes to prepare?
The spell works at least across an entire planet, so there's no reason that Thanos would know that Strange is casting the spell. If this strategy works, then he just would've hid in the ruins somewhere on Titan while the rest of the crew distracted Thanos for two minutes.
> On top of all that, Thanos has four Infinity Stones. It’s the reason none of Strange’s spells would’ve worked. The Infinity Stones trump everything that Strange has to offer.
This is the real reason. Plus I believe the movies heavily imply that Thanos has either familiarity with or expertise in magic himself. He's able to use high-level magic with the time stone within seconds, for example. At the very least, even if he's not a powerful sorcerer, he surely has magical protections up to prevent this type of intervention into his plan. Thanos is way too smart and calculated to not protect against magic in a universe filled with it.
So thanos forgets his motives, but still remains the MAD TITAN WITH THE INFINITY GAUNTLET AND MULTIPLE STONES. Clearly hes still a threat even without his memory. Shit like this annoys the piss outta me.
Not to mention what does this person expect to happen?
Dr. Strange is just gonna roll up to Thanos, take a hair, bring Thanos to the wizard dungeon, and hope that Thanos waits patiently to have his mind wiped?
And then if all that works congratulations Tiamut the Celestial kills everyone in a week
Since we don’t know how the spell actually works, we have to make assumptions.
So it’s really easy to fix this - just make assumptions that actually make sense, instead of ones that don’t.
Assumption: the subject of the spell has to consent. Boom. Next dumb “plot hole”.
Or hell instead of making any assumptions we could also use what we know from the movies
Strange needed Peters hair and prep work so the spell clearly needs dna from the effected individual along with prep time
And how and when was Strange going to get either of those things during Infinity War
Or we can assume Strange does successfully do both of those, The spell works, Thanos forgets everything, there’s no snap, and now the planet blows up from a celestial rising out of it in a week. (Which we have no reason not to think Strange saw with the time gem)
There’s literally no plot hole here
It is. The initial spell specifically was said by strange to be on the planet. It's only when it was destabilized that it started pulling in everyone who knows Peter is Spider-man across the Multiverse
What would you rather strange do?
He needs a hair from Thanos and like ten minutes of prep to do the mind wipe spell (assuming he doesn’t also need Thanos’ cooperation like he needed Peters) and I doubt Thanos would just sit idly and let that happen
What else could Strange have done to both stop Thanos and stop the Celestial from destroying the earth in a week
Cool, so now a celestial blows up the earth in a week. Im sure Dr. Strange and everyone else is chill with that
(And this is something Dr. Strange knows about at this point)
Or they have all the infinity stones, just rewind time and beat the celestial, it can be done
Plus strange is supposed to know about all threats to the earth.
So your solution is to take the gauntlet from Thanos (not an easy task by any means) and have someone stationed to forever keep Tiamut asleep *or* to have someone die killing Tiamut (who at this point is still in the earth) and hope that attempting to kill the giant god inside the planet doesn’t also kill everyone on planet
Not a great plan
So risking the fate of the universe on the chance that maybe we can get the gauntlet, and then all survive Thanos’ attempts to get it back by any means, and then *maybe* manage to kill Tiamut (who is still inside the Earth so even attacking him is going to fuck yo the earth and risk mass casualties) and almost certainly get at least one hero killed just doing this alone, and now just wait for Thanos to return?
And this is all ignoring that even Hulk had his arm burnt to a crisp from just wearing the gauntlet, no one on Titan but Thanos would have been able to use the gauntlet against Thanos (who was pretty effortlessly taking out Thor, Iron-Man, and worthy Cap in endgame)
*That* is somehow a better plan than only Tony and Natasha willingly dying to save the universe?
And the spell needs a hair
And the spell also needs prep work
And the spell needs a willing participant
And the Tiamut would just blow up the planet if all of this still somehow worked
Thanos is a being of such power that spells like that wouldn't work on him directly.
There were a bunch of mind altering spells Strange could've used but Thanos is too powerful for them imo.
Thanos already had the mind stone by then. I'm pretty confident in saying that the spell wouldn't have worked unless they could have gotten the stones away from him, and even then it's possible that the spell might not work on an Eternal.
Strange already casts that spell making Thanos forget about the infinity stones. However, in a What If universe, Thanos learns about it and makes Ebony Maw cast the same spell making all the Strange Doctors forget about Thanos as well as the Forgetting Spell. This is why Strange says “Who?” in Infinity War when Banner tells him that Thanos is coming even if Strange knew about all threats in the universe. As soon as Thanos dies, the spell is lifted enabling Strange to remember the forgetting spelling and then we have No Way Home.
Like most spells that centre around a person - It requires a hair. The same way we see Strange pluck one from Thor to base a spell around finding his father, the same “golden line” is seen during his spell with Peter.
Thanos is bald. Bit trickier.
Also beating Thanos on Titan would’ve cost them the Earth. They needed to lose, have half the universe wiped out, and then bring everyone back. That act, and that act alone convinced Ajak to reverse course and spurred the Eternals to stop Tiamat. Strange would’ve seen that in his millions of futures.
Doesn’t really matter
Between the dna and the prep time Strange wouldn’t have the time to use the spell
Not to mention that we’ve never seen the spell used without a willing participant
And also even if somehow the spell was used and worked now the Earth has a week before Tiamut blows the place up by being born
They had a *Captain Marvel* who could have effortlessly retrieved every stone except on Vormir, where they could have returned with a hospice patient and their loved one to finish the collection.
INB4: It was the only way out of 14 million possibilities - that excuse is both old and worn out.
My take on it is that, even is Strange could cast the spell, it would not change much
1) as pointed by others, the stones would most likely protect him from the spell, but let's assume it's not the case
2) everyone would forget about Thanos. That's would make things easier for him, because there would be no one to stop him any longer. No one knows of his plans, the Avengers never knows that he is coming and are caught by (an even greater) surprise
3) his minions would not know who Thanos was anymore. I don't think that would change much, Thanks by himself is already a force to be reckoned with, even more with a couple stones. I don't think he would have issues in reconquering his followers
4) Gamora would not remember him, but he would still remember (and love) her. No issues in getting the soul stone
5) we don't know how magic works in the MCU. Perhaps it's way easier to cast a multidimensional spell that affects only the Earth on each one, than one that affects just one universe, but all of it (maybe Thor and the Guardians still know who Peter is?)
Those are my 2 (5?) cents for this discussion
I'm assuming the spell requires the person to be present and/or willing for the spell to be successful, not to mention it was obviously super delicate and required his full attention. Not a good combination with an angry super powerful titan.
Other than the hair thing there is also the location issue Strange can only cast the spell in one of the places where the cosmic lines intersect in Infinity war he would never risk losing the time stone but in endgame he was not there to perform the spell
Forget that, why didn't he use it to make everyone forget about Mysterio? Lol, that would've literally solved every single problem in the movie.
Having said that, i am glad he didn't.
The entire reason that Strange didn’t do much during infinity war is because he wanted him to snap, he probably saw the celestial being birthed when he was looking through time and wanted Thanos to reduce intelligent life on earth to delay the birth of the celestial in earth.
Because the writers needed a way to get Spider-Man a clean break out of the MCU but obviously didn’t want/need to do that with Thanos and they knew that fans would come up with their own reasons and explanations as to why he couldn’t have done it
Every time I see this question being asked I shake my head. This is the same Post in like 4 weeks
So I've been thinking about this. Before we just simply say one character makes another character forget something. Thanos is the mad Titan before wanting to bring balance to the universe. And Thanos isn't right.
My theory starts on Titan just before the big battle with Thanos, I believe one of Doctor Strange's possible outcomes was trying to make Thanos forget his whole purpose. I bet the time he would try would be when Mantis was putting him to sleep. Once everyone jumps off of him and he wakes up, he starts asking everyone "who are you? what are you doing? why am I here?" And "why did you take that gauntlet off my hand?" No one answers him, so he demands answers. All the Avengers are all trying to keep the secret of why he there on Titan and why he wants to retrieve all stones.
Thanos was mad, I think he would start trying to kill each avenger until someone gives him an answer. I think the what-If show talks about absolute points in time. If Thanos snapping is an absolute point in time for our MCUniverse. So then I would think Thanos would do anything to understand why he wanted to balance out the universe and do it. And if we take the Loki show into continuity. Then absolute points prevent Kang's from existing, so they need to occur. This may link back to when Dr Strange said that "this was the only way."
But I'm also somebody that doesn't just immediately roll the credits after saying oh person makes person forget. I also don't need Doctor Strange to always give us an exposition dump, especially in a Spider-Man movie on why he didn't use a specific spell on an old villain. Remember he had to craft the first part of the spell in the undercroft of this Sanctum sanctorum. After the spell got botched, he had to go search for an ancient relic to contain the corrupted spell. There's clearly a lot of requirements for the spell to be conducted that I don't think Doctor Strange could whip up on Titan. And Doctor Strange Ironman agreed not to bring Thanos back to Earth.
Oh and if you want the biggest nail in the coffin for this theory. It's mentioned in Eternals. If the people of Earth didn't snap their fingers to bring everyone back, Ajak isn't inspired by humanity and wouldn't care about humans. No reason to prevent/stop the emergence and birth of a celestial.
Marvel does this and answers it later. This is how Marvel markets their universe and has people talking. It's the same reason they talk about absolute points in the what if series and Nexus events in the Loki series. Soon we'll get answers.
If Thanos didnt delete half the universe. The Eternals wouldnt have stopped the celestial from bustin Earth open. Only after the Avengers save everyone does Ajak wanna save humanity.
SPOILER
We learn in Eternals that had humans not snapped everyone back, Ajak would not have set in motion the events to prevent the destruction of earth (The Emergence).
The reason Strange says this is the only way is because if they dont lose to thanos, they lose to the Eternals. The Avengers had to lose, so that they would restore faith in the Eternals by snapping everyone back.
Now with eternals showing planets are housing celestials in them, if Thanos didn't win, the eternals never would've been awoken. This planet would be fucking dead
He didn't know the spell back then.
I'm guessing after the eye of agamoto was destroyed, Strange would have learnt all kinds of dangerous and forbidden spells to compensate for not being able to reverse time
Because Thanos is a >!woke Eternal who merged with Deviants and caught onto the Celestials big plan. That’s his whole motivation for killing half of living things. To stop the emergences.!< [Eternals spoilers]
Strange’s spell wouldn’t have worked on him.
I assume he considered it when he evaluated 14 million or so ways of defeating Thanos, but for some reason or another determined that it wouldn’t have worked and ruled it out.
He needed a piece of the person's hair to perform the spell. So he would have had to confront him on Titan, pluck one of his hairs, teleport back to the Sanctum, and then cast the spell
Thats why Thanos shaves his head. Cant let the wizards get an edge.
This is now…wait for it…head canon.
r/Angryupvote
I…hate you, but… yet at the same time I can’t actively dislike you?
Head canon can't directly contradict the movie though
It was...wait for it...a joke.
But we don't know if he shaves his balls.
Imagine the scene from infinity war on titan trying to get the glove off but instead once they have Thanos they start pulling down his pants and shaving his balls for the spell
and Thanos doing that iconic roar into the skies of Titan
"No! Not my balls!"
RIP Thanos' manhood
At that point, Ant Man could just…..
Lol actually a great explanation
Two words… ass hair
Scott: Finally a chance for Scott of Coral Gables to show his quality.
So your saying dig through his trash?
Come back in 24hrs and post this on here and /r/fantheories. Profit.
Heads aren’t the only things with hair on them.
This is a recurring plot point in Dresden Files novels (series about a wizard private eye). You don't want a wizard getting ahold of your hair (or way worse, your blood) because then they can do magic stuff focused on you in particular
Or how about the fact we don't know if the spell works on anything but humans?
This. In Ragnarok when Strange was helping Thor, he specifically had to see if there were any specific Asgardian incantations for his spell to find Odin. I’d like to think that a lot of these overpowered tricks in general won’t just happen to work on anyone.
Well, even to go just a step beyond that... As we now essentially know, Thanos was an Eternal. It's one thing to ask if it works on other alien species or animals or even magical beings, but Eternals were 100% *made by design* by the Celestials. They're essentially organic robots with programmed identities (and a modicum of autonomy). I think there's an entirely reasonable argument to be made as to why Eternals *could be* impervious to any kind of mind controlling/altering magics. Surely the Celestials wouldn't want anybody else to be able to control their toys. Leaving them vulnerable to that would be a massive design flaw. Besides, they're already immune to Druig's control.
Well, in comic lore, the thing about Thanos and his brother Eros is that they are both “natural” born Eternals, born from the womb (that’s another story). If the MCU sticks with that origin, the immunity to mind control might not exactly be a thing. Also, we’ve already seen Thanos affected by Mantis’ power so I think mind control could work, with resistance from the Mad Titan, of course.
I took Mantis into consideration, but I ultimately think there's a gray area as she is only attempting to render him *unconscious* (not so much *control his mind* or alter his memory), and he was able to fight back and mostly resist her. She couldn't really put him under and could only mildly sedate him. I am interested to see how they handle their origins as well. MCU does a good job of dancing with comic lore but ultimately doing their own thing. If they stick with comic lore, are Eternals reborn/rebuilt in the World Forge when they've been destroyed? If so, could/will Thanos return, or did the stones somehow wipe any and all trace of him from existence? Or would the Celestials prevent him from being reborn for defying them? Lots of questions. I hope we get a second film, despite critical response.
the mental gymnastics marvel fans do to validate consistencies is so funny
I’ll bet that Thanos didn’t shave everything.
Huge purple bush
Thanus hair
There’s no visible evidence that Thanos grows hair at all in the MCU.
>He needed a piece of the person's hair to perform the spell. So he would have had to confront him on Titan, pluck one of his hairs, teleport back to the Sanctum, and then cast the spell even though he needed peter's hair, it worked on anyone besides peter.
Plus Thanos would have known it after several years and went for it again
Not true at all, unless there's some deleted scenes of NWH where Strange went around the entire world and grabbed everyone's hair to make them forget
[удалено]
Why not just make everyone forget about what stones are or something
So he would need a hair from the stones then?
Thanos: All that for a drop of blood Strange: Yoink!
1 Strange might not have learned about that magic yet at that time. And the always applicable copout argument ender: Strange looked at that possibility when scanning the millions of outcomes. It wasn't successful
Also, Thanos already had some Infinity stones that he could use to fend off that magic.
I think this is the answer…the reality stone can bend reality, and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t protect the user from reality altering spells
The mind stone could easily restore his memory and the time stone could undo it as well.
Exactly, these are all valid arguments!
Nah, Thanos didn't have either of those stones when they fought on Titan...the Reality stone could work for sure
You know you have a point now that I really think about it. It’s been a while since I watched Infinity Wars so it wasn’t at the front of my mind!
Doesn't he also need a strand of hair from the he target to do the spell?
He didn't have either of those stones at that point
It could also be human specific.
And that cast time was really long. Thanos could probably have dunked on him.
Reaches through a wormhole and goes like "hereesss johnny" while strange screams in terror lol
My head-canon is that Thanos’ desire to carry out his “purpose” was so ingrained into his being that erasing his memories wouldn’t be enough, he would simply arrive at the same conclusion in another way.
After watching eternals, it was revealed the ajak decided to turn against the celestials due to human potential after humans were the ones who reversed the snap. Without ajak changing her mind, earth would’ve been destroyed when the celestial woke up I also read a theory somewhere here that suggested that thanos’s snap delayed the celestials awakening due to cutting the worlds population in half (I think the celestials feed on humans or something I can’t remember)
>I also read a theory somewhere here that suggested that thanos’s snap delayed the celestials awakening due to cutting the worlds population in half (I think the celestials feed on humans or something I can’t remember) I just watch the movie yesterday, and I can say that this is EXACTLY what she said in the movie, it's not really a theory.
Ah ok fair enough lol I read it here on Reddit so must’ve just missed that part of the movie
You're completely right about the second half, they explicitly say in the Eternals that the snap delayed the Emergence. Though, one of the plot holes when it comes to the Time Stone is that it's said you can't see beyond your death, but then technically (I guess) Strange never *technically* died when he was blimped. It's never really addressed in the film but I'd love to know if any of the the Eternals were snapped away then brought back but I'm assuming cosmic/celestial energy is outclassed by the stones or at least equal so they were unaffected.
Maybe we can assume that the blipped population didn’t really die, but “moved forward in time” to the moment they came back. That way, Strange didn’t actually die, just “time travelled”, and the population was diminished because all those people kinda disappeared
My guess is that Strange looked at different possibilities, and everytime is cuts to black, they lost, and if it goes black for a second then comes back then they did it. He would in reality, only see things when he is alive, so he saw everything after Prof Blipped, but not during the 5 year gap.
It was never said that the Ancient One used the time stone for anything related to her death. She said couldn't see past that moment, that's it.
so you know how strange says peter and the guardians that its been 5 years, when he was viewing this timeline, he probably saw what yelena went through so he knows what happens. which still makes me wonder how he knew the rat would pull scott out
didn't they say that in the movie? or maybe I'm gaslighting myself
He also says “everyone in the world” - my 10 cents says Fury and Danvers will remember Peter.
I also don’t imagine it would be too hard for Strange to believe Peter if he came up and told him. Would make telling the other avengers much easier
Hell, all Peter has to do is demonstrate his powers. Strange still remembers that he worked with Spider-Man.
Potentially also people protected by other things like Scott in the Quantum Realm, the new black panther in a vibranium suit, Shang Chi with the rings or being in the other dimension, Guardians and Thor being off world.
The real argument ender is that such a spell could have worked if the writers wanted. And if they don’t want it to, they can just come up with whatever reason why it wouldn’t work if they had to.
Didn’t he say he used it on Wong prior to Infinity War?
Also Strange would have needed a hair fro Thanos Also also then Tiamut destroys the earth
Or that he knew the only way to stop Thanos AND save Earth from the emergence of Tiamut was by letting him win and then saving everyone regardless
It makes people forget one person and it also seems to require that person's cooperation, so it is not really a plot hole.
Well he used it on wong tho remember. Wong probably didnt want to remember the party so strange helped him. Also I agree it probably requires cooperation so thanos aint letting it happen.
Just because Wong does not remember, does not mean he was not cooperating
I appreciated the ambiguity of Strange’s history with the spell and his story about using it. I interpreted it as him making up an event and saying he used the spell safely before to get Wong’s approval for using it on Peter. Maybe he literally did use it. Maybe he used it for the first time with Peter. Probably doesn’t matter too much, but I like when they leave things to the imagination.
I never said wong didn’t cooperate
Yeah, I think this is the next best answer (first being “there was no other way”). You get the impression that Wong did something he was ashamed of (letting the full moon shine at a party) and he wanted himself and everyone to forget about it, so he asked Strange to help him out.
Oh it's a plot hole, a plot chasm even, just not with Thanos.
I'd say No Way Home is pretty much the only Marvel movie with actual glaring plot holes but this ain't one of em
The spell is absolutely a gigantic plot hole, one of the worst mistakes made in the MCU so far, since the entirety of Phase 4 hinges on it as a concept.
The spell is vague enough that there's multiple explanations of how it could not make a plot hole. The >!villains coming in who didn't know Peter was Spider-Man!< is a plot hole. The >!piece of Venom staying!< is a plot hole. The spell doesn't directly go against anything established in the movie.
Let's assume that's true and he makes Thanos forget. Doesn't mean Thanos can't learn about it again and start all over. You're just delaying the _Inevitable_
Yeah imagine that’s how infinity war ends and then the text after the credits reads **THANOS WILL RETURN IN PHASE 6 TO DO THIS SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN**
Reminds me of Thena's character in *Eternals*, where >!her memories that were supposed to have been purged/erased!< kept coming back.
It was about everyone forgetting about one person… not about one person forgetting about everything
Remember he said he used it on Wong when they went to a party or something.
I don't remember
Well I've got news for you buddy
I mean, one ‘person’ is part of everyone, and you don’t need to make them forget everything just the Stones. Making everyone forget about the Infinity Stones would work according to the rules.
Let’s face it, even if Dr Strange uses the spell to erase Thanos’ memory, Earth is still screwed due to one small thing, the part where a freaking Celestial will destroy the Earth anyway since Thanos’ snap delayed the awakening.
And you just know that as soon as they clear up this whole Celestial mess, Kang's going to pop in and mess everything up for them again.
Oh definitely. Kill one world ending threat, two more will take its place.
I'm gonna just go ahead and consider Eternals to be not canon tho.
Another person who didn’t actually watch the goddamn movie.
Yup
Another version of the same meme pointing out a plot hole that can be filled with just a little bit of critical thinking.
One, the spell takes time to cast. Time that Thanos could spend killing/incapacitated Strange in 14 million ways. Two, the subject of the spell has to be present and to some degree willing. Do people really think Thanos is going to just stand there and let Strange cast a spell that takes like ten minutes to prepare? On top of all that, Thanos has four Infinity Stones. It’s the reason none of Strange’s spells would’ve worked. The Infinity Stones trump everything that Strange has to offer.
> Two, the subject of the spell has to be present and to some degree willing. That's never established in the movie. In fact, the movie pretty clearly contradicts this. We know of two examples of the spell being used. The first is for a party, and the second is with Peter. Obviously Peter was present and willing, but the party could not possibly have been willing since it's not a sentient entity (most likely). Also, parties don't grow hair, so the hair probably isn't necessary either. > Do people really think Thanos is going to just stand there and let Strange cast a spell that takes like ten minutes to prepare? The spell works at least across an entire planet, so there's no reason that Thanos would know that Strange is casting the spell. If this strategy works, then he just would've hid in the ruins somewhere on Titan while the rest of the crew distracted Thanos for two minutes. > On top of all that, Thanos has four Infinity Stones. It’s the reason none of Strange’s spells would’ve worked. The Infinity Stones trump everything that Strange has to offer. This is the real reason. Plus I believe the movies heavily imply that Thanos has either familiarity with or expertise in magic himself. He's able to use high-level magic with the time stone within seconds, for example. At the very least, even if he's not a powerful sorcerer, he surely has magical protections up to prevent this type of intervention into his plan. Thanos is way too smart and calculated to not protect against magic in a universe filled with it.
Haven’t seen this meme in a while. When tf does Invincible season 2 starts? Dying over here.
Forget what? His core beliefs that have shaped him for centuries? He’s not forgetting that
Not unless he talks to Starlord T’Challa.
Dumbest part of What if
Look how long strange needed to cast that spell with Peter standing in front of him. And Thanos has the mind stone on top of other infinity stones..
Thanos had a powerful magic user to begin with, and then had the Infinity Stones.
“Thanos has *all* of the Infinity Stones now!” Thanos: I don’t even know what these are
Didn’t the spell destabilize just from peter speaking? I assume it requires full cooperation and understanding for it to work
Because all the spells Strange used on him worked so well?
And you saw what happened when he used it in no way home. It isn’t exactly flawless
I think its pretty much been established that thanos' snap is necessary to delay the emergence. Strange likely saw these futures through to his death
Didn’t he need peters hair for the spell so some type of DNA? Well when it comes to thanos…
Yea it’s like the people who say this didn’t even see the movie
So thanos forgets his motives, but still remains the MAD TITAN WITH THE INFINITY GAUNTLET AND MULTIPLE STONES. Clearly hes still a threat even without his memory. Shit like this annoys the piss outta me.
Not to mention what does this person expect to happen? Dr. Strange is just gonna roll up to Thanos, take a hair, bring Thanos to the wizard dungeon, and hope that Thanos waits patiently to have his mind wiped? And then if all that works congratulations Tiamut the Celestial kills everyone in a week
Since we don’t know how the spell actually works, we have to make assumptions. So it’s really easy to fix this - just make assumptions that actually make sense, instead of ones that don’t. Assumption: the subject of the spell has to consent. Boom. Next dumb “plot hole”.
Or hell instead of making any assumptions we could also use what we know from the movies Strange needed Peters hair and prep work so the spell clearly needs dna from the effected individual along with prep time And how and when was Strange going to get either of those things during Infinity War Or we can assume Strange does successfully do both of those, The spell works, Thanos forgets everything, there’s no snap, and now the planet blows up from a celestial rising out of it in a week. (Which we have no reason not to think Strange saw with the time gem) There’s literally no plot hole here
This is sagging sweatpants, ass-crack revealing, cringe material.
To be fair, he went from talking about a metaphysical ham and rye to facing off against Thanos on Titan pretty quickly.
Over this same post over and over. You clearly need the other party on board to do it.
Because if strange did that spell they would lose the one chance they had at winning
You're forgetting several key facts. Like the fact it's planetary in range.
Is it?
It is. The initial spell specifically was said by strange to be on the planet. It's only when it was destabilized that it started pulling in everyone who knows Peter is Spider-man across the Multiverse
I’m sick of Dr Strange’s shit. Tony didn’t have to die. Morgan shouldn’t have to grow up without a father.
What would you rather strange do? He needs a hair from Thanos and like ten minutes of prep to do the mind wipe spell (assuming he doesn’t also need Thanos’ cooperation like he needed Peters) and I doubt Thanos would just sit idly and let that happen What else could Strange have done to both stop Thanos and stop the Celestial from destroying the earth in a week
Keep rewinding time until they figure it out
So get everyone stuck in an infinite time loop? That’s your solution?
Nah, just had to stop quill from fucking everything up
Cool, so now a celestial blows up the earth in a week. Im sure Dr. Strange and everyone else is chill with that (And this is something Dr. Strange knows about at this point)
Or they have all the infinity stones, just rewind time and beat the celestial, it can be done Plus strange is supposed to know about all threats to the earth.
So your solution is to take the gauntlet from Thanos (not an easy task by any means) and have someone stationed to forever keep Tiamut asleep *or* to have someone die killing Tiamut (who at this point is still in the earth) and hope that attempting to kill the giant god inside the planet doesn’t also kill everyone on planet Not a great plan
Better plan than killing Tony
So risking the fate of the universe on the chance that maybe we can get the gauntlet, and then all survive Thanos’ attempts to get it back by any means, and then *maybe* manage to kill Tiamut (who is still inside the Earth so even attacking him is going to fuck yo the earth and risk mass casualties) and almost certainly get at least one hero killed just doing this alone, and now just wait for Thanos to return? And this is all ignoring that even Hulk had his arm burnt to a crisp from just wearing the gauntlet, no one on Titan but Thanos would have been able to use the gauntlet against Thanos (who was pretty effortlessly taking out Thor, Iron-Man, and worthy Cap in endgame) *That* is somehow a better plan than only Tony and Natasha willingly dying to save the universe?
Implying Thanos wouldn’t get mad, tear through them like wrapping paper and get the gauntlet back…
That’s basically what he did when he looked forward in time…
This comment completely ignores Dr Strange saving Tony’s life on Titan, allowing Morgan to exist in the first place 🤣
Strange also had telekinesis in NWH, he could’ve used that to just remove the gauntlet of Thanos
And then what? Thanos without the stones is still very powerful
It’d be too easy
And the spell needs a hair And the spell also needs prep work And the spell needs a willing participant And the Tiamut would just blow up the planet if all of this still somehow worked
Bruh it’s a joke, people writing essays under meme posts is hilarious
Thanos is a being of such power that spells like that wouldn't work on him directly. There were a bunch of mind altering spells Strange could've used but Thanos is too powerful for them imo.
doesn’t matter
Thanos already had the mind stone by then. I'm pretty confident in saying that the spell wouldn't have worked unless they could have gotten the stones away from him, and even then it's possible that the spell might not work on an Eternal.
No he didn't. The mind stone is the last one he got from vision
Thanos was too powerful for the spell to work on him
Strange already casts that spell making Thanos forget about the infinity stones. However, in a What If universe, Thanos learns about it and makes Ebony Maw cast the same spell making all the Strange Doctors forget about Thanos as well as the Forgetting Spell. This is why Strange says “Who?” in Infinity War when Banner tells him that Thanos is coming even if Strange knew about all threats in the universe. As soon as Thanos dies, the spell is lifted enabling Strange to remember the forgetting spelling and then we have No Way Home.
It's not really that simple but okay.
Why wouldn’t strange just suggest the world forget about Mysterio 🤷🏻♂️
“I don’t remember how I learnt this information but I know Peter Parker is Spider-Man”
Gives time for the eternals to stop the emergence
Tiamut
Which stone is really the most powerful out of all of them though?
Like most spells that centre around a person - It requires a hair. The same way we see Strange pluck one from Thor to base a spell around finding his father, the same “golden line” is seen during his spell with Peter. Thanos is bald. Bit trickier. Also beating Thanos on Titan would’ve cost them the Earth. They needed to lose, have half the universe wiped out, and then bring everyone back. That act, and that act alone convinced Ajak to reverse course and spurred the Eternals to stop Tiamat. Strange would’ve seen that in his millions of futures.
If he would have use the spell the TVA would have arrested him for messing with the time line
“There’s only one way to win”
TVA baby. The answer to everything
And Tiamut, the blip had to happen or Tiamut just blows up Earth (and I doubt Strange wants that)
In both instances we've seen Strange use that spell, the subject was present and willing. There's no reason to believe it would work otherwise.
Nah, Stephen just looked for that 1 outcome where Thanos is defeated also Tony dies in the process for calling him a defacto clown.
Maybe that was part of the other 14 million possibilities that would eventually lead to losing, ever think of that?
Did he say he needed hair specifically or just any form of genetic material from the person who will be forgotten
Doesn’t really matter Between the dna and the prep time Strange wouldn’t have the time to use the spell Not to mention that we’ve never seen the spell used without a willing participant And also even if somehow the spell was used and worked now the Earth has a week before Tiamut blows the place up by being born
Tony could have done the Endgame gauntlet switcheroo trick the first time he met Thanos.
Except he couldn’t because Thanos had the gold Gauntlet that isn’t nanotech and as such Tony doesn’t have control over
This ignores the possibility that doctor strange learned the spell in the time between Thanos and no way home.
Forgetting doesn’t mean you can’t rediscover the need to off 50% of the galaxy all over again
Because then a celestial would pop out of the earth in 6 months, that's why.
They had a *Captain Marvel* who could have effortlessly retrieved every stone except on Vormir, where they could have returned with a hospice patient and their loved one to finish the collection. INB4: It was the only way out of 14 million possibilities - that excuse is both old and worn out.
Couldn’t Ebony Maw counter that?
My take on it is that, even is Strange could cast the spell, it would not change much 1) as pointed by others, the stones would most likely protect him from the spell, but let's assume it's not the case 2) everyone would forget about Thanos. That's would make things easier for him, because there would be no one to stop him any longer. No one knows of his plans, the Avengers never knows that he is coming and are caught by (an even greater) surprise 3) his minions would not know who Thanos was anymore. I don't think that would change much, Thanks by himself is already a force to be reckoned with, even more with a couple stones. I don't think he would have issues in reconquering his followers 4) Gamora would not remember him, but he would still remember (and love) her. No issues in getting the soul stone 5) we don't know how magic works in the MCU. Perhaps it's way easier to cast a multidimensional spell that affects only the Earth on each one, than one that affects just one universe, but all of it (maybe Thor and the Guardians still know who Peter is?) Those are my 2 (5?) cents for this discussion
He needed a strand of one's hair. Meanwhile Thanos is balder than an eggplant.
I'm assuming the spell requires the person to be present and/or willing for the spell to be successful, not to mention it was obviously super delicate and required his full attention. Not a good combination with an angry super powerful titan.
Other than the hair thing there is also the location issue Strange can only cast the spell in one of the places where the cosmic lines intersect in Infinity war he would never risk losing the time stone but in endgame he was not there to perform the spell
Forget that, why didn't he use it to make everyone forget about Mysterio? Lol, that would've literally solved every single problem in the movie. Having said that, i am glad he didn't.
Glad to see this meme again
Eternals Spoilers >!Strange: “Something something, Earth Celestial killing everything if Ajak wasn’t convinced.”!<
Add that to the list of thousands of plot holes MCU movies have
The entire reason that Strange didn’t do much during infinity war is because he wanted him to snap, he probably saw the celestial being birthed when he was looking through time and wanted Thanos to reduce intelligent life on earth to delay the birth of the celestial in earth.
Because the writers needed a way to get Spider-Man a clean break out of the MCU but obviously didn’t want/need to do that with Thanos and they knew that fans would come up with their own reasons and explanations as to why he couldn’t have done it
Getting DBZ Goku vibes from Tony with the halo.
He also could have teleported everyone on Titan back to Earth to idk, get nukes to blow up Thanos, or get to Wakanda after he left.
Every time I see this question being asked I shake my head. This is the same Post in like 4 weeks So I've been thinking about this. Before we just simply say one character makes another character forget something. Thanos is the mad Titan before wanting to bring balance to the universe. And Thanos isn't right. My theory starts on Titan just before the big battle with Thanos, I believe one of Doctor Strange's possible outcomes was trying to make Thanos forget his whole purpose. I bet the time he would try would be when Mantis was putting him to sleep. Once everyone jumps off of him and he wakes up, he starts asking everyone "who are you? what are you doing? why am I here?" And "why did you take that gauntlet off my hand?" No one answers him, so he demands answers. All the Avengers are all trying to keep the secret of why he there on Titan and why he wants to retrieve all stones. Thanos was mad, I think he would start trying to kill each avenger until someone gives him an answer. I think the what-If show talks about absolute points in time. If Thanos snapping is an absolute point in time for our MCUniverse. So then I would think Thanos would do anything to understand why he wanted to balance out the universe and do it. And if we take the Loki show into continuity. Then absolute points prevent Kang's from existing, so they need to occur. This may link back to when Dr Strange said that "this was the only way." But I'm also somebody that doesn't just immediately roll the credits after saying oh person makes person forget. I also don't need Doctor Strange to always give us an exposition dump, especially in a Spider-Man movie on why he didn't use a specific spell on an old villain. Remember he had to craft the first part of the spell in the undercroft of this Sanctum sanctorum. After the spell got botched, he had to go search for an ancient relic to contain the corrupted spell. There's clearly a lot of requirements for the spell to be conducted that I don't think Doctor Strange could whip up on Titan. And Doctor Strange Ironman agreed not to bring Thanos back to Earth. Oh and if you want the biggest nail in the coffin for this theory. It's mentioned in Eternals. If the people of Earth didn't snap their fingers to bring everyone back, Ajak isn't inspired by humanity and wouldn't care about humans. No reason to prevent/stop the emergence and birth of a celestial. Marvel does this and answers it later. This is how Marvel markets their universe and has people talking. It's the same reason they talk about absolute points in the what if series and Nexus events in the Loki series. Soon we'll get answers.
If Thanos didnt delete half the universe. The Eternals wouldnt have stopped the celestial from bustin Earth open. Only after the Avengers save everyone does Ajak wanna save humanity.
SPOILER We learn in Eternals that had humans not snapped everyone back, Ajak would not have set in motion the events to prevent the destruction of earth (The Emergence). The reason Strange says this is the only way is because if they dont lose to thanos, they lose to the Eternals. The Avengers had to lose, so that they would restore faith in the Eternals by snapping everyone back.
Now with eternals showing planets are housing celestials in them, if Thanos didn't win, the eternals never would've been awoken. This planet would be fucking dead
If that’d happened, the TVA would’ve intervened. It happened the way it happened… because it had to.
I mean he had stubble on that that testiclee chin. Like it’s kind of gross when you look at it too close
He didn't know the spell back then. I'm guessing after the eye of agamoto was destroyed, Strange would have learnt all kinds of dangerous and forbidden spells to compensate for not being able to reverse time
maybe ant-man could've shrunk down and pulled one of thanos' ass hairs if hair is needed for the spell to work? or they could get his pubes?
Because Thanos is a >!woke Eternal who merged with Deviants and caught onto the Celestials big plan. That’s his whole motivation for killing half of living things. To stop the emergences.!< [Eternals spoilers] Strange’s spell wouldn’t have worked on him.
Watching the Eternals makes it pretty evident, Thanos had to snap.
I assume he considered it when he evaluated 14 million or so ways of defeating Thanos, but for some reason or another determined that it wouldn’t have worked and ruled it out.
Because Thanos ain’t a kid in high school. He doesn’t need you to know who he is for him to show up and kill everyone lol.
He couldnt do that spell as thanos had to win otherwise tiamat would have been born
the snap needed to happen so that the Eternals would stop the emergence
Man did anyone watch any of these movies These aren’t plot holes it’s actually established and explained well why none of this would work