All in all, things go pretty well for Thanos over the course of Avengers: Infinity War. Though Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and their allies often come close to stopping the Mad Titan’s plans, the conqueror always seems to come out okay, often thanks to a few unfortunate errors from his enemies.
This recent theory from Reddit, however, argues that the villain’s success is no accident, and just as Doctor Strange has envisioned millions of possible futures for the MCU, Thanos has experienced quite a few himself before settling on the timeline we witnessed. User EmperorJoker starts off their post by claiming that the despot has already used his newly acquired Time Stone to rewind time whenever his choices have turned out for the worse.
The Redditor goes on to argue their point by reading new meaning into a few lines of dialogue:
“[H]e said “I ignored my destiny once.” Most might assume he’s refering to his home planet but remember he said that he offered his people a solution and they refused so he didn’t abandon anything really where that’s concerned.
When he and [Gamora] arrived on that planet he pretty much said to Red Skull that he was ready and or knew what he must do. [Gamora] and him even argued and said he didn’t know what would happen and he said “I am the only one who knows that at least I’m the only one with the will to act.” Thanos might have been speaking literally and may have known exactly what he was talking about.
What seals the case for me is that Thanos says to Stark “Your not the only one cursed with knowledge.” He spoke as if he knew Stark and I think he was alluding to having lived these events before. He knew things Tony Stark didn’t tell him which makes me think Thanos had relived these events prior to the movie.”
It’s certainly one way to interpret these lines, while offering the suggestion that Thanos is actually more right than most of his enemies would care to find out. Sure enough, EmperorJoker wraps things up by suggesting that the villain has already witnessed the grim future that he ultimately takes genocidal measures to prevent.
“Thanos originally chose to not sacrifice [Gamora] but when he did he lived to see the universe suffer like he predicted and it became to late. So Thanos used the time stone to rewind time and so began the events of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
If Thanos does in fact have such an impressive command of time, then you have to wonder how the heroes stand a chance of taking him down in Avengers 4. Perhaps this is where the popular prediction comes into play that the damage suffered by the Mad Titan’s gauntlet in Avengers: Infinity War was severe and lasting.
In any case, while there’s not a whole lot backing up this idea, save for a few lines that are open to interpretation, it’s still an intriguing piece of speculation. And we’ll see if Avengers 4 confirms this theory when it comes out on May 3rd, 2019.
