Now that Thor: Ragnarok has given the God of Thunder a popular rebranding, Chris Hemsworth’s first two Marvel solo efforts are feeling more and more like the product of another time for the MCU. Nonetheless, a lengthy new theory on Reddit makes the case that 2013’s Thor: The Dark World foreshadowed some pretty huge developments in next year’s Avengers 4, and it all has to do with the seemingly mad ravings of one Erik Selvig.
This piece of speculation from Reddit user Mushbert rests on the notion that while Stellan Skarsgård’s character was under the influence of the Mind Stone in 2012’s The Avengers, he was given all sorts of insights on the events that just recently unfolded in Avengers: Infinity War.
The user then goes on to try their hand at decoding Erik’s chalkboard ramblings. Among the various observations made in the post, Mushbert singles out the reference to Schrödinger’s cat, asking if the universe’s dusted population is also both dead and alive in some sense. What’s more, the term “Fractal Gateways Connecting Mutipal Branes” is somewhat elaborately deciphered as a reference to journeys through time and space.
After a long string of analysis, the suggestion is made that Erik essentially predicted that Thanos’ mass population purge created a fault in our reality, opening the door to those larger cosmic threats that parts of the internet are starting to forecast.
It’s a pretty thorough and well thought out, if not always entirely plausible, piece of speculation that you may want to check out for yourself if you’re curious about how Mushbert arrived at such notions. And while you have to wonder if Marvel Studios would really be sketching out the plot for Avengers 4 right before our eyes almost six years in advance, we’ll at least find out if there’s any truth to these claims when the film hits theaters on May 3rd, 2019.