Because of the magnitude of the MCU and the very limited time to cover everything in the films, some of the bigger comic book elements have to be shortened. One such element was the Soul World. We only saw a tiny glimpse of it in Avengers: Infinity War right after Thanos snapped his fingers. We should’ve seen two more Soul World shots where Hulk probably ends up speaking to Natasha, and Tony speaks to the older version of Morgan Stark (played by Katherine Langford). But there was no time for these scenes as they didn’t fit into the runtime of the film. But a crazy new Endgame theory states that there was another instance where we saw the Soul World.
There have been some over the top theories about the MCU. And today we’ve got yet another one of those from Reddit user u/jamaiconbaicon, which gives us a possible explanation as to what could have happened between Cap leaving with the Infinity Stones and returning as an Old Man to the main timeline.
Here, go through it:
“Cap’s off-screen mission at the end of Endgame was to return all the stones to their original timelines exactly at the point they were removed. Most are pretty simple like just give the time stone back to the Ancient One, put the power stone back on Morag et cetera but returning the soul stone to Vormir does not seem to be so simple. ‘A soul for a soul’ are the words the Red Skull uses when others take the stone so by that logic to return the stone surely ‘a soul for a soul’ would still apply. Could this mean that Cap lived out his dance with Peggy in the Soul World, exchanging the stone for Peggy’s soul so he could have his dance? His return to the main timeline seems more complicated but this could then rule out the dilemma of Peggy having another husband in a different timeline and so on but perhaps he only stayed in the soul world for a dance or just for her lifetime and would then return to his real world.”
Well, this theory is indeed bizarre. We’d like to believe our own theory as to what happened at the end of the film. According to the directors of the movie, Captain America went with the stones, returned them to the point where they were taken from and then ended up living with Peggy in an alternate timeline until she died. Then he returned to his own timeline to give Sam Wilson a new shield. This is what would have happened according to the rules of time travel established in the MCU.
But the writers of the movie, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely state that they like to believe that Cap ended up in the same MCU timeline. He was always the husband of Peggy Carter and they had even set this up with Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Captain America: Civil War. While this is the ending even we want for Captain America because the different timeline ending just doesn’t connect to us on an emotional level. But the rules of time travel in the MCU just don’t allow it. Unless… the MCU itself is an alternate timeline.
Imagine that there is another timeline exactly like the MCU. The events of that timeline happen exactly like they did in the MCU. But the only difference in that timeline and the MCU is that that Steve wasn’t Peggy’s husband in the past. In that timeline, everything that has happened till date within the MCU happened, but Steve’s decision to go back in time and live with Peggy Carter created the MCU itself! Now in the MCU, there have always been 2 Captain Americas, Steve from the future has been the husband of Peggy the entire time while another version of Steve was in the ice. The most important factor of the MCU is that Steve’s story is now tied in a time loop.
So, when Steve decides to go and return the stones, he ends up living with Peggy, and ultimately stays in the same MCU timeline. This is our fix for the clash between the writers & directors.
