Spider-Man No Way Home, “Their Fates are sealed”

[u/[deleted]]

So I was watching No Way Home and I realised, every “cure” that happened to the characters that died on screen, is either countered by the time and place they were taken or it contributes to this own universes deaths. Effectively not changing anything about their situations.

 

So to start off, I noticed that the location of every “Visitor” that is located by spider-man/Strange is similar to where they were in their own universes from when they were plucked:

 

Otto Octavius - discovered by Spider-Man on the bridge next to the river he was operating his machine. “I had him in the palm of my hand, I was this close”

 

Electro - Found near an electrical grid similar to the one he was fighting Spider-Man at, in ASM2. ”I was whoopin Spider-Man’s ass, he’ll tell ya… and then he caused an overload, I was stuck in the grid absorbing data, I was about to turn into pure energy”

 

Lizard - Found in the sewers by Strange, in his universe he was working on his experiments in a sewer.

 

Green Goblin - Found in the city

 

Sandman - The only exception because he was taken from a time after the last of his universes movies

 

So if the locations they were taken from, do in fact correspond roughly to the time they were taken in their movies, then I believe that all of their “cures” (aside from sandman of course) are made ineffective and don’t change the outcomes we saw in their original movies.

Here’s my theory on why that is, with their individual scenarios:

The Lizard - Taken from when he was experimenting with his formula in the sewers.

Lizards mentality doesn’t show he regrets his decision for changing into a lizard, so he would just take the formula that he already has prepared in the sewer.

 

Electro - Taken from when he was absorbing energy fighting spider-man, the device used to “cure” him is described to only “absorb all the energy in his body” Electro even states he’s “all tapped out” once the device was completely integrated to his bio-electrical system.

For Electro I have two possibilities: Electro would be placed back in the grid and the device on his chest would overload resulting in him being charged again. \ Or Electro would be electrocuted to death by not having his electric absorbing abilities and thus sealing his fate.

 

Otto Octavius taken during his fight with spider-man, his specific moment was described as when he “had Spider-man by the throat”

In this scene during Spider-Man 2, Otto released spider-man shortly after a speech from spider-man, he then realises he still has control of his arms upon returning to his universe, finishes Spider-Man’s quote about “doing what’s best for mankind” and sacrifices himself containing his machine.

 

Green Goblin (this one is my favourite) - Taken during the fight with Spider-man in the alley. When returned to his universe “cured”, he still has a psychological “darker half” but no longer possesses his physical attributes. The exact moment he returns, he realises he no longer has super strength and can’t take full punches from Spider-Man. So he takes off his mask and reveals who he is to Spider-Man, to prevent further attacks. Then he pleads to Spider-Man and tries to distract him by gracing his moral code, so that his glider can stab him from behind. The “Oh…” that Green Goblin utters before he is impaled fits nicely since he sees his fate is unchanged from Otto’s description.

 

Sandman doesn’t get one of these because the time he was taken from was not during any of his universes movies.

 

So yeah I think Strange was right… their fates are sealed, and from a meta perspective I think the writers intentionally had “No Way Home” contribute to the other universes movies with how well these events line up. Obviously it can’t be a perfect transition since the original movies weren’t intended to be related.

Summary: the “cures” to each character, either is reversed or contributes to their own deaths/ defeats and doesn’t actually change anything about their fate.

[u/danguyf]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I thought they were pulling a Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder" and the point was that each villain was pulled from their universes at the moment when they were about to die and then returned to the same moment, so nothing changed in terms of their fate because they still died but now they died with some ex-temporal redemption.

[u/Blood_Spade]

After I'd seen it myself i wondered if something similar happened to loki when Thor says he can stop all this, and on loki's face and speech it seems that a curse had lifted, or that you know the conscious of Loki from his series entered his old body. Im talking about the 1st avengers btw.

[u/stardawgcfc]

I know it’s probably not the case but my head canon is that all these variants are not directly from the films we watched growing up. Those films still remain as a different universe for example

Raimi is universe 96283 - all Raimi characters appearing in NWH are from universe 96283-B.

You can watch the old films and know that really does happen in that universe, but now there’s a subuniverse that’s got the mcu multiverse twist. You get the best of both worlds really

[u/PreparationJolly7542]

 I couldn't have said it better myself

[u/[deleted]]

**I forgot to add:

The location of where all the cured travellers are when they are sent home, does not correspond with where they would be in their movies at those times. Which is kind of a hole in this theory.

But of course this couldn’t be helped if this theory is true, from a writers perspective.

Also the lizard

[u/Bagel-Meister → u/[deleted]]

Makes you think that in a version of Spider-Man 2, Tobey probably died by sacrificing himself drowning the machine, or was sucked into it, after Otto vanished.

[u/PreparationJolly7542 → u/Bagel-Meister]

After these individual villains were taken from the perspective timeline the timeline was put into a temporary stasis into the return to the exact minute they left that might be easier theory to swallow that a timeline was temporary in stasis in the villains returned to the respective timelines

[u/Peloquin_qualm]

It’s the stupidest reason to fuck up the most lives. So nobody can know your Spider-Man why don’t we just snap our fingers and turn everyone into a dust all over again. Awful way to drag down Doctor Strange even more into a moron pool of incompetence.