Doctor Strange Gave Up the Time Stone To Delay The Emergence Of The Eternals

In Avengers: Infinity War, Doctor Strange anxiously attempted to figure out how to defeat Thanos by gazing into 14,000,605 different possibilities:

In Avengers: Infinity War, Doctor Strange glimpsed through 14,000,605 different possibilities as he urgently sought to figure out how to defeat Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. Given that figure, it’s safe to assume he witnessed a slew of major events in addition to the Snap. In light of this, a popular fan theory suggests that Strange predicted the Eternals’ appearance. If he was aware of the occurrence, he may have factored it into his decision to give Thanos the Time Stone. It’s presumed that Doctor Strange did everything he could to prevent Thanos from prevailing in the long run during the conflict on Titan at the end of Infinity War. However, as Reddit user LuckyMe111 points out, Doctor Strange did nothing to prevent Star-Lord from hitting Thanos and waking him. With the Avengers imprisoning Thanos and nearly capturing the Gauntlet, it’s reasonable to presume that they would have beaten him and reclaimed all of the Infinity Stones. Many people are left asking why Strange did not interfere if this is the case.

While Strange may not have intervened since he expected Thanos to use the Gauntlet in other case:

While Strange may not have intervened since he expected Thanos to deploy the Gauntlet in any case, a fan theory posits that he truly wanted the Snap to happen. The Celestial Arishem states in Eternals that he seeded another celestial within the Earth’s core, which will emerge when they collect “huge sums of energy from sentient life.” Around the time of Infinity War, Earth was on the verge of having a large enough population to generate enough power for the emergence. However, due to the population halving, the emergence was postponed for another five years. If the Avengers had destroyed Thanos on Titan, the events of the Eternals may have taken a very different turn. Their commander, Ajak, may not have been moved by Tony Stark’s sacrifice and realized that Earth is worth rescuing. This would have kept the other Eternals from discovering their real mission and rebelling. Even in a newly revealed deleted scene from Eternals, Sprite and Makkari discuss the value of the human population. While Sprite is resentful of them, Makkari reminds them that humanity “defeated Thanos and rescued half the cosmos,” demonstrating that the Avengers’ deeds influenced how the Eternals perceived Earth. The idea is quite plausible since it is true that Earth would have been annihilated if the Snap had not occurred. Also, given how effortlessly Thor beheaded Thanos in the opening scene of Avengers: Endgame, it seems improbable that none of the 14,000,605 possible endings ended in the Gauntlet being seized from Thanos and him being murdered. Doctor Strange appears to have intended the Snap to happen, while some fans have pushed the argument even farther.

Some argue that Thanos’ purpose was to keep the cosmos from being overpopulated, and it’s also plausible that he was aware of the celestials and how they appeared:

Some argue that Thanos’ purpose was to keep the cosmos from being overpopulated, and it’s also plausible that he was aware of the Celestials and how they appeared. He effectively postponed the annihilation of countless Celestial-seeded worlds by reducing life on all planets. Thus, even if he wasn’t deliberately attempting to preserve Earth, his Snap would have spared half of the people. This hypothesis, however, does not hold water with everyone. It has been suggested that if Doctor Strange was aware of the Celestial within Earth, he would have been part in the Eternals’ scheme to assure its success. Furthermore, it is uncertain how far into the future Strange gazed, given the Emergence was ready roughly a year after the events of Endgame, implying that he would’ve had to see rather far into each future. But, in any case, it’s a convincing hypothesis that’s enjoyable to believe in, and it lends even more weight to Strange’s Infinity War deeds.