Why Strange’s Infinity War Torture Should Never Have Worked

The torture that nearly broke Doctor Strange in Avengers: Infinity War never should have worked, given Stephen Strange’s experience with torture in the past. In Avengers: Infinity War, Ebony Maw tortures Doctor Strange while trapped on board a spaceship. Maw suspends Strange using magical spikes that he claimed were originally designed for microsurgery which dig into Strange’s body and his face as he is helpless against Maw’s tactics. The torture is excruciating to witness, especially when audiences see the pain that Strange is in. Thankfully, Strange never winds up giving in to the torture as he is rescued by Spider-Man and Iron Man. However, given the amount of torture and pain that Strange has gone through in the MCU, the idea that Maw’s torture might have ever been effective in claiming the Time Stone seems a little beyond belief.

Doctor Strange Endures Terrible Torture TWICE In The MCU:-

In 2016’s Doctor Strange, Strange battles the villain Dormammu in a very unconventional way. He allows himself to get killed but thanks to the Time Stone, he keeps reviving himself and coming back for more, trapping Dormammu in an endless loop. The ways Dormammu killed him varied, but none of them were quick and painless deaths. It’s not clear how long Strange endured torture (screenwriter Robert C. Cargill said it was left intentionally vague), but it was enough time to improve his mastery of the mystic arts, meaning it could have been years before Dormammu realized Strange would never stop and eventually gave up.

At the end of Avengers: Infinity War Strange again uses the Time Stone to live and die through 14 billion different outcomes of the Avengers battling Thanos. When he revealed that the Avengers only won in one of those timelines, it became clear that Strange just lived through an indescribable amount of pain, loss, grief, and even his Doctor Strange’s own death, billions of times over. However, he is not only able to endure it, he is able to come back from it and keep fighting and strategizing. Both of these horrors extend far beyond the torture that Maw put him through, yet Maw is the only one who seemingly came close to breaking Strange through physical pain in the MCU so far.

Why Ebony Maw’s Doctor Strange Torture Was Almost Effective
The torture Doctor Strange endures as Ebony Maw attempts to claim the Infinity Stone is nearly effective in Avengers: Infinity War. There is a strong sense that if not saved by Spider-Man and Iron Man, Maw might have gained the Time Stone. The use of strong magic against Strange when he is in a vulnerable position, unable to use his hands to create magic of his own, may have been too much to bear if it had gone on for too much longer. While Strange had suffered torture from Dormammu and again when he lives out the different outcomes of fighting Thanos, neither directly used magic to harm Strange. Dormammu killed Strange in physical ways, and while audiences don’t see the 14 billion lives Strange lived, it didn’t harm the physical body of this universe’s Dr. Strange as he lived through them.

It appears that while magic may be Doctor Strange’s greatest ally and most powerful ability, it could also be his downfall. Magic may be the one form of torture that could take him down if he is unassisted. Thankfully, Iron Man and Spider-Man were able to rescue the sorcerer in Avengers: Infinity War before Ebony Maw could claim the stone.

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