Before Red Skull was teleported in The First Avenger, who was gate keeping the Soul Stone? “We all think that at first. We are all wrong.” Who is we? Are there more force ghosties that are banished to Vormir after messing with an Infinity stone? Why was Red Skull uniquely put in this situation when messing with the Space stone as opposed to say the girl working for the collector trying to posses the Power stone? And why is the Soul Stone guarded in such an ethereal/riddle-esque way as opposed to the others? “Soul holds a special place among the Infinity Stones. You might say it has a certain wisdom.” So the stone is protecting itself with the whole sacrificial exchange, but who made the shrine for someone to leap to their death? Is there a special Soul stone cult? I’m rewatching Infinity War and am beginning to ask all these questions about the uniqueness of the Soul Stone’s history. I’m sure it’s meant to be a mystery, but the lore for the Soul Stone seems to run so much deeper than the others.
We don't know.
Bro embraces epistemic humility
New word unlocked 🔓. Thanks
It's short for brother.
Ah the ol’ Reddit didgeridoo
This should be a pinned comment to most of these questions.
we will never know
This is the kind of stuff there should be What If episodes about
It’s not What If content if it’s just a precursor for what happened in main line MCU.
Why? It’s just a different ghost guy. Why would they make a what if about that?
What if... it wasn't a ghost guy? /s
“Omg it’s red skull. And he’s not a ghost!”
Or… how about no
Who is we? Are you a ghost?
bro thinks he reed richards
You now what would make a great movie? The MCU should have explored the pre-, during, and post- snap in the rest of the universe. Like what are they... dumb?
we do know he says it himself that he has to guard what he can’t have, meaning he was the first and only person to try to get the stone without giving up something so the stone punished him by making him the guardian and forever having to lead someone to a demise that nothing can ever reverse it’s in end game when nat and clint go to vormir
Suck my big fat one
Your big fat mom?
Hey now, don’t be bringing momma into this! I was referring to the gif…it’s from Stranger Things
Lick my butthole, Derek!
top gifs you can hear
You can suck my fat one.
His brother, Gray Skull.
....and Gandalf the white
…and Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s Black Knight
...and Benito Mussolini
And the Blue Meanies
And Cowboy Curtis
…and Jambi the Genie
...Robocop
...Terminator
Captain Kirk…
….. and Mickey Mouse
So, Bambi's goin' on about how she can make all my fantasies come true. So I says, "Even this one I have where Jesus Christ Is jackhammering Mickey Mouse in the doo-doo hole With a lawn dart as Garth Brooks gives birth to something Resembling a cheddar cheese log with almonds on Santa Claus's tummy-tum?"
and Jambi The Genie
That’s a castle…
Yes. A castle named after Red Skull's brother, Gray Skull.
I read that as Gary Skull.
By the power....
That explains the power of Gray Skull
Heard he has a nice Castle
We don't even know if it had a guard before him
It’d be kinda silly that the stone was unguarded for millions of years then randomly in 1945 it decided “hey I need a guard!”
Agree with that, but the stones may be able to perceive time all at once. They could have just put him there on a timeline when it was needed. Forward or backward.
I mean I could see that for the Time stone, I’m not sure I could see the other stones experiencing time like Pennywise since the other stones have nothing to do with time, at least not based on any evidence seen in the MCU.
The stones are all connected tho and can obviously communicate with each other.
The evidence is the space stone choosing to teleporting Red Skull to a secret location where the soul stone is.
So words like “obviously” and “evidence” don’t really apply here as the MCU has never outright explained the nature of these stones having any sort of communication amongst each other except two stones. Which is where my question comes from.
Why did Jane not get sent to the time stone when she touched the reality stone? Why did Vision not get sent to the power stone when he touched the mind stone?
Point is there is at least 2 of them have shown to he working together. Not a stretch to say all 6 can do the same. Since we dont exactly know and its not explained, its up to us to draw our own conclusions which is why we are talking about it lol. There is no right or wrong answer.
That is fair, there is no right or wrong answer as it’s just never been shown in the MCU. Sucks too cause if they explain it now, no one cares the infinity stones are old news. It would have made the most sense to explain their nature and how they work in the first few phases or something lol
Because those stones can't teleport people.
Humans already had the time stone, & Jane isn't evil & in need of punishment.
"Elevator isn't worthy."
Was it punishment per sè though or does Skully think that because it feels like a punishment to him? And since when do the stones decide worth? That was only Mjolnir cause of Odin.
I guess the point is none of us really know cause the movies never expanded at all on the focus of the infinity saga: the infinity stones themselves. Like we didn’t need a full movie about the stones origins, but a few throwaway lines here and there shoulda done it.
I would watch the shit out of a series dedicated to exploring the nature and power of the stones. Maybe a prequel, that had lesser known heroes. In the finale, the stones would all be where they were to set-up the infinity saga.
Was he really guarding it tho? He felt more like a doorman who directs you once inside a building.
Thats assuming the stone decided that vs happenstance of just being teleported to the planet where an Infinity Stone was "hidden".
So then I wonder if Red Skull was the first being ever to touch the Tesseract with his hand to be teleported away like that? Like if Thanos found it in 1944 and touched it first, it should have teleported him to Vormir to be a ghost then?
My take is he got to space, maybe ended up in one of those bar planets the Ravagers hang out at, got a translation implant, then in trying to figure out why the hell the Tesseract sent him there, he started looking for the stones and somehow made his way to Vormir. There, having nothing to sacrifice, he sacrificed himself, expecting the gesture to be enough for him to walk away with the stone.
It wasn't. Now he's a spirit guiding other seekers to the stone.
I know he said "it banished me here", but I take that for him shortening the story.
I watched an episode of Strange New Worlds where Captain Pike's wife was always this guardian in a weird place that defies space-time physics..
I'd like for it to be something like that, where the Red Skull has always been the guardian of the Soul Stone.
Season 3 finale. The lifetime in a moment part of that episode was amazing
It was indeed
What if it was a Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey and it was always Red Skull?
That was my interpretation. And "we" is everyone who came before the current person
If that’s true, does that mean that red skull could have met himself if he tried to get the stone?
Yup.
Except that that wouldn’t have happened because the Stones would have known in advance. One of the stones is inextricably connected to time, it’s not at all out of line to think they can act in nonlinear ways.
Who's to say that the Time Stone doesn't know?
Just because we weren't told by the Stone doesn't mean it's out of the loop.
Honestly, this is what I think. And if you need a reason, just assume it was a combination of infinity stones.
Remember back in the days when some folks assumed Heimdall had the soul stone. Heh.
Since he could observe vast amounts of people and other beings all at once.
Also his powers having the orange tint and his eyes.
But i guess it got disproved when it was deemed unsafe to have more than one infinity stone in Asgard.
I think the Heimdall theory was great. It was a missed opportunity for his death to mean something other than sending Hulk back to Earth. We should've been shown a more gruesome Thanos who would've ripped the Soul Stone straight from Heimdall's very being.
Nah, I felt the whole Vormir sequence was neat
He already does that with Vision though. No need to do it twice. He also murders his daughter for the soul stone and has a trail of deaths behind him. Adding Heimdall to that doesn’t add much.
Heimdall would have been first, so technically it's the rest they would be adding.
The Grinch
Wasent it explained loosely that the power stone could sense his intention and hunger so it sent him to Vormir powerless because he could exist where the stone was but would never be able to even look at it. Combined with his super soldier-Ness he lives a long life
It’s not clear he’s alive or corporeal, we’re talking about the soul stone, after all.
This is a good point. Im not sure if the comics mention anything more specific
Time Stone
Time stone is eye of agamotto
Yup, in trying to correct you, I messed up myself. SPACE stone, NOT Power nor Time.
Shit you're right on the first stone. Space stone sent skullie to Vormir to teach him a lesson regarding the SOUL stone. FFS good catch, tough remeber all 6 of them
Yeah, I even have artifacts of all of them. Infinity Gauntlet (non removable stones) Iron Man gauntlet (removable stones), Tessaract and Eye of Agamotto from Hasbro Legends, Loki's Scepter, Aether container, plus a seprate set of all six stones from Disney parks, Power Stone and another Tessaract from Marvel Studios Phase 1 and 2 movie boxsets.
soul goodman
It was always Red Skull, it's Red Skulls all the way down. That's how he knew everything, omnipotence takes time you know.
None of that is likely true but I like it in my head. "Hey! Time stone bro, this dude dared to mess with the power stone. Lets send him back and make him watch the soul stone as punishment."
I believe it was Katy from Shang-Chi.
A soul for a soul
Soulstonious Gaurderino.
Did you guys even pay attention to the movie?
It was always him
Those damn weeping angels!
Or as Drax would ask, "Why guarded the soil stone before Red Skull".
Someone we'll never know or no one since it was hidden away for a while. Once Thanos got the stone, Red Skull was free to leave the planet. So maybe the stone picks and chooses who it deems worthy of the guiding others punishment.
I like the theory that the stone had been in someone's possession until then.
Is he guarding it? Isn’t he more or less just a guide? Anyone who seeks it would have to sacrifice someone they love, Red Skull didn’t try to stop neither Thanos or Natasha and Clint.
Whomever was dumb enough to try to take it before him
Probably warned him not too try but of course he didn’t listen
Doctor doom
I did it
I’m curious if that means that Red Skull was the first being to ever touch the Tesseract with his hand and what would have happened if Thanos touched it first? Would it send him away to guard the Soul Stone forever? Or was that only a Red Skull deal?
That was Steph. She was nice enough, but by time Red Skull came along she already had a pretty decent side gig selling bespoke crochet patterns, so no better time to slide into that full time.
So much for volunteering for a “small temporary work assignment”. Glad that is over now!
white skull
Skeletor
shrugs
The only thing I'm certain of is that Red Skull got the job because his red skull looks cool. They said "yeah, you kinda look like Death, and having someone who looks like Death guarding the stone is cool. Congrats, you got the job"
What if it was always the red skull, and the result of touching the tesseract merged the physical with the metaphysical?
You're not asking the important questions, like what does the Red Skull eat out there? I don't think DoorDash delivers to that location
And where does he does he use the bathroom? Does he just bend over and poop off the edge of the cliff?
Oh no....did Gimora and Natasha both land on a pile of old poop??
These questions need answering
His challenged brother, Numb Skull.
Why does the soul stone need guarding? And why if only one person went seeking the soul stone? The whole thing is kinda ridiculous.
Vormir feels old—pre-Empire, pre-Asgardian arrogance. Maybe someone very much like Heimdall.
Skeletor
Stan Lee
soul stone is by far the most fascinating one and i think thats because of the amount of mystery surrounding it
Would anyone who dared wield the Teaseract have been vanished like that?
Me. AMA.
How do worms get into my rooftop gutters if there's nothing for them to climb up?
Your Significant other or neighbor is messing with you.
Birds.
Fred skull his cousin
Blue skull
Green Skull.
There actually is a Green Skull. He was an ecoterrorist.
I always say it as a time defying place or entity. It’s him and always was and always will be even before he was himself.
Like Loki and Yggdrasil.
In a way yes exactly
Elrond
C. Thomas Howell. The original Soul Man.
I honestly have no idea why he is even there, like I guess I missed something or?
I just kinda accepted it and kept watching
He was messing with the tesseract (space stone) in the first Captain America movie and on Vormir, he says that it rejected him and banished him there as punishment.
You can also just Google "how did red skull end up on Vormir" and you'll find a bunch of websites with the explanation lol
Vecna
It has always been the Red Skull ...but Red Skull explains that he was sent to Vormir as punishment not to be a warden after touching the Tesseract in Captain America: The First Avenger. By the time of Avengers: Infinity War, he has become the Stone’s unwilling guide, not its protector. The guardian is the rules to acquire the stone itself.
The Blue Skull, of course.
Blue Skull
Deadpool
Jack
Me
Pam from HR
Marvel Studios' Pam 2: The Winter Pam
It could be that Red Skull has always been watching the stone, maybe when he was brought to guard it he was sent to the moment he was needed, if the stone can send him through space to another planet, give him ethereal powers and make him nearly a different person really, then it could very well send him to the beginning of time to where he was needed
Someone else.
I did
I've always liked the idea that the old dude the Red Skull killed at the beginning of The First Avenger was some villain who once tried to steal an Infinity Stone and ended up having to serve them. The Skull ending up in the same role himself is part of a grand cycle.
I’d really like to hear more about soul stone lore, but first of all, I thought red skull was a guide, not a guardian. And I like to think that, there was no guide before him and since the stone requires a sacrifice, people who came alone, would not obtain it themselves. So the stone accepted him as one. Actually if we think about the infinity stones, they’re kinda separate beings (in wandavison It was shown mind stone chose Wanda to be scarlet witch ) 🤔
I like to think it was one of Odin’s enemies or someone he knew. Like maybe he fought someone thousands of years ago and ever since, they’ve guarded the soul stone
Someone else
Ares after he became the Champion and Sakarr
Noone, cause they didn't plan all that before the movie.
I did and it sucked
It didn’t really need a guard. Red skull was there as punishment for abusing and attempting to harness the space stone for so long. The stones do (or had) a semi-sentience element, hence the space stone “casting out, banishing” the red skull. Prior to that, there were probably just beings who came across the stone occasionally, possibly going mad, or being guided by the soul stone to make sacrifices in order in order to harness it properly. At some point a being came across it, realized what it could do, and concluded that it should be hidden away because it was beyond their abilities to destroy it but they could see the danger of it falling into the wrong hands. Without anyone to influence the stone went dormant. Like any story with a powerful treasure hidden away, enough details were known by those close to whoever hid it, maybe they saw the results and hoped to harness it, or perhaps purposely left by the being who hid it for people they trusted to find it should it be needed in an extreme circumstance. Whatever those clues were was enough for someone to create a map to its location. That’s if the one who put it there did not just create the map themselves. Gamora finds said map, then burns it. I’d think this is not a traditional map, but more like ancient instructions to a planet that originally was not named or known when it was hidden away. I mean seriously why would a map be needed when the planet is clearly in a named and documented system known by Thanos and others as Vormir. But moving on… Nebula describes it as the dominion of death, center of celestial existence aka people know about it but do not go there. The celestial center makes me think it could have been an eternal who put it there and then after an emergence had a memory wipe, hence it just being left there. You could debate celestial as in “cosmos” or celestial as in the race. Either way, it stays there until the red skull was banished as punishment by the stones and for whatever reason felt it needed a “guardian.” Honestly I would like to think the stones did this purposefully because they want to be used or harnessed to some degree by who meet their requirements. And there’s no way in hell anyone could figure out how to harness the soul stones power without someone to provide instructions. That’s some hardcore 90s Nintendo Easter egg-assed rules if I’ve ever seen them.
TL;DR: No one. It was left by an ancient being, perhaps an Eternal in the center celestial (cosmos or race of being?) existence until the stones decided someone was needed, possibly because they wanted to be used.
Extra: Personally I’d love to think there was a TVA agent stationed there as a shitty position… Like a punishment for pruning the wrong timeline or person. This position just rotates throughout the ages. Even at one point just imagine the line “Damnit Mobius, I’m tired of your attitude and goddamn jet ski stories! You’re on soul stone duty for two weeks!” I mean they do collect them like trinkets while also knowing what they can do in a universe. Then when red skull appears, whoever is there says “it’s about fucking time,” pulls out the TemPad and leaves.
Why assume that red skull has not always been the guard? If the space stone sent him to guard the soul stone which would imply that the stones interact with each other in some way or another.
So why can't the soul stone beckon something from the time stone just as it did the space stone?
The question I would ask instead would be something akin to; why choose red skull over anyone else?
I doubt that the writers had been thinking that far but at least it's something to think about
Blue Skull
Tom from MySpace.
The Blue Clavicle.
I think honestly its a matter of Red Skull in some way becoming apart of the stone or a cosmic force in some way. Something happened when he literally was burning in the portal and then sent through time and space. Who knows what he saw, where he went, how his philosophy could have changed, maybe even the stone took over him literally. Like he is nothing more than a puppet and the cosmos or the mind stone is the puppeteer.
Ask Nate Bergatze.
Wasn’t a guard. More of a guide. I imagine, maybe, there just was no guide before Skully.
Guardie McStonealot, obviously.
Machete.
Why can’t we just say Black Widow does now?
Because Gamora didn't guard it after her death.
Technically, Black Widow died BEFORE Gamora.
Yet they figured out a way to bring her back. Somehow BW “just can’t be done” not even from another universe or time.
It would be cool if, while returning the stones, Steve kidnapped baby Natasha and raised her with Peggy
Even if it could, Scar Jo is done with Marvel/Disney.
Barry from Accounting. He's finally on holiday
Eternity maybe?
Unknown
Soul Train Jones
Green Elbow
Me
Kevin Feige obviously.
Honestly, i like posts like these more than "Am I the only one who liked <Insert any Phase 4/5 movie>". Like, this is dumb too, but it's dumb fun, not like the "holier than thou" posts of the former.
As for your question, it was me.
Miss Minutes!
What If it was Peggy Carter?!
Death?
I think he tried to claim the stone for himself, but given he's a fucking Nazi he had nothing he loved to sacrifice and became trapped by his avarice
Your mom
Wasn't it Adam Warlock?
Your moma
The Elder the Rock Collector.
Dave Pirner
And where did the person guarding it before him went? What happened to him
Kate Bishop
ur mom
The Brown Skull.
I think it was Tim. But don’t ask him about it, as it seems to trigger his PTSD.
Bob.
Jake from State Farm
Who cares?
Does it honestly matter?