'Avengers: Infinity War': How Thanos Used the Soul Stone

The location of the Soul Stone was one of the biggest and most theorized about mysteries heading into Avengers: Infinity War. Arguably the most dangerous of the Infinity Stones, the Soul Stone was critical in Thanos' quest to fully assemble the Infinity Gauntlet but perhaps an even bigger question than the stone's location is just how Thanos would use it should he acquire it.

Warning! There are MASSIVE SPOILERS for Avengers: Infinity War in this article. If you haven't seen the movie and are trying to remain spoiler-free, you probably should check out some of our other articles right now. However, if you've seen the movie or are just really into finding out more about the Soul Stone and are okay with spoilers, feel free to keep reading. You've been warned!

Many fans thought that the Soul Stone would be the last stone that Thanos acquired in Infinity War. As it turns out, it wasn't. It was the fourth. After collecting the Power, Space, and Reality stones, Thanos sacrifices Gamora on Vormir to collect the Soul Stone. Up next on Thanos' collection list? The Time Stone which is in the possession of Doctor Strange on the remains of Titan. Still with us here? Okay, good.

It's there on Titan that we see Thanos use the Soul Stone for the first time and potentially the only time in a pseudo stand-alone capacity in Infinity War -- clearly, he used the stone in concert with the other five when he snapped his fingers and "balanced" the universe. But how did he use it? It's actually kind of ingenious. During the fight on Titan, Doctor Strange -- who, by the way, has used the Time Stone to view the millions of possible outcomes and says that there is only one in which the good guys prevail -- magics up a bunch of duplicate of himself with the intent of keeping the Time Stone out of Thanos' hand. After all, it's hard to collect the stone if you don't know which Doctor Strange has it, right?

This is where the Soul Stone comes in. In the fight with Doctor Strange, two stones light up on the Infinity Gauntlet, the Power Stone and the Soul Stone. We can assume the Power Stone came into play to deal with Strange's decoys but it's the Soul Stone that helped Thanos figure out which one was the real Doctor Strange. While the Soul Stone's powers are somewhat ambiguous -- we talk a little bit about them here -- the one thing we know for sure is that the Soul Stone should be able to identify things with a soul. It would be a very useful tool for Thanos in determining who the real Doctor Strange was, and therefore, the location of the Time Stone and that is exactly what we see him do. He determines which Strange is real, though he has to work a little harder to get the Time Stone. Doctor Strange ends up trading it for Tony Stark's life.

And if you've seen Infinity War, you know things go badly for the universe from there. However, seeing the Soul Stone used independently may also give a little bit of hope. While half of the life in the universe was snuffed out when Thanos snapped his fingers, it's not impossible that, should the remaining heroes somehow get their hands on the Soul Stone they might be able to use it to bring everyone back.

Avengers: Infinity War is in theaters now

Did you notice Thanos using the Soul Stone against Doctor Strange? Do you think the Soul Stone is the key to saving the universe? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.