A few years ago, there was a very interesting question on the Internet: If you were of the opposite sex, would you like your current self? The answer is widely disputed. Here, we may as well open our minds a little more, will you like yourself in other worlds?
Loki gave the answer, yes, I would. In the latest episode of Marvel's super-British drama "Loki", the Overworld's Loki develops a crush on loki in the other world. In other words, Loki fell in love with "himself."
At first glance, it seems a bit awkward, what is the main world? What is an otherworld? Readers who know the Marvel Universe won't be surprised. All of this is based on the "multiverse" theory set by Marvel. In every world, there is a Loki, who may have different genders, different looks, and even the personalities of the characters are very different.
So, when the Overworld Loki delved deeper into the story of the Otherworldly Loki, he fell. Thankfully, Marvel hasn't been so mad about political correctness that it's set up two Lokis as gay bad tastes, although there will be a lot of viewers interested in it. However, the focus of this article is not on Rocky, but on the multiverse.
How did the multiverse come about? To talk about this, we must first talk about the emergence of the universe. At present, the most advanced theory is the expansion theory of the universe, which is an innovation of the Big Bang theory. This theory assumes that the universe is an expanding balloon in which galaxies are the points on the surface of the balloon, on which humans inhabit.
As the universe expands, each point on the balloon's surface gets farther and farther away. If parts of the universe expanded suddenly, it might accidentally cause other distant regions of the universe to expand as well.
According to this theory, a small piece of the universe may suddenly expand to give birth to a baby universe, and these universes may give birth to another baby universe, and so on. Just like blowing a soap bubble hard, some soap bubbles will split in half, creating new soap bubbles. The universe may continue to produce new universes in the same way.
If this were true, we might live on such an ocean of universes, each of which is like a soap bubble floating in an ocean of other soap bubbles. This is what people often call the multiverse.
Let's be clear about another concept. That's the difference between a multiverse and a parallel universe. As we all know, Marvel is good at eating settings, and likes to use the multiverse to do things. Spider-Man becomes a demon, and Deadpool kills all the superheroes, all of which happen to other universes. And what about the Earth universe? They are still "good people".
In Loki, the concept of parallel universes is introduced outside the multiverse.
As it literally is, parallel universes are characterized by parallelism. You are reading this article in Universe A, and you are reading this article in Parallel Universe B. Two lines never intersect, always parallel.
In fact, as early as "Avengers 4", there was a reference to parallel universes. After watching "Avengers 3", most viewers will have a question, why not take the time gem to travel to the past and kill Thanos when the baby is killed? In Avengers 4, the official explanation was given by Nebula and Banner.
If you travel back in time to kill Thanos, the timeline will change, creating a parallel universe. What dies is only Thanos of this universe, and Thanos of the main universe still exists. The half of the people still couldn't come back.
The reason why Marvel is so set up is, in the final analysis, to avoid the emergence of the "grandfather paradox". This magical theory was proposed by the French novelist Héhne Bach Zavelle in the novel The Careless Tourist.
He wrote in the book that if you went back in time and killed your grandparents before your father was born, there would be a series of contradictions. If you kill your grandmother, she won't give birth to your father, and she won't have you. So who killed your grandmother? Who are you killing?
The loki drama further enriches the concept of parallel universes. Above the universe is the existence of the Authority called the Space-Time Anomaly. They write scripts for the beings of the universe and monitor their every move. As soon as someone doesn't follow the script, administrators travel through that universe to clear the anomalous timeline.
Interestingly, the concept of parallel universes is a paradox with Marvel's previous multiverse. If all universes operate according to one script, how can Spider-Man be a bad guy? Marvel has not given an explanation for the time being, perhaps the parallel universe in "Rocky" is only a facet of countless multiverses.
In the anime Rick and Morty, the concept of the multiverse is more deft. Rick, the craziest scientist under the heavens, has been doing outrageous adventures all year round. Adventure in space, natural dangers, the slightest carelessness will lead to a desperate situation. Sometimes, it also plagues the whole world. Fortunately, there are countless universes.
Thus, in the past four seasons, the audience can see that thousands of cosmic Ricks have gathered to deal with Rick of the main universe; they can also see that when the monster breaks into the main universe and the world collapses, Rick simply takes Morty through to another universe, and as long as he kills the other Rick and Morty, this becomes the main universe.
Asimov's multiverse has more thinking about the laws of nuclear physics. In his science fiction novel "Gods Themselves", he made an interesting assumption: what would happen if there was a parallel universe relative to human society, and the physical laws in the parallel universe were different from ours?
When harmful substances from other universes are transported into our universe, they are converted into usable energy. In the face of this energy, fire energy, wind energy, water energy, and solar energy have all become pediatrics. As long as energy is continuously acquired, human beings can achieve a great leap in science and technology. Even if it is a curvature spaceship, it can be built in a lifetime.
However, what really makes the multiverse mysterious and mysterious is the movie "The Man Without a Name".
"The Man Without a Surname"
In a way, it's like an interactive drama that doesn't require a choice. When the protagonist makes different choices at a fork in the road, there will be different consequences, thus deriving different parallel universes.
However, the film is too fantastical. It even goes a step further in the concept of parallel universes, talking about the collapse of the universe. When you in all the universes have gathered into one "you", who are you at this moment? This seems to have transcended the "I killed me" debate and really entered the category of philosophical speculation.
The movie "Back to the Future" talks about another philosophy: the incest paradox. That is, "I became my father.".
The protagonist, Martin, travels back in time in a time machine and meets his parents, whom he first met. In order to help his parents fall in love, he took pains. But in the wrong place, the mother actually fell in love with herself. I ask you, if my mother fell in love with me, then after we were united, the child born was me or my son?
Han Han's "Riding the Wind and Waves" also pays tribute to "Back to the Future". However, Han Han is obviously smarter than Robert Zemeckis, and he knows where to stop. The audience laughed and laughed, and made trouble, so they didn't have to bother them to think. Before the problem arises, the matter is solved.
At the end of the article, let's answer the question. Will you fall in love with yourself in the multiverse?
【Text/Ma II】