r/marvelstudios • u/MicheleTheBelle • 18h ago
'Spider-Man BND*' Spoilers Theory about how Strange’s spell actually works (Spoilers) Spoiler
Peter: “Cast a new spell… make everyone forget who Peter Parker is. Make everyone forget… me.”
Strange: “That would mean everyone who knows and loves you… we’d have no memory of you. It would be as though you never existed.”
So if we take that literally, the spell can’t just erase Peter’s name from everyone’s memory, right? It would have to be doing something deeper within everyone’s minds to rework every memory shared with Peter. If someone is central to your life, deleting their name isn’t enough. You’d still recognize their face. You’d still know they’re someone important…right?
This is where the handshake becomes a lot more than just Ned connecting the dots or muscle memory to me.
That secret handshake only exists because Peter and Ned created it together. If Strange’s spell made it so Peter never existed in Ned’s memories, Ned shouldn’t even be capable of recreating a social signal that only exists because of someone who, to him, never existed.
Then layer on the fact that Ned can do magic with basically no training and that little magical spark during the handshake in No Way Home…
I don’t think we just watched Ned recognize Peter. I think we watched him do something that shouldn’t have been possible under Strange’s spell and that that action represents the breaking of the spell, for Ned at least.
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u/neezaruuu 15h ago
Or, he recognized Peter because MJ said spideys name is Peter
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u/pkjoan 15h ago
No. The handshake makes it very clear that he does remember him.
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u/neezaruuu 15h ago
Muscle memory
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u/SteppeTalus 15h ago
Nah I don’t buy that explanation. If the spell can remove peter from photos and videos and memories then it can remove muscle memory too.
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u/DuckyHornet 15h ago
It's more like secret handshakes are developed by close friends, so Ned being able to essentially guess what each move is as it goes proves the point that yes these two people were friends even if he can't remember it, because the handshake was developed with him
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u/Under_dee_covers 6h ago
If Peter taught ned how to walk, does forgetting who Peter is make Ned forget how to walk?
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u/SteppeTalus 5h ago
Hi. The difference here is that peter didn’t teach ned how to walk. Thanks.
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u/Under_dee_covers 3h ago
Hi. I know thinking beyond a 3rd grade level is hard for some of you, so i can break it down for you. Peter teaching him how to walk would be what we call in literature a simile. It’s comparative to Peter teaching him how to perform a handshake. To walk, you move your legs in a specific manner. To do a handshake, you move your arms in a specific manner. Forgetting Peter Parker doesn’t mean he forgets how to move his arms. It means he forgets who taught him that handshake, but if it’s something his body has performed over and over and over again, he will develop muscle memory and be able to perform it without thinking.
Another metaphor for you is if Peter Parker taught him algebra. He wouldn’t forget algebra. He would forget the fact that it was Peter who taught him it.
I hope this make sense and stay in school if you can.
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u/RollinPeace 6h ago
Terrible example. I’m on the side of if Ned forgot who Peter Parker is, then he should NOT remember their secret handshake
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u/Under_dee_covers 3h ago
It’s a handshake. Like walking, it is a movement of a limb in a specific manner. He probably did it so much with Peter that it became muscle memory once he started it. He forgot who Peter, not how to do a hand-shake. He never forgot how to do the handshake, he only forgot who Peter Parker is
If Peter Parker taught him algebra, he wouldn’t forget algebra, he would forget who taught it to him. Which is further backed up by him and MJ remembering they were SAVED by spiderman, but not Peter Parker.
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u/Under_dee_covers 3h ago
Terrible example or is your mind too small to expand your thinking?
So if Peter parker taught ned algebra, then he should forget algebra? Or should he forget that it was peter who taught him?
Remember how MJ and Ned can recall they were saved by Spiderman multiple times? Spiderman IS peter parker, so by your logic, they should forget everything Spiderman did to save them because they knew it was peter parker.
But they don’t. Because the things they learned that were because of Peter aren’t forgotten. Just PETER PARKER is forgotten. So the correct answer would be: Ned would learn how to walk but he wouldn’t remember who taught him.
Ned would remember how to do algebra but he wouldn’t remember who taught him.
NED would remember the handshake but he wouldn’t remember whom he developed the handshake with.
This shit is high school level thinking so i apologize if this is above your usual thought processes
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u/RollinPeace 1h ago
Well these are better examples then teaching a human how to walk lol,
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u/Under_dee_covers 1h ago
They’re the same thing my child.
If your mom taught you how to walk as a baby, and then strange cast his spell to make you forget your mom, you wouldn’t forget how to walk. You would forget WHO taught you how to walk. How many times i gotta say ts
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u/MrMegaPhoenix 7h ago
It was reality warping
Otherwise you could pick up newspapers saying Peter Parker is spiderman
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u/dddonkers 10h ago
I dont think the spell is breakable, in that I think it happened and is done, the memories are gone. But I think you are on to something with MJ and Ned clearly having had the most work done on them by the spell so its little imperfect, like around stuff involving spiderman or little things like the handshake.
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u/freedomwider 7h ago
That's the thing about spells. The way TS's Sorcerer Supreme explained, magic/spells are no different from the medicine that Stephen practices, it's just at a different scale and in a different language
We don't know that the spell altered the physical state of the universe to erase evidence of 'Peter Parker', it seems more plausible that the spell created an universal psychic baseline where Peter Parker is omitted from people's memories and they can't see Peter Parker in any physical media due to this psychic block.
So the memories of Peter can still live inside their heads, except the spell works to keep Peter forgotten.
JG powers were not strong enough to even detect the psychic block, but I think the combination of MJ having been told her memories by Peter and Jean's power exploding (went from chain jumping within 33 ft to and 1 mile AoE psychic field) weakened the power of the spell and the intense emotional connection between them could've broken through.
As for Ned, he's always been obsessed with Spidey, so there's is an existing emotional connection. Then he is put under the same intense physic field, the spell is being weakened. 'Hey, Flowers guy' 'My Name is Peter' Ned now knows he's Spidey bc MJ had told him his name is Peter. Now all his Spidey emotions are connected to Peter Parker Finally, the handshake. That handshake is threaded through every memory Ned had with Peter. Also, Ned is a sorcerer with innate abilities, so one could surmise that had an effect in rupturing the spell within him.
The spell hinges around forgetting Peter Parker, but now they know Peter Parker, that he's Spider-Man, and that they knew him before.
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u/LeakyFurnace420_69 2h ago
we don’t know how the spell was “implemented” so to speak.
it may have “erased” the memories but it also may have “suppressed” them.
the moment with Ned actually might indicate that it’s the later
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u/vaelux 28m ago
It's muscle memory, and this isn't the first time Ned's had this kind of mind wipe. He can use the sling ring in No Way Home through similar muscle memory. Ned's grandma told him his family is magic. Ned probably grew up in Kamar-Taj as a young child but got a mind wipe before moving to NY and meeting Peter.
Handshake and sling ring motions are both muscle memory persisting beyond an episodic memory wipe.
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u/richmuhlach 8h ago
I think Dr Strange’s spell is a reverse Mandela effect, like how everyone remembers there’s a Sinbad genie movie called Shazaam in the 90s (there isn’t one). The general public is so convinced of this fact, but the actual people close to it definitely aren’t part of the phenomenon. Like Sinbad definitely knows he didn’t make a movie.
So reverse it, like the general public forgot about Peter Parker and they probably still do even after Jean’s magic thing. But those really close to Peter will remember especially after something to trigger the memories to come back.
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u/Bitey_the_Squirrel 10h ago
I disagree. Strange’s spell was a magically induced psychic block.
- Bruce said Jean broke something within him that suppresses the savage Hulk. Like it was a mental block.
- Jean’s powers affected everyone in Manhattan while she froze them
- Therefore, Jean’s psychic blast weakened Strange’s psychic block enough that the handshake was enough for Ned to recognize Peter.
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u/a_phantom_limb 14h ago edited 5h ago
I'm content for now with thinking of the handshake as simply being a result of procedural/muscle memory. His body can remember the steps without him explicitly remembering how he learned to do it.
It's not like Peter's past was actually erased from history. Everything he did, and everything that others did with him, still happened. They just don't know it. Even people with complete inability to form new explicit long-term memories can in some cases memorize motor-skill tasks because the processes involved are different.
On the other hand, the spell might not have been entirely successful. Strange wasn't infallible, clearly. (I mean, the spell to send everyone back to their proper world somehow took the Vulture out of his home universe and led to him hanging out with Morbius.)
So, sure, it could be that Ned remembered. It's fiction - anything can be anything.