A new Avengers 4 theory suggests that the victims of Thanos' snap have been transported into the Quantum Realm. According to the Law of Conservation of Mass, matter cannot be either created or destroyed. That's why, in the MCU, when Thanos snapped his fingers his victims crumbled to dust. They didn't simply fade out of existence, the raw matter erased from reality; rather, they disintegrated into dust.

But there's a spiritual side to the MCU, as was most effectively demonstrated by Doctor Strange, who can project his very soul - his so-called Astral Self - out of his body and yet still interact with others. The bodies of half the lives in the universe were destroyed; but what happened to their souls? That question has captivated Marvel fans ever since the release of Avengers: Infinity War, and it seems particularly important given Marvel has stressed the power and significance of the Soul Stone.

Related: Avengers 4 Theory: The Soul Stone DOESN'T Contain The Dead Avengers

Now, though, a new fan theory has suggested the souls of the dead Avengers - and of half the living beings in the universe - have been hidden in plain sight. According to this Avengers 4 theory, those souls reside within the Quantum Realm, and were clearly seen in the post-credits scene of Ant-Man & the Wasp.

Something Changes in the Quantum Realm After Thanos' Snap

Ant-Man and the Wasp post-credits scene

This new Avengers 4 Quantum Realm theory is powered by Reddit user meme_abstinent, who spotted what may be an important detail in Ant-Man & the Wasp's mid-credits scene. In the stinger, Scott Lang enters the Quantum Realm to collect some mysterious "healing particles" that will apparently help keep Ghost in phase with reality. Unfortunately for Scott, his visit to the Quantum Realm coincides with Thanos' arrival in Wakanda. Thus Scott is inside the Quantum Realm when Thanos snaps his fingers - and all those who could get him out are killed in the Mad Titan's horrific act of galactic genocide.

That's the thrust of the scene, but is there more to it? Throughout the production of Ant-Man & the Wasp, Marvel stressed that nothing about the Quantum Realm was accidental, and here there's plenty of interest going on in the background. At first, Scott is surrounded by a range of color. After he opens the collection unit and the orange healing particles flood into it, the area around is diminished of all but reds, purples, and blues. Then something happens, right at the moment Thanos is snapping his fingers: the Quantum Realm appears to go wild around Scott, with sparks of orange shimmering into existence around Scott, apparently from nowhere.

The effect is so crazy that some viewers even believed they briefly caught a glimpse of Thanos' face in the Quantum Realm; this didn't really make any sense from a story point of view, but gives an idea of just how vibrant what's going on is. Thanos' snap has changed something about the Quantum Realm, leaving the subatomic dimension in utter disarray, flooded with mysterious orange light. What happened?

Related: The Significance of The Quantum Realm To The MCU’s Future

The Dead Avengers Are Often Linked To The Soul Stone

It's commonly theorized that the souls of the dead Avengers have been consumed by the Soul Stone. There's comic book precedent for the idea; in the comics, the Soul Stone is a sentient being in own right and has a voracious desire to consume the souls of living beings. Anyone unfortunate enough to be consumed by the Soul Stone winds up trapped inside, within a realm known as the Soul World. This place is confirmed to exist in the movies when Thanos transported there and saw Gamora at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Given its prominent position and abilities, many viewers have suggested that the souls of all Thanos' victims have been transported into the Soul Stone.

And here's the interesting thing: in the MCU, colors matter, especially when you're dealing with Infinity Stones (time travel is green, teleportation blue). The Soul Stone is orange, and thus orange can be viewed as the color of souls. That makes the fact that Ant-Man was collecting orange healing particles quite interesting, but also raises a lot of curious questions about just what those orange lights were that suddenly flooded into the Quantum Realm after Thanos committed his greatest atrocity.

It's possible that, in the MCU, when a person dies their soul finds its way to the Quantum Realm. Though Scott didn't realize it, when he collected the "healing particles" he was unwittingly collecting souls. And then, when Thanos snapped his fingers, the Quantum Realm was filled with billions more. It's a haunting possibility, and it suggests the Soul World could be far more important in Avengers 4 than we thought...

Page 2 of 2: Are The Dead Avengers In The Quantum Realm?

Thanos in Soul World in Avengers Infinity War

Is The Soul World On The Same Plane As The Quantum Realm?

Of course, this raises yet another question; is there a connection between the Soul World and the Quantum Realm? In the comics, the Soul World is traditionally described as a metaphysical "pocket dimension" bound to the Soul Stone. The current Infinity Wars event has revealed that this dimension is far more vast in scale than anyone had ever realized, large enough to expand and contain all of creation itself. Perhaps it's better to imagine the Soul World as another plane of reality, one that is bound somehow to the Soul Stone.

If that's the case, then it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the Soul World and the Quantum Realm are one and the same place. After all, the Quantum Realm itself is an almost limitless dimension, a place where the laws of time and space break down, one that exists both in and apart from our own. This connection would somewhat explain why the souls appear in the Quantum Realm; the same logic as the Soul Stone theory applies.

Related: Avengers 4 Theory: It's Not Time Travel, It's Memories

Kevin Feige has explained that the Quantum Realm does have a sort of geography to it. "If you notice in [Ant-Man & the Wasp]," he explained, "[Janet] says meet me in the Wastelands beyond the Void. There are various levels that we check in on. So there are many, many different layers to the Quantum Realm." In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos briefly visited a shimmering orange realm, where he encountered the soul of his daughter Gamora. Perhaps this was one of the "different layers" of the Quantum Realm, a place where the souls of the dead can commune with the living when they've entered into an altered state of being.

What Would This Mean For Avengers 4?

But, if we assume this theory is correct, what would it mean for Avengers 4? By now it's looking pretty much certain that Earth's surviving heroes will travel into the Quantum Realm - new artwork even shows the Avengers in environmental costumes - with the expected primary goal being to travel in time and avert the snap. The Quantum Realm is a dimension where the laws of space and time break down, making it a logical way to explain the Avengers 4 set photos that have characters revisiting previous movies.

However, if the souls of the dead do reside within the Quantum Realm, then it's possible the Avengers will find themselves approached by these souls. In fact, the dead could provide the Avengers with the guidance they need to track down all the Infinity Stones, and thus rewrite history. Gamora, after all, is the only one who knows where the Soul Stone was hidden before Thanos acquired it.

Is The Quantum Realm/Soul Stone Connection A Coincidence?

Ant-Man in The Quantum Realm

As intriguing as this Avengers 4 theory may be, it's predicated by the assumption that the orange lights in the Quantum Realm have to be souls. You can certainly make an argument for that case, but are there any other possible explanations for that color?

Related: Every Time Thanos Used The Infinity Stones In Avengers: Infinity War

Yes, there are. Firstly, it's worth pointing out that orange may not actually be the color of souls in the MCU at all. Instead, it could conceivably be the color of life itself. Thus the Soul Stone is orange (souls belong to living things, after all), and healing particles that restore life are also orange. Perhaps, when Ant-Man captured all the healing particles in the area he was in, he created a vacuum - and other orange particles flooded in, coincidentally at the same time as Thanos' snap.

Besides, you would expect Thanos' snap to cause chaos in the Quantum Realm anyway. This isn't an alternate dimension, it's another layer of reality itself, a subatomic plane of existence that lies beneath the world we know; and one more than open to being impacted by an act involving all the Infinity Stones. Indeed, there has even been hints that there are civilizations within the Quantum Realm (although a scene discussing that was cut from Ant-Man & the Wasp, Janet still carries a sword clearly forged by an alien civilization). Presumably, those races would also be affected by the snap, their numbers culled by half.

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This is definitely an interesting theory, but it's not entirely persuasive. It seems more likely that the snap affected reality on a fundamental level; Scott Lang was in a subatomic world, and he simply saw the impact of Thanos's act working out in terms of quantum mechanics. Of course, that doesn't make the Quantum Realm any less important to Avengers 4 thanks to its connections to both time travel and Captain Marvel.

More: MCU Theory: How The Quantum Realm Fits Into Captain Marvel

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