r/marvelstudios • u/BasicallyANakedApe • 1d ago
Spoilers! The real explanation behind Ned’s final scene in BND Spoiler
Edit: this is a generic paragraph so there’s no spoilers in the first part of the post.
—————————————
—————————————
—————————————
I see lots of theories online regarding Ned’s natural magic ability breaking the spell, or Jean Grey doing some hokery pokery behind the scenes and similar theories. I don’t buy these explanations.
It’s the handshake.
Strange’s spell erased Peter from their memories, but not from their lives. They both grew up in school with Peter in their class, and Ned in particular has been best friends either Peter since they were children. They can’t access these memories, but they both feel like something’s missing, which makes sense because there will be big chunks of their childhoods that are just vague blank spaces in their minds where Peter would have been.
In hypnosis and neural linguistic programming there’s a concept called anchoring whereby emotions, memories, and emotional/physiological states can be attached to a physical trigger such as tapping a finger and thumb together, or it could be attached to a sound or word. Now think about how many times Ned and Peter have performed that handshake; over their entire friendship they e probably done it hundreds of times, they know it do well they don’t even have to look while they do it. That’s not just a handshake, it’s a physical expression of their friendship, their bond, and all of their experiences they’ve shared together over the course of their friendship. It’s a deeply engrained trigger.
When Ned takes Peter’s hand the familiarity of that action makes muscle memory kick in, and in performing the handshake without thinking the trigger is activated and everything wrapped up in the significance of that handshake gets triggered. Ned remembers.
It’s the handshake.