Thread:Elledy92/@comment-26838855-20190425183005/@comment-25521424-20190429142243

BEJT wrote: It's not arbitrary though since this film explains that in removing an Infinity Stone you cause a branch in the timeline, not if you just pop back to some point in time. By the rules of the film, Clint and Steve didn't cause any branches.

They also promised to make sure there were no alternate realities made by their jumps - the ones that were, they closed off by returning the Stones. You can't return anything with Clint or Steve to close off that timeline, yet they made sure no alternate realities were created, so those can't have been alternate realities. A branch is cause even if you do not remove an Infinity Stone but change the course of the events, as we can see in the 2012 and 2014 timelines. There's still confusion on this part: they didn't promise they won't caused alternate timelines, they promised they will not cause branches where the Infinity Stones are out of place, condemning those realities to cause and mayhem. A change is essential inevitable, and it doesn't the present in anyway (not in a serious case, like the 2012 escape of Loki, not a mild case, like Future Thor speaking to his mother in 2013. Even if that timeline will mantain a normal course, it still won't be the past of our Thor).