Warning: Avengers: Infinity War spoilers ahead!

Avengers: Infinity War [1] leaves us with more questions about what's next for the Marvel universe than it answers. Chief among them: Is Vision actually dead [2]?

To get to the bottom of this, we have to go back to the beginning. The actor who plays Vision, Paul Bettany [3], has been with the Marvel movies since day one. Before he morphed into Vision, Bettany provided the voice for Iron Man's right-hand robot, Jarvis, in 2008's Iron Man. Jarvis later becomes Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, gaining a body of his own rather than operating solely as a disembodied voice. This begins an unending quest for the character to become more human-like. It's a quest that seems to have come to an end in Infinity War, in which we see that Vision has fostered a romantic relationship with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). To make things even more heartbreaking, Vision goes on to do the most human thing one can: he dies.

Vision's death packs less of a shock since the Mind Stone — the one previously embedded in his forehead — is featured in movie posters embedded in Thanos's gauntlet [4]. However, it was impossible to be fully prepared [5] for seeing Vision die twice; once painlessly at the hand of Scarlet Witch, and then again in torment at the hand of Thanos.

So, will Vision be resurrected?

All my money and soul is on yes. Haters may point out that Paul Bettany [6] isn't on the upcoming cast lists for any Marvel movies, but hear me out. There are three themes in Infinity War that support the theory that Vision will live again:

1. A soul for a soul.
2. We don't trade lives.
3. Vision can exist without the Mind Stone.

There's more than one conversation about what life might look like for Vision without a Mind Stone, if he indeed could go on without it. With a film this long and action-packed [7] (including that postcredits scene [8]), you have to assume that any conversation that isn't of real importance probably gets left on the editing floor. These lines have to be foreshadowing that Vision can survive in one form or another without his stone.

There's also the phrases "soul for a soul" and "we don't trade lives" that crop up more than once in this movie. I'm not the first person to land on this conspiracy theory [9], which has steadily gained popularity as fans come out of the cinema feeling devastated.

I believe that every life that we lose [10] during the snap will eventually be traded by one of the heroes left standing. Cap will trade his life for Bucky, Iron Man will trade his life for Peter Parker, Rocket for Groot, and so on and so forth. It would be a heart-wrenching ride into the sunset for the Marvel universe as we know it, and a triumphant start of the next chapter — the kind of momentous shake-up at which Marvel has been hinting.

This is where I believe Vision will be invaluable. As we have learned, Vision evolves at a rapid rate. He's more than Ultron, more than Jarvis, more than an android, and probably much more than the stone. We have no idea how powerful he actually is or what he's capable of. Oh, and since Thanos dissolves Scarlet Witch, the one person Vision has ever loved, the motivation part is taken care of. Thanos still has the gauntlet, and given how fractured everyone is feeling, they're going to need someone like Vision. While we didn't see and probably have no idea the full brunt of his power in this movie, it's not impossible to think that if he lives he could easily be the one with the ability to set the soul-for-soul trades into motion and finally defeat the purple big bad.

While there may be no resurrection left for some of our favourite characters in this film, it's fair to say that Vision has a fighting chance.