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Butterfly of Doom: Difference between revisions
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Generally part of a story about [[Fantastic Aesop|accepting things as they are,]] this is the sword held over the heads of repeat offenders of [[Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act]], those who insist on changing the past. The resultant world can range from a dark [[Alternate Universe]] to a full-blown [[Mirror Universe]]. Heroes can usually [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], by undoing the original change with a bit of [[Rubber Band History]]. Curiously, these changes are never positive, suggesting in all cases shit happens for a reason.
Intuition dictates that big changes have big causes, and small causes equal small changes. This trope is named partly for the [[Butterfly Effect]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect\], an observation made in meteorology. In the large-scale computer simulation of weather systems, a minuscule change in temperature or the wind's direction (about the bat of a butterfly's wings) will drastically alter the weather (sunshine instead of hurricanes) simulated at a later point. Even if the models used work, it is impossible to achieve sufficient accuracy when entering the data. Thus computer-assisted long term weather forecasting is considered a joke even by meteorologists.
The [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Of Doom]] is appended [[Don't Explain the Joke|because the image of a single frail, pretty, delicate-as-a-sheet-of-glass butterfly causing the world to turn itself inside out is amusing.]] In [[Real Life]], the butterfly does not actually change the expected mix of storms; a flap of the wing may cause hurricanes, hailstorms, typhoons, tornados, blizzards, but it would be equally likely to prevent those storms. Probably it causes about an equal number of both changes, but the Butterfly Effect makes it impossible to tell which ones. That being no fun at all, writers tend to opt for the Doom scenario.
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== Films -- Live Action ==
* The majority of the first ''[[Back to The Future]]'' movie is Marty trying to reverse the effect of his having saved his father from being hit by a car.
** Over the course of the trilogy, changing the past has nothing but positive effects for most of the characters. But ''not intentionally''. In fact, almost all of Marty's ''intended'' timeline changes end up nearly erasing him from existence. All the positive changes came from ''unintentional'' changes -- most notably his "Darth Vader from the planet Vulcan" schtick, intended to spook his teenage dad into asking for a date, instead gave him confidence to become a professional science-fiction author.
** Part 2 has an ideal example with the [[Timeline-Altering MacGuffin]]. Marty buys it to make a fortune in sports betting. Doc finds out and throws the almanac away, Biff from 2015 finds it. Old Biff then steals the time machine and gives it to himself in 1955. This then causes Biff to become the richest and most powerful man in the country, single-handedly legalizing gambling, ensuring Nixon's re-election for multiple terms, and turning Hill Valley into a [[Crapsack World]] where biker gangs rule the streets and armed thugs ride around on tanks.
*** [[It Got Worse|You forgot to mention he married Marty's mom and killed Marty's dad!]]
*** In a deleted scene, where Old Biff brings the DeLorean back to 2015, he fades out himself. Presumably, Lorraine finally got up the courage to off him sometime after 1985a. So the "stuff you do on purpose turns out badly for you" rule still holds.
** you could also say that this movie averts this trope. While some of the things he does ends up with a bad outcome, other smaller things that should create a terrible effect by the trope's standards end up making life better for them in the future, meaning the old future wasn't necessarily the "right one."
* "Timewaves" are the result of the change in history in the very loose film adaptation of ''[[A Sound of Thunder]]''.
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* The movie ''[[Sliding Doors]]'' had a non-time travel variation. The movie follows the events following the protagonist either missing the subway or getting on just in time, and then some...
* The film ''Mr. Destiny'' starring Jim Belushi as Larry Burrows, an unhappy middle aged office employed loser. He blames the state of his life on the moment he struck out in a high school baseball game. A guardian angel like figure named Mike (played by Michael Caine) changes the past so that he hit the ball. Larry is now the president of the sporting goods company he worked and married to the owner's daughter. However, he soon learns that his alternate self's other decisions have a number of problems: his father is now divorced (on "his" advice, no less), he's having an affair with an [[Ax Crazy]] worker, his best friend is now afraid of him, he's been involved in some shady schemes with the other executives who are now plotting to get rid of him after noting his "change of heart" and his wife from the original timeline is now married to someone else.
* In the [[Stargate Verse]] film ''[[Stargate: Continuum]]'', {{spoiler|Ba'al}} has gone back in time and killed one man, {{spoiler|Mitchell's great-grandfather, who was also transporting the Stargate to the US}}. This is made more interesting when the main characters, who know about the normal timeline, ask to be allowed to fix things, only to be told by General Landry that the people in this timeline don't ''want'' to be involved in big intergalactic wars. They like things just fine the way they are.
** He also points out that by restoring the timeline, the lives of everyone in the altered timeline are changed, and many will cease to exist -- like Jack's son, Charlie, who is alive in the alternate timeline.
* Perhaps the Aesop of ''[[Run Lola Run|Lola Rennt]]'' is that it's all just a crapshoot. Any given ripple of influence from a chance passing could be a [[Butterfly of Doom]] -- or a miraculous windfall -- for Lola or anyone she brushes with. The opener alone establishes that fighting fate is just a game.
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* The historians in [[Connie Willis]]'s time-travel novels are afraid of this happening, because although for many years they've believe that the laws of time-travel physics don't allow anyone to travel if their presence will change history, this isn't borne out by their own experiences - while they can't visit "divergence points" (for example, the battle of Waterloo, or anywhere near Hitler) they ''can'' alter minor events, and then have no way of knowing whether this has had a significant effect. The plot of ''To Say Nothing of the Dog'' balances on whether two individuals will marry each other instead of the people that they're required to marry so that their descendants exist in the future in order to play historical roles, and in ''Blackout'' it's posited that a novice time-traveller bumping into a woman and making her drop her handbag may cause the Allies to lose WWII. {{spoiler|However, in both novels, the continuum either appears to self-correct, or to have "required" the presence of the time-travellers - in other words, the things they do have always happened and don't change the overall outcome of events.}}
* In the short story "You're Another" a hapless man finds that all of his troubles are caused by people from the future who alter the past, over and over again, and then film it as entertainment. When asked if changing the past doesn't change their time in the future they explain that it doesn't saying "What happens to a dog when you cut off it's mother's tail?" He is not happy when he finds out his part in all this, and why he's constantly falling into holes, having paint drop on him and being cheated on my his girlfriend. Their explanation {{spoiler|"comic relief"}}.
* Played With in ''[[11/22/63]]''. While changing the past does have majorly negative effects, this is the result of the timestream shattering. {{spoiler|For example, saving Kennedy leads to a massive Los Angeles earthquake ''the same week'', which could not possibly have been a direct result.}}
== Live Action TV ==
* Blackadder Back and Forth is a brilliant example of this trope. In the story, Blackadder (accidentally, initially meaning it as a scam to win a bet with his guests) invents a working time machine. He is sent on a dare to use it and to bring back a catalogue of different items including a centurion's helmet and the Duke of Wellington's boots. After he succeeds in doing these things, it emerges that he has changed the course of history as a result: After finally arriving at the battle of Waterloo, he squashes the Duke of Wellington with his time machine just before the battle begins, steals his famous boots and causes the French to win the fight. As a result, Blackadder returns to an alternate-reality Britain which has been ruled by the French for 200 years - as a result of his tampering - following Napoleon Bonaparte's victory at Waterloo, and just in time for garlic pudding. He becomes especially disconcerted when he sees Archdeacon Darling wearing a tutu and exclaims "We've got to save Britain!" before going back in time to try and rectify everything. He also has a run-in with William Shakespeare, earlier on in the story, whom he attacks for the interminable suffering of school pupils that would happen for the next 400 years as a result of having to study his plays at length, leaving William completely discouraged as a playwright but dropping his ballpoint pen in the process. Later on, in the alternate reality, William Shakespeare is revealed to have been known only for "inventing the ballpoint pen."
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'' appropriately entitled "My Butterfly", where a butterfly affects the events of the day, ending in the death of a patient. When the butterfly changes where it lands, the episode features an alternate future, but {{spoiler|the patient that J.D., Dr. Cox, and Turk are involved with still dies on the table}}.
* Another fine example of how one man's repeated attempts at changing the past to find the "perfect" timeline are leading to ever more disastrous consequences is the two-parter episode [[wikipedia:Year of Hell|"Year of Hell"]] from the 4th season of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''. Things are spiraling out of control, precisely because the timeship is based on the idea of ''Laplace's Demon'' which is contradicted by both Quantum Mechanics and Chaos Theory. In the end {{spoiler|the original timeline can only be restored by destruction of the timeship (which had existed "outside time" while aboard centuries of subjective time passed), which Captain Janeway brings about by ramming it with the ''Voyager'', destroying both ships in the process and "resetting" the timeline back one year.}} Basically, a giant [[Reset Button]] finale, but one of the few times in the ''Voyager'' series in which the [[Reset Button]] actually made sense from the context of the episode.
* In what is widely considered to be the best episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' (TOS), "The City on the Edge of Forever", the world falls to Nazi Germany and Starfleet never forms because one woman didn't die when she was supposed to.
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* In ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark goes back in time to save {{spoiler|Lana's}} life. However, in preventing the accident, {{spoiler|his dad}}, no longer having a reason to stay and console Clark, goes straight to his meeting with {{spoiler|Lionel Luthor}}. The scuffle that ensues causes him to have a heart attack, ultimately killing him.
* Several alternate universe/timeline episodes of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' feature worlds where it seems like only one small thing has changed, but often, that leads to something even more horrible happening. A good example is "2010", where contact with one group of aliens lead to {{spoiler|the slow but inevitable destruction of humanity itself}}.
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode [[Doctor Who/NS/Recap/S3 E2 The Shakespeare Code|"The Shakespeare Code"]], the Doctor lampshades this to put Martha at ease in her first time time-traveling.
{{quote|'''Martha''': "But, isn't it dangerous? You know, like you step on a butterfly and the future's completely changed because of it?"
'''The Doctor''': "Well... I tell you what then: don't step on any butterflies. What have they ever done to you?" }}
** While the show is mostly immune to this trope, with characters messing through time willy-nilly, it is used occasionally. The episode "Turn Left" is probably the most striking example, with an [[It's a Wonderful Plot]] twist.
** "The Fires of Pompeii" both plays this straight and subverts it. Donna asks the Doctor why he can't warn the city of the impending volcanic eruption, only for him to say that it's a fixed point in time that must not be tampered with. At the end, as the volcano is erupting, Donna pleads with the Doctor to help, so he rescues one family (the one they've gotten to know throughout the episode) and puts them outside of the city with what appears to be no consequences.
** The Doctor has mellowed a bit when it comes to messing around with history. The First Doctor story ''An Unearthly Child'' has him so paranoid about the possible ramifications of this trope that he is convinced that the mere ''idea'' that a device such as the TARDIS exists could irreparably change the course of human history.
** In the episode "Father's Day", Rose goes back in time to visit her father before his death but ends up saving him from his fatal accident. The resulting tear int he fabric of reality lets through a host of aliens who feed off time energy and kill a lot of people.
** In the season six finale, River Song tries to subvert reality by {{spoiler|not killing the Doctor}}. The result of this is that all of time and space coexist in the same eternal instant, with anything unable to happen until the proper events of the timeline are carried through.
* Used in the UK series ''[[Misfits]]'', where Curtis uses his time-travelling ability to go back to the night he and his girlfriend Sam were arrested for drug possession. His initial attempts to change things only make things worse (such as Sam ending up stabbed by the dealer), but he eventually manages to change things enough that neither of them are killed or arrested and "jumps" back to the present, where it looks initially like an inversion; he's back to being an Olympic athlete and Sam is alive. Then he realises that without him there to save him, almost the entire main cast were murdered back in the first episode.
* A continuing theme of the [[Cut Short]] series ''[[Odyssey 5]]''. Five astronauts who survived the destruction of Earth are sent back in time five years to try and avert the xenocide. Although they agree not to try and change their own personal lives none of them can resist trying to tinker with events, with varying results.
* The ''[[Kamen Rider]]'' [[Milestone Celebration|40th anniversary movie]] ''Let's Go Kamen Rider'' is all about this. [[Kamen Rider OOO|OOO]] and [[Kamen Rider Den-O|Den-O]] chase a monster back to the era of [[Kamen Rider (TV series)|the original Kamen Rider]] and accidentally leave behind an [[Transformation Trinket|O Medal]]. When they return to 2011, that single Medal has allowed villain organization Shocker to [[Take Over the World]] and put four decades' worth of Kamen Riders on the ropes.
* ''[[Fringe]]'': In a roundabout way, the show reveals in bits and pieces that the entire plot of the series and the fate of multiple universes all pivoted on a single inadvertent action by a time traveler: {{spoiler|an Observer's presence distracting the red universe's Walter Bishop from discovering a cure for his son Peter's illness}}. This miniscule action caused {{spoiler|Walter's blue universe counterpart to bridge their two universes to save Peter, and then kidnap him to be a [[Replacement Goldfish]] for his own Peter}}. This dimensional mess destabilized the physical laws of both universes and jeopardized the timeline that would spawn the time-travelers in the first place, forcing them to take a direct role in correcting the original mistake.
* The ''[[Community]]'' episode "Remedial Chaos Theory" is all about this. It's decided that a roll of the dice will dictate who has to leave and pick up a pizza, so the one rolling the dice will be creating six different universes, all based around what the characters would or (or in some cases, wouldn't) be doing in the two or three minutes that the pizza is getting picked up. All outcomes except for one involve the group somehow creating a conflict in these couple minutes. In the real (best) outcome, {{spoiler|Abed stops the dice from falling, Jeff goes to get the pizza, and the group gets along fine while he's gone.}} In the "Dark" outcome {{spoiler|where Troy leaves to pick up the pizza, Pierce dies, Annie goes insane and Shirley becomes an alcoholic because of Pierce's death, Jeff loses an arm, and Troy loses his larynx.}} Abed acknowledges that it's the darkest timeline, and makes everyone felt goatees so they can all be "evil" versions of themselves.
* ''[[Angel]]''. In "[[It's a Wonderful Plot|Birthday]]" the demon Skip shows Cordelia (with the help of [[Monday Night Football]] replay and onscreen graphics) how her life could have been different if she'd just moved in one direction as opposed to the other during a party in the series premiere and met a Hollywood talent agent instead of the series protagonist, becoming the famous star of a comedy television series instead of a [[Fainting Seer]] whose visions are killing her.
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* This is pretty much the entire premise for the DS game ''[[Time Hollow]]''. Where the player makes small changes to the past and watches the subsequent results.
** This is also the plot for the [[PlayStation 2]] game ''[[Shadow of Memories]]'' which was written by the same maker of Time Hollow. Dude loves his time travel.
* The basis for the ''[[Command
** And in ''Red Alert 3'', the Soviets go back in time to erase Einstein in order to save the Soviet Union, weakening both the Aliies and the Soviets(no nukes) and creating the Empire of The Rising Sun, resulting in a three-way world war.
* ''[[Blaz Blue]]''. Six words: The Wheel of Fate is Turning.
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