Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator -- and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Doctor Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to [[Trope Namer|put right what once went wrong]] and hoping each time that his next leap... will be the leap home."''|'''Opening''', ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]''}}

Constitutes the plot of nearly every episode of ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' ([[Trope Namer|from which this title was taken]]), ''[[Early Edition (TV)|Early Edition]]'', ''[[Seven Days]]'', and ''[[Tru Calling]]'', as well as a majority of episodes of ''[[The Dead Zone]]'', and numerous individual episodes of other shows. Can form the [[Arc]] of a whole series, as in ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]''.

Combinations of [[Groundhog Day Loop]] and [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] are possible, however, and have been used on occasion: see for example "The Siege" on ''[[The Dead Zone]]'', the ''[[Tru Calling]]'' episode "The Longest Day", ''[[Early Edition (TV)|Early Edition]]'''s "Run, Gary, Run." In fact, this combination is the entire premise of ''[[Day Break]]''.

* The plot of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni (Visual Novel)|Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni]]'' once the protagonists realize that they've {{spoiler|been trapped in a [[Groundhog Day Loop]]}} of murder, insanity and betrayal. {{spoiler|Rika and Hanyuu knew from the beginning, and were trying to save the town, but eventually nearly gave up.}}

* ''[[Steins Gate (Visual Novel)|Steins;Gate]]'' runs on this trope. The protagonist Okabe voluntarily relives the same couple of hours over and over {{spoiler|as he tries and fails repeatedly to prevent his childhood friend Mayuri's death.}} Then, upon realizing {{spoiler|that doing so is futile, he instead opts to send new messages to the past in order to counteract every previous D-mail that's been sent.}} The series ends with a truly [[Mind Screw|Mind Screwy]] plan {{spoiler|put together by his future self to physically travel back to the past and save his love interest by fooling his past self into thinking she's dead.}}

* ''[[Generator Gawl (Anime)|Generator Gawl]]'' seems to fall into this category, seeing how the only reason Auge was able to take over was because Gawl, Koji, and Ryu went back in time to stop them. In the end Ryu was the one who created the include cells and gave Auge the ability to take over, which is what caused them to go back in the first place. Ouch, I think my brain just exploded.

* An attempt at this is the driving force behind the [[Myth Arc]] of ''[[Rave Master (Anime)|Rave Master]]''. The series inverts the trope because changing history back to the way it was is the ''bad guys''' plan, as the original timeline's world was utterly destroyed save one survivor, who was able to change history to create the Rave world. On top of the [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch]] [[Clock Roaches|Clock Roach]] out to undo the paradox involved, most of the late-story baddies want to see the "false" world destroyed.

* The premise of ''[[Flint the Time Detective (Anime)|Flint the Time Detective]]''. The Time Shifters got scattered throughout history, changing the way certain historical events played out, and the Time Detectives have to captured them and put the past back the way it was.

* The entire final arc of ''[[Full Metal Panic (Light Novel)|Full Metal Panic]]'' is about this, as it's [[Big Bad|Leonard's]] motive behind all the trouble he causes. It's why he kidnaps Kaname, why Kalinin {{spoiler|joins him}}, why {{spoiler|Kaname/Sophia help him (it can be argued that Kaname didn't know what she was doing when she merged with Sophia, but she certainly didn't fight back until Sousuke pissed her off)}}. They intend to go back in time to prevent {{spoiler|Black Technology from being invented}} so that the world would be more peaceful. Only the Whispereds will know that anything has changed.

* {{spoiler|[[The Stoic|Homura]]}} from ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica (Anime)|Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' leaps time to save {{spoiler|Madoka}} from becoming a {{spoiler|''[[Magical Girl]]''}}, or more commonly known as a {{spoiler|[[Our Liches Are Different|Lich]]}} that may transform in the future into a {{spoiler|[[The Heartless|wit]][[Eldritch Abomination|ch]]}}. {{spoiler|This being a [[Deconstruction]], each successive attempt only makes things worse. However, each attempt manages to make Madoka stronger until she [[Ascended to A Higher Plane of Existence]] upon making her contract in this timeline}}.

* One of the arcs in ''[[Kurohime (Manga)|Kurohime]]'' involves two of the titled character's foes (Kurohime considered a bad guy in that world) going back in time to try and kill her, for personal reason (revenge being the main motive, but also to keep the father of one of them being killed by her.) {{spoiler|Its a bit of a twofer subvision. 1) They realize Kurohime not as evil as they figured and learn the reason behind her motives and 2) ''They'' wind up inadvertently causing the events that lead to the father's death. Kurohime wasn't even trying to kill him but took the blame anyway.}}

* [[Amakusa 1637 (Manga)|Amakusa 1637]] is built around this trope. Six schoolers from modern Nagasaki end up thrown in the Nagasaki of 1637, few before the failed [[Japanese Christian]] rebellion of Shiro Amakusa; they decide to pull this trope to avert such tragedy.

* ''[[Exiles (Comic Book)|Exiles]]'' was supposedly pitched as ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' or ''[[Sliders (TV)|Sliders]]'' with superheroes.

* In the ''[[Warhammer 40000 (Tabletop Game)|Warhammer 40000]]'' Fanfic/Play by post story [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Abaddon#Abaddon.27s_14th_Black_Crusade Abaddon Quest], there's a rather amusing [[Inverted Trope|Inversion]], the eponymous Chaos Lord and his flunkies travel back in time to kill the [[God-Emperor]] as a baby, which is to say they travel back to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|Set Wrong What Once Went Right]]. Considering [[Image Boards|/tg/'s]] [[General Failure|Opinion]] of Abaddon, [[Failure Is the Only Option]]. As is [[Hilarity Ensues|Hilarity.]]

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime)|Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''

** Subverted in ''Evangelion [[RE-TAKE (Doujinshi)|RE-TAKE]]''. {{spoiler|Shinji of the [[End of Evangelion]] wakes up in the past, just after the battle with Leliel. He tries to set right everything that went wrong to prevent the End of Evangelion. It turns out he's only making life better for an alternate version of himself, and there's nothing he can do to change that. He eventually accepts it, and returns to the [[Crapsack World]] future he belongs to. Though there is an implication of a [[Happy Ending]] for him, so it's all good.}}

* The ''[[Pony POV Series (Fanfic)|Pony POV Series]]'' [[Recursive Fanfiction]] ''[http://fav.me/d4lrntt Fading Futures]'' has Twilight Tragedy manage to break free of Discord's control in the [[Bad Future|Epilogue timeline]] and seek to change the past so that Discord never won in the first place. She manages to do so, but as a result, the timeline she inhabits no longer exists and everything in it are "reborn" into their main timeline counterparts. {{spoiler|Realizing this, she invokes her [[Super-Powered Evil Side]], Nightmare Purgatory, to take her revenge on Discord before the "rebirth" is complete. She realizes at the last moment she's dangerously close to becoming [[She Who Fights Monsters]] and manages to stop herself from finishing the job, prefering to [[Dying As Yourself|fade away as Twilight Sparkle]] instead of becoming a monster, [[What You Are in The Dark|even if no one, not even her, will ever know]].}}

* ''[[The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Anime)|The Girl Who Leapt Through Time]]'' involves a girl who learns she has time-traveling powers, but each jump makes things worse. She has to stop herself from screwing everything up over and over.

* Most of the ''[[Back to The Future (Film)|Back to The Future]]'' sequels: the second one begins with Doc taking Marty to the future to stop his son from getting arrested, and then having to go into the past to stop teenage Biff from using a [[Timeline-Altering MacGuffin]] to become [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|evil and rich]]. The third movie has Marty go back to 1885 to stop Doc from getting shot by Buford Tannen. The main problem in the first movie, however, is Marty's fault to begin with. However, Marty's eventual solution to this problem has the unexpected bonus of his father being more confident and assertive over Biff in 1985, leading to this trope in a roundabout way.

* The two [[Time Travel|time travelers]] in each of the ''[[Terminator (Film)|Terminator]]'' films are each trying to [[Terminator Twosome|set right the wrong the other one caused]].

* The film ''[[Frequency (Film)|Frequency]]'' is about a man who can communicate with his dead father through a family ham radio thanks to an Aurora Borealis that appeared in the same timespan between 1969 and current-day 1999. He uses this communication to save his father from his impending death in a warehouse fire, but that sets off a chain of events that lead to his mother's death, so the two work together to fix that, but then... et al.

* The plot of the ''[[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|Stargate SG-1]]'' movie ''[[Stargate Continuum]]'' centers around the main cast being the only people to know that the timeline has been changed and trying to convince others to let them change things back. The trope is notably deconstructed when SG-1 gets a [[What the Hell, Hero?]] speech upon suggesting time travel; the issue is raised that this trope requires an [[Omniscient Morality License]] to work and that to assume you can go around Setting Right What Once Went Wrong is an act of staggering arrogance as it necessitates changing the lives of millions... of course it always [[It Got Worse|Gets Worse]] and they're allowed to do it in the end.

* Subverted in the ''[[Final Destination (Film)|Final Destination]]'' series. One character's foreknowledge allows him or her and a group of friends to escape some kind of fatal accident. The rest of each movie is about ''death'' trying to fix this event that "went wrong".

* Elizabeth Haydon's ''[[Symphony of Ages (Literature)|Symphony of Ages]]'' is this all over.

* The capacity for doing this appears in the later books of [[Peter F Hamilton]]'s ''Void Trilogy''. It turns out that "The Void", a [[Pocket Dimension]] accessible via a giant singularity has a "reset to time X" function built in, accessible to anyone that knows it's there; as is traditional everyone but the resetter forgets the original timeline. (The downside is that the act of rewinding an entire dimension needs lots of energy, and the Void obtains that by expanding and eating a bit more of the surrounding "real" galaxy's mass. This isn't very popular in the real galaxy.)

* The [[Trope Namer]] is ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'', whose entire plot is a series of these.

* The main plot of the first three seasons of ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]'', though this is more of a case of [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|Set Right What Will Go Wrong]]. Name dropped by Hiro in Season 5's "PassFail" during his all-in-his-coma-mind-trial, and Mental!Adam/Kensei rightfully points out that he's simply reciting the opening to ''Quantum Leap''.

* Another example of this is the CBC drama, ''[[Being Erica (TV)|Being Erica]]'', where the majority of episodes were centred around her travelling back to a point in her past where she tries to put right something, she believes, went wrong in her life. Normally it would turn out that actually she needed to learn a lesson from that event and her changes wouldn't help her life that much. {{spoiler|There were also a couple of episodes that varied from this format but stayed true to this theme. One where she was required to make changes to the life of the man sending her back in time, another where she managed to make a huge change in her life by stopping her brother's accidental death. This ended up to make her life drastically different and he still died but at a different time in his life and in a different way. Also, in another episode she had to travel forwards in time to learn about another time traveller's life as the version of him she knew in her present time was actually the past version of his actual self. He was refusing to make the changes he needed to and she had to convince him to make the changes he needed to and return to his own time.}}

* ''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]'' [[Crossover]] with [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]], "I Will Remember You."

* Basically the whole premise of ''[[Daikatana (Video Game)|Daikatana]]'', although the main characters spend so much time screwing around in the mythic past that one could be forgiven for thinking it was otherwise.

* The plot of ''[[Marathon (Video Game)|Marathon]] Infinity'' in the round-about way.

* We learn in the end of ''[[Arc the Lad (Video Game)|Arc the Lad]] 2'' that {{spoiler|It was the reason behind Arc's father disappearance: he tried to set things right, and failed}}

** The whole point of the ''Wings of the Goddess'' expansion in ''[[Final Fantasy XI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XI]]''. {{spoiler|In fact, the player's version of Vana'diel was revealed to be the [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] outcome of the nine Cait Siths nudging the Crystal War into a better direction, until people from the other timeline decided to set wrong what once went right. Leads one to wonder how long the [[Never Live It Down|Pandemonium Warden fight]] took in the "bad" version of the universe.}}

** The point of ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]-2'' is to fix the timeline and help everyone find happiness while averting future disaster. {{spoiler|They fail, and cause a massive [[Time Crash]].}}

* The overarching plot of the popular ''[[Half-Life (Video Game)|Half-Life]]'' Timeline mod trilogy. Scientists at Black Mesa discovered time travel as a corollary to the dimensional portal technology they were working on... and gave it to the Nazis. Now Gordon must travel to the ends of time and even to parallel Earths to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] and stop the [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Nazi timeship fleet]], {{spoiler|eventually, after all else has failed, traveling back to Black Mesa a few hours before the Resonance Cascade event to stop the fateful experiment before it even began}}.

* ''[[Radiant Historia (Video Game)|Radiant Historia]]'' is about a soldier who is given a book called the White Chronicle, allowing him to travel back to certain points in time on his journey to help guide the world to its "correct" history (i.e. one that doesn't lead to its destruction through constantly-expanding desertification). Invoking this trope is required to complete the game. Many other temporal tropes apply at various points in the game, but this trope pops up beautifully in a simple sidequest: a woman is mourning the death of her husband from sickness, saying "if only he'd taken this medicine...". To complete the sidequest, just travel back in time with the medicine and give it to the husband (saying it's from his wife). Both husband and wife will be mystified about how you knew and where it came from, as the wife hadn't told you yet about her husband, but that fixes the future so they both live and are grateful.

* Pretty much the point of ''[[Timeshift]]''. The [[Big Bad]] gets the suit that lets him time-travel at will and reshapes the world to his own ideals, so the Hero has to get the toned-down suit and go back after him in order to try to fix things.

* This trope is the entire purpose of the game ''[[Time Hollow (Visual Novel)|Time Hollow]]'', where the main character is completely normal except that he can use his "Hollow Pen" to make a window into the past and alter an event.

* ''[[Samurai Jack (Animation)|Samurai Jack]]'': "Now the fool seeks to return to the past, and undo the future that is [[Big Bad|Aku...]]" Partially subverted in that, within the run of the original series, Jack never ''did'' return to his original time and stop Aku from taking over the world. He's always trying, but he's more often than not just fighting Aku's dystopia and helping people survive. A future [[The Movie|film adaptation]] may play this trope straight. His never returning had more to do with [[Executive Meddling|the show being cancelled, though.]]

* This sets the events of ''[[Megas XLR (Animation)|Megas XLR]]'' into motion through subversion of the trope. The Human Resistance steals a prototype Glorft mecha, modifies it, and attempts to send it and its pilot back in time to prevent the Glorft from winning the war against humanity. Things don't go as planned, and as a result the Glorft invasion actually happens centuries before it's supposed to. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In the ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima (Manga)|Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' manga, this is Chao Lingshen's motivation for messing around with her great grandfather's childhood, although whether she had an absurdly complicated [[Xanatos Gambit]] set up, or was simply playing [[Xanatos Speed Chess]] as her alterations made foreknowledge less useful is never made clear. She actually fixed the problem she went back to solve with the changes wrought by her first trip, but later makes a second one to tie up a loose end or two before the [[Cosmic Deadline]].

* Archer in ''[[Fate Stay Night (Visual Novel)|Fate Stay Night]]'' attempts to do this by ''creating'' a [[Temporal Paradox]]. Archer is not so much setting right what went wrong as setting wrong what once went ''really'' wrong.

* A great part of the ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya (Light Novel)|Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' [[Light Novels]] deals with Kyon trying to rectify past events in order not to let Haruhi's powers go haywire. Although he travels back in time mainly to set Haruhi off so that she'd create aliens, time travellers and ESPers, and to fix up the events on December 18th. On that day, there's a point in time where there's 3 Mikurus and 4 Kyons. December 18th was only because of ''Disappearance'', and to fix what Yuki did.

* ''[[Yakitate!! Japan (Manga)|Yakitate!! Japan]]'': Kazuma's last bread of the second [[Tournament Arc]] is so amazingly delicious, it ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|sends the judge back in time to RetCon his own mother's death]]''.

* In the "Camelot Falls" storyline in the ''[[Superman (Comic Book)|Superman]]'' comics, a prophetic sorcerer tells him what he needs to do to avert the extinction of humanity years down the line. In a subversion of this trope, Superman refuses to comply, namely because "what he needs to do" involves not preventing the deaths of countless innocents.

* The mission of Samaritan in ''[[Astro City]]''. He actually did set things right before the series started, but now his own time period has [[Stranger in A Familiar Land|changed beyond recognition]].

* Archie's ''[[Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog (Comic Book)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series:

** Silver's personal [[Story Arc]] is much the same as in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (Video Game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' -- he comes from a [[Bad Future]] where the world is all but destroyed, and is constantly traveling through time trying to find a way to undo it, with his only clue being that the betrayal of a member of the Freedom Fighters was somehow key to this disaster. Of course, like his game counterpart he's being advised by a -- supposedly reformed --- villain, so we'll have to wait and see how that turns out.

* In ''[[Galaxy Quest (Film)|Galaxy Quest]]'', the "Omega 13" device is used to go back 13 seconds in time, "enough to change a single mistake".

* In the conclusion and epilogue of ''[[Jumanji (Film)|Jumanji]]'', Alan prevents Carl Bentley from getting fired (or gets him re-hired), and the kids' parents are stopped from going on their fatal ski trip.

* This is the main plot of ''[[Star Trek First Contact]]''. The past is going perfectly fine until the Borg try and set wrong what once was right.

* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'':

** [[Russell T Davies]]' view was that this Dalek-Time Lord skirmishing eventually led to the Time War of the new series, thus subverting the trope. Alternatively, this could be playing the trope straight, as the Time War may actually be a ''better'' outcome than what the Time Lords originally predicted.

* More of a case of "Set right what we messed up" but in an episode of ''[[Hannah Montana (TV)|Hannah Montana]]'', Miley and Jackson travel back in time and mess up their parents meeting. Cue a back to the future style disappearance for Jackson as Miley tries to set things right. It was probably [[All Just a Dream]].

* This is Desmond's major character motivation throughout the third season of ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'' (apart from his desire to be reunited with his lost love Penny).

* ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]''

* Guinan of ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' is practically this trope walking personified (as for reasons that were never even hinted at until [[The Movie]], changes in the timeline do not affect her), especially in "Yesterday's Enterprise". More technically they don't entirely affect her. She could identify something was wrong, but didn't know what could have caused it.

* ''[[The Outer Limits (TV)|The Outer Limits]]'' TOS episode "The Man Who Was Never Born". A mutant from a devastated future goes back in time to prevent the biological disaster that destroyed civilization.

* In modern series of ''[[The Outer Limits (TV)|The Outer Limits]]''. A scientist develops a time machine and uses it to go back and kill serial killers before their first murder. However, it turns out she was motivated by the fact that she'd been raped and tortured by a serial killer herself as a child. She eventually goes back and kills ''him'', thus saving her younger self, but this undoes all of her other killings.

* ''[[Supernatural (TV)|Supernatural]]'' has an episode that Dean ''thinks'' is a [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], but not only does it turn out he was only meant to ''Witness'' What Went Wrong and not change it, it sure looks like he actually ''caused'' it.

* ''[[Stargate SG-1 (TV)|Stargate SG-1]]''

* The ''[[Stargate Atlantis (TV)|Stargate Atlantis]]'' episode "The Last Man" has Sheppard thrown 48,000 years into the future, where a program Rodney left behind recounts a long [[It Got Worse]] story of the intervening years and arranges to send Sheppard back to fix everything. He even gives Sheppard some crucial information, like Teyla's location at the time, so Sheppard can change what happened for the better.

* ''[[The X-Files (TV)|The X-Files]]'' episode "Synchrony" presents the case of a strange old man warning an MIT student and professor that the student is going to die at a specific time -- because of this warning the professor, attempting to save the student, ends up accidentally pushing him into the path of an oncoming bus and thus the warning is a [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]. The old man is {{spoiler|actually the professor from the future, who has traveled back in time}} attempting to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|Set Right What Will Go Wrong]] and prevent an impending scientific breakthrough {{spoiler|that would be made by the professor in collaboration with his girlfriend, also a scientist, and the student, and which would be a catalyst for a catastrophic technological development.}} Mulder cites an old theory of Scully's about how [[You Can't Fight Fate]], and so the old man's efforts are probably doomed. {{spoiler|Although the professor manages to kill both his present and future selves and erase all of his files, as the episode ends, the girlfriend is continuing the research on her own with backups of the erased data.}}

* The conclusion of the ''[[Star Trek Voyager (TV)|Star Trek Voyager]]'' "Year of Hell" serial. Or for that matter, the conclusion to the series altogether.

* In an episode of ''[[The Flash (TV)|The Flash]]'', Barry Allen is accidentally thrust 10 years into a future where Central City has been taken over by his brother's killer, Nicholas Pike, and where an underground group of citizens were waiting for [[Second Coming|the Flash to return]] in order to set things right.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Den O]]'' touches on this occasionally, in the context of "You are not supposed to do this".

** What the previous two events have in common is that the change prevented the [[Monster of the Week|Imagin]] from making a [[Deal With the Devil]] with that person in the first place. While Singularity Points negate ''some'' of the damage caused by an Imagin to the past, they only negate damage to things that were part of their memory and some things are lost for good. So completely negating the rampage ''better'' preserves the timeline than simply destroying the Imagin in the past, even if it requires a minor change. Strangely, this ''doesn't'' negate the fact the Imagin was destroyed though...

* In ''[[Primeval]]'', Matt spends the majority of season four and five doing this to prevent a [[Bad Future|bad future]]. {{spoiler|Although, as he doesn't know exactly what went wrong, and doesn't find out what went wrong until halfway through season five, he spends most of the time tracking the wrong person and helping prevent a bad present.}}

* The ''[[Mysterious Ways (TV)|Mysterious Ways]]'' episode "Yesterday" deals with a police officer who relives the previous day after accidentally shooting and killing his partner and praying for some way to make it right.

* ''[[Red vs. Blue (Machinima)|Red vs. Blue]]'' uses the [[Stable Time Loop]] variety of this trope. When Church is blasted into the past by a nuclear explosion, he uses the opportunity to try and correct each disaster that has occurred in the series up to that point. Of course, it turns out he's the cause of most of them, including his CO's mysterious heart failure, numerous injuries to his teammates, and his ''own'' accidental death ("Oh my god! ''I'm'' the team-killing fucktard!"). When his every attempt to prevent the bomb from going off fails, he eventually gives up, makes sure a copy of himself is blasted into the future with his teammates, and delivers a bitter [[Aesop]] about accepting reality as it is.

* The ''[[Ravenloft (Tabletop Game)|Ravenloft]]'' boxed-set adventure "Castles Forlorn" sends the heroes to a haunted castle which shifts repeatedly between three time periods. They have the opportunity to free an imprisoned woman while in the second of these eras, which causes corresponding historical changes to the third.

* In the [[MMORPG]] ''[[City of Heroes (Video Game)|City of Heroes]]'', several factions are attempting to do this, but their concepts of "right", usually focusing on self-preservation, are often mutually exclusive.

* In ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (Video Game)|Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]: Explorers of Time'' and ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (Video Game)|Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]: Explorers of Darkness'', before ending up in the past with amnesia the player character was part of a team that has come from the future to prevent time from stopping. Succeeding in the mission causes a [[Temporal Paradox]], causing both you and everyone met in the future to cease to exist. Except then the partner you met at the beginning of the game angsts until [[Anthropomorphic Personification|Dialga]] decides you do get to exist after all.

* Subverted numerous times in the ''[[Prince of Persia (Video Game)|Prince of Persia]]'' series. In fact, these subversions are the driving force for much of the Prince's story.

* In ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'' the characters end up warped to [[After the End]] and, upon watching a video of The End itself, resolve to stop it happening. They only have one chance because, well, they die if they don't do it right. Also a rare example where the [[Temporal Paradox]] part of succeeding is actually acknowledged; a paradox is caused because the heroes learn of the end from records ''after'' it happens, and then alter the future so the end which produced those records never comes into being. [[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]] is essentially an entire game about a whole cornucopia of consequences resulting from this, [[It Got Worse|none of which are pretty]].

* The world of ''[[Dragon Quest VII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VII]]'' used to be a vast and expansive place, but by the time of the game, it has been reduced to a single continent. Your party's mission is to travel back in time to the continents which once existed in the past and stop the various disasters which destroyed them, thereby causing them to reappear in the present.

* In ''[[Dark Cloud (Video Game)|Dark Cloud]] 2'' you had to restore various points in the future that were destroyed in the past by the [[Big Bad]].

* Kain's motivation during the later ''[[Legacy of Kain (Video Game)|Legacy of Kain]]'' games is to fix the ruined world ''he himself created'' by traveling through time, although the plot is so complex and nearly every member of the cast is such a conniving manipulator that the importance of this, while not lessened, is somewhat drowned out. The rules of time travel in this setting make this goal even harder than it usually is; normally, [[You Can't Fight Fate]] and going back in time will merely cause a [[Stable Time Loop]], but real alterations can be made by ''deliberately causing a [[Temporal Paradox]]'' and then acting inside of its effect.

* Used in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (Video Game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'':

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'''s ending, Zelda sends Link back to the beginning of the game so he can avoid his [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]] moment. Rather than changing the future they're in, it creates a second time line. The timeline where Link sealed Ganon away now lacks a hero to take care of him, and the gods end up ''destroying hyrule in a Great Flood'' for lack of any other option. And the other timeline, where Link didn't lead Ganondorf directly to the triforce? Ganondorf ends up with 1/3 of it and gets sealed away ''anyway''. Net result of attempt to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: one timeline in exactly the same situation that they were trying to prevent, and one timeline ''utterly destroyed''.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask]]'' begins with Link dumped into an alternate reality, [[Baleful Polymorph|unwillingly transformed into a harmless Deku Scrub]], and forced to watch helplessly as the world around him goes to hell in a handbasket before its eventual destruction at the end of the third day. Then Link goes back in time, regains his true form, and relives the same three days [[Groundhog Day Loop|over and over]] as he gradually meets and helps everyone the [[Big Bad]] has hurt, until he is finally strong enough to stop it all from happening.

* The entire plot of ''[[Mortal Kombat 9 (Video Game)|Mortal Kombat 9]]'' centers around an attempt to do this. Shao Kahn ends up winning the events of Armageddon, leading Raiden to send a message back to his past self to try and fix this. {{spoiler|He ends up nearly bungling the whole thing. In the end, every single one of the Forces of Light save for Johnny Cage, Sonya, and himself are dead, their souls taken by Quan Chi. Shao Kahn is defeated, averting THAT particular Armageddon event, but Quan Chi has an army of powerful souls at his command now, and the ending implies that Shinnok and the Netherrealm are preparing to attack next...}}

* Deconstructed in Episode 4 of the ''[[Back to The Future (Film)|Back to The Future]]'' games, where {{spoiler|Citizen Brown doesn't like the idea that setting right what once went wrong means that the prudish Edna Strickland goes on to be a miserable old [[Crazy Cat Lady]] in the proper timeline, choosing instead to find a way to make sure that Young Emmett Brown ends up with Edna without her becoming a [[Knight Templar]] by making sure that he never develops his passion for science}}.

* [[Myst (Video Game)|Riven]] has a non-time-travel variant as the framing device. The linking books the series relies on can be used to modify worlds they link to using quantum uncertainty; if it ''could'' have been there but was never noticed before, writing in that it ''is'' there will make it happen. Unfortunately, Gehn, who wrote quite a number of linking books, was not actually very good at writing them, so the same quantum-uncertainty mechanics are causing the Ages he wrote to deteriorate of their own accord. His son, Atrus, is much better at writing them, and thinks he can save some of them using these same quantum-uncertainty mechanics, but some are beyond salvaging. Your task is to go into one of the doomed ones to rescue Atrus' wife while he stays and tries to stall its destruction for as long as possible.

* Played completely straight in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]'', right down to the "only one chance."

* Done as part of a ''[[Terminator (Film)|Terminator]]'' homage in ''[[Sluggy Freelance (Webcomic)|Sluggy Freelance]]'' when Berk arrives from the future to stop K'Z'K from conquering the world.

* [[Bad Future]] {{spoiler|Dave Strider}} in ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'' uses his [[Time Travel]] ability to try and stop John [[Horrible Judge of Character|from being a gullible idiot.]] It appears to have worked and the protagonists get a lot of [[Disk One Nuke|sweet loot from the future]] out of the deal as well.

* ''[[Bug (Webcomic)|Bug]]'' shows us that if you attempt to set right what was once wrong, [http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/crummy-gift/ you risk doing just the opposite.] You can also use this trope [http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/breaking-up/ to end a relationship.]

* Yehuda's motivation for working as a bike mechanic in ''[[Yehuda Moon and The Kick Stand Cyclery]]''. {{spoiler|Not because he's pro-bike, but because he's helping the Shakers after inadvertently destroying their livelyhood.}}

* Late in the course of ''[[Narbonic (Webcomic)|Narbonic]]'', Artie and Mell discover a secret tape that was sent from a [[Bad Future]]. Future Mell did a host of bad things including becoming vice-president and then having the president assassinated, all so she could use one shot at time travel, even though it would kill her and destroy the universe. Her goal? To save Artie. She thinks that killing protagonist Dave Davenport will fix things. ''And she is wrong.'' {{spoiler|Dave has become unstuck in time and now knows one obscure thing that will allow him to change the future.}}

* ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents (Animation)|The Fairly Odd Parents]]'', episode "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker". Timmy's attempts to stop his teacher from growing up to become a fairy-obsessed maniac result in him lamenting, "[[Stable Time Loop|NO! This is exactly what I was trying to ''prevent'']]!" To clarify {{spoiler|Timmy finds out Crocker had fairies (''his'' fairies in fact) in his childhood and was actually quite beloved by the town. But at the ceremony they were throwing for him, Timmy accidentally reveals them to the whole crowd. Granted it wasn't his fault though as Cosmo turned the power to the mics back on in his usual bout of stupidity. And even then the original timeline would've had Cosmo stupidly blurt out their existence anyway. Say the least it all went downhill after that.}} At least he stopped the election of [[Richard Nixon|President McGovern]].

* The first ''[[Futurama (Animation)|Futurama]]'' movie "Bender's Big Score" deals extensively with time travel, ending with Bender going back to the year 2000 with the tattoo on the time duplicate Fry's ass to put the tattoo back onto past-frozen Fry's ass in the first place, for any of the plot to make sense.

* In the '90s ''[[X-Men (Animation)|X-Men]]'' animated series:

* ''[[Back to The Future (Animation)|Back to The Future]]''

* ''[[Danny Phantom (Animation)|Danny Phantom]]'' promises not to allow his evil future to come to pass after seeing himself as a sadistic, mass-murdering sociopath. Although Clockwork helps, the subversion comes when it's hinted at the end that it may just be a matter of time after all, if with different circumstances.

* Future Candace travels back in time after she discovers that her meddling with the timeline has turned the tri-state area into a dystopia ruled by Doofenshmirtz in the ''[[Phineas and Ferb (Animation)|Phineas and Ferb]]'' episode "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo".

* This is the goal of Nox, the [[Big Bad]] from season 1 of the French cartoon ''[[Wakfu (Animation)|Wakfu]]''. His desire to save the family that he lost 200 years before the show has [[The Determinator|driven him]] to go from a simple watchmaker to one of the most powerful [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|(and insane)]] magic users alive. Unfortunately, while he is a skilled enough time mage to [[Time Stands Still|slow time to a stand still,]] he has so far been unable to actually travel backwards in time. He believes that this is [[Powered By a Forsaken Child|a power requirement issue,]] and now seeks to drain enough wakfu from the plants, animals, [[Human Resources|and people]] of the world to save his family. One character mentions that he has drained entire countries dry over the years, and his current plan involves exterminating an entire race of people to gain the wakfu he needs. Of course, Grougaloragran also mentions that {{spoiler|it won't actually work, as time travel is simply impossible no matter how much wakfu he collects, and he'll probably just end up breaking the universe if he tries}}. Nox, however, is [[Moral Event Horizon|long]] [[The Unfettered|past]] [[Complete Monster|caring.]] {{spoiler|Turns out it ''is'' possible. Too bad the wakfu requirements were far steeper than Nox estimated -- the wakfu he spent centuries gathering was only enough to facilitate a ''twenty minute'' time jump.}}

* In ''[[The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest (Animation)|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'' episode "The Edge of Yesterday," we learn that Dr. Quest created a time machine program in [[Cyberspace|Questworld]] after his wife died, which would allow him to travel back in time and see his wife again. When he finished it, he realized he wouldn't only be able to ''see'' his wife, he could also change the past to prevent her from dying. His ethics would not let him alter history for personal gain, so he sealed the program so it couldn't be used. Later on, Jonny and Jessie use the program to go back in time and prevent Ezekiel Rage from planting a bomb that could cause the tectonic plates to split, destroying the Earth.

* Two episodes of ''[[Lilo and Stitch The Series]]'' centered around this plot. In the first, Lilo embarrasses herself in front of her love interest. She find out Jumba has a surfboard style time machine and used it to fix the blunder, but at the same time theres an experiment running around that Stitch tries to catch and each attempt causes a disaster to the area causing multiple re-dos. Eventually Lilo has to let herself get embarrassed to fix the timeline. The second involves Lilo finding an experiment that can warp time forward, allowing her to age into a teenager and later an adult. However since she and Stitch are time traveling, they're not around to catch experiments. Allowing [[Big Bad]] Gantu and Hamsterveil to capture them and take over the Earth. Conveniently said experiment has a [[Reset Button]] but they have to rescue it first to fix the damage.

* ''[[Family Guy (Animation)|Family Guy]]''

** Also, explicitly referenced in an episode where Peter [[It Makes Sense in Context|becomes a Jehovah's Witness (among other things)]] and explains Jesus like this, leading to a ''[[Quantum Leap (TV)|Quantum Leap]]'' sight gag.

* Likewise, sister series ''[[American Dad (Animation)|American Dad]]'' had a [[Christmas Episode]] that featured a Ghost of Christmas Past trying to pull [[Yet Another Christmas Carol]] on Stan but he uses the opportunity to try and "fix" Christmas by killing Jane Fonda. His guardian angel stops him, but when they get back to modern times America is under the control of Soviet Russia. [[It Makes Sense in Context]]<ref>Stan also got [[Martin Scorcese]] off drugs, which meant no ''[[Taxi Driver]]'', which meant John Hinkley Jr. didn't try to shoot [[Ronald Reagan]], which meant Walter Mondale gets elected President and immediately surrendered to the USSR</ref>. {{spoiler|In a bit of a subversion, trying to fix the original event by making ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' doesn't work, so Stan is forced to shoot Reagan himself (which much to his relief is told he just has to "wing him") to fix the timeline.}} Note that even in the end [["Close Enough" Timeline|the timeline isn't the same]]: {{spoiler|Since Stan only shot Reagan, his assistant James Brady was fine which meant no Brady Bill and thus America has less strict gun laws.}}