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{{trope}}
[[File:ParadoxWomanJ2_931ParadoxWomanJ2 931.jpg|frame|[[Futurama|Torn From Tomorrow's Headlines!]]]]
 
 
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'''Ontological Paradox'''
 
The kind of paradox that occurs in a [[Stable Time Loop]] if you're not ''very careful'' about what you're doing, involving events that are their own causes. While not a paradox in the strictest sense - events remain self-consistent - it does violate normal expectations in surprising ways.<ref>Quantum physics comes into play, see discussion</ref>. There are several variations:
* '''The Object Loop:''' When an object from the future is sent into the past, takes [[The Slow Path]] back to the future, and then gets sent back into the past again, in the same way, for the same purpose. For example you travel to the past and sell a pair of [[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|antique glasses you got from a friend]], who it turns out got them from his grandfather, who bought them from the you the time traveler. Where do the glasses come from in the first place? The glasses have literally come from nothing. This is sometimes called a "closed timelike curve" in hard SF.
** You might ask how the object escapes erosion or other damage too? Since its origin point is also its end point the object cannot (relative to itself) loop endlessly as it would experience infinite decay (relative to itself) and thus would not exist to be sent to the past. Preventing the loop in the first place. Thus to exist the object must (improbably) escape all forms of damage/erosion/entropy between its arrival and departure. Which is technically not impossible but only deepens the weirdness of such an object existing.
*** In one variation, information rather than a physical object comes out of nowhere (e.g. an engineer from the future giving [[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home|the formula for transparent aluminum to the historical "inventor"]]). This version avoids the "erosion" issue, provided that the information is correctly transmitted and recorded.
* '''The Reverse Grandfather Paradox:''' When time travel is involved, cause and effect tend to get muddled. Say you remember being involved in an accident as a child, and would have died if not for the intervention of a mysterious stranger who showed up, saved your life and then vanished without a trace. Then you become a time traveler and find yourself at the scene of the accident, and there's a little kid who needs saving. That's right: ''you'' happen to be the mysterious rescuer. Instead of accidentally making your time travel unnecessary or impossible by meddling with the past, your meddling somehow made it possible ''in the first place''. But then the question becomes how you "originally" (technically meaningless in this context) survived to time-travel and save yourself-- andyourself—and thus the "paradox", which is not actually a paradox in the logical sense, but a confusing and counter-intuitive result of time travel. This also precludes a Multiverse explanation, since both child and rescuer-adult occupy the same timeline and universe, if the child has a childhood-memory of being rescued by the adult-self.
 
Normally, as written, the temporal paradox never turns out to be as dangerous as [[The Professor]] imagined it would be, or it turns out the characters were [[Stable Time Loop|"supposed to do it"]] [[You Already Changed the Past|in the original timeline]]. The latter ontological paradox is also known as a predestination paradox, and the resultant philosophical questions are rarely thought about in the series.
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The most common effect of a paradox, on TV at least, is to trigger the [[Reset Button]] and unmake the entire episode's consequences.
 
Theoretically, a paradox that consists of two mutually-exclusive events can have one of two results: either the fabric of reality rips itself apart trying to determine which reality is the 'correct' one, or -- accordingor—according to Multiverse Theory -- itTheory—it's discovered that causing a paradox is a technical impossibility, as each supposed 'paradox' merely creates two 'alternate' timelines -- onetimelines—one for 'Situation A' and another for 'Situation B'.
 
(Of course, Multiverse Theory also holds that time-travel is ''hypothetically'' possible -- sincepossible—since every choice made, and every action taken, and every word ever written, creates a series of 'alternate universes', each being slightly different to account for the results of the choice/action/word, we would just need a consistent way to travel 'between' the various 'multiverses' thus created.) On the flip side, it also means that it's impossible to ''completely'' [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], as the "original" timeline will always be unchanged.
 
Compare [[Timey-Wimey Ball]], [[Stable Time Loop]]. If time is somehow dangerous besides from paradox, it's [[Time Is Dangerous]].
 
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=== Grandfather paradox examples: ===
 
== Anime and Manga ==
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== Comic Books ==
* The [[Marvel Universe]] has a simple solution for this in the novel trilogy ''Time's Arrow''. There are a large--butlarge—but not ''infinite''--number—number of alternate universes, that deal with what ifs. If someone in those timelines goes back in time to change something, it will create a new timeline that's an offshoot of one's own from that point. No going back and killing Hitler, Cyclops notes when told this--thethis—the idea being that if you do so, your ''own'' timeline will be unaffected. Oddly, this doesn't seem to be the case in the comic universe.
** Except when it is that way. You don't think that any two comic writers actually agree on how this stuff works, do you? That said, the ''[[Earth X]]'' series (including Universe X and Paradise X) suggests a couple of different versions of this. In the end, it is fundamentally, philosophically important that the idea that {{spoiler|alternate universes branch off only as a result of time travel}} is true.
*** This is generally accepted; however, it has been shown that Dr. Doom has invented technology that allows this rule to be broken in PAD's X-Factor run.
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== Literature ==
* Lazarus Long, protagonist of Robert Heinlein's ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' creates a time machine and argues that it would not be possible for him to change the past, because in doing so he would also change the future--infuture—in the essence, negating his own existence, or at least the details of it--andit—and making his own journey into the past improbable at best, if not impossible.
* [[David Weber]]'s ''[[The Apocalypse Troll]]'' has the characters discussing the theories about time travel -- onetravel—one (it's not possible) has been disproved by the fact that one character just did, to arrive in the time of the discussion; the other two, that the future will be altered by what she did or that her presence has caused an alternate world to split off, can't be proved or disproved by anything they can do now. They end up assuming the alternate world and thereafter ignore the question.
* The ''Time Scout'' novels avoid Temporal Paradox by the timeline including built-in safeguards; safeguards which are dangerous to time travelers. The most prominent are first, that you can't change ''anything'' that's important to the timeline--sometimeline—some improbable accident will occur to prevent it, no matter what you try--whichtry—which is dangerous, as although some people, objects and events are obviously important to the timeline, there are [[For Want of a Nail|even more that aren't obviously important, but just as crucial]]; and second, that if a time traveler ever arrives at a time where they already exist, the most recent version dies instantly to prevent them from doing anything to their past selves that would undermine their current presence.
* In ''[[The Dark Tower/The Drawing of the Three|The Dark Tower]],'' Roland kills the man who murdered Jake, who Roland met in [[The Dark Tower/The Gunslinger|The Dark Tower]]. He spends the first part of [[The Dark Tower/The Waste Lands|The Dark Tower]] fighting off insanity because of the paradox this creates.
** To say nothing about what happens to Jake in the first part of [[The Dark Tower/The Waste Lands|The Dark Tower]] who is both alive and dead at the same time.
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** The Gatekeeper, specifically, has a vision of something major in the Dresdenverse, and alerts Harry to it, in the most vague, roundabout way. Bob later explains he did this to avoid the entire universe going kaput. He also mentions that no one has ever caused a temporal paradox before, and you can tell by the way the universe keeps existing.
* Some argue that [[wikipedia:René Barjavel|René Barjavel's]] ''Le Voyageur imprudent'' is the [[Ur Example|first ever example]] of the grandfather paradox.
* In ''The Anubis Gates'' by Tim Powers, main character Brendon Doyle, a modern expert on the poet William Ashbless, ends up back in the 1800's during Ashbless' lifetime. When {{spoiler|Doyle ends up BECOMING Ashbless thanks to a [[Freaky Friday Flip|body-snatching werewolf]] (don't ask), he publishes the poems from memory}}--which—which leaves us with the problem of how the poems were written in the first place. In fact, it actually freaks ''Doyle'' out, but he concludes that {{spoiler|as long as the poems exist, history will continue in its proper order, so he shouldn't sweat too much over it.}}
* Distilled to its purest form in [[Fredric Brown]]'s short story ''[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29948/29948-h/29948-h.htm Experiment]''.
* [[Gregory Benford]]'s ''Timescape'' describes a unique, quantum-mechanical approach to Grandfather Paradoxes. If a time-travelling signal were to prevent its own transmission, the signal and everything involved in triggering it would be in an ''indeterminate'' state where it neither does, nor doesn't, occur -- likeoccur—like Schrödinger's Cat before the box is opened.
* The ''[[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' universe is full of this, particularly in the third book. A correction-fluid manufacturer tries to get an endorsement from a tragic poet and ends up preventing the tragedy that inspired him. A landmark cathedral is torn down to make way for a refinery, but in order to open on time they had to start construction so far back in time that said cathedral was never built.
** Worst of all are aorist rods, which provided power to the present by depleting the power reserves of the past ... when it was discovered ''those [[Hypocritical Humor|bastards]] in the future were doing the exact same thing,'' the rods and all knowledge of their manufacture was destroyed to stop what was already happening now from occuring in the future.
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* In ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', it appears that Sam is affected by the changes he makes to history only after he leaps, and this has some bearing on his occasional manifestation of [[Suddenly Always Knew That|previously unmentioned skills]] (and previously unmentioned/nonexistent family members). Al, on the other hand, seems to be affected instantly, but only when probability of a new event becomes sufficiently high. (In one episode, Sam assures Al's untimely death. When the probability reaches 100%, Al is replaced by another character, but he reappears when Sam reduces the probability.)
* One has to give credit to ''[[Doctor Who]]'', in that a show with a ''time traveler'' as a central character delves into temporal paradoxes relatively infrequently; in most cases, the time travelling is just a way to set stories in different periods, the temporal version of [[Adventure Towns]]. It does have its fair share of 'em though (especially after Steven Moffat started writing for the new series):
** "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S2/E09 The Time Meddler|The Time Meddler]]" had characters speculate that if history was changed, their memories would be updated with the new version instantly -- thoughinstantly—though later events imply this is not actually the case. In "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S1/E08 Fathers Day|Father's Day]]", we see that creating a true paradox (which seems to require not only a change to history which undermines the traveller's presence, but that the traveller ''witnesses himself'' doing this by being present in the same time zone twice) has the effect of releasing [[Clock Roaches|killer flying time monkeys]], which eat everything on your planet. No, really.
*** The earlier example was retconned in the later one with a [[Hand Wave]] by the Doctor saying that when the Time Lords were still alive they prevented this sort of thing from happening.
** The series does tend to imply that the "Laws of Time" are more of a legal code than physical law: in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3/E01 Smith and Jones|Smith and Jones]]", the Doctor notes that crossing one's own timeline is dangerous and forbidden, "except for cheap tricks."
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** Also, in the old series Gallifrey had the [[Deus Ex Machina|Eye of Harmony]], a modified black hole that acted as an unlimited power source, universe-wide navigational beacon, and the mother of all temporal stabilizers. Thus even if they screwed up, the Time Lords had access to enough energy to maintain the desired timeline by brute force if necessary (as seen in The Five Doctors). In the new series, the Eye of Harmony has been destroyed, so The Doctor has less to work with.
** Another interesting use of the temporal paradox concept comes in "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3/E13 Last of the Time Lords|Last of the Time Lords]]", in which the Master brings humans back in time from the end of the universe to kill humanity... which would normally make no sense, which is why he turned the TARDIS into a "Paradox Machine" to keep the paradox stable. Destroying this acts as a [[Reset Button]] which sets everything on the surface back to the way it was before the machine was activated.
** Also, "[[Doctor Who/Recap/NS/S3/E10 Blink|Blink]]", the episode that gave us the [[Timey-Wimey Ball]], has a paradox at its heart. The Doctor is only able to tell Sally Sparrow what's going on via DVD [[Easter Egg|Easter Eggs]]s because Sally wrote it all down at the time and gives it to him at the end of the episode.
*** To make things more interesting, [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31/E04 The Time of Angels|The Time of Angels]] reveals to us that {{spoiler|the image of an Angel is an Angel}} and with everything in that folder she handed the Doctor, the transcript, [[Fridge Horror|several pictures of Angel statues]], the list... I wonder where those scavenger Weeping Angels came from anyway.
** It gets much weirder in the [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]], which features [[Faction Paradox]], a villain group whose [[Planet of Hats|hat]] is temporal paradoxes. In fact, part of their [[Cult|initiation ritual]] involves traveling back in time and [[Self-Made Orphan|killing off your own ancestors]]. Yes, really.
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*** And that's ''before'' you enter the [[Eldritch Location|Eleven-Day Empire]], a place ''literally'' made of nonexistant time. Or the [[Humanoid Abomination|Grandfather]] [[Grandfather Paradox|Paradox]], the [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of [[Future Me Scares Me|all potential evil and despair]] in the Universe. Or the part where Gallifrey's history is repeteadly raped into oblivion.
** You really have to give credit to [[Doctor Who/Recap/2010 CSA Christmas Carol|A Christmas Carol]] and how many paradoxes it goes through. Traveling back in someone's personal timeline ''as they watch from the future.'' Confusing and rather nonsensical; where're the Reapers in all this?!
*** And ''then'' the Doctor brings the past version of Scrooge--erScrooge—er, Kazran, to visit his ''future self.''
*** Attempts to follow this seriously may lead to [[Your Head Asplode|your head asploding.]]
** But then the Grand Moff (who wrote Blink, Christmas Carol, and other [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Timey-Wimey]] eps like the Big Bang and The Girl in the Fireplace) is becoming quite known for his confuddling paradoxes. I mean, look at the contributions to Comic Relief! (Both of which written by him.)
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** However, in one way to kill off Beatrice {{spoiler|picking her up while she's frozen and having her break into bite-sized pieces}}, you get a slightly different [[Have a Nice Death]] message.
* ''Infinity'' series:
** At one point, ''[[Ever 17]]'' features a time-travel attempt to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]] with an obvious fix. Unfortunately, this also undoes the events that triggered the attempt, resulting in [[media:ever17_time_paradoxever17 time paradox.jpg|a very unpleasant paradox]]. Warning. That link is hellishly disturbing.
** In several Bad Ends of ''[[Remember 11]]'', death of one of the main characters causes the story's [[Stable Time Loop]] to shatter, leading to them [[Retcon|discovering themselves sometime before the exchanges started]] -- {{spoiler|[[Dying Dream|freezing to death in the plane's wreck]]}} for Kokoro, and {{spoiler|[[Cuckoo Nest|stuck in an asylum as "Enomoto"]]}} for Satoru.
* Time-travelling in miniature ''[[Mind Screw|into your own brain]]'' can have equally unpleasant results in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (video game)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' [[Infocom]] text adventure. When the minaturisation wears off, [[Your Head Asplode|you cause the head you're in to explode]]. You're fine... but you won't be when the minature you, now inside your own head, expands to full-size...
* In ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'', [[Time Travel]] divides the timeline around halfway through the game in such a way that the object of your characters' revenge and the final boss of the game are two different people.
** Not only that, but at the end of the game, a sword you acquired in the future is sent back to the past. The character who takes it promises to "seal it away", the concept of "ontological paradox" is apparently entirely foreign to the protagonists.
* In ''[[Persona 3]]'', the [[Temporal Paradox]] ''does'' have quite a devastating effect - {{spoiler|the main female love interest wants to go back in time and save/see the main character before he sacrificed himself,}} which might bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It]].
* The main villains of ''Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3'' are {{spoiler|the main characters}} from the future, and they are messing up the timeline to unseal the "Demon King Jababa" and defeat him before he can destroy their village. The thing is, the game implies that he got out and destroyed the village ''because they released him''.
* [[World of Warcraft]] has a quest that plays with this. While doing a survey for the Bronze Dragonflight (keepers of time), the player is assisted by his future self. Later on, he needs to do the same thing again to protect his past self.
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== Western Animation ==
* The ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' [[Made for TV Movie|movie]] ''The Ultimate Enemy'' is one big temporal paradox. In the original timeline, Danny's family and friends are killed, he goes mad with grief and kills himself (people with a [[Split Personality]] can do that and survive), and his [[Super-Powered Evil Side|evil self]] terrorizes the world for ten years. Thanks to Danny and some timely interference by the [[Dungeon Master]], this timeline was erased, but his evil self was in the past when it was erased, so he still exists even with the events that caused his existence never happening. His evil self even pointed out the paradox. "Don't you get it? ''I'' still exist. That means ''you'' still turn into me." The Observants mention something about him still being there because "he exists outside of time."
* Naturally enough, the animated series of ''[[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure]]'' often courted this trope. One obvious example is the episode in which Bill and Ted neglect to buy Bill's father an antique railroad watch as a birthday present, to replace the one he lost as a child. Ted's initial plan is actually perfectly sound: [[Stable Time Loop|take the original watch from Bill's father when he 'loses' it in the past, then give it to him in the present.]] This plan fails however, so they travel even further back in time to obtain the watch ''before'' Bill's father inherits it. Of course, this should mean that [[Temporal Paradox|Bill's father wouldn't miss the watch in the first place]], but the episode [[Bellisario's Maxim|simply ignores this.]]
* In ''[[Invader Zim]]'', an entire episode (Bad Bad Rubber Piggy) has one scene that demonstrates this perfectly: After GIR finds out that Zim intends to send a robot back to the past to destroy Dib, it leads to this classic line of dialogue:
{{quote|'''GIR:''' Wait... if you destroy Dib in the past, then he won't ever be your enemy, so you won't have to send a robot back, so then he will be your enemy, so then you WILL have to send a robot BACK... (head explodes)}}
* ''[[Superfriends]]''. In the ''Challenge'' episode, "Secret Origins Of The Super Friends," the Legion of Doom tries to change history by messing with the origins with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern. Okay, but seeing as how much of Super Friends is based on Pre-''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' lore and hence Luthor's baldness and [[Start of Darkness]] were both accidently caused by Superman when he was Superboy, how can Luthor-- andLuthor—and as its founder, the Legion of Doom itself--existitself—exist if Superboy was never there to cause what happened to Luthor? Likewise, given his origins even Pre-Crisis involved someone copying Superman, how does Bizarro continue to exist as well?
** Ah, everyone know time travelers are [[A Wizard Did It|surrounded by a temporal bubble]] that prevents them from being affected by their own alterations in the timesteam. The real question is: if the Legion of Doom could see through time to spy on the "secret origins" of the heroes, how do they not know the entire Justice League's secret identities?
*** No, the ''real'' question is: Why does the Legion of Doom use [[Time Travel]] for such petty activities as foiling the origins of 3 of their 11 nemeses, or stealing a few ancient trinkets? That's like using a tactical nuclear weapon to open a can of peas.
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* The ultimate time paradox story is [[Robert A. Heinlein|Heinlein]]'s ''--[[All You Zombies]]--'', {{spoiler|in which the protagonist turns out to be hisheritthey's own mother, father, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather, grandson, granddaughter, great-grandmother, great-grandfather, great-grandson, great-granddaughter, great-great-grandmother, great-great-grandfather, and so on, ad infinitum.}}
** [http://www.xs4all.nl/~pot/scifi/byhisbootstraps.html Another Heinlein story], ''[[By His Bootstraps]]'', takes things nearly as far. Among other hijinks, the main character gets a book from the future, which he copies into another one (the same one, when it's new?) when it becomes too old and falling apart. A good way to avoid an object-based ontological paradox.
* Averted -- byAverted—by the characters, no less -- inless—in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s short story ''The Red Queen's Race''. They wind up creating a [[Stable Time Loop]] instead. {{spoiler|A scientist conducts an experiment to send modern scientific texts back in time, translated into ancient Greek. His translator, fearing a Temporal Paradox, only translates the parts that would account for the oddly anachronistic scientific advances ''already in our ancient history'', like Hero's steam engine or the infamous Baghdad Battery.}}
* In ''[[Artemis Fowl]] and the Time Paradox'', {{spoiler|Opal Koboi from the past travels to the present, and possesses Artemis' mother, making her appear ill. This forces present day Artemis to travel back in time to get the cure from the past Artemis. Opal then uses Artemis returning to the present to return to a few days before the present to make Artemis' mother ill in the first place. Ironically, this is all so she can aquire the secret of time travel.}}
** Not to mention, {{spoiler|Artemis had foggy memories of the past. When he went back in time, he left a note for Mulch to open the trunk Artemis and Holly were locked in. Also, the Mulch and Artemis of the past had their minds wiped, and since Artemis' wipe was a blanket wipe, there were still several remaining facts about fairies. By travelling back in time, Artemis caused himself to discover the fairy race. Whoa.}}
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== Newspaper Comics ==
* Unsuccesfully [[Invoked]] and thereby [[Subverted]] in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'': Calvin tries to travel two hours into the future so that he won't have to write the story they're supposed to be writing for school. But the future Calvin doesn't have it, because he went to the future to get it two hours ago. Then they both travel to one hour ago because they decide that that Calvin should have written it... but he refuses on the grounds that whatever they threaten to do to him, they'll be doing it to themselves. In the end, the two Calvins return to the future empty-handed, only two find that the two Hobbeses have written the story for them. When Calvin starts reading it out loud at school, it turns out to be a story about {{spoiler|his foolish time-travel while the tiger(s) save(s) the day.}}<br /><br />The timeline of this whole thing is a little paradoxical, but at least the object/information obtained has an origin.
 
The timeline of this whole thing is a little paradoxical, but at least the object/information obtained has an origin.
 
 
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* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda|The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time]]'' Link learns the Song of Storms from a man who claims that he learned it when a kid played that song seven years ago and messed up his windmill. Link then travels back in time seven years and plays the song, messing up the man's windmill.
** Now the real question is, ''where did the Song of Storms originate?''
** To even further compound the [[Temporal Paradox]], at least from the viewer's perspective, the background music within the windmill ''is'' the Song of Storms... even before Link learns the song.
** [[The Legend of Zelda]]: Oracle of Ages features a few instances, notably during one of Link's interactions with the gorons:
*** In an item trading puzzle, you trade a rock briquette to a goron in exchange for a family heirloom and then trade the same heirloom to an ancestor of the previously mentioned goron so he can hand it down across generations to his descendant who trades it to you so you can trade it to his ancestor who hands it down to him [[Overly Long Gag|who trades it to you]]...
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* Improperly invoked in ''[[Light and Dark - The Adventures of Dark Yagami|Light and Dark The Adventures of Dark Yagami]]'', after Blud learns that Matt survived a car crash with "Yotsuba", he decides to write Matt's name in his Death Note in the future to kill him in the past. This results in the past changing, with Matt dying and Yotsuba surviving. Dark claims the reason why Blud is telling him and Light this now, rather than at the point in the future when he writes the name is "Its one of those time [[Rouge Angles of Satin|parradoks]] that they have in [[Back to The Future]]".
** Dark's exact words are "Oh I didn't tell you my death note can also kill people in the past and I am going to write his name in it in the future to kill him in the past and stop him stealing the death note." [[Sarcasm Mode|Hope that clears up any confusion.]] It doesn't help that the flashback scenes go from "Present Day" to "Meanwhile in the Past" to "Back in the Future"
* In ''[[Megaman Star Force Orion]]'', Amaya and Taisaka decide to go back in time to prevent Kiri from making contact with the Ice Goddess Talisman. With the help of the UMA Fire, they reach the year in which Kiri is exiled from her home. Fire then brings them 2 years forward in time, and Taisaka and Amaya meet Tagekai, who reveals that Taisaka was originally a member of Tri-Clan. This causes Taisaka to break down as Amaya abandons Taisaka, soon meeting Takeshi's former self. Takeshi later reveals he has memories of everything that occurred as he was 66, as he is trapped in that age. Taisaka changes herself by telling her younger self not to fight Tagekai which causes her to become exiled. Amaya and Taisaka bring Kiri to the Omnikron Temple, and Amaya meets Eidaya, explaining everything. This creates a major time paradox, which causes the already fragile sands of time to become even more fragile. Soon Amaya returns to the past, meeting his father, who realizes that Amaya is Amaya, and he travels after him. As Amaya tries to fix things in Tri-Clan, Takeshi reveals he killed Taisaka, and Daisuke King, a Time Traveling Kamen Rider, shows up and brings Amaya to the present. He warns Amaya that Ryo is about to be killed by a Shinigami named Albano, and if this were to happen, the future would be corrupt, as Takeshi would cease to exist in the present. At the same time, Amaya's father plans to force time into 11:60 PM on December 24th24. Finally, Taisaka travels to the present from the past, creating a temporal corruption where memory demons overcome the present world and attempt to end the world. Time is eventually reset with the use of the Stolen Pocketwatch from the very first episode.
 
 
== Film ==
* ''Millennium'' concludes with a massive paradox barrelling its destructive way into the future whose time travel efforts caused it.
* Played with in ''[[Primer]]''. As one of the characters says, "The ''last'' revision is apparently the one that counts." We find characters gradually losing their worries about causality; they wind up going back in time to relive the events of that same week in their original place -- apparentlyplace—apparently intending to do everything ''right'' this time. It appears that causing a paradox causes some kind of mild brain trauma to the time traveler involved. But then there's that other version of yourself that you drugged up and locked in the basement so you could replace him...
* ''[[Déjà Vu (film)|Deja Vu]]'' contradicted itself on terms of [[Temporal Paradox]]. First, it is implied that anything changed in past changes the present, as Doug causes the death of his partner, that was thought caused by the ferry explosion. Later, it is implied that the past has already been changed, as {{spoiler|the message "U CAN SAVE HER" in Claire's house was written by him}}, but in the end, it is contradicted, because {{spoiler|if he prevented the explosion, he could never have been assigned to the case, and thus could never do the time travelling, and so on...}}
* French-Canadian movie based from a cult tv show ''Dans une galaxie près de chez vous 2'' featured a spatio-dimensional rip (shaped like a zipper) who goes to present Earth. The Capitain was able to chuck down a DVD with their plea ([[Green Aesop|NOT to destroy the ozone layer]]) recorded on it. It backfired when the video got featured on ''[[YouTube]]'' and ridiculed as "[[wikipedia:Star Wars Kid|Star Wars Twit]]" (Being bad at pronounciation dosen't help). Nevertheless, it might have pushed a younger version of the Capitain to go into space, directly ''and'' indirectly setting the events of the show into place.
* ''[[Austin Powers]]: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' shows Austin briefly attempting to reason why no time paradox has occurred due to he and Dr. Evil time traveling to a date where they logically shouldn't be. Basil Exposition puts his mind at ease
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* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' has an episode with Chief Miles O'Brien going forward in time a few hours and then, when he feels he's about to die, sends his future self in the past to take his place and prevent the disaster.
{{quote|'''Chief Miles O'Brien''' and '''Chief Miles O'Brien''': I hate temporal mechanics.}}
** One way this could work is that the original Present Miles was from and the Past he goes to have become [[Alternate Universe|Alternate Universes]]s. The "first" universe, what was called the Present, Miles would never return to. However, the show just continues in the changed Past universe.
** And in ""Trials and Tribbleations":
{{quote|'''Lucsly''': So you're not contending it was a pre-destination paradox?
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In the [[Time Travel]] RPG ''[[Continuum]]'', if a time traveler creates a paradox, they accumulate "frag," and if they accumulate too much, it eventually causes them to unravel. What's more, unchecked temporal paradoxes will eventually lead to the unraveling of reality itself. Much of the game centers around the players, who are part of "The Continuum" trying to fix paradoxes deliberately created by time travelers (known as "narcissists") who don't believe the official line on paradoxes, and who want to mess with the timeline for their own personal gain.
** Similarly, the expansion sourcebook (currently trapped in [[Development Hell]]) ''Narcissist'' has a different take on this -- thethis—the original time traveler entered the "main" timeline's past and introduced time travel sometime around 14000 BC. Said time travel directly resulted in a [[The Singularity|singularity]] around 2500 AD, which then used its super-powerful minds and infinite resources to make ''sure'' that said time traveler never leaves our timeline (which would require a portal made out of X number of Temporal Paradoxes), and that time travelers don't cause the timeline to deviate from the history that led to the singularity. In alternate timelines away from "the swarm" -- agents—agents of the Singularity, named that because there's a lot of them, but they're disorganized idiots -- paradoxesidiots—paradoxes ''don't exist'': "frag" exists in the main timeline specifically due to the singularity's agents constantly trying to time-[[Mind Rape]] anyone attempting to change history.
* Time Travel is rare in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'', but the Warp does strange things sometimes, like sending ships off to answer their own distress signals. In another example, one Ork Warboss was sent back through time via warp-storm, met up with his past self, and [[Insane Troll Logic|killed his temporal doppelganger so he could have two copies of his favorite gun]]. The resulting confusion stopped the Waaagh! in its tracks.
* Averted in ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]''. As the game puts it, it turns out the universe doesn't particularly care if your grandmother gets shot and there's no shooter -- barringshooter—barring [[Time Police|external intervention,]] you pop out of existence if you pull the trigger and the bullet hits home. This can have some interesting consequences, as the angry young lad seeking to avert a massacre in his country's history [[Ret-Gone|did not ]][[I Am Your Father|discover...]]
* In ''[http://dig1000holes.wordpress.com/time-temp/ Time and Temp]'', a paradox would [[Ret-Gone]] ''[[Earthshattering Kaboom|all of existence]]''. Office temps (hence the name of the game) are used as field agents to prevent this, because they're otherwise [[Mooks|unimportant]] enough to minimize the risk of personal [[Grandfather Paradox]] - though their potential for [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|incompetence]] is at odds with this.
* The ''[[GURPS]]'' Sourcebook ''GURPS Infinite Worlds'' includes a chapter exploring time travel and paradoxes.
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* ''[[Ecco the Dolphin]]'''s time paradox consisted of Ecco seeing the Asterite, who tells him to go back in time and recover its missing globe from the Asterite of the past. That means that in the past, a dolphin stole the Asterite's globe, and only because of a request from the future.
* As part of its recurring themes of [[You Can't Fight Fate]] and [[Screw Destiny]], the ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' series establishes that time travel always creates a [[Stable Time Loop]], where if you try to change history on your own, the timestream just re-establishes itself as it is meant to be as though you weren't even there, like a river flowing around a stone. The only way to truly alter time is to cause a paradox by bringing the same object or person from one time into close proximity with itself in a completely different time. This creates a disruption in the timeline strong enough to alter history in ways that cannot be predicted, the butterfly effect occurring and history shifting itself around to fit the new chain of events. The main item for this task is the [[Sword of Plot Advancement|Soul Reaver]], due to it being wielded by a variety of powerful figures including the two protagonists, and thus bringing two swords into contact means someone of historical importance is going to die.
** This mechanic is actually the crux of the ''entire plot''. Because time travel always creates a [[Stable Time Loop]], it means free will doesn't exist, [[You Already Changed the Past]] and [[You Can't Fight Fate]]--or—or so it seems. The exception to those rules is the paradox as explained above, and it just so happens that {{spoiler|the spectral version of the Soul Reaver that Raziel wields is actually his own soul. He receives the sword in the present, and will travel back in time where he will be drawn into the material version of the Soul Reaver in the past, thereby becoming its spectral half to one day be bonded to him when Kain destroys the material version attempting to kill him. Raziel is walking around with his own soul clinging to his arm, and thus he's a walking paradox, the only person with free will that has the power to change history freely because he creates a temporal distortion wherever he goes.}} This is why so many people go to such extreme lengths to manipulate Raziel into changing history for them.
** At one time there's actually a ''four-way'' paradox - during the climax of ''Defiance'', you've got {{spoiler|Past Kain wielding the Soul Reaver that belongs in this time, Present Kain traveled back in time with the original Reaver taken from a point in time further in the past before it became the Soul Reaver, Raziel traveled back in time with the spectral version of the Soul Reaver that was created when the material Soul Reaver currently wielded by Past Kain was destroyed in the future, and Raziel himself who will eventually be drawn into the Reaver wielded by Present Kain to become its spectral half and transform it into the Soul Reaver. Oh, and the Reaver that Present Kain is wielding will also have to be taken back in time at some point after absorbing Raziel's soul so he can leave it for his past self to find and thus leave the timeline up to that point intact.}} [[Viewers Are Geniuses|Got all that]]?
* ''[[Jak and Daxter|Jak 2]]'': Try to keep up: [[Wrench Wench]] Keira found a "rift rider" (basically a time machine) just lying around (just go with it). So everyone gets in, flies to the future and land in a dystopian city. Keira and her father get away, but Jak is captured and the rift rider is destroyed. 2 years passes. The game starts. When you meet up with her again, she's working on another time machine, trying to recreate the one they found from memory. During the game, they meet up with a kid who looks a lot like Jak. At the end of the game, Keira finishes the rift rider so they can go home. But they have to take the kid with them who turns out to be {{spoiler|a young Jak. It turns out he was born in the future}}. So they have to take him on the rift rider back to the past so he can {{spoiler|be raised and come back to the future}} and fulfil his destiny, because it turns out that the rift rider Keira built from memory wasn't a replica, but the very same one they found in the past. So they have to go to the past to drop off the rift rider, so past Keira can find it and then go through the rift back to the present and [[Austin Powers|Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed]].
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== Western Animation ==
* ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' special, "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker". Timmy goes back in time to find out why Crocker was so miserable and to try to fix it. He finds out that as a child, Crocker ''himself'' had fairy godparents--andgodparents—and that they were Cosmo and Wanda, something that they don't remember--andremember—and figures out that he must've done something to lose his fairies. He tries to warn the young Crocker, but inadvertently ends up being the one who reveals the secret (with some help from both '70s Cosmo ''and'' modern Cosmo's stupidity). Furthermore, as Jorgen shows up to erase everyone's memories of there being fairies, young Crocker manages to get his hands on the DNA tracker that AJ had built so that they'd know when Crocker was around, ''and'' managed to get Cosmo's DNA to use in it, ''and'' managed to covertly write a memo on the back of it that fairy godparents exist without Jorgen noticing, allowing him to keep that knowledge after his memory of fairies was erased...which means that if Timmy had never interfered, Crocker would be neither miserable nor fairy-obsessed. However, whereas when Timmy left for the past, Crocker was using a very primitive and likely useless "fairy finder", the Crocker in the present that Timmy returned to was using the tracker that AJ had built, implying that he ''had'' created an alternate timeline, and leaving one to wonder what happened in the original timeline. Of course, considering it's explcicitly stated in [[The Movie]] that few kids keep their fairies past their first year, much less until adulthood when they would leave ''anyway'', we can guess...
** Well the original timeline seems to be that 70's Cosmo is that cause of Crocker losing him and Wanda. Timmy then stops this incident only for present day Cosmo to turn on the mic while Timmy is talking and cause the incident to happen anyway. While this doesn't explain how Crocker knew about the existence of fairies after his mind was wiped in the original timeline, since we don't see the original incident play out, we can just assume any number of reasons for that. (Perhaps he managed to write a note in that timeline too)
** There was also a [[Historical In-Joke]] to imply that it was an alternate timeline.
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