Time Travel Tense Trouble: Difference between revisions

[[File:timetraveltense 4240.png|frame|link=http://www.savagechickens.com/2010/05/time-travel-2.html]]

 

 

Most Indo-European languages have multiple tenses, to differentiate things that ''have'' happened from things that ''will'' happen, plus some to define what ''had'' happened before that, not to mention some that are a bit less identifiable in their everyday uses (I'm looking at you, Pluperfect Subjunctive). It mostly works fine when your timeline is a strict progression from cause to effect.

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Mikuru from ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' is aware of the tense trouble, but she keeps flubbing it anyway. Considering that Mikuru is spacey and [[Moe Moe]], this leads to Adult!Mikuru showing Kyon a mole on her breasts while saying something like "But you were the one who told me about it...wait, has that not happened yet? oops...". Later in that episode Kyon casually asks Mikuru if she has a mole "right about here" and points to the location on his own chest. She turns around, checks, and starts trying to beat the information out of him. That would be where Kyon "told her about it"- it's a paradox.

 

* In ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'', Dr. Manhattan, who is able to perceive the past, present and future, says "Yes, yes, he {{spoiler|killed Blake and half of New York}}. Excuse me, Rorschach, I'm informing Laurie 90 seconds ago," to Laurie "Silk Spectre" Juspeczyk, being confused by tachyon interference, before saying the same thing to Rorschach 90 seconds later. He's even in the exact same pose and position (relative to the walls of the panel) both times he says it.

** That, and the whole flashback (flashnow?) scene on Mars.

** Also, Barry's life, career and friendship with other characters, as well as the vague event <ref>from the characters' point of view: that Really Big Deal that no one really remembers but no one ever wonders about</ref> that caused his death, are all perfectly compatible (as far as their memories are concerned) with their personal histories and timelines that had been established ''after'' the Crisis was written. So basically, the characters can all recall and talk about events that as far as they are concerned, occurred when Barry Allen was still alive, but most of those events are significantly different from how they were reported by comic books written before the Crisis was published.

* ''[[The Invisibles]]'' sometimes shows events taking place outside of time, where not only tenses suffer but the entire linear construction of sentences. One such nonlinear word balloon might contain the words "From" "look" "at" "you" "are" "in" and "allnow", to be arranged by the reader in whatever order they need.

 

* In ''[[Hogyoku Ex Machina]]'':

{{quote|'''Ichigo:''' Hinamori? They were pretty close, right?

'''Matsumoto:''' Were?

'''Ichigo:''' Are. Sorry. She got… will get better. }}

{{quote|'''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle|Syaoran]]:''' Please don't get too upset at [[My Own Grampa|my]] [[Time Travel|past]] [[Cloning Blues|self]] for the things [[Evil Twin|he]] [[Wham! Episode|is going to do,]] he's going to be going through a very hard time just then.}}

 

== Film ==

{{quote|'''Gordon''': We've found his next target. He's put it in tomorrow's newspaper.

'''Kevin''': Then we'd have been too late. If only there will be something we could do. }}

 

== Literature ==

* [[Discworld]]:

** ''The Discworld Companion'' entry for a character existing in a [[Stable Time Loop]] says "Dios was (or is, or will be - certain temporal uncertainties make the choice of tense very difficult)".

{{quote|And at the end of all stories Azrael, who knew the secret, thought:

I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WILL BE AGAIN. }}

* Dracula and Bathory suffer from this as children in ''[[Count and Countess]]''.

 

* In the ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' episode "Future Echoes":

{{quote|'''Lister''': Hey, it hasn't happened, has it? It has "will have going to have happened" happened, but it hasn't actually "happened" happened yet, actually.

'''Rimmer''': Poppycock! It will be happened; it shall be going to be happening; it will be was an event that could will have been taken place in the future. Simple as that. Your bucket's been kicked, baby. }}

{{quote|'''Lister''': ''We don't exist here anymore!''

'''Kryten''': ''Actually sir, we don't ever have existed here anymore, but this is hardly the time to be conjugating temporal verbs in the past impossible never tense!'' }}

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' story "The Two Doctors", the Sixth Doctor comments on the Second Doctor in this convoluted way.

{{quote|'''Sixth Doctor:''' Your Doctor is an antediluvian fogey! Allowing himself to be captured by the Sontarans. If anything happens to me as a result of it, I shall never forgive himself.

'''Peri:''' Oh, I do wish you'd stop switching personal pronouns! }}

{{quote|'''Seventh Doctor:''' ''An anti-gravitation matter transmitter. Didn't you give me this next year?''}}

{{quote|'''Chronotis''': "I am, I was, I will be, Professor Chronotis. Oh dear... we Gallifreyans have never managed to come up with a satisfactory form of grammar to cover these situations.}}

* In ''[[Goodnight Sweetheart]]'' time traveler Gary Sparrow (who is married in the present day but is having an affair with a woman in 1940s Britain) upbraids his friend for cheating on his wife. When the obvious hypocrisy is pointed out to him, Gary replies "That's different. All my indiscretions are in the past. Even my future indiscretions are in the past.".

{{quote|'''Braxton:''' Thanks to you, we've learned that the temporal disruptor was and will be concealed here. [[Lampshade Hanging|I gave up trying to keep my tenses straight years ago.]]}}

{{quote|'''Janeway''': ''(returning to Voyager from the 29th Century)'' See you in the 24th Century.

'''Seven of Nine''': I look forward to it. Or should I say backward?

'''Janeway''': Don't start. }}

* Even happened on ''[[The Daily Show]]''. "You're hurting my brain, [[Stephen Colbert|Stephen]]."

* In ''[[Day Break]]'', Brett often ran into this whenever he tried to explain the [[Groundhog Day Loop]] to another character.

* Poked fun at on [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]] when they were going through a time rift. [[Makes Sense in Context|Have you seen my chicken puppet?]]

* In an episode of ''[[Quantum Leap]]'', Sam leaps into the past version of his friend and helper Al; early on, Al has a bit of tense trouble relating to his younger self ("I think I'm...I mean, '''he''' thinks I'm my uncle.") Eventually Sam suggests that they refer to Young Al as "Bingo", which was his Air Force callsign.

 

== New Media ==

* From [[The Other Wiki]]'s article on the MIT Time Traveler Convention: "The spacetime coordinates continue to be publicized prominently and indefinitely, so that future time travelers will be aware and have the opportunity to have attended."

{{quote|'''Steve:''' Close the door! Don't you know he suffers from amblyopia?

'''Future Carl:''' Yes I do... for I are he! Only, I'm from the future.

'''Future Steve:''' You know, I really do think it's "I AM he".

'''Future Carl:''' It's all this time traveling! It really confuses me as to what tense we should be using! }}

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* Averted in one place in ''[[GURPS]] Time-Travel'' by saying that there are two timelines for the adventurer, the time he came from "hometime" and the time he is adventuring in and [[San Dimas Time|Hometime keeps going while the adventurer was adventuring]]. Thus all that is necessary is to distinguish between home past and away past.

* ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' runs into this once it starts talking about time travel; when discussing the consequences of changing the past it says that "what used to happen (and here the past tense gets into a bit of trouble), is that [[Time Police|you got your ass kicked]] by the [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|transsapient gods]] who live at the end of time."

 

== Video Games ==

{{quote|'''{{spoiler|Garland/Chaos:}}''' "Two thousand years from now, you killed me."}}

* Naturally, ''[[Prince of Persia]]'' also falls victim to this trope during Sands of Time's {{spoiler|final boss fight. Among the banter we find this: "It happened! ... Well, it will happen!" referring to the events of the game being experienced, rewound, and then about to happen (again?) if the Prince doesn't do something about it.}}

* The ''[[Achron]]'' fandom made a little of their own grammar to explain stuff in the game. They talk about game-time and real-time (also referred to as "time" and "metatime"), and refer to units and events as early or late. When they specify when something happened, they use an ordered pair for the time.

* In ''[[The Longest Journey]]'', one of the species April encounters in Arcadia perceives the timeline all at once, and so has a horrible time keeping tenses straight when speaking to more temporally limited creatures.

* The opening cutscene to [[Spider-Man Edge of Time]]. "Earlier...in the future."

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' has one [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2130.html here]. Of course, Nazi scienc—wait, ''grammar'' sneers at it.

** "When we will have done what we soon will do in die past, you will see the results of what we have now already will have done!"

{{quote|'''Cleric''': I demand a rational explanation.

* A truly [[Crowning Moment of Funny|memorable]] example occurs in ''[[Bob and George]]'', referencing ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' (the comic in question is indeed titled "Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional"), as Bob, trapped in the future, tries to find out from Prometheus/Protoman how he gets back to the present:

{{quote|'''Bob''': Okay, if I told you what I did, how did I get back?

'''([[Beat Panel]].)'''

'''Bob''': How about, if you ''won't'' tell me how I ''did'' get back, I ''will'' shove my boot up your ass? }}

* Described in [[The Rant]] for [http://dizzy.pestermom.com/?p=thcomic101 this] ''[[Touhou Nekokayou]]'', where it divides temporal conversation between "subjective" (what the time traveller personally experience), "objective" (chronological order), and "metatemporal" (the perspective of changes made to the timeline).

* In one ''[[Dinosaur Comics|Dinosaur Comic]]'', T-Rex likes to assume every unknown historical figure is, in fact, himself on a time travel ("It sounds rad to me!")

FCG2: SINCE HE'S CURRENTLY LYING UNCONSCIOUS ON THE FLOOR AN HOUR AGO.

FCG2: SEE YOU IN THE FUTURE-NOW.''' }}

* In [http://comics.shipsinker.com/?id=423 this] strip from the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' comic ''The Stalker of Norfolk'', new companion Beverly attempts to talk about someone from her personal past.

 

== Western Animation ==

{{quote|'''Clockwork:''' I sent him back to his own time... or should I say, ''forward'' to his own time? You see, for me, [[Time Dissonance|time moves backwards, and forwards]], and... oh, why am I bothering? You're fourteen.}}

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', "It's About Time": Twilight Sparkle receives a message from herself a week in the future, and the state of her future self (wearing a torn black jumpsuit, her mane all messed up, and with [[Eyepatch After Time Skip|an eyepatch]] and a scar on her cheek) causes her to worry: "What a mess she is. Or I am... or will be!" It turns out {{spoiler|her future self was trying to tell her ''not'' to panic (which [[Stable Time Loop|caused her to panic anyway]]). After she goes back in time to try and deliver her original message, she realizes [[You Already Changed the Past|what just happened]] and says "Now I'm going to have to worry for a whole week!" despite the fact that for her the ordeal has passed.}}

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* Microsoft Outlook's "Warning: This meeting occurs in the past."

* Subversion's error message "Cannot reverse-merge a range from a path's own future history".

* Of course, this problem affects only languages with compulsory tense-marking.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Time Travel Tropes]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]