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{{trope}}
{{quote|''Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future... Any moment now, Janey's watchband will break. Somewhere, the fat man is already lumbering toward the shooting gallery, steps heavy with unwitting destiny.''|'''Dr. Manhattan''', ''[[Watchmen (comics)|
{{quote|''One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not...about changing the course of history - the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end. The major problem is quite simply one of [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|grammar.]]''|'''Douglas Adams''', ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant At The End of The Universe|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]''}}
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You [[Time Travel|go back in time]] to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], only to discover that the "changes" you're making to the past were what "already" happened anyway. In other words, there was no "first time around" - the past only happened ''once'', there were no different "versions" of it, and the changes you made to the past ultimately created the very past you read about in the history books before leaving on the trip.
It's like being Time's own personal [[Unwitting Pawn]].
This does not necessarily mean that [[You Can't Fight Fate]]. For example, if Bob wanted to go back in time to stop Alice's death, he could simply convince his past self that Alice still died in the future. Following this logic, Alice never dies at
Needless to add, [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|grammar can sometimes become thoroughly useless]] at trying to put the point across, as all sense of tense gets thrown of the window. This trope is easier to observe rather than analyze.
Note that
This trope ''arguably'' makes the most sense when considering time travel from a scientific point of view, see the [[wikipedia:Novikov self-consistency principle|Novikov self-consistency principle]].<ref>Novikov's self-consistency principle was named "the Law of Conservation of History" by [[Larry Niven]] in his short piece "The Theory and Practice of Time Travel," published at least ten years prior to Novikov's work. Of course, [[Larry Niven]] is a [[Science Fiction]] writer, which may explain why [[Sci Fi Ghetto|nobody cares]]. Alternatively, this is an illustration of something called [[wikipedia:Stigler
Thus, most time travel stories that involve altering the past will provide some of the characters with [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory]]. This makes less sense, but it makes for a narrative convenience. If a You Already Changed The Past plot is used, the time travel will probably be a one-off thing, since repeating it would most likely get tedious.
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See also [[Self-Fulfilling Prophecy]]. Compare [[Retroactive Preparation]], where having changed the past already works to your ''favor''. Related to [[Stable Time Loop]] where you go back in time, because you already changed the past.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Urusei Yatsura]]'' has time travel in a few occasions.
** In one, Lum goes into the future where she brings back Ataru's diary. He reads it and believes things will go right for him, but attempting to cause them makes everything go horribly wrong. It's later found that when writing the entry about everything that went wrong, his tears blur the ink, causing it to look like he wrote about things going well.
** In the other, the cast goes back in time to prevent Mendo from getting claustrophobia and nyctophobia. As a result, young Mendo pisses off the modern Mendo, causing him to attack his younger self. While hiding from his older self, young Mendo was trapped in a dark jar, causing him to grow deathly afraid of dark and tight spaces.
* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]''. Details would be massive spoilers, but suffice to say that time travels differently in different universes, and something the heroes do midway through in a world that later turns out to be their own past sets up the very premise of the story, as revealed in the finale.
** Also, one character who {{spoiler|pulls a [[Face Heel Turn]] halfway through is fated to pull a [[Heel Face Turn]] back, given that his future self, who actually reincarnates in the past is the protagonist's father. Yeah...see, all grammar is useless.}} In fact, depending on which angle you see it from, the whole story wouldn't have happened if the past had not already included the influence of the future.
** However, the first instance of tinkering with time that we knew of was ''not'' an example of this - the group visits the world of Shara twice, before and after visiting Shura which turns out to be the past of Shara; and the effects of their actions are quite visible. CLAMP seems to have [[Magic
* In ''[[Rave Master]]'', after much time is spent freaking out over what horrible ways they've twisted the past, Sieg, Elie, and Haru (but mostly Sieg) discover that {{spoiler|all their actions caused the future they were trying to protect by not taking those actions. Haru made it very clear to the knight that the criminals he brought had invaded the castle ten days earlier, and that the knight was to take credit for catching them, which we see him talking about at the time Haru gave 50 years later. Getting Resha kidnapped enforced the king's decesion to have her fake her own death, leading her into the future where she get's amnesia and meets Haru, and ditching Sieg in the past leads to him being there to set the whole time loop up and make sure they mess with the past like they're supposed to.}}
* [[Steins;Gate]]: Understanding this concept is what allows {{spoiler|Okabe (with some help from his [[Time Travel Tense Trouble|"future"]] self) to turn the constant stream of [[Downer Ending]]s into something much more pleasant.}} His early episodes [[Awesome Ego|boast]] about being "able to cheat the universe itself" doesn't look so silly anymore by the end.
== Comic Books ==
* A ''[[Blade]]'' series had Doctor Doom lure the Daywalker to his castle, where Doom then proposed Blade with going back in time and saving his mother from a vampire attack. Blade asked him why he should do it, and Doom replies with "Because I've already seen you do it in the past." Doom is nice enough to give him a serum which would suppress his bloodthirst though.
* An issue in ''[[The Mighty Thor]]'' series had an storyline where {{spoiler|Loki sends himself back through time with the aid of Hela to accomplish certain tasks that had already been mentioned in a previous issue, but with certain details left unclear. Turns out that Loki was responsible for many of the major events in Asgardian history, but it's left unclear whether they still would have happened had he never gone back in time. Even he isn't completely sure.}}
** {{spoiler|He lampshaded this trope, saying that he cannot change a past and make future comes different way, but he can make sure it will go a way it did.}}
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* ''[[12 Monkeys]]'', as well as its inspiration, ''La Jetée''.
* ''[[Terminator|The Terminator]]'' gives a rare example of the good guys directly benefiting from the immutability of time. The machines sent back a Terminator to kill Sarah Connor before her son John Connor was born, in response, the rebels send back... the guy who becomes John's father.
** Also, in a deleted scene, it turns out that Cyberdyne, the company that built
* Harve Bennett's explanation for why the ''Enterprise'' crew was so careless about altering history in ''[[Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home]]'' seems to be (he says it in a rather disjointed way) that this trope is in place and the characters are [[Genre Savvy]]. Although this [[Timey-Wimey Ball|contradicts how time travel is usually portrayed in the series]], it does fall into line with the one episode of the original series that also used the "slingshot around the Sun to visit 20th century Earth" method.
** In the reboot movie ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'', 200-something years in the future, {{spoiler|Spock fails to save Romulus because he doesn't get there in time, and he and Nero and his crew are sent back to the present. Nero, in revenge, destroys planet Vulcan, which Spock Prime tells Kirk was because of his failure to save Romulus. So, Spock(presumably) now knows his failure to save Romulus in the future was what caused the destruction of Vulcan in the present, so, when the time comes, he can simply leave for Romulus ''earlier'', to make sure he gets there in time, thus averting the destruction of ''both'' planets. '''''But''''', if he averts these events, there's no way for him to know he should leave for Romulus earlier, and-[[Austin Powers|Oh, God, I've gone cross-eyed.]]}}
** This movie runs on the parallel-universe model of time travel. {{spoiler|Romulus is destroyed in the original Star Trek universe where all the previous series and movies took place. The time travel causes a new universe to branch off, in which Vulcan is destroyed but Romulus presumably won't be. If someone from the reboot universe goes back in time to before Vulcan's destruction to tell Spock to leave earlier to save Romulus, then both planets will be saved in the resulting universe.}}
*** But the problem with that theory is that {{spoiler|Nero arrived in the TOS time line ''twenty-something years'' before the destruction of Vulcan. He destroyed Kirk's father's ship, remember? The ball was in motion before Kirk was even born, and Spock would presumably have been at least in his youth by then.}}
*** Nero came from the Prime universe, {{spoiler|where Romulus had been destroyed. In the rebooted universe, if Romulus is in fact saved, the reboot universe version of Nero will have had no reason to go back in time. If someone then goes back in time from beyond that point, while making sure that Romulus is still saved, then they'd find that Nero never came from the future because that future was averted in the timeline they came from. Or else the re-rebooted universe becomes separated from the rebooted universe with the arrival of the person that tries to save Vulcan, just like Nero came back from the Prime universe to the rebooted universe in time to face the ''USS Kelvin''.}} So, there would be three time branches: the Prime Universe (Original Star Trek), the Rebooted Universe (Star Trek 2009, diverging from the encounter of the ''Narada'' with ''USS Kelvin'', where {{spoiler|Vulcan is destroyed but Romulus is saved}}) and the Re-rebooted Universe (diverging from the unknown person arrives from the future to some point between the ''USS Kelvin'''s destruction and {{spoiler|the destruction of Vulcan, and that person manages to save Vulcan and tell Spock to arrive to Romulus earlier}}).
* This gets covered regarding the movie ''Happy Accidents'' very well [http://www.mjyoung.net/time/happy.html here].
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* In ''Deja Vu'', the first few attempts at actually changing the past just end up causing things the characters and audience have already seen happen. {{spoiler|Eventually, for the sake of having a happy ending, they do manage to make a change that works.}}
** This could be a case of {{spoiler|[[Subverted Trope|subversion]], as it was mentioned in passing during the course of the movie that a big enough change could change the future (i.e., not having the ferry blow up). As the [[Other Wiki]] has a [[wikipedia:File:Deja Vu Timeline.png|diagram showing at least four runs]] of the timeline are needed to explain how the events of the movie are possible, perhaps several trips of smaller changes adds up to one big enough change.}}
* An interesting case is the movie ''[[Paycheck]]''. What happens to the protagonist (he is administered a procedure which would erase all of his memories from the coming two years; when he is finished, he's [[Tricked-Out Time|told these two years already happened]]) would be a perfect example of this trope. Only there's no time travel (though the plot revolves around a [[You Cannot Change the Future|future-seeing machine]]).
* In the 2007 film ''Premonition'', [[Sandra Bullock]] lives the week of her husband's death out of order. {{spoiler|She's unsuccessful in her attempts to save him, as on the last day she accidentally causes his death by preventing another one.}}
* Played with in ''[[Back to The Future]]'', where Marty goes back in time and introduces 1985 concepts to 1955, but the movie implies that he only changes the source of the original idea without actually altering their progression into the modern day. He didn't invent skateboards but he introduced skateboarding to Hill Valley earlier than would have caught on naturally, and he didn't write Johnny B. Goode, but hearing his guitar solo inspired Chuck Berry over the phone. Since these things don't actually ''change'' the future, it looks like they were always that way.
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== Literature ==
* ''There Will Be Time'' by [[Poul Anderson]]. A substantial number of humans have had the innate ability to [[Time Travel]] since before recorded history (possibly because it was inserted into the genome by future travelers). So little of human history is known exactly, and the book's scope is so great (from Jesus' crucifixion to a far-future [[After the End|postapocalyptic]] revival of
** It is established fairly early in the story that it is impossible to change anything that the hero knows about what will happen. Every attempt he makes to save his father (who died in WW-II) is prevented in some way.
* Eoin Colfer's ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' Time Paradox {{spoiler|The matter is discussed before they actually [[Time Travel]] and Artemis presumes that whatever happened in the past cannot be changed. It turns out he's right. It also lets a huge variety of crazy actions take place.}}
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** He encounters the brand-new original manuscript of a poem he'd studied in his own century, and wonders how it would pick up the stains he'd seen on it in his own time. A poet he recently met then walks in carrying some food, puts it down, and picks up the manuscript with his greasy hands to look it over.
** He encounters a 17th century book with an inscription in it that shakes him up. He later travels accidentally to that century, and on encountering the then-new book, writes the pig-Latin inscription addressed to himself that he would read in the future.
* The climax of ''[[Harry Potter and
* ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' by Connie Willis involves [[Time Travel|time traveling]] historians (which first appeared in her ''Doomsday Book'')who spend a lot of effort to repair the "incongruity" caused when one of them inadvertently brings a cat forward from [[
* ''Blackout'' and ''All Clear'', also by Connie Willis, have a similar example. Some historians go back to [[WWII]] era, then find that they can't get home. They agonize over every little thing they do, worried that the slightest change might cause the Germans to win the war. {{spoiler|It turns out that the things they did, the people they saved, and so on, were exactly the tipping points to let ENGLAND win the war. Their future, in which the
* [[Time Travel]] in the ''[[Pliocene Exile]]'' novels works this way. Of course, since
* Used extensively in ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' this seems to be the whole purpose of future(er) Asahina. Who is suspected to be the superior of Present(or rather not-so-future) Asahina, and puts her younger self trough all the missions and trouble she already went trough herself. So she already changed the past because she will order herself to go to the past and change it so she can get to the future and order herself to change the past.
* Minor example in ''[[Young Wizards|So You Want To Be A Wizard]]'' by [[Diane Duane]]: Nita and Kit are stopped for a moment on their way to a world gate by a loud bang on the other side of a door they are about to open. It turns out at the end of the book {{spoiler|that it was Nita herself, coming back from the future a little earlier than planned and trying to avoid meeting their younger selves}}.
* This was true in the novel ''[[The Time
* Douglas Adams' ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' universe works this way. in the second book, ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant At The End of The Universe|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy
* [[Isaac Asimov]]'s short story "The Red Queen's Race" has a character who tries to ''make'' this trope happen. {{spoiler|He was asked to translate several modern books on physics into ancient Greek, with the work being beamed back into humanity's past. History fails to change because the translator was very careful to leave out most of the advanced material.}}
** Specifically, {{spoiler|the translator only includes information which would account for discoveries and advances already present in our own time line.}}
* ''Unborn Tomorrow'', a short story by Dallas McCord Reynolds. A wealthy man wants a private eye to locate a time traveler from the future and get the secret of eternal life. He believes such time travellers would go to the Oktoberfest, where everyone would be too drunk to notice anything strange about them. The secretary is surprised when her boss curtly turns down this chance to get drunk on someone else's money. The private eye explains that he's already taken the assignment three times, and each time the time travelers sent him back to this point in the time line, with a massive hangover from drinking too much German beer. There's no way he's getting another hangover piled on top of the previous three, not for any amount of money!
* ''The Skull'' by [[Philip K. Dick]]. An assassin is sent back in time to kill the founder of a subversive religion before he gives a famous speech, only to realize that the Founder is
* An interesting example in ''The Redemption of Christopher Columbus'' by [[Orson Scott Card]]. The book takes place in an technologically-advanced, but dying, Earth and the protagonists are trying to find at which point in history they need to change events. While researching Christopher Columbus, they find that a vision he wrote about in his diaries was actually a hologrammatic projection sent from a parallel future to their own.
* Happens quite a lot in ''[[Count and Countess]]'', in which the two eponymous characters exchange letters with each other despite living more than a hundred years apart. Notably, Elizabeth, living in the 1500s, knows that her ancestor Matyas Hunyadi (in the 1400s) held the throne of Hungary for a very long time. In an attempt to save Vlad Dracula's life, she warns him not to try to make a grab for the throne, or he will probably be killed. As a result, Vlad stays as far away from Hunyadi as possible. {{spoiler|Which gives Hunyadi plenty of time to rouse the Black Forces against Vlad and stop him in his tracks.}}
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* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' ("Assignment Earth")
* Early seasons of ''[[Andromeda]]'' used this, but it degenerated into [[Timey-Wimey Ball]] territory after a while.
* The first [[Time Travel]] episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' ("1969") can be perceived as following this logic, but none of the subsequent [[Time Travel]] episodes in the [[Stargate Verse]]
** Though it seems SG-1 held to the "Alternate timelines/universes" first. The 20th episode of Season 1 had the "Quantum Mirror" which put Daniel Jackson in an alternate timeline/universe. "1969" was the 21st episode of Season 2.
** [[Stargate: Continuum]] shows the present universe being [[Delayed Ripple Effect|erased]] by Baal's actions in the past. As a part of the SG-1 team consciously try to outrun the phenomenon, the stargate wormhole somehow shields them from it. So, while there are alternate realities in the [[Stargate Verse]], those may be unrelated to time travel. Either that, or the writers [[Timey-Wimey Ball|just can't decide]].
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** Particularly annoying with Sayid {{spoiler|shooting young Ben}}, which was not only implied to have already happened, Kate and Sawyer's interference in order to put things right seems to actually have caused {{spoiler|Ben to become evil, as Richard says that because the island healed him he would always be "one of them" and that he would "lose his innocence". So by trying to kill him, they effectively caused what they were trying to prevent}}. Nice going, guys!
* ''[[Quantum Leap]]'' was somewhat inconsistent on this trope. In episodes that directly impacted Al or Sam, they would have the entire memory of both things happening. For example:
** Sam {{spoiler|successfully}} tries to save his brother's life in Vietnam, which alters history and results in {{spoiler|Al becoming a prisoner of war}}.
*** Actually {{spoiler|Al was already going to be a prisoner of war. Sam could have changed that, or save his brother. Al allowed him to save his brother by not telling him he was one of the prisoners}}.
** In one episode, Congress is reviewing Project Quantum Leap's funding and leans on Al (acting as the project's representative) to have Sam alter history in ways beneficial to the US. Al tries to get Sam to prevent the [[wikipedia:1960 U-2 incident|U-2 spy plane incident]], but Sam is in the past protecting a young attorney. At the end of the episode, the Congressman in charge of the committee is about to cut the project's funding when, [[Meanwhile in the Future|in the past]], Sam unintentionally corrects the attorney on a key piece of Constitutional law which she had wrong and she says could have made her fail the bar. Cut to the present, where the obstructionist Congressman is replaced by an older version of the attorney, who approves the project's funding for another year. It's never made explicit, but Al's surprise at the sudden change suggests that he's aware of the change.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In Palladium Books' ''Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'', the GM was to have an important recurring character recognize the characters in a future era even if they hadn't met him yet in a past one.
* In the time-traveller role-playing game [[Continuum]], it's an ironclad article of Spanner faith that there is only one
== Theme Parks ==
* Featured in one of the videos leading into ''[[The Simpsons]]'' ''Ride'' at Universal. Professor Frink goes back in time to prevent [[Back to The Future|Doc Brown]]'s institute being bought by Krusty and converted into a theme park...only for his Delorean to hit the businessman who could have kept the institute open.
{{quote|
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' uses this as an important plot point; more than one character has goals achievable only by finding ways to subvert this. Interestingly, while two entire games in the series take place in the past, ''while this trope is in effect,'' it still manages to have one of the most complicated sets of [[Gambit Roulette]] ever. One of the protagonists {{spoiler|''is himself'' a walking subversion, and thus finds himself endlessly manipulated by pretty much everyone, because he's the only one who can alter time in their favor.}}
{{quote|
** Interestingly the first game in the series (Blood Omen) used a different kind of time travel - the kind where you go back, do something, and return to the present to find the effects of your actions having taken place. This was played straight with no mention of the paradox that would ensue from this kind of time travel. Two games later when time travel was reintroduced as a much more significant plot element, the rules were established ''around'' this instance of time travel, and it turns out Kain's original trip back to the past, as depicted in the first game without [[Retcon|RetCons]], already met the criteria for how someone can achieve a true alteration to the time line.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' ending has this trope, with {{spoiler|1=Ultimecia giving her sorceress powers to Edea in the past and Squall suggesting the SeeD idea at the same moment, setting up the organization that Squall is raised by.}}
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*** The game actually features two completely different forms of time travel, and it is implied that use of the first tore the universe a new one enabling the second.
* In ''[[Prince of Persia]]: Warrior Within'', The Prince travels to the Island of Time in hopes of preventing the Sands of Time, the source of all his misfortunes, from ever being created. He defeats the Empress of Time, {{spoiler|only to discover that she ''is'' the sands in corporeal form, and that the events that led him here were of his own making.}} The second half of the game is about the Prince deciding to [[Screw Destiny]] and subvert this.
* In ''[[Ōkami|Okami]]'', the evil Orochi was defeated by a legendary hero named Nagi and a miraculous white wolf, who died in the attempt. The wolf was actually Amaterasu in physical guise, and was resurrected a century later as you, the player character. But then you travel back in time and
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* All the [[Time Travel]] in ''[[Bob and George]]'' eventually resolves itself into this.
* ''[[
** At least, that's what the character believes. The character with enough nigh-omnipotent abilities to force things on the track he remembers.
** Sarda did this to himself. As a young wizard, he time-traveled back to the beginning of the universe, only to find that a White Mage had gotten there first. After living through all of creation being formed around him, Sarda planned to put that White Mage into a pocket dimension before she could go back in time to the universe' start...only for that pocket dimension to be the beginning of the universe.
{{quote|
* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Bun-Bun's whole adventure in [[Timeless Space]] was based off this trope. As [
* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', only [[Time Master|Dave, the Knight of Time and Aradia, the Maid of Time]] get to go back in time and create [[Alternate Universe
* How [[Time Travel]] works in [[Umlaut House]], as Volair explained to his future son [https://web.archive.org/web/20141228124932/http://maskedretriever.com/uh/d/20030624.html here]:
{{quote|
Pierce (Who just accidentally broke the [[Unresolved Sexual Tension|UST]] between his future parents): "So the future you knows we're here?"
Volair: "No, but I will if you tell me the date you're from." }}
* A borderline example in ''[[Nodwick]]''. Zorion [https://web.archive.org/web/20110425003907/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2006-12-20 visited] the future and was upset to see there's only [[Dung Ages]] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20070907121930/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2007-01-10 a crater] instead of his hometown now. [https://web.archive.org/web/20071114211630/http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2007-04-04 How] this could happen, indeed?
* Time travel in ''[[The Way of the Metagamer]]'' runs entirely on predestination. This doesn't stop it from being ludicrously convoluted.
* In ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', Chuck Goodrich is a time traveler from the future who comes to avoid [[The End of the World as We Know It]] play with this tropes. it's not like you ''can't'' change the past...you can change ''[[Failure Is the Only Option|how]]'' it will be [[The End of the World as We Know It]].
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Played straight on ''[[Futurama]]'', where Fry ends up in 1947 and spends half the episode just trying to make sure his grandfather doesn't die. After the Professor warns him not to change the past ''unless'' he was already destined to change the past, Fry's extreme caution and stupidity result in his grandfather being vaporized by an atomic bomb. However, subsequent events make it clear that the [[Tricked-Out Time|man Fry killed was not actually]] Fry's grandfather, and that his real grandfather is {{spoiler|Fry himself}}. Of course, this is immediately followed by the Professor launching a full-blown assault on Area 51 with his intergalactic starship to retrieve the parts necessary to get home...
{{quote|
* The standard rule for time travel in ''[[Gargoyles]]''.
** Goliath tried to convince Demona in the past not to turn evil, and she seems to take it all to heart. Unfortunately, one guy, even the love of your life, telling you to "stay good" is trumped by centuries of of being [[Humans Are
** Xanatos uses this to his advantage. He gives two period coins to the Illuminati, along [[Write Back to the Future|with a letter]]. The coins are like pennies in the past, but by the present they're very valuable and are the coins that started his fortune. The letter of course, is to tell him to do just that.
** Later, Goliath attempts to use the time-travelling Phoenix Gate to save Griff from being killed during the Blitz in WWII London, after being accused of abandoning or murdering Griff by his companions. With incident after increasingly improbable incident occurring that indicates the universe has decided Griff is its new [[Chew Toy]], Goliath ultimately concludes that fate will not allow Griff to get home and uses the Phoenix Gate to bring Griff back with him to the present, thus causing his original disappearance.
** Mid-way through the Avalon arc, the Arch-Mage [[Took a Level
** Goliath winds up in a [[Bad Future]] (really [[All Just a Dream]]), and Elisa keeps egging Goliath on to use the Phoenix Gate to fix things. This is a hint that Elisa isn't what she seems, as by now, she should know how the Gate works.
* Used on an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]''. Brainiac 5 imports heroes from the past because history mentioned an incident where heroes traveled to the future. He tries to avoid mentioning how it turned out, of course, just to be sure things go the way they're supposed to, with only two of the three returning.
** {{spoiler|Nobody dies. Supergirl just decided to stay in the future.}}
* In the ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' episode "Paraducks", Gosalyn warns Darkwing not to interfere into the past when they went back in time to his childhood. At first he doesn't and returns to the present, only to find that S.H.U.S.H. doesn't exist, the King, a two bit thug from Darkwing's childhood has taken over St. Canard and he serves as the King's cowardly lackey, never became Darkwing Duck. They go back and time and shut down the King for good and give little Drakey Mallard (Darkwing) the courage he needed.
* ''[[The Fairly
* Somewhat subverted in the ''[[Invader Zim]]'' episode "Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy" had Zim send a robot rubber piggy into Dib's past at crucial points to kill him, only he survives by an inch each time (though everytime he comes close to death he's given robotic body parts from his father due to losing his own) and after many mishaps, he sends a piggy to the past to warn him not to send any piggies to the past in the first place. Unfortunately the premise of the piggies was they replaced something in the timeline they're sent to and one replaces Zim's brain at the end.
* In ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' Mojo Jojo goes to the past to kill the adolescent Professor Utonium before he can create the Girls. The Girls pursue him. It turns out that in the past Professor was a lazy ass and a bully with no interest in becoming a scientist and creating the Girls, if it wasn't for Mojo's interference and the consequent encounter with and rescue by the Girls that gave him inspiration.
* In the season 2 episode "It's About Time" of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', Twilight Sparkle is visited by her future self (from a week later, looking entirely worn) and told "whatever you do, don't..." with the sentence being cut off. Past Twilight then spends the whole week worrying about and trying to prevent whatever happens during the next week, with each incident causing her to gain the looks of Future Twilight, indicating she hasn't changed the future at all. {{spoiler|She only then learns later that nothing actually happens. So she goes back into the past to tell her past self "Whatever you do, don't... worry about the future" only to end up being pulled back into the future right where it cut off for Past Twilight, setting the events into motion for the whole episode.}}
* Played with in ''[[Beast Wars]]''. While it is entirely possible to change the past and thus the future, thus finally answering Dinobot's soul searching about the nature of time travel and what that means for free will (if the past is immutable, than our ability to choose anything is a cosmic illusion). By changing the past, Dinobot learns that it is possible for an individual's choice to matter to the universe. Ironically however, with this new knowledge, it means that Megatron can change the past for the worst, and that the only choice Dinobot has is to invoke this trope.
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