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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 (
{{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
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 [[
Thus, most time travel stories that involve altering the past will provide some of the characters with [[Ripple
The Ancient [[Classical Mythology|Greeks]] and [[Norse Mythology|Vikings]] ''loved'' the notion that [[You Cannot Change the Future]], and their works heavily imply that they believed in this specific notion of time (which even the Gods were trapped in). Although they used predictions rather than time travel, the effect is the same. Many first-time readers of the classics who don't buy into this notion of time, or don't realize this is ''why'' [[You Can't Fight Fate]] in the classics, have a hard time accepting [[The Fatalist]] behavior of classical Greek and European heroes.
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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 A Is Magic A|lost track of their time-travelling system]] as the [[Mind Screw]] got more and more complicated...
* 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
== 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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== Film ==
* ''[[
* ''[[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:
** In the reboot movie ''[[Star Trek (
** 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
* 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 ''[[
* Diana Gabaldon's ''[[Outlander (
* ''[[The Door Into Summer]]'', by [[Robert A. Heinlein]]. Various instances of [[Human Popsicle]], but more importantly a weird time machine that has an equal chance of throwing the subject forward or backward. The protagonist uses it knowing he HAS to be sent backwards. Bonus points to a throwaway gag that suggests that [[Beethoven Was an Alien Spy|Leonardo da Vinci is (and always has been) an accidental time-traveler]].
** His short ''[[All You Zombies]]'' involves a time agent making sure he completes the correct steps to finish the changes he remembers happening earlier in his life.
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**** And even THAT ties back to the original trilogy of books by establishing, at long last, just what the 'Ancient-timers' room was made for, and what the colorful diagrams REALLY were.
** Also noteworthy is the climax of ''All the Weyrs of Pern'', where the AIVAS reveals to Jaxom that {{spoiler|two of the three antimatter charges used to divert the Red Star from its orbit have to be placed in the past in order to have the proper effect, and that those past explosions are what caused the so-called Long Intervals in which Thread did not fall}}. Of course, if those hadn't occurred, none of the events of those books would have occurred either, including the discovery of the AIVAS itself.
* [[Tim Powers]] [[Playing
** 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
* [[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 ''[[
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Star Trek:
* 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]].
* In the ''[[Murder Most Horrid]]'' episode "A Determined Woman", a female scientist working on a time machine becomes so frustrated with her idiot husband's antics that she kills him. Several years later she is released from prison, finishes her time machine and goes back to try and save her husband, only to find that his confusion between the two versions of her is what caused his erratic behavior in the first place.
* After ''[[Hobgoblins]]'', a film, was shown on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', Tom Servo tried to go back in time to stop the movie from being made by hunting down the director and... kicking him in the shin. Upon Tom's return to his present, Crow pulls up an article where the director claimed that his inspiration for ''Hobgoblins'' was that time when a squat red robot ran up to him out of the blue and kicked him in the shin...
* In the [[Main/ptitled 06 sy 1 ye|Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]] two part adventure "Armageddon Now", Callisto goes back in time to prevent who she thinks was [[Xena: Warrior Princess|Xena]] (because her army was in the village) from killing her parents. While trying to protect her family from Xena's army, the adult Callisto accidentally kills her own father & mother.
* This is actually done multiple times in the ''[[
** In the series 4 episode {{spoiler|"The Fires of Pompeii"}}, The Doctor doesn't want to avert {{spoiler|the destruction of Pompeii}}, is convinced to avert it anyway, and then is forced to cause the disaster in order to avert a larger catastrophe.
** Blink: "You're reading aloud from a transcript of a conversation you're ''[[Timey-Wimey Ball|still having]]''?"
** {{spoiler|The rift in space time}} that already exists in {{spoiler|Cardiff}} is created by the Doctor's actions in "The Unquiet Dead".
*** And in series 5, the crack in the universe that's been causing so much trouble turns out to have been caused by {{spoiler|the TARDIS exploding}}. Fortunately, the crack transcends space and time so much that it extends back ''before'' the event which caused it, allowing the Doctor to {{spoiler|nip through and place the TARDIS on the other side of the crack, thus preventing the end of the universe}}. That's once he's [[Tricked
* Inverted in ''[[
* ''[[Crime Traveller]]'' had this as a central point, in theory. In practice, ''everything'' about the show's time travel suffered from galloping [[They Just Didn't Care]].
* The only time-travel arc on ''[[
** {{spoiler|Valen/Sinclair doesn't need to be ''re''incarnated. From his point of view, he is born in the 23rd century as a human, goes throgh the War and subsequent events of the series up to "War Without End" and then goes back in time to the 13th century as a Minbari and lives out his life as Valen. The Minbari ''think'' he is Valen reincarnated when they enounter him at the Battle of the Line because he has Valen's soul; not knowing about the time travel, they don't see that Sinclair will ''become'' Valen in the future before travelling back to the past.}}
* This concept became a major plot point in the fifth season of ''[[Lost]]'' (which Hurley couldn't quite grasp) though it was put to the test in the cliffhanger finale...
** 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
** However, in the episode about the Kennedy assassination, while Sam can't prevent {{spoiler|himself}} from killing JFK, it then appears the reason he was sent back there was to prevent Jackie Kennedy from being killed, which most viewers would have assumed had already happened, whether Sam had anything to do with it or not.
* In the ''[[Outer Limits]]'' episode "Tribunal", history professor and Holocaust scholar Aaron Zgierski is taken back to Auschwitz by time-traveler Nicholas Prentice (who turns out to be Zgierski's own great-grandson). While there, they [[Time Travel Escape|rescue Aaron's "older" sister]] (who is only eight at the time) by bringing her into the future to live out her life free of Nazi oppression. History recorded Aaron's sister as dying at Auschwitz after being "dragged away" by a couple of guards, who were actually Zgierski and Prentice in disguise.
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== Mythology and Religion ==
* As mentioned, Greek and Germanic mythology tended to hammer on the idea (relying on prophecies instead of time travel) that [[You Cannot Change the Future]]. Even the Gods can't change the outcome of the story. (How many steps is Thor destined to take [[Story
* The concept of Predestination. This concept is prevalent in all Calvinist churches (Reformed, Presbyterian, Baptist, congregational, Pentecostal) and in nutshell means that the life and final depository of a human being is pre-ordained and pre-determined by God and he or she can do nothing to avoid it. In other words, people are selected either to Heaven or Hell before they even were born.
** This same concept is prevalent in Islam. The only way to avert the predestination is to [[Death Seeker|get killed in Holy War]], which earns you an automatic admission to Paradise.
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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 ''[[
== [[Web Animation]] ==
* A three-part episode of ''[[
== [[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 ''[[
* 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 ''[[
** ''[[
*** As explained by one character in a particularly nasty future, the branching timelines are the reason you can't technically change the past. See, since a future-you didn't come back in time to the present when you were taking [[The Long Path]] to the current future, you didn't do that, so if you go back in time, you create an alternate past where you did, and the versions of your friends and family in your current future-present will never see you again, and also their lives still suck.
* In ''[[American Barbarian]]'', [http://www.ambarb.com/?p=429 Rick's attempt to go back results in his appearing as a character already seen.]
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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
{{quote|
* The standard rule for time travel in ''[[
** 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
** 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
* 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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