You Already Changed the Past: Difference between revisions

== 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.

 

== 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.}}

** 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.}}

** 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.

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Bun-Bun's whole adventure in [[Timeless Space]] was based off this trope. As [http://ads.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060201 Uncle Time put it], "Life's ''so'' much funner with the paradox rules turned off."

* 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|Alternate Universes]]. Everyone else, no matter how much they've screwed around with the timeline, can only make [[Stable Time Loop|Stable Time Loops]], and the Trolls regularly insist that they've already lost the game and that [[You Can't Fight Fate]]. It probably helps that all in-universe timechanging items have built-in failsafes against causing paradoxes.

* How [[Time Travel]] works in [[Umlaut House]], as Volair explained to his future son [http://maskedretriever.com/uh/d/20030624.html here]:

Pierce (Who just accidentally broke the [[Unresolved Sexual Tension|UST]] between his future parents): "So the future you knows we're here?"<br />

Volair: "No, but I will if you tell me the date you're from." }}

== [[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...

* 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 Bastards|brutalized by humans]]. It's a true [[Tear Jerker]] to realize that Demona and Goliath were once really and truly [[Happily Married]].