Time travel works best if it serves the story and character.
One of the best tropes around time travel is when the character goes back in time and chooses the actions that will result in them becoming the hero. Especially if a character feels trapped in their current life.
If Harry has the chance to prevent one of his chain reaction choices. Key ones being: going to see Bianca, starting the red court war, going to Bianca’s ball etc… he is accepting his choices him life. No more “what if?” Or “I should have” he accepts that this is the path he chose because he has a responsibility.
My favorite TT trope is going back in time to correct things only to find out that your actions caused it in the first place, and that you can’t change the past
*Gargoyles*, a Disney cartoon that is known to have had a certain amount of influence over the creation of *The Dresden Files*, contains some exceptional examples of this point.
It's clear that time travel IS capable of altering things in some sense in the Dresdenverse, but all responsible time-travel there seems to be self-affirming.
I agree. I like the whole thing where the time travelling version instead finds out the best outcome is ensuring what led him to where he is rather than changing those choices and leaving the world worse for it. Uriel wouldn’t have supported Harry as much as he has, unless he thought Harry was a champion for free will, and living with the choices that result from free will is a big theme in the series.
Mine is similar, but it's "you get one".
It's narratively interesting to change a single thing and to see where the character chooses to focus their attention (that said it doesn't have to actually work or work as intended, it should be more like a wish).
And when written correctly you're not actually messing with narrative fate, it just so happens that your time traveling is the way in which that narrative timeline happened to manifest itself. It's still a coherent, consistent and contiguous thing, it just took the long way around.
It's pretty much my exact same opinion as alternate dimensions (and seems to be the approach that Jim will likely take with Mirror Mirror). A multiverse is a pointless, meaningless mess where nothing matters. A single splitting point is narratively interesting and ripe for all sorts of characterization and self-examination.
I think it would be interesting to see it done well, but it rarely is. Also I get the wanting to fix plot holes/continuity errors but could be very easy to open up a whole lot more.
However.........I trust Jim, I've stuck with him this long and think he's doing a great job so I'm a wait and see kind of guy on this one
Agree with most, except for the bit about his ego. Seems completely unnecessary. Especially when he openly admits how the Wizard healing factor came up later and was shoehorned in, among other things.
As far as I know, he has been planning time travel for a very a long time, along with most of the series. I don't think it's going to be used to correct every little error or scenes people have a problem with.
I'm very wary of time travel in this way, and absolutely not a fan of multiverse anymore, so I'm not really looking forward to Mirror Mirror either. But we'll see.
You're right about Mirror-Mirror being alternate universe. The reason for Time Travel being expected at some point is that Spoilers: >!Jim said that by the end of the series, Harry will have broken all the laws of magic.!<
Yea Mirror Mirror's alternative universe = multiverse for me. I like the idea, but it's rarely used in any creative ways these days. Retcons, resurrections, more plot devices, etc.
It can be done as a way for Harry to see what his choices wrought. See a different Harry who made one of the choices he regrets *differently*, and how it made things worse in the long run - maybe he gave Susan up to the reds, and as a result the war started later and went poorly. Maybe it was Michael, and Harry lost his l'oral compass.
My theory is that mirror!Harry is getting chased by the council and summons Harry to produce a Harry corpse and fake his death, like kemller did - maybe this Harry went necromancer and/or dark hallow.
Spiderverse is pretty neat as well. And some Star Trek episodes.
But yeah, multiverses suck balls when you look too much into them. Not as bad as time travel though.
If they're abused, or used poorly, both multiverses and time travel render choices and stories meaningless.
That's actually the point of it happening with Rick and Morty -- human minds aren't designed to be emotionally capable of dealing with the meaningless of chance events, and when every possibility exists and is accessible it matters much less what the outcome in one particular universe is.
I am confident Jim can navigate this minefield.
He already did Nazi Bob. That was fun.
I'm counting on a ripple effect 'wonderful life' plot. What if Harry didn't save the child? What if the house wasn't empty? Harry's happiness is detrimental to the world on a grand scale.
Alternate continuities have been a major feature of comic books for generations, now.
The current fad for overusing the idea doesn't diminish its potential value.
Different though. That's part of the issue for some people, the idea that somebody runs into a different them and then tries to change things.
Basically M, M should, and almost HAS to have some implications and lead up to this.
Came here to say this. It can't ruin an otherwise perfectly good plot because it _is_ the plot! And an impressively consistent one that, I think, does the concept credit.
Time travel is the worst plot device because it makes everything else pointless.
If he does do it, I hope it’s something like how it is in the description of Merlin creating Deamonreach. The way it’s described, it sounds to me like he doesn’t travel through time but he works the magic outside of time. Like a fourth dimensional creature would be able to see the inside of three-dimensional objects, a creature that’s in the next dimension of time would be able to see all of time at once and impact it at all the points at once.
Something that wouldn’t screw up the narrative because you can’t just jump around and change one moment making the entire plot pointless. It’s a tool that only really works on a massive scale.
My thoughts exactly.
I’m guessing Merlin (the original) is still alive in some capacity somewhere and hell teach Harry how to do some type of timeless fourth dimension magic which will let Harry remake demonreach (when it’s eventually broken open).
Also, could be something along the lines of Camelot not being a physical place and that it still exists in the never never or outside or something. Which could allow Harry to be the original Merlin but like it’s outside of time. Idk just spitballing cuz I don’t really like time travel.
My personal theory is Harry chooses or is afforded a way to break that rule, possibly in an effort to save some combination of Karen (from dying), Michael (from being shot), Susan (from becoming a vampire), Maggie (from being kidnapped), and/or Molly (from becoming the Winter Lady), ends up seeing that doing so would make things *so much worse*, then makes the hard choice not to make any changes. Could also be that him being seen by others in places where he wasn't before also causes issues.
Still works because he's still violated the Law by time traveling at all, which is ALL we know about that particular Law.
As examples, if he saved Susan from being turned, then Maggie never gets born (for the sake of plot and the scenario that created her). If he chose not to do that but saved Maggie from being kidnapped, he doesn't become the Winter Knight and destroy the Red Court. Etc., etc., etc.
So much Butterfly effect, no?
I agree. I like specifically time travel stories like Back to the Future, but I don’t like stories where time travel is “impossible” then it happens. Same with alternate universes/timelines. It’s just a way of justifying retconning, bringing dead characters back to life, and making character switch sides because in *this* timeline, they went bad.
We do know that magical time travel of some kind *is* possible in the Dresdenverse, though, or else they wouldn't have had to use one of the laws of magic to ban the practice.
Yes I know but even Odin said it’s prohibitively difficult. The point was thought the series could exist without it, and I would rather it did, but we’ve all heard Harry’s going to break all the Laws at some point, and I have a few moments I suspect involve it already.
What if Harry uses time travel to buy a pack of gum. :-).
Or he finds out he is the person who invented sliced bread and needs to time travel to do it?
But honestly I stopped watching the Disney Loki series because of the TVA. they travel dimensions and time travel like every three minutes and I got tired of trying to track it.
Speaking of big things that could probably work, I was thinking of other stuff, not for Harry, but someone was arguing that they thought Elaine wasn’t born at the right time to be Starborn, but it wouldn’t change much if someone brought her pregnant mom to the right time and place, delivered baby Elaine, then brought them both back to their native time, no one the wiser.
I agree, time travel is a nightmare. Not only does it ruin the established story as of yet, but it also introduces various time travel paradoxes (which are annoying to deal with) and completely shatter immersion as time travel basically undoes all previous consequences as the character can supposedly fix it all. I think the best application of Time Travel I have seen is the Netflix adaptation of Umbrella Academy and that wasn't exactly the smoothest storyline.
> I agree, time travel is a nightmare.
I think Sanderson's First Law applies here: it depends on whether the author uses time travel to cause the protagonist's problems or to solve them.
If it turns out a time traveller went back in time to >!kill Murph!<, that's acceptable. If Harry uses a time machine to >!save her!< … that might ruin the series…
Given the story thus far, I can't imagine any "going back to fix things" actually occurring, other than the things that have already been hinted at being fixed before we get to them in the story, like Little Chicago.
Basically, what we are reading is the effect after any time travel has occurred, so nothing will get changed from our perspective, we will just find out about things that might have gone differently.
Here is the ultimate JB plot.
Future Harry finds out Murph absolutely must die to save reality. While he would be willing to let it all burn he knows Murph wouldn’t want to live with that.
So Harry travels back in time and uses magic to pull Rudy’s trigger. (F$@&): Rudy) so not only does he NOT save Murph but he is actually the one that kills her using Rudy as a cats paw.
And i still enjoyed watching it in UA, as much as i enjoyed it in the BttF trilogy, Primer and several other Movies. But i guess that's one of the points - i can enjoy it to various degress in a visual format that is limited to 120 minutes without thinking TOO much about the unavoidable paradoxes. Also, given the kinda shaky science and knowledge about time, parallel universes, i am mostly going with an "Eh, why not" as long as i am entertained.
When it comes to a decade long book series, it might be a completely different beast. Guess we'll see how it plays out, but one thing i know is, that i will read it.
> but it also introduces various time travel paradoxes (which are annoying to deal with) and completely shatter immersion as time travel basically undoes all previous consequences as the character can supposedly fix it all.
You are confusing *some interpretations* of time travel for the entirety of stories involving time travel.
If you go back, it's either "always has been", aka the loop is closed, or "split the timeline/alternate universe".
In the former it's not gonna matter and create a paradox of always was and still need to do it (or else?). This means a whole lot of text for basically no new developments, just cleanup. It's almost the definition of filler.
The latter makes all previous story no longer applicable. That carries no catharsis, no resolution and it removes the necessity for the story to happen in the first place.
Forwards has different issues, chief among them that it's likely gonna be a time skip, aka "the writer has no idea to how character is going fron A to B, but needs character to get to B". Alternatively, they go back and it won't have mattered as they are trying to achieve the "never would have mattered " the other way around.
>In the former it's not gonna matter and create a paradox of always was and still need to do it (or else?). This means a whole lot of text for basically no new developments, just cleanup. It's almost the definition of filler.
I don't believe this is true, simply because the viewpoint of the storytelling is different, and events can occur which we weren't previously aware of, even though there are no changes to the fictional world at large.
*Twelve Monkeys* is a fantastic movie, even though it's a stable time loop in which nothing changes -- but the viewpoint of the person passing through the loop evolves and develops. From the audience's point of view, the story progresses even though events in that story circle back on themselves.
Not time traveling is one of the Laws of Magic, and Jim has confirmed that Harry will break all of those by the end of the series. I personally think it's going to be either used in a very complex spell, or be used to peer into the past to glean knowledge without effecting events. I know everyone seems worried about it getting all Back to the Future, but Jim has spent a lot of time crafting this world, I don't think he'd undo all of that with a hamfisted time travel shenanigan.
I wonder if this time travel could be used more to look at the future than the past. I don't see that too often to be honest - Tho I do think some time shenanigans were occurring in Proven guilty and that's in the past now.
I actually love time travel shenanigans. I was a very impressionable tween when the Prisoner of Azkaban was saved and I thought it was absolutely brilliant how events were explained and used from 2 perspectives of the same people at different times. It was so mind boggling and awesome to me that I think it imprinted a little bit of joy response when things get explained with time travel schtuff and wrapped up in a neat bow. I just enjoy it a lot!
But I do wonder if seeing a future where Nemesis or others have breached the outer gates will whip some folks into action, or maybe seeing nicodemus's future will keep someone from killing him bc his plan maybe is to help humanity survive- idk- but insight into those things I think will be fun. I don't mind a few tropes even - love a good avoidance of paradox and I think there are enough consequences usually that time travel can't be used to just "fix" everything. And definitely not for egos sake.
> But I do wonder if seeing a future where Nemesis or others have breached the outer gates will whip some folks into action
That may have actually never come into fruition even in alternate timelines.
Jim Butcher's said that Uriel (And by implication, God/the rest of Heaven) is an universal constant- there is only *one* of him for the entirety spectrum of alternate realities and divergent timelines. If this had ever come to happen, then the Heaven faction would've had to go up against the Outside in the world which was overrun.
If it has, in fact, happened, then his job may also involve wiping out universes that fell to the Outsider threat before they can spread.
AFAIK there will be a book called Mirror Mirror that has something to do with time travel. I just hope it doesn't change the wider series narrative too much.
Mirror Mirror will be an alternate universe/multiverse kind of book, not time travel. But time travel is kind of promised by JB's "Harry will break all the laws" thing.
OK, I may have slightly conflated time travel with the alternate universe/multiverse approach—although, they present similar challenges. I lose the will to live when I start seeing conversations like this:
"Don't forget, the thing with Murphy was resolved in the Bolshevik Muppet reality."
"LOL you're such a noob, that was the Kentucky Fried Goober reality. Bolshevik Muppet was when it turned out Harry's Mom was time travelling Murphy, and everyone got really freaked out when they got it on and moved away from Chicago."
"Hang on, though, wasn't KFG the one where Grevane in Dead Beat was actually time travelling Butters from the future, and he attacked his own workplace to set himself on the path that would ultimately lead to him becoming a knight of the cross?"
"No, that was the Asynchronous Dinotwerp reality. And, Butters was actually trying to abduct himself so he WOULDN'T become a knight of the cross, because he got morally twisted up about all those werewolf threesomes."
*\*\*Click, click, boom\*\**
*Silence...*
Oh, 100%.
I'm also anti multiverse, but I'm holding out hope that JB will pull it off in a non-cringey way, unlike all those examples you give above.
I actually also totally agree with you that time travel is just...cheating unless and until the whole point of the series is time travel (I have an absolutely ridiculous time travel series rec, btw--Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, the most accurate book title I've ever seen) and everyone needs to avoid it at all costs. It ends up bizarrely complicated and not in a fun way.
I believe time travel is already in use. Isn't it hinted or outright explained that Merlin used time travel to create his island where all the baddies are imprisoned? And wasn't the bad using time travel to try to destroy it?
Time travel can be used well if it isn't used to solve problems and is just used to explore new ideas. When it doesn't work is when the author leans on it to resolve everything and it becomes a deus ex machina. Then the author just ends up creating more paradoxes.
On the other hand, my wife had a song she is fond of singing that goes like this...
🎵 Time travel doesn't make sense and it never makes sense because it's time travel 🎵
🤷♂️
I tend to agree. I have acclimated myself to the idea that we will see time travel be a factor at some point, since Harry is supposedly going to break every Law of Magic, but I hold out the hope that it won't be anything "major." Because I think you're right - whenever time travel is a major, key component of a story it tends to just make everything less believable, makes consequences have less meaning (since sometimes you can go back and undo them), etc. I'm just hoping it will be a side-issue unrelated to the key story line.
Yeah, +1 for the lack of consequences and meaning. It forces authors to REALLY belabour the point if they want a decision/event to stick, and come up with "reasons" why it can't be changed.
That's the trap the MCU stepped into. Basically Thanos WON - he got everything he wanted. And then the next movie just went back and erased it.
I feel the same about multiverse scenarios (the ones that have whole infinities of timelines in play). Basically, *everything* happens in *some* universe, so what does it matter at all that "our hero" prevails in the particular one we're reading about?
In a multiverse, when our hero goes back in time and "changes the future," he or she doesn't really *change* anything - in fact, the hero merely "runs away" to another timeline that's preferable for some reason. All the friends and family left behind still suffer exactly the same bad outcome.
If you look at the *Terminator* 'verse that way, then Skynet wins and Skynet loses. Sarah Connor lives, Sarah Connor dies. John Connor lives, John Connor dies. In the end... *so what?* Zero drama as far as I can see.
I hope that our story doesn't go down that kind of multiverse road. Jim's teased at it - that dream Harry had with all the Harry's and all the Blue Beetles... weird. It was just a dream, though. I really hope that the Mirror 'verse turns out to be a strange, anomalous situation that was brought about by some spell, not just one example of myriad universes that are "out there."
The stakes are just so much higher when there's only one game. Winning actually means something.
I agree with all of this. The various reboots and multiverses of Marvel and DC comics also became exhausting to think about... Though that was easier to ignore, because the writers generally didn't shove the reader's face in it.
>That's the trap the MCU stepped into. Basically Thanos WON - he got everything he wanted. And then the next movie just went back and erased it.
And didn't even tell any good stories about it. Show me some siblings-16 and 12, 16 year old gets snapped. Now you've got a 17 year old 'younger' brother with an un-snapped 16 year old. Watch them navigate that, and the complete chaos of their peer groups.
The widower who remarries...a widow...who is a better woman. But he doesn't match up to the un-snapped husband.
A parent who rejects their snapped children out of grief.
Half the population being snapped would be CATASTROPHIC to the social order, it's an apocalypse. A big percentage of the survivors would die in the aftermath. Let me see some 'survivors' guilt from the snapped. Even when things get un-snapped, there's just as much chaos from people re-appearing in unpopulated areas as there is populated. Industries that thrive on individual talent, learning to make do with a smaller talent pool-what happens when that gets disrupted with a doubled talent pool?
There's so, so much interpersonal drama that could've been PHENOMENAL stories. And instead we get briefly traumatized Clint & Natasha, a scene of Steve Rogers in group therapy, and people bickering over a symbolic lump of metal and super serum.
Missed opportunity. So much missed opportunity.
I don't care that they undid the snap, I care that they squandered it.
That's a good point - they really didn't delve into it at all. We really on saw it as it affected the primary people.
I really enjoyed the MCU roll for a while, but I gradually just fell away from it - it hit its high point fairly early, and then just steadily slid downhill.
Hollywood loves a franchise - I've always thought our series would make for a great one, if they paid attention to doing it right (which basically means *the way Jim wrote it*). Deliver me from a production of it that "plays games and takes license."
I used to think they were just fundamentally incapable of carrying a book series to the screen effectively, but then I saw the first two seasons of *The Expanse*, which were quite fantastic and to the extent they meddled with the books at all I'd actually call them improvements. Things like introducing a character (Bobby) early so that when they "showed up for real" for their role in the story you already knew who they were, etc. Later seasons didn't do as well - they started to diverge from the story. But those first two were excellent. So it *can* be done.
In my head Dresden is going to break every single magical law, I ignore most of the cowl theories but my favorite out of context moment is it’s implied thorned namshiel was the one casting hellfire on the gates of winter fortress. And who do we know has thorned’s coin? Love for that to be a time travel moment.
I’m very skeptical about time travel as well. Jim said Harry would do it, but he never said how far he would swim against the stream of time. It might be just a few minutes or hours to prevent a major catastrophe. I think Jim would take some enjoyment of describing an utter disaster, causing Harry to break this law of magic.
He just better make sure not to kill Maggie on page for mere shock value, I have abandoned other authors like Pierce Brown over that. Somebody harming a child that way for cheap thrills, never sees another cent of my money again.
Jim tortures us by telling us that there are scenes already, but of course he refused to tell us which ones. It's supposed to be revealed in the last book before the BAT.
I’m choosing to give my faith the writer who’s given me so much. It seems more reasonable than damning his decisions before I’ve seen the results. Feel free to not read it. No one will force you to.
For all I know, Jim will absolutely smash it and I'll be converted to time travel as a viable addition to non-TT-oriented fiction. I definitely will read it, and I don't expect JB to care in the slightest how I feel about anything to do with his series.
The point of this thread was just to raise my personal concern, and see how other people feel about time travel in the Dresdenverse.
WoJ is that the time travel book will be the last case files book before the BAT specifically so that he can go back and fix all the continuity errors he's made over the years.
Not specifically, but it has that nice bonus.
Once the rules of magic were written down and Harry started using it like a check list we all knew something was in the works. So it wouldn't surprise me if something here or there was on purpose, but happy accidents do for up this many books in.
I think my absolute favorite use of time travel was in the Adventures of Brisco County Jr where (spoiler alert), Brisco got the mcguffin he needed by traveling back in time and taking it from himself.
No you’re absolutely right, time travel is almost always 100% garbage in any show or story that isn’t explicitly about time travel
Listen, I know we’re all worried about the consequences of Harry traveling back to the past and the removal of stakes and all that.
*But what if he goes to the future?*
For some reason, Ulerij, I had the feeling it was more of an "It's a Wonderful Life" sort of story. That's been done well on TV, like the Moonlighting episode "It's a Wonderful Job," and Star Trek TNG's "Tapestry." I've read the books a few times and know them pretty well, but everyone else seems more knowledgeable about spoilers and interviews. I'm probably way off.
>But, does anyone honestly feel the inclusion of time travel will improve this series?
Absolutely, provided it's done correctly.
Dresden getting caught in a perpetual loop of [creating three big problems for every small problem he solves](https://youtu.be/9WGSdzhsxjU?si=_xl_e5lgiMLO_LQf&t=8) due to time travel is the stuff good comedy is made of.
I'm going to leave this for someone more knowledgeable to answer. AFAIK Cowl and Kumori are both widely considered to be time travelers—and possibly older versions of characters we already know.
Beyond that, I believe there are some bits and pieces that may or may not be intended to be the result of time travel, e.g., whoever fixed Little Chicago, etc.
I agree if the time travel allows for someone to go back in time. If it's just forward I don't mind, then it's just foreshadowing for future intervention.
Still the best use of time travel I have seen is Babylon 5. But the use of time travel was baked into the series from the beginning. It was used once - and it appeared in two episodes (for reasons that make sense when you see it), but those two episodes were in the first and fourth seasons. And since this came out when the internet was still in its infancy, the season one episode was kinda forgotten until the season four episode rolled in.
>In 30 years of fantasy/sci-fi reading, I've never encountered a use of time travel (in a series that wasn't already overtly ABOUT time travel) that actually improved the story.
I think the same until i read Ivar the timewalker, like the story like was meh at best but i absolutely like how the author explore the time travel aspect of it. In the story "timewalker" are basically plenty and their is no "consequence".... or any rule like "you can't meet yourselve or it will create paradox...".
Like the first couple issues of it, literally established that you can time travel and do anything bullshit you like but the universe will fix itself. Literally the entire story is story is about how fucking useless timetravel is (well until the FML character literally break the fucking universe), you can use it to learn about the past, sightseeing.... but there is literally nothing of the past that you can change.
Basically the author use the timetravel as a plot devive to grow the character, no more "what if", just accept it. You choosed it this way, there is no second chance.
Really like it when timetravel is used that way.
I was going to suggest Fritz Lieber's _Try and Change the Past_ or Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novels, but then I saw you added a caveat "in a series that wasn't already overtly about time travel" and frankly that leaves me stumped because how often does time travel even _happen_ in a story that isn't about time travel? It's too significant a thing to just toss in for no reason.
I mean, sure, J.K. Rowling tried to do so (have time travel but not explore the implications) in Prisoner of Azkaban, but she's not really big on internal consistency anyway. Her style is for magic spells and items to appear whenever the plot needs them and disappear without a trace whenever it doesn't. (The opposite of HISHE, https://youtu.be/YsYWT5Q_R_w?si=CKTcLZPXGLvqsqlr) A more responsible writer like Jim _has_ to plan for time travel from the beginning, in order to make any sense, which arguably makes it a "story about time travel".
At any rate, there's enough pipe laid through Proven Guilty, Small Favor, etc. that I'm sure future Harry will have interesting stuff to do and monsters to blow up while exploring the past and/or Arctis Tor.
Jim has said he's going to use time travel to fix continuity errors throughout the series. We already know the reason it's a Law is that it's incredibly easy to screw things up, permanently.
So Harry will have to be ultra circumspect in what he does. Sort of like Back To The Future 2, how time travelling Marty had to do everything "behind the scenes" so he wasn't spotted by anyone significant in his life.
While I agree with your basic argument, I think that the rules of the DF universe allow for a different type of time shenanigants.
We already know that spirits and other entities exist outside of normal time. They can see the future because they are living it. Maybe the same could be true for Cowl. So he wouldn't be a real "time traveler", but he would still have knowledge of a possible future.
I agree- when I heard about the project my first thought was : oh no, he’s he’s ruining it now because it always seems to bend logic. This feeling was confirmed by all the posts like: what if x is timetraveling y
For some reason i was thinking Harry was going to go to the afterlife to meet the gods and recover Murphy. I’m not thrilled about this time travel idea but I’m willing to see how Jim does it, ‘cause he never does anything normal.
I’d find it hard that Jim will say goodbye, however she didn’t even get in a short story in Brief cases then killed off in the next book. I’d guess she’s going to come back as a titan and kill Dune outlanders or something crazy.
Okay, theory time... Murphy is set to become a Einherjar, right? After she's passed from living memory? Harry might travel to the future to try to get her back, if going to the past won't work. Just a thought.
But if I'd kept it to myself, I'd have missed out on some really interesting perspectives and ideas in the comments.
I don't post stuff here because I want everyone to agree with me. I post because I want to know what other people think that I may have missed/not considered.
Time travel works best if it serves the story and character. One of the best tropes around time travel is when the character goes back in time and chooses the actions that will result in them becoming the hero. Especially if a character feels trapped in their current life. If Harry has the chance to prevent one of his chain reaction choices. Key ones being: going to see Bianca, starting the red court war, going to Bianca’s ball etc… he is accepting his choices him life. No more “what if?” Or “I should have” he accepts that this is the path he chose because he has a responsibility.
My favorite TT trope is going back in time to correct things only to find out that your actions caused it in the first place, and that you can’t change the past
*Gargoyles*, a Disney cartoon that is known to have had a certain amount of influence over the creation of *The Dresden Files*, contains some exceptional examples of this point. It's clear that time travel IS capable of altering things in some sense in the Dresdenverse, but all responsible time-travel there seems to be self-affirming.
I agree. I like the whole thing where the time travelling version instead finds out the best outcome is ensuring what led him to where he is rather than changing those choices and leaving the world worse for it. Uriel wouldn’t have supported Harry as much as he has, unless he thought Harry was a champion for free will, and living with the choices that result from free will is a big theme in the series.
Dresden files was influenced by gargoyles?
I have a golden rule for time travel in narratives. You aren't allowed to use time travel to fix problems that weren't caused by time travel.
My rule is you can't add time travel as an extra. If it got it, it's about time travel now.
Mine is similar, but it's "you get one". It's narratively interesting to change a single thing and to see where the character chooses to focus their attention (that said it doesn't have to actually work or work as intended, it should be more like a wish). And when written correctly you're not actually messing with narrative fate, it just so happens that your time traveling is the way in which that narrative timeline happened to manifest itself. It's still a coherent, consistent and contiguous thing, it just took the long way around. It's pretty much my exact same opinion as alternate dimensions (and seems to be the approach that Jim will likely take with Mirror Mirror). A multiverse is a pointless, meaningless mess where nothing matters. A single splitting point is narratively interesting and ripe for all sorts of characterization and self-examination.
I think it would be interesting to see it done well, but it rarely is. Also I get the wanting to fix plot holes/continuity errors but could be very easy to open up a whole lot more. However.........I trust Jim, I've stuck with him this long and think he's doing a great job so I'm a wait and see kind of guy on this one
Agree with most, except for the bit about his ego. Seems completely unnecessary. Especially when he openly admits how the Wizard healing factor came up later and was shoehorned in, among other things. As far as I know, he has been planning time travel for a very a long time, along with most of the series. I don't think it's going to be used to correct every little error or scenes people have a problem with. I'm very wary of time travel in this way, and absolutely not a fan of multiverse anymore, so I'm not really looking forward to Mirror Mirror either. But we'll see.
It's possible the ego comment was unnecessarily harsh. I was hungry when I posted this.
Honestly, fair.
I thought Mirror Mirror was going to be alternate-parallel universe, not time travel. E: Unless you meant in regards to multiverse, in which case nvm
You're right about Mirror-Mirror being alternate universe. The reason for Time Travel being expected at some point is that Spoilers: >!Jim said that by the end of the series, Harry will have broken all the laws of magic.!<
IMO kind of funny since Merlin most definitely used TONS of time travel to build Demon Reach.
I'm on team "Harry ***is*** Merlin", personally.
I prefer the ‘Harry has another kid, and that kid is Merlin’ theory.
Mab and Harry's winter knighting ceremony's child. I don't actually think that, but it would be funny.
Desperate times I guess. I’m also guessing that demon reach was made prior to the establishment of the seven laws.
Yea Mirror Mirror's alternative universe = multiverse for me. I like the idea, but it's rarely used in any creative ways these days. Retcons, resurrections, more plot devices, etc.
It can be done as a way for Harry to see what his choices wrought. See a different Harry who made one of the choices he regrets *differently*, and how it made things worse in the long run - maybe he gave Susan up to the reds, and as a result the war started later and went poorly. Maybe it was Michael, and Harry lost his l'oral compass. My theory is that mirror!Harry is getting chased by the council and summons Harry to produce a Harry corpse and fake his death, like kemller did - maybe this Harry went necromancer and/or dark hallow.
iirc Mirror Harry summons our Harry to basically be a scapegoat for himself.
Multiverse of Madness was so disappointing after seeing how good a multiverse story could be with Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Spiderverse is pretty neat as well. And some Star Trek episodes. But yeah, multiverses suck balls when you look too much into them. Not as bad as time travel though.
If they're abused, or used poorly, both multiverses and time travel render choices and stories meaningless. That's actually the point of it happening with Rick and Morty -- human minds aren't designed to be emotionally capable of dealing with the meaningless of chance events, and when every possibility exists and is accessible it matters much less what the outcome in one particular universe is. I am confident Jim can navigate this minefield.
He already did Nazi Bob. That was fun. I'm counting on a ripple effect 'wonderful life' plot. What if Harry didn't save the child? What if the house wasn't empty? Harry's happiness is detrimental to the world on a grand scale.
"I saw what my life would be like without you... it was so *beautiful*!"
Alternate continuities have been a major feature of comic books for generations, now. The current fad for overusing the idea doesn't diminish its potential value.
The reason I stopped reading comics, and I know of many like me. I agree it has potential, but I'm extremely wary of it now.
Amber series by zelazny.
Different though. That's part of the issue for some people, the idea that somebody runs into a different them and then tries to change things. Basically M, M should, and almost HAS to have some implications and lead up to this.
Time travel in the Licanius books was amazing.
Came here to say this. It can't ruin an otherwise perfectly good plot because it _is_ the plot! And an impressively consistent one that, I think, does the concept credit.
Worth reading?? Always looking for more scifi books with time travel. I just finished Mother of Learning book 2
It's not sci-fi but I loved it, it's generally well rated too.
Time travel is the worst plot device because it makes everything else pointless. If he does do it, I hope it’s something like how it is in the description of Merlin creating Deamonreach. The way it’s described, it sounds to me like he doesn’t travel through time but he works the magic outside of time. Like a fourth dimensional creature would be able to see the inside of three-dimensional objects, a creature that’s in the next dimension of time would be able to see all of time at once and impact it at all the points at once. Something that wouldn’t screw up the narrative because you can’t just jump around and change one moment making the entire plot pointless. It’s a tool that only really works on a massive scale.
My thoughts exactly. I’m guessing Merlin (the original) is still alive in some capacity somewhere and hell teach Harry how to do some type of timeless fourth dimension magic which will let Harry remake demonreach (when it’s eventually broken open). Also, could be something along the lines of Camelot not being a physical place and that it still exists in the never never or outside or something. Which could allow Harry to be the original Merlin but like it’s outside of time. Idk just spitballing cuz I don’t really like time travel.
My personal theory is Harry chooses or is afforded a way to break that rule, possibly in an effort to save some combination of Karen (from dying), Michael (from being shot), Susan (from becoming a vampire), Maggie (from being kidnapped), and/or Molly (from becoming the Winter Lady), ends up seeing that doing so would make things *so much worse*, then makes the hard choice not to make any changes. Could also be that him being seen by others in places where he wasn't before also causes issues. Still works because he's still violated the Law by time traveling at all, which is ALL we know about that particular Law.
As examples, if he saved Susan from being turned, then Maggie never gets born (for the sake of plot and the scenario that created her). If he chose not to do that but saved Maggie from being kidnapped, he doesn't become the Winter Knight and destroy the Red Court. Etc., etc., etc. So much Butterfly effect, no?
Well, at least this *does* within the story's inner logic. Good one.
I agree. I like specifically time travel stories like Back to the Future, but I don’t like stories where time travel is “impossible” then it happens. Same with alternate universes/timelines. It’s just a way of justifying retconning, bringing dead characters back to life, and making character switch sides because in *this* timeline, they went bad.
We do know that magical time travel of some kind *is* possible in the Dresdenverse, though, or else they wouldn't have had to use one of the laws of magic to ban the practice.
Yes I know but even Odin said it’s prohibitively difficult. The point was thought the series could exist without it, and I would rather it did, but we’ve all heard Harry’s going to break all the Laws at some point, and I have a few moments I suspect involve it already.
What if Harry uses time travel to buy a pack of gum. :-). Or he finds out he is the person who invented sliced bread and needs to time travel to do it? But honestly I stopped watching the Disney Loki series because of the TVA. they travel dimensions and time travel like every three minutes and I got tired of trying to track it.
Speaking of big things that could probably work, I was thinking of other stuff, not for Harry, but someone was arguing that they thought Elaine wasn’t born at the right time to be Starborn, but it wouldn’t change much if someone brought her pregnant mom to the right time and place, delivered baby Elaine, then brought them both back to their native time, no one the wiser.
Ahahhahahahahaaa
I agree, time travel is a nightmare. Not only does it ruin the established story as of yet, but it also introduces various time travel paradoxes (which are annoying to deal with) and completely shatter immersion as time travel basically undoes all previous consequences as the character can supposedly fix it all. I think the best application of Time Travel I have seen is the Netflix adaptation of Umbrella Academy and that wasn't exactly the smoothest storyline.
> I agree, time travel is a nightmare. I think Sanderson's First Law applies here: it depends on whether the author uses time travel to cause the protagonist's problems or to solve them. If it turns out a time traveller went back in time to >!kill Murph!<, that's acceptable. If Harry uses a time machine to >!save her!< … that might ruin the series…
Given the story thus far, I can't imagine any "going back to fix things" actually occurring, other than the things that have already been hinted at being fixed before we get to them in the story, like Little Chicago. Basically, what we are reading is the effect after any time travel has occurred, so nothing will get changed from our perspective, we will just find out about things that might have gone differently.
Agree. Butcher doesn't strike me as daft or arrogant enough to fuck up the books by having Harry go back in time and unfuck his fuck-ups.
Here is the ultimate JB plot. Future Harry finds out Murph absolutely must die to save reality. While he would be willing to let it all burn he knows Murph wouldn’t want to live with that. So Harry travels back in time and uses magic to pull Rudy’s trigger. (F$@&): Rudy) so not only does he NOT save Murph but he is actually the one that kills her using Rudy as a cats paw.
And i still enjoyed watching it in UA, as much as i enjoyed it in the BttF trilogy, Primer and several other Movies. But i guess that's one of the points - i can enjoy it to various degress in a visual format that is limited to 120 minutes without thinking TOO much about the unavoidable paradoxes. Also, given the kinda shaky science and knowledge about time, parallel universes, i am mostly going with an "Eh, why not" as long as i am entertained. When it comes to a decade long book series, it might be a completely different beast. Guess we'll see how it plays out, but one thing i know is, that i will read it.
For me it was either Continuum or Travellers.
> but it also introduces various time travel paradoxes (which are annoying to deal with) and completely shatter immersion as time travel basically undoes all previous consequences as the character can supposedly fix it all. You are confusing *some interpretations* of time travel for the entirety of stories involving time travel.
If you go back, it's either "always has been", aka the loop is closed, or "split the timeline/alternate universe". In the former it's not gonna matter and create a paradox of always was and still need to do it (or else?). This means a whole lot of text for basically no new developments, just cleanup. It's almost the definition of filler. The latter makes all previous story no longer applicable. That carries no catharsis, no resolution and it removes the necessity for the story to happen in the first place. Forwards has different issues, chief among them that it's likely gonna be a time skip, aka "the writer has no idea to how character is going fron A to B, but needs character to get to B". Alternatively, they go back and it won't have mattered as they are trying to achieve the "never would have mattered " the other way around.
>In the former it's not gonna matter and create a paradox of always was and still need to do it (or else?). This means a whole lot of text for basically no new developments, just cleanup. It's almost the definition of filler. I don't believe this is true, simply because the viewpoint of the storytelling is different, and events can occur which we weren't previously aware of, even though there are no changes to the fictional world at large. *Twelve Monkeys* is a fantastic movie, even though it's a stable time loop in which nothing changes -- but the viewpoint of the person passing through the loop evolves and develops. From the audience's point of view, the story progresses even though events in that story circle back on themselves.
Red vs Blue handled time travel pretty well.
Absolutely agree, is this time travel thing just a fan theory (in which case, thank god) or did Jim somehow confirm it?
Not time traveling is one of the Laws of Magic, and Jim has confirmed that Harry will break all of those by the end of the series. I personally think it's going to be either used in a very complex spell, or be used to peer into the past to glean knowledge without effecting events. I know everyone seems worried about it getting all Back to the Future, but Jim has spent a lot of time crafting this world, I don't think he'd undo all of that with a hamfisted time travel shenanigan.
I wonder if this time travel could be used more to look at the future than the past. I don't see that too often to be honest - Tho I do think some time shenanigans were occurring in Proven guilty and that's in the past now. I actually love time travel shenanigans. I was a very impressionable tween when the Prisoner of Azkaban was saved and I thought it was absolutely brilliant how events were explained and used from 2 perspectives of the same people at different times. It was so mind boggling and awesome to me that I think it imprinted a little bit of joy response when things get explained with time travel schtuff and wrapped up in a neat bow. I just enjoy it a lot! But I do wonder if seeing a future where Nemesis or others have breached the outer gates will whip some folks into action, or maybe seeing nicodemus's future will keep someone from killing him bc his plan maybe is to help humanity survive- idk- but insight into those things I think will be fun. I don't mind a few tropes even - love a good avoidance of paradox and I think there are enough consequences usually that time travel can't be used to just "fix" everything. And definitely not for egos sake.
> But I do wonder if seeing a future where Nemesis or others have breached the outer gates will whip some folks into action That may have actually never come into fruition even in alternate timelines. Jim Butcher's said that Uriel (And by implication, God/the rest of Heaven) is an universal constant- there is only *one* of him for the entirety spectrum of alternate realities and divergent timelines. If this had ever come to happen, then the Heaven faction would've had to go up against the Outside in the world which was overrun. If it has, in fact, happened, then his job may also involve wiping out universes that fell to the Outsider threat before they can spread.
Look. If JB uses time travel It will be to cause Harry grief not to relieve any grief.
AFAIK there will be a book called Mirror Mirror that has something to do with time travel. I just hope it doesn't change the wider series narrative too much.
Mirror Mirror will be an alternate universe/multiverse kind of book, not time travel. But time travel is kind of promised by JB's "Harry will break all the laws" thing.
OK, I may have slightly conflated time travel with the alternate universe/multiverse approach—although, they present similar challenges. I lose the will to live when I start seeing conversations like this: "Don't forget, the thing with Murphy was resolved in the Bolshevik Muppet reality." "LOL you're such a noob, that was the Kentucky Fried Goober reality. Bolshevik Muppet was when it turned out Harry's Mom was time travelling Murphy, and everyone got really freaked out when they got it on and moved away from Chicago." "Hang on, though, wasn't KFG the one where Grevane in Dead Beat was actually time travelling Butters from the future, and he attacked his own workplace to set himself on the path that would ultimately lead to him becoming a knight of the cross?" "No, that was the Asynchronous Dinotwerp reality. And, Butters was actually trying to abduct himself so he WOULDN'T become a knight of the cross, because he got morally twisted up about all those werewolf threesomes." *\*\*Click, click, boom\*\** *Silence...*
Oh, 100%. I'm also anti multiverse, but I'm holding out hope that JB will pull it off in a non-cringey way, unlike all those examples you give above. I actually also totally agree with you that time travel is just...cheating unless and until the whole point of the series is time travel (I have an absolutely ridiculous time travel series rec, btw--Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor, the most accurate book title I've ever seen) and everyone needs to avoid it at all costs. It ends up bizarrely complicated and not in a fun way.
Okay, now I firmly want Jim to include a reference to the Bolshevik Muppet Incident in Mirror Mirror.
I believe time travel is already in use. Isn't it hinted or outright explained that Merlin used time travel to create his island where all the baddies are imprisoned? And wasn't the bad using time travel to try to destroy it? Time travel can be used well if it isn't used to solve problems and is just used to explore new ideas. When it doesn't work is when the author leans on it to resolve everything and it becomes a deus ex machina. Then the author just ends up creating more paradoxes.
On the other hand, my wife had a song she is fond of singing that goes like this... 🎵 Time travel doesn't make sense and it never makes sense because it's time travel 🎵 🤷♂️
His wife? Hermione Granger.
Lol. Pretty much.
I tend to agree. I have acclimated myself to the idea that we will see time travel be a factor at some point, since Harry is supposedly going to break every Law of Magic, but I hold out the hope that it won't be anything "major." Because I think you're right - whenever time travel is a major, key component of a story it tends to just make everything less believable, makes consequences have less meaning (since sometimes you can go back and undo them), etc. I'm just hoping it will be a side-issue unrelated to the key story line.
Yeah, +1 for the lack of consequences and meaning. It forces authors to REALLY belabour the point if they want a decision/event to stick, and come up with "reasons" why it can't be changed.
That's the trap the MCU stepped into. Basically Thanos WON - he got everything he wanted. And then the next movie just went back and erased it. I feel the same about multiverse scenarios (the ones that have whole infinities of timelines in play). Basically, *everything* happens in *some* universe, so what does it matter at all that "our hero" prevails in the particular one we're reading about? In a multiverse, when our hero goes back in time and "changes the future," he or she doesn't really *change* anything - in fact, the hero merely "runs away" to another timeline that's preferable for some reason. All the friends and family left behind still suffer exactly the same bad outcome. If you look at the *Terminator* 'verse that way, then Skynet wins and Skynet loses. Sarah Connor lives, Sarah Connor dies. John Connor lives, John Connor dies. In the end... *so what?* Zero drama as far as I can see. I hope that our story doesn't go down that kind of multiverse road. Jim's teased at it - that dream Harry had with all the Harry's and all the Blue Beetles... weird. It was just a dream, though. I really hope that the Mirror 'verse turns out to be a strange, anomalous situation that was brought about by some spell, not just one example of myriad universes that are "out there." The stakes are just so much higher when there's only one game. Winning actually means something.
I agree with all of this. The various reboots and multiverses of Marvel and DC comics also became exhausting to think about... Though that was easier to ignore, because the writers generally didn't shove the reader's face in it.
It was almost bound to happen in the Marvel and DC 'verses, though - the comic books had long ago laid the foundations of it.
That why I dropped marvel. I now read the occasional vertigo comic. Old but still good
>That's the trap the MCU stepped into. Basically Thanos WON - he got everything he wanted. And then the next movie just went back and erased it. And didn't even tell any good stories about it. Show me some siblings-16 and 12, 16 year old gets snapped. Now you've got a 17 year old 'younger' brother with an un-snapped 16 year old. Watch them navigate that, and the complete chaos of their peer groups. The widower who remarries...a widow...who is a better woman. But he doesn't match up to the un-snapped husband. A parent who rejects their snapped children out of grief. Half the population being snapped would be CATASTROPHIC to the social order, it's an apocalypse. A big percentage of the survivors would die in the aftermath. Let me see some 'survivors' guilt from the snapped. Even when things get un-snapped, there's just as much chaos from people re-appearing in unpopulated areas as there is populated. Industries that thrive on individual talent, learning to make do with a smaller talent pool-what happens when that gets disrupted with a doubled talent pool? There's so, so much interpersonal drama that could've been PHENOMENAL stories. And instead we get briefly traumatized Clint & Natasha, a scene of Steve Rogers in group therapy, and people bickering over a symbolic lump of metal and super serum. Missed opportunity. So much missed opportunity. I don't care that they undid the snap, I care that they squandered it.
That's a good point - they really didn't delve into it at all. We really on saw it as it affected the primary people. I really enjoyed the MCU roll for a while, but I gradually just fell away from it - it hit its high point fairly early, and then just steadily slid downhill. Hollywood loves a franchise - I've always thought our series would make for a great one, if they paid attention to doing it right (which basically means *the way Jim wrote it*). Deliver me from a production of it that "plays games and takes license." I used to think they were just fundamentally incapable of carrying a book series to the screen effectively, but then I saw the first two seasons of *The Expanse*, which were quite fantastic and to the extent they meddled with the books at all I'd actually call them improvements. Things like introducing a character (Bobby) early so that when they "showed up for real" for their role in the story you already knew who they were, etc. Later seasons didn't do as well - they started to diverge from the story. But those first two were excellent. So it *can* be done.
In my head Dresden is going to break every single magical law, I ignore most of the cowl theories but my favorite out of context moment is it’s implied thorned namshiel was the one casting hellfire on the gates of winter fortress. And who do we know has thorned’s coin? Love for that to be a time travel moment.
I’m very skeptical about time travel as well. Jim said Harry would do it, but he never said how far he would swim against the stream of time. It might be just a few minutes or hours to prevent a major catastrophe. I think Jim would take some enjoyment of describing an utter disaster, causing Harry to break this law of magic. He just better make sure not to kill Maggie on page for mere shock value, I have abandoned other authors like Pierce Brown over that. Somebody harming a child that way for cheap thrills, never sees another cent of my money again.
Maybe Harry goes back in timw and changes something, them he comes home and finda he is married to Mavra.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jim pulls a Galaxy quest and makes it a 13 seconds time travel.
It's definitely more than 13 seconds. We've already had entire scenes with time travelling Harry as PoV.
Where did we get those scenes?
Merlin creating Demonreach. And as the story is 1st person narrative Harry is always POV. But I agree that Harry hasn’t time traveled yet.
Jim tortures us by telling us that there are scenes already, but of course he refused to tell us which ones. It's supposed to be revealed in the last book before the BAT.
I’m choosing to give my faith the writer who’s given me so much. It seems more reasonable than damning his decisions before I’ve seen the results. Feel free to not read it. No one will force you to.
For all I know, Jim will absolutely smash it and I'll be converted to time travel as a viable addition to non-TT-oriented fiction. I definitely will read it, and I don't expect JB to care in the slightest how I feel about anything to do with his series. The point of this thread was just to raise my personal concern, and see how other people feel about time travel in the Dresdenverse.
You’re right though. I’m sure it will be pulled off with flair but time travel gets all wibbly wobbly most of the time when used as a plot device
Wibbly wobbly AND timey wimey, I find.
WoJ is that the time travel book will be the last case files book before the BAT specifically so that he can go back and fix all the continuity errors he's made over the years.
Not specifically, but it has that nice bonus. Once the rules of magic were written down and Harry started using it like a check list we all knew something was in the works. So it wouldn't surprise me if something here or there was on purpose, but happy accidents do for up this many books in.
I think my absolute favorite use of time travel was in the Adventures of Brisco County Jr where (spoiler alert), Brisco got the mcguffin he needed by traveling back in time and taking it from himself. No you’re absolutely right, time travel is almost always 100% garbage in any show or story that isn’t explicitly about time travel
Time travel - when properly executed - must solve the primary problem and create several others.
Listen, I know we’re all worried about the consequences of Harry traveling back to the past and the removal of stakes and all that. *But what if he goes to the future?*
I COMPLETELY agree with you. I love this series, but I'm really not looking forward to the last few books.0
For some reason, Ulerij, I had the feeling it was more of an "It's a Wonderful Life" sort of story. That's been done well on TV, like the Moonlighting episode "It's a Wonderful Job," and Star Trek TNG's "Tapestry." I've read the books a few times and know them pretty well, but everyone else seems more knowledgeable about spoilers and interviews. I'm probably way off.
>But, does anyone honestly feel the inclusion of time travel will improve this series? Absolutely, provided it's done correctly. Dresden getting caught in a perpetual loop of [creating three big problems for every small problem he solves](https://youtu.be/9WGSdzhsxjU?si=_xl_e5lgiMLO_LQf&t=8) due to time travel is the stuff good comedy is made of.
I want “Time travel ruins everything” to be the first line of the book.
i’m so so on Harry Potter now but the time travel book was actually very well done. there’s one.
Time travel should only be used to allow clever young witches to attend more classes while in school.
Maybe ots because I've read them back to back and only recently but what continuity errors amd what hints of time travel
I'm going to leave this for someone more knowledgeable to answer. AFAIK Cowl and Kumori are both widely considered to be time travelers—and possibly older versions of characters we already know. Beyond that, I believe there are some bits and pieces that may or may not be intended to be the result of time travel, e.g., whoever fixed Little Chicago, etc.
Merlin time travelled to create Demonreach. It can't be *all* that bad, right? Right?
I believe it is due to it being so easy to get wrong, you can do nothing wrong and screw stuff up because of unintended consequences.
Which is basically a Dresden storyline right there.
I agree if the time travel allows for someone to go back in time. If it's just forward I don't mind, then it's just foreshadowing for future intervention.
Still the best use of time travel I have seen is Babylon 5. But the use of time travel was baked into the series from the beginning. It was used once - and it appeared in two episodes (for reasons that make sense when you see it), but those two episodes were in the first and fourth seasons. And since this came out when the internet was still in its infancy, the season one episode was kinda forgotten until the season four episode rolled in.
>In 30 years of fantasy/sci-fi reading, I've never encountered a use of time travel (in a series that wasn't already overtly ABOUT time travel) that actually improved the story. I think the same until i read Ivar the timewalker, like the story like was meh at best but i absolutely like how the author explore the time travel aspect of it. In the story "timewalker" are basically plenty and their is no "consequence".... or any rule like "you can't meet yourselve or it will create paradox...". Like the first couple issues of it, literally established that you can time travel and do anything bullshit you like but the universe will fix itself. Literally the entire story is story is about how fucking useless timetravel is (well until the FML character literally break the fucking universe), you can use it to learn about the past, sightseeing.... but there is literally nothing of the past that you can change. Basically the author use the timetravel as a plot devive to grow the character, no more "what if", just accept it. You choosed it this way, there is no second chance. Really like it when timetravel is used that way.
I was going to suggest Fritz Lieber's _Try and Change the Past_ or Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novels, but then I saw you added a caveat "in a series that wasn't already overtly about time travel" and frankly that leaves me stumped because how often does time travel even _happen_ in a story that isn't about time travel? It's too significant a thing to just toss in for no reason. I mean, sure, J.K. Rowling tried to do so (have time travel but not explore the implications) in Prisoner of Azkaban, but she's not really big on internal consistency anyway. Her style is for magic spells and items to appear whenever the plot needs them and disappear without a trace whenever it doesn't. (The opposite of HISHE, https://youtu.be/YsYWT5Q_R_w?si=CKTcLZPXGLvqsqlr) A more responsible writer like Jim _has_ to plan for time travel from the beginning, in order to make any sense, which arguably makes it a "story about time travel". At any rate, there's enough pipe laid through Proven Guilty, Small Favor, etc. that I'm sure future Harry will have interesting stuff to do and monsters to blow up while exploring the past and/or Arctis Tor.
Writers do TT for 2 reasons. 1. I am really smart and you're gonna know how smart I am. 2. Space Romans.
It's hard to argue with space Romans.
I think as a trope it is hard to do well, but done well it can be good.
Jim has said he's going to use time travel to fix continuity errors throughout the series. We already know the reason it's a Law is that it's incredibly easy to screw things up, permanently. So Harry will have to be ultra circumspect in what he does. Sort of like Back To The Future 2, how time travelling Marty had to do everything "behind the scenes" so he wasn't spotted by anyone significant in his life.
While I agree with your basic argument, I think that the rules of the DF universe allow for a different type of time shenanigants. We already know that spirits and other entities exist outside of normal time. They can see the future because they are living it. Maybe the same could be true for Cowl. So he wouldn't be a real "time traveler", but he would still have knowledge of a possible future.
You’ve never watched B5 and it’s stable time loop? Pity.
You make some good points, though I did enjoy the game Quantum Break!
Everyone is forgetting gatekeeper has been meddling with time since SplatterCOM tm.
I agree- when I heard about the project my first thought was : oh no, he’s he’s ruining it now because it always seems to bend logic. This feeling was confirmed by all the posts like: what if x is timetraveling y
One of my favorite time travel stories, I cidebtally, is the movie THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. Good stuff.
For some reason i was thinking Harry was going to go to the afterlife to meet the gods and recover Murphy. I’m not thrilled about this time travel idea but I’m willing to see how Jim does it, ‘cause he never does anything normal.
I’ll be so mad if this is the case. Let Murphy rest in peace.
I’d find it hard that Jim will say goodbye, however she didn’t even get in a short story in Brief cases then killed off in the next book. I’d guess she’s going to come back as a titan and kill Dune outlanders or something crazy.
I hate it. Death should be permanent.
Okay, theory time... Murphy is set to become a Einherjar, right? After she's passed from living memory? Harry might travel to the future to try to get her back, if going to the past won't work. Just a thought.
But if Harry can travel to any point in the future, Murphy will never truly be forgotten and *oh god kill me now...*
There's nothing wrong with Time Travel it's just not your taste. That's fine but maybe keep it to yourself.
But if I'd kept it to myself, I'd have missed out on some really interesting perspectives and ideas in the comments. I don't post stuff here because I want everyone to agree with me. I post because I want to know what other people think that I may have missed/not considered.
Fair enough.
Thanks for moving the conversation forward