Closed Loop Time Travel is a Narrative Dead End | Video Essay
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- Опубликовано: 23 окт 2023
- Just wanted to talk about a big pet peeve of mine, the laziest (and most common by a country mile) way of writing time travel, consistently hailed as genius and somehow surprising to people every time it happens, despite always being the exact same twist. NOTE: There are good films that use this, but in my opinion it would pretty much always be superior without the use of this plot element as a twist.
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You're looking at this in such a wrong way. Closed time loops are not a plot. They are a plot device.
These stories are not about characters going through a time loop, they are about what characters do and how they develop while going through a time loop, and how they use that time loop, exactly like how "groundhog day" plots function.
The time in these stories is not a line, nor it is usually a loop. It's at least a bidimensional plane through which the characters move and act. Causality has no meaning or purpose in these plots because when time is treated this way, nothing, literally nothing, has causality.
And when this use of time collapses once again into a line, all the causalities come back. Because that's how causality happens.
Looking at the causality of a linear time from the perspective of a planar time makes as much sense as looking at the depth of a square.
"It's happened because it happened because it happened because it happened" is what makes it interesting. Pondering the causality that seemingly closes in on itself is incredibly thought provoking. A person goes through a series of events, then after successfully making it through those events, goes back in time and sets things up in a way that allows them to happen. When done properly, it isn't fate, but instead, a character using their agency to make things work out the way they did. One of my favorite closed loop narratives is a series named Summertime Rendering, where the first scene of the series is also the second to last one, from a different point of view. A proper closed loop is anything but lazy, because it's very difficult to properly set up that loop moment in a way that makes sense and is foreshadowed.
They still all ultimately feel contrived because honestly they are, for reasons I outlined in the video.
Also in physics there is something known as "prime mover" . Our minds are wired to understand cause and effect in a linear and temporal manner, mainly because this is how we experience and interact with the world. This cognitive predisposition might influence our understanding of complex or abstract phenomena, like the creation of the universe.f everything has a cause, then what caused the first thing? This leads to the idea of a first uncaused cause or a prime mover. For some, this might suggest a divine creator or some supernatural force. For others, it could be a yet-to-be-understood natural phenomenon.
Maybe since we are bound to this linear perception it is by design impossible for us to understand how something happened without a cause (like the big bang), which is also why we can't understand closed loops where the cause of something happens due to that same thing (like Savitar in the Flash S3)
@@eduardomachado3740 such an interesting subject to ponder!
Isn't that what Peabody and Sherman was about? I could be completely wrong.
@@Ihopenobodyalreadytookthisone a lot of stories tackle it in a well thought out and elaborate way, yeah.
I had an idea for a pseudo-time loop story that hopefully fixes the cause-and-effect issue, the only reason the future refuses to change in this story is that there are actually two time travelers who have opposing goals. So whenever one does something that could change the future, the other time traveler intentionally reverses it in some way. The thematic message for this would be to not dwell on the things you can't change but focus on the things you can change. Which is symbolized in the climax with the two time travelers returning to the present using everything they learned about each other throughout the story in one final battle.
The only time I've ever seen this done well is the My Little Pony episode "It's About Time", because they actually used it for thematic reasons.
It's been done pretty well several times.
I think the doctor who episode may be where it just really started to bug him. Lol.
Even in the Harry Potter movie it isn't used in the way that he implies. It doesn't just happen because it happens.
It was a way for Potter to learn a new skill and taught him things about himself. He then goes forward using this new ability for the rest of the series. That one incense does have to repeat itself over and over throughout time. But that's not the focus of the story narratively.
I really like the closed loops as a concept and I think they can be well done. But I see how they aren't for everyone.
I always thought fry wasn't his own grandfather until he changed the past by being there. Bill and ted is the funniest version of this
Amazing video! Didn't even notice the amount of views until after I watched it. Got me completely engaged thinking you had 500k+ subs. Congrats! :)
Same here, thought the channel is way more popular
One story I read (can't remember which one) addressed this by saying that time travel is very risky, with any attempt at it having a small but not negligible chance of eradicating the time travelers from reality. Since all observed instances of time travel fit the closed loop model, it's assumed that anyone who tries going back in time with both the means and intent to change the past will be one of those who never make it to the past in the first place.
It's unclear whether these time travel failures are actually caused by the paradox-inducing nature of the intended time travel. Given the consequences for failure, few time travelers are willing to test it.
This is personally my favorite form of time travel from a character perspective and with the caveat that it's not confirmed to be a closed loop until near the end. Particular examples being The Terminator (only the 1st one), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, LOST, and some episodes of The Twilight Zone. I especially find it interesting when a character pushes another character that they care for to time travel that knows the fate of the time travelling character.
I will say that it can't be the only form of time travel in a narrative and it needs to be done well as it can be very boring if revealed too soon.
So I guess the author of this video is not even born yet. He is going to watch it for the first time in a few years, then he'll come back in time to 2023 and create the exactly same video and post it here on youtube.
The issue with thinking there is an issue is that you presume free will exists but that's less scientific that the already highly unlikely time travel.
Which to be clear doesn't necessarily mean anything for quality of fiction, but yes given what we know you could never change the past because free will isn't real.
Determinism is a different issue. Sure, you can technically argue our brains and therefore decisions are the result of deterministic systems of particles, but on a macro scale our decisions exist, and they logically cause outcomes based on how we decide. Cause and effect is taken out of the picture in a closed loop, your decisions CAN NOT change the end result. Knowledge of the future should give the ability (or deterministically cause you) to take actions to alter the future, but a closed loop precludes this possibility.
Time travel can never be logical consistent.
But it must make sense in the story : I personally think that Looper has a big problem in this case, because you can see instantaneous effect on the bodies, but never on the mind, and that is a big issue for me.
For dr Who, I think Blink is not the same as the ending of season 5 : because it helps other people, it is just a case where the doctor gives an upper hand to people in the first case. The use of the time traveling paradox for the ending of season 5 is really a deus ex-machina, but it was badly prepared and badly executed : for example it was not at the end of the story. It makes all the future stories inconsequential and I was also very upset by it.
For the Prisoner of Azkaban, I don't see it as a big issue : I see it as a tale about learning (try, fail, learn, grow), but JK Rowling has made the mistake to talk about about the time-turners afterward.
Personally, I think that Predestination is very clever because it is a character without agency that we follow, but we see that this lack of agency is not the same as a lack of emotion. I think it a tale about self-acceptance (the Unmarried Mother), Stoic philosophy (the Barkeep) and consequentialist ethics (the Fizzle Bomber).
That was great. I really enjoyed your video
I do agree with your points. It used to bother me as well, until I kinda gave up and told myself that time travel is never going to make sense, so there's no reason to think about it. This idea saves me the headache of these paradoxes, at the cost of making me loose most of my interest in any story as soon as time travel is introduced.
It shows how incompetent the writers are when giving their characters reasons to do things, they want time travel in there story, why well because the character needs to, well why oh because thats the loop they have been in
Per Larry Niven’s excellent essay on the subject, time travel to the past also violates the conservation of matter and energy, since (to take an example) if you and your time machine travel two months back into the past, there is now an extra copy of you and the machine with all that matter and energy that have literally popped out of nowhere.
But even if travel to the past were possible, changing it wouldn’t be. All of the possible changes any traveler would make that could alter the future would continually (whatever that word means in this context) happen on an endless recursive loop, altering the time stream endlessly. A traveler cures Alexander of whatever killed him; another prevents the Black Death; a third murders Hitler in his crib, with all of the downstream changes that would ensue. Elsewhere in the universe, perhaps other civilizations are doing the same thing. So there would be no stability to time or causal reality at all. . . until someone made a change that resulted in no time travel ever being invented anywhere, by any species.
You described the Harry Potter scene incorrectly. Harry didn't realize it was him until after he did it. He thought it was his father until the moment it was him doing it. Harry didn't even know time travel was possible until Hermione showed him. The only thing either of them knew was where they would be in the past. Harry didn't make the patronus so that he would go back in time and make the patronus. He did it to save himself and Sirius from dying. IMO how Harry Potter did it was great because of the set up. There's the "how did you get here" gag with Hermione through the first half of the movie where she appears somewhere she wasn't before. The stones being thrown, Hermione's howl, and the patronus are all mysterious until we find out it was always the characters. It was always character action.
You also argue that a Closed Loop doesn't make sense because it implies something must be consciously controlling it. But, as far as we know, there could be some principle of the universe that means makes time closed and prevents it from being tampered with.
I watched this video twice and I'm still confused about what makes closed loops bad. It's actual time travel. If we look out branching timelines time travel, all you really have is a multiverse story. This means you're never going back in time to your own past but rather to the past of a different timeline. If a writer wants a story where the characters go back to their past you either end up with a closed loop or a butterfly effect story. With the later, you have to consider paradoxes.
What do you think about the "time travel"/time loop on Attack On Titan? The problems you listed still stand but I think it's done well with a litte twist that just serves the story really well
I think you’re missing something big: these stories work fine if you assume that there is no true free will, and that the universe (at least the one in the story) is firmly predetermined, without any randomness or choice. If this is true about the main timeline, it makes complete sense to be true about time traveling people as well.
I've responded to another comment talking about predeterminism where I address the difference narratively.
Have you watched Steins;Gate dude?
Nope, any good?
@@DysnomiaFilms It's fucking great man. You should really watch it if you think closed loop time travel stories can't be great
@@DysnomiaFilmsI also recommend Steins;Gate for how it explains and resolves the time loop elements, weaving in real life precedents to make its world more fleshed out and believable. Its sequel, Steins;Gate 0, builds off of the predecessor and introduces new elements that put a twist in the narrative.
It has honestly been a long time since I last gone through the Steins shows. They were my introduction to a well-written time travel story, though, and I hope it measures up or even surpasses your experiences with western media's interpretation of the genre.
@@RANDOM_VIDS_BY_OLDg I agree that Steins;Gate is great but its not a closed loop time travel I think.
@@RANDOM_VIDS_BY_OLDg it's not closed loop, they have "timelines" numbered like 0.999, 0.9998, 0.9997... or something. but in the end they actually do a closed loop, or pretending to be closed loop, idk if they're actually save timelines or just single timeline (because in steins;gate 0 we actually see glimpse of every timeline they left behind).
or i'm just dumb thinking about fiction.
Wait then do you have any problem in regards to time loop/travel of in itself? Or only when time loop/travel where the person time looped/traveled has a hand in the whole scenario?
Would love to hear your opinion on time loop of in itself!
What do you mean? In all of these cases the involvement of the characters in deciding the loop seems to be illusory/irrelevant.
Trash can. Remember a trash can
Future-self saving past-self is a thinly veiled deus ex machina, but I do think self-fulfilling destiny style plots can be worth exploring. I guess the unsaid philosophy behind most of these is that once you have the ability to time travel, you suddenly always have and always will. And... in a way, you already have split into a new timeline, wherein you have the ability to save yourself. Your original self from the unaltered timeline either got out of the situation a different way, or was never put in it in the first place, but according to your perception as your current self, it would appear to be a self-fulfilling prophecy... Who knows, it's all so impossible, it makes the possibilities endless.
I think there's still plenty to be explored, but the only real crime is being lazy about it, or making rules and not following them to their logical conclusion. Also, giving birth to yourself? That's dumb.
I am using multi universes/branching timelines
I feel like Arrival the novel handled this situation better than the other examples here. It accepts that the closed loop perception of time means that there is no agency and then depicts the main characters struggle in finding her life’s meaning if she she has no agency in her actions at least subconsciously. The movie did it as much justice as it could for an entertaining film but the novel actually talks about this weird interaction. It accept the horrible logic of closed loops and fights to see what meaning humans can find in it if everything is predetermined. Also in the book the alien shared the language simply to share it, not for some stupid weapon advancement the movie showed which makes more sense in the context of closed loop reality. You should give it a try!!
Also the book says that her daughter dies from a rock climbing incident instead of cancer. This difference is impt cause we can read the main character justify that it was her visceral need to make rock climbing forbidden that ultimately makes her daughter rebel and fall in love with rock climbing, instead of admitting that fate ordains that her daughter must die. Even thought just like the movie she jumps between different times in her life, the book stresses that she experiences it all at once simultaneously. This is what allows her to find deeper meaning in her love for her husband and daughter as she realises that even within a closed loop timeline she will choose love over even trying to purge herself from it entirely. Rly interesting way to embrace the logical fallacies compared to the “ooh so smart the main character used time travel to save themselves” whilst showing the agency and character growth she can develop whilst realising she has no agency
The big bang kinda came out of nothing....
Doesn't the existence of the universe violate cause and effect?
Not sure. But nothing within the universe does.
I feel like that’s why Dark season 3 was crap
I think time loop paradoxes and Back to the Future logic are nonsense (though sometimes entertaining) and places unrealistic importance on the time traveler. I mean why would the universe care if you killed your grandfather, yeah that timeline is gone now but there is no paradox, youre standing over your grandfathers body.
I think Primer is close to the best, new timelines from the time travelers perspective.
Or we could just not think so hard about our entertainment and be like: "Hey! That was fun. That was a good time that made me forget that the world is falling apart around me for a few hours." That's what I like to do.
Sure, you are free to do that, no problem, but as someone who appreciates the craft of writing and filmmaking and wants to learn to do it well myself, I actually do find value in learning to differentiate between good and bad writing.
Mostly I still see closed loop time travel as the many-worlds-interpretation; you don't go back in time you just create a cloned universe with all atoms/etc in the exact state your origin universe was, along with yourself and whatever you brought along, in a sort of timy wimy big bang 2 metaphysical boogaloo. You don't appear out of thin air, the entire universe does, and has no prior history. Traveling forward might do something similar, creating a universe that reflects a 100% deterministic outcome of what happened between your departure and arrival. But of course something like that is impossible unless God (or destiny or whatever we would call it) was real, it's just fun to think about I guess. ruclips.net/video/v6R02dP10Gs/видео.html
just don't do time travel at all