The future implications of that is why I've always disliked the idea. The second it exists, the world is confirmed as deterministic; the future is already set and none of our actions matter
That makes a lot of assumptions about how time travel functions. If time travel splits timelines, such that your actions set you off on another branch, nothing you do in the past or future would affect THIS timeline. There could be literal quintillions of time travelers active right now that we know nothing about because they cannot affect this timeline. I mean, if the many worlds theory is right, every possible outcome of every possible interaction creates a new universe. On that scale, a time traveler making a new reality to change arbitrarily is nothing unusual. Just another unlikely, yet still possible, interaction playing out.
@@myria2834 In that case time travel is pointless and it will not contribute to any meaningful story. Nothing a time traveller could try to change in the past will actually change anything whatsoever because the universe where what they tried anew happened to begin with already exists.
Minor correction regarding Madoka Magica: The wishes Kyubey grants aren't Monkey's Paw-style. He actually does his level best to grant the wishes exactly as intended with no corruption or sneaky tricks; the running theme, however, is that the girls he targets aren't experienced/mature enough to articulate what they actually want. Sayaka's wish is a perfect example of this: she wished for Kyosuke to be healed, and that's exactly what she got- full recovery of his hand, back to being a virtuoso violinist, no strings attached. But what she actually WANTED was for him to love her, and to be with him, and when she starts to lose that it sends her spiralling. Kyoko revealing her backstory to Sayaka hammers this point home, complete with a moral as a little bow on top: "Use you wish for yourself, or you won't actually get what you want." The apocrypha reveals the backstory of several witches who essentially suffered the same fate (Charlotte's in particular is a big oof). It takes Madoka herself the entire series to finally make her wish, at which point she's learned and grown enough to wish for what she truly wanted, and Kyubey grants it to the letter even though it goes against his agenda.
@KyonV13 My analogy is those cartoon contracts with missable parts writen with very tiny letters, so that the other party doesn't notice and skips reading the clauses. "It was there in the contract the entire time, not my problem if you didn't noticed it" So, yeah, the end he still fooled the girls.
@@KyonV13 Oh yeah, not trying to defend him in the slightest, I just wanted to point out that the wishes themselves are never corrupted. That little speech he gives about "why do humans feel entitled to the truth" pisses me off to no end; he deliberately omits information or gives vague answers to questions in order to get what he wants, and then has the gall to act like he has some sort of moral high ground. Fuck Kyubey, Homucifer can't torment him enough.
Of course it's implied that, even in Madoka's case, the wish still backfired. In Rebellion she states that she would never choose to leave her life and family behind, and her arms are depicted as covered in self-cutting scars at one point. The fact that her family forgot about her adds even more pain to the pile, because it's a clear way to showcase that what happened to her is ultimately a tragedy.
I'm pretty sure that Kyubey doesn't actually grant the girls' wishes at all, but rather than the wishes are a side-effect of the soul crystallization process. This means that it's really the girls themselves who technically grant their own wishes, but that doesn't eliminate the factor that they actually have to know what they really want to wish for.
the time travelling movie by ADAM SANDLER, Click indeed gets so terrifying because the time he lost while travelling through his life makes him miss out on all the little moments that creates beauty in life. It is such an interesting movie due to starting out so tasteless.
There is something so comforting that so many humans have made time travel stories from a shared feeling of regret. We all only get one chance at life and it’s our first time doing it.
The fact that we get one chance at life is even more terrifying than what this video is explaining. And it sounds unfair and unforgiving. I still believe in the infinite possibilities of time travel. As much as I can accept the reality as it is now, I'm still personally hoping to someday get the opportunity to go back and change something in my past in order to get the do-over at life I always want before I eventually pass away and go back to nothingness forever. I would do so only if the universe can give us the free will to create unlimited realities moving forward made by changes in the past. Because I don't want to break the fabric of the universe if there's only one. That would be terrible.
@@JakeBuccellato I hope one day we learn to accept instead of regret and move forward with the knowledge to make better decisions instead. in the end all those little decisions good or bad taught us something and took us where we needed to go and thats a beautiful thing when you can look back on it learn from it and accept it ❤🎉
@@JakeBuccellato Well, there is something called duplicates, where you have one in the past, and you repeat it yourself to end up having multiple copies who end up in the same timeline again and again. I do think time traveling is cool if you ask me, but combined with dimension traveling to explore other versions of earth you've never discovered before, it basically comes down to how well you survive.
Another aspect of time travel horror i was thinking about is the concept of cyclical time. I believe it was in an episode of Futurama where they essentially traveled back in time by traveling forward in time through the death and rebirth of the universe, eventually reaching the point they wanted in the first place. This is straight up some cosmic horror shit, compared to the detachment of oneself from humanity.
Futurama as a whole is about letting go of the fear of death and embracing immortality for all its hardships, they have suicide booths because of how easy it is to just keep living, the whole universe is just cosmic horror
Also think of the last ever episode of (the original) futurama, before the new Disney episodes Fry and Leela growing old together, forever trapped in a snapshot of the world they lived in, left to grow old together as their friends, co workers, and everyone else remains just the same age. It’s not travelling in time strictly, but still feels like an interesting and relevant case study Also I’m unashamed to say that episode has made me shed probably a pint of body weight just through my tear ducts and nose 🥹😂
You do not need time travel for the same effect. The universe if infinite eventually will repeat you, me and anything which is or was. Randomly go in to the void and you might find another humanity that has nothing to do with our abiogenesis but are a 1-to-1 xerox of us. Boltzmann brain concept on a diabolically comedic scale for eternal amusement in absurdity.
It fits right into my favorite category to analyze, which is nonsense extremes where common logic has to be discarded. I think it's why I like dystopian literature so much, because they often use the same idea
The best way to calm that feeling is to realize only the insanely rich and powerful will ever be able to do it in your life time if at all. If ever. Helps me. Maybe it'll help you too... Or maybe that's more terrifying 😐 Sorry!
@ its so fun to hear people travel down those nonsense extremes in video essays. usually i just have those trains of thoughts going in my head, but hearing someone else explore them is really refreshing. you gave some great new perspective, awesome work on this video :D
I think what you said about the horror of infinite choices and how unsatsfying and terrifying that is is very interesting because it goes against what undertale says. Part of the horror in undertale IS that it's fininte. The horror is a completionist one. Once you play all the options, those friends you made are just characters in a game you finished. Curiosity about the other options is the motivation to become an actual monster. Finishing the complete game, especially killing to finish it, and especially especially the genocide route is what makes you the villain of undertale. It being finite is apart of the horror; to the other characters the horror is facing against a time traveler, being reduced to entertainment for them; but the horror for Frisk/Chara and Flowey is that once you play long enough, that's all they can ever be: these friends you adored, now entertainment that eventually bores you. Because as Flowey describes... "At first, I used my powers for good. I became 'friends' with everyone. I solved all their problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing... For a while. As time repeated, people proved themselves predictable. What would this person say if I gave them this? What would they do if I said this to them? Once you know the answer, that's it. That's all they are."
*I know everything about everyone by heart - all I need to do is enjoy. * -Not much of a horror fate, actually the best comedy is when you see people insist of crafting their own hell of misery and giving them this wish of the heart.
"those friends you made are just characters" Post book depression. You can reread the series but that is just revisiting memories. They can never again be the dynamic people they were to you at one point. When you finish a story you literally kill the characters.
Altho is not a canon In Undertale Yellow flowey even shows his dislike for the genocide route since for him, yeah it was fun at first but then, it's all pointless, Good, evil, both become meaningless, boring in end just becoming an spectator, just watching it unfolds without you,
To be honest, Angels With Scaly Wings also showed you sort of time travelling, but more of the amount of times you have died in the game, and by the time you get to the final ending, you see a huge pile of bodies that just so happen to be you, but the failure versions of yourself. At that time when I saw that, I was in shock that the thing I would be speculating, all those memories and experiences you went through many times before, it's still there in your mind, but now you end up going further into the endgame, and thus, you close that part of your chapter and free those dragons into the future, and thus, the next game unfortunately had the dragons create their own civilization besides the human beings in another city.
the speech at about a minute and a half in is so So true. I'm only time travelling at a speed of one second per second and I'm already experiencing the horrors!
I think that's one of the things that this misses about time travel stories. In the end, there's no difference between time travel and just living. We live in a world of infinite possibilities, that we have no way of predicting. Time travel simply allows you to remove one of an infinite number of paths, but infinity minus 1 is still infinity. Most of these stories show the worst possible outcomes because of entertainment value, but the reality is traveling back in time to make a change would have the same outcome as any other choice you make in your life - stuff will happen. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad. But it would be no worse than just making choices in your linear life.
@@xCorvus7x But the thing is, if this were real life, we wouldn't know. If you go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, do you prevent WWII? Do you make it worse? Does nothing happen and some other guy rise to power to become the monster? How would you know, how COULD you know? All these stories make the outcome worse because that fits the narrative they want to tell of time travel being dangerous. But the reality is, all you're doing is making a choice given certain information you have at your disposal, just like everyone does every day. And just like everyone's choices, whatever new outcome you create, some of it will be good, some of it will be bad, and some will be neither.
@@jonathanhibberd9983 How strict do you mean the word knowing here? We always look back when we try to be careful going forward. Naturally experiences and insights from the past aren't literally 100% completely applicable to future events. Whether stories take this or that turn just to fit the purpose of a narrative is a stark allegation. It all depends on how the consequences of a given change to the past unfold. Once you assume that it could have gone differently, there's a myriad of ways it could have gone and some of them are bound to be just as bad as or in fact worse than what happened originally. Furthermore, I doubt that there exists such a narrative to begin with. With time travel being a fictional concept, there is no point to convince people in reality of it being safe or dangerous. These stories are really just dealing with human hubris touching on the order of the world and what is right, similar to Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Besides, it's not all stories that have changing the past turn out badly. The Back to the Future films have the past change in ways that improve the present quite radically. Initial trouble caused by time travel have to be granted in the case that the story is about fixing those problems. Again, such a story isn't really about time travel but only uses it as a means for a somewhat magical adventure.
@@chiki1010yeah, but to be fair, his adult self experienced visiting her at a child after years of his wife told him stories of their visits together, which puts the idea into his head kinda? She experienced it before he did, and since she had a positive memory of their times together I think that led him to feel better about talking to her when she was younger. Is it weird and troubling? Yes. But not from the perspective that he was problematic, more like the setup of reality was very problematic 😂
@@chiki1010 No. He interacted with her. He engaged with her. He did not groom her. Calling that grooming lessens the bad of actual grooming and is a disservice to victims.
A video essay??? abaout time travel?? and talk about the horrors beyong human comprehension?? AND LIFE IS STRANGE SEGMENT??? im gonna have a blast dissociating while im drawing, i have no idea who you are but please keep up the good work !!! Your videos are absolutely so cool thank you
Another series that tackles this really well, i think, is Re;zero, specifically in season two. Subaru has the ability to go back in time to a checkpoint (that he doesnt set himself) when he dies, and he got comfortable in abusing that ability. Its especially well done because it also addresses audience expectations. Its easy to see subaru making mistakes (which happens often) or when something bad happens (which also happens often) and think "why dont subaru just reset?"
There's also a what-if story by the author where Subaru failed and fell to greed. In this story he agrees to a contract, where he uses his return by death ability to gather information for his contract partner who then uses said information to figure out the best path Subaru can take to achieve his goals. All his partner wants is to know as many what if scenarios as possible. In this story after Subaru basically managed to save everyone on his own after countless deaths, he is found to have a seemingly perfect day until he upsets Emilia slightly and decides to kill himself just for that, as it is not a perfect outcome.
Re:zero is a really interesting example of time travel media imo because its length and maintained narrative focus on resetting means it explores it a lot more thoroughly than other media on the same topic. A lot of season 2 of the anime is about subaru not just learning how to survive (though thats been made harder than ever), but how to truly love and value himself and others, to trust others despite them not having his ability, and accept his own humanity in the process.
Link Click is a chinese anime surrounding time travel that I recently discovered and I feel like you'd enjoy. I was intrigued by its portrayal of time travel and consequences of trying to alter the past for the future. It hooked me in from the first episode and got even better from there. Nice video!
Homura and Okabe in the same thumbnail hit me different. Absolutely love those two and the series they come from, seeing their determination and borderline obsession with fixing a problem and how it changes them is so compelling to see.
Ah yes, the pair that embodies the "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" quote. And I love them for it.
The true horror of time travel in Steins;Gate specifically comes about when you realize the implications that Zero has. Up until that point you could technically handwave away any failed timelines as not happening, as there's some wishy-washy explanation that only one timeline is 'active' at a time or something, but now we see canonically and clearly that other timelines, including even other Okabes, all live out their tortured, pained realities just like normal. This means that throughout the course of the show, we see ONLY our one true Okabe lead his way to eventual happiness, but basically EVERY SINGLE friend he has in every single timeline but the last one all live out truly horrific timelines while Okabe himself instead got to fuck off to a better timeline. This also leaves an interesting question as well: Would each given timeline continue on, with the point at which 'our' Okabe jumps back from instead resulting in them standing around confused why the time machine didn't function (both for either the D-mail or the mind-leap versions)? If not, the only other option would effectively be that the time machine literally DESTROYS that given timeline at that moment, which is all the more horrifying. Then you pair all that with the fact that, even when they FINALLY manage to find the 'true' timeline, the "Stein's Gate" of the title, they will still be forced to live with the knowledge that anytime ANYTHING significant or negative happens in the world in that timeline, they, and THEY ALONE, could simply build another time machine and retroactively stop that tragedy from happening, yet knowingly have to not do so out of the sheer fear of the potential consequences it would bring. As you best put it, it's the power of a mad god, and the responsibility would be mind shattering at every corner. What happens when, even in the 'best' or 'true' timeline, some simple accident ends the life of one of his friends yet again? The point of the story at the core, is that nothing good comes from time travel.
The point of the story is that time travel is both a curse and a blessing. The idea that it only causes bad things is just as contradicted by the script as the idea that it only causes good things.
I don't remember Zero exactly, long time ago I've watched, but I finished the show with the impression that all different timelines become mere possibilities relative to the main timeline that is currently happening. I understood the only timeline existing is the one the Okabe we follow in the show is standing. The Sern Superpower timeline (Mayuri dies), the world war 3 timeline (Kurisu dies) and all its variants orbiting those become possibilities once Okabe reaches the Steins;gate timeline in the end (neither Mayuri ou Kurisi die). The other timelines existed for a brief moment while Okabe was travelling there, but ceased to exist once he made de 1% field attractor jump to the Steins gate. My interpretation is that every version of everything that exists in the other timelines colapsed to be the only single version of the timeline currently on. That was WW3 timeline in the beginning, then Cern timeline for the most part of the anime, then the steins:gate timeline in the end. And those three timelines existed because Okabe was observing and interacting with them (he is the lone observer), they were created by the time travel. (again, I may have missed or forgotten some part in Zero in which they explain accurately the things just like you said)
The thesis of this video funnily enough is the thesis of my favorite dnd character I've played. A time mage trying to break the laws of magic and spacetime to prevent tragedies they know in their soul it cannot be stopped.
@@ProfessorViral House of Leaves is genuinely incredible if you read it in the right (or maybe wrong) headspace. While it's canonically not at the end of the book the chronological last line of Johnny always gets me.
What really struck me about Madoka Magica is that despite trying to save Madoka and failing uncountable times, Homurs CAN'T give up hope. She MUST continue to rewind time and save Madoka, because in the act of giving up and giving in to despair, Homura will become a witch. So it is through her own willpower that Homura keeps going. She knows that her wish is doomed to failure, she knows now exactly what becoming a nagical girl means, and knows thst she can't keep any of them from meeting their fate, but she continues in the hope that she can save at least Madoka. That's why, there in the last battle with Walpurgisnaught, Homura seems so desperate. Kyubey's revelation that with every cycle, she is making Madoka even more powerful, snd making it worse when she does become a witch, has her hesitating at the end. She is almost about to give up. We see her consider rewinding time, and then consider not rewinding. She's about to give in, and let herself become a witch, when Madoka shows up. At least that's the way I interpret it.
I have a dedicated analysis for The Island of Doctor Moreau that's been cooked and waiting for a few months. Hopefully I'll be able to turn it into a video soon 👀
If it's about the horror of time travel in Steins;Gate, there is also a sub-plot of Suzuha (best girl) going back in time to do an important task, just to get caught in an accident, lost her memory and completely missing it, then regain her memory again. The pain and horror of realizing you are in a period that you do not belong to, having lost all your purpose and your connections, and knowing that you will never get the chance of being consolated by your important ones. It's like being stranded, but ways worse.
My favorites is Re;Zero for the fact that everytime subaru loops back to his checkpoint he can't control it and it would returned him at random point in times, doesn't help that he can't tell everyone about it so the feeling of isolation is slowly killing him inside and almost got him manipulated by certain character in s2. Even after he managed to slowly start fixing his low self esteem by learning to love himself, he still feel lonely and feels like even if he understand his friends... none of them will really understand him fully well even until now.
that short point in S1 where he wakes up hearing the first line spoken to him in the new world and for a tiny moment he fears he went all the way back. to a point where he had nothing, where he died multiple times just to get to stay with Emilia
Funniest line in life is strange "Ah stupid gun!" You think about how immature that response is and then you realize tons of people unironically think that
To me that feels like a 'two steps forward, two steps back' kind of deal. Like, your sprinting through the story at top speed, spending lots of time and effort, only to find you were on a treadmill the whole time, and never actually moved anywhere.
I like how it's done in Steins;Gate, since they stress how much even that act changes him across many episodes, rather than just simply concluding on a single undo
@@shaihulud3140 Usually at least the time traveler has been impacted, so it's not like nothing has moved. The question I guess for me is what did they learn? What good lesson are WE supposed to take away?
This is actually a really interesting effect of going through the story rather than reading about the story. Every time you have to change a wish back in Steins, it is brutally painful. You have time to sit with each character, discuss the morality of their wish, discuss if it’s right for Okabe, and by extension the player, to undo the wish. Okabe and you get that time with each wish, and so you carry that with you to the end as stress. That buildup of stress made the ending the most cathartic I’ve ever seen. Also, that’s for the VN, which is if you enjoy the anime I highly recommend. It’s the intended way to experience the story.
@shaihulud3140 Reminds me of learning about Work in highschool. If it's at the same point before and after, no work is done. ... Off topic... Why didn't they talk about Work in Calc Based Physics?..
I don't even need time travel to experience its horrors. All you need to do is grow up. As a child reaching your favorite times of the year, or school to end felt like it would take forever. But as an adult you are left with wondering how fast time goes by, and it feels like it's accelerating even though I am still simply going one second per second. For instance, I just celebrated Christmas, but that was already a month ago. Thanks for making this video! Madoka Magica and Steins;Gate are ones of my favorite anime.
Okarin's journey legitimately fucked me up, even after finishing both Steins;Gate and zero I still feel like such a wreck. I don't think I've ever connected with a character and felt as much pain as I have with Okarin.
But my god did it feel good in Zero when he broke the laugh back out. All that pain, all that fear, all that certainty that he could never overcome the uncertain consequences of his actions, and then just "fuck it, I don't need to. I don't know shit but that doing nothing will change nothing, and that this is the worst. So better get back at it, it's not like it will drive me mad because as a scientist _I already AM!"_ The man metaphorically tells fate to fuck off over and over again until it just gives up and lets him win. And then _gloats about it_ with a Jojo's pose because why the hell not, he earned it.
Always thought time travel was fun concept when watching Back to the Future only to fear that a single change in you’ll risk causing more pain to oneself while phasing out of existence :(
Tbh back to the future or doctor who arent as well written or developed as deeply as stuff like steins gate. It’s a fun movie but it def didn’t get the horror that time travel really is
Honestly the fact that everything ends up better in Back to the Future feels like a one in 100,000,000 chance. But I give it a pretty big pass for both having limited time as a movie, and also just being pretty damn great otherwise. A few lines to add that thematic relevance of chance and it could have been stellar in that way too
@@ColonizerChan Back to the future is, more about him , ok its not too deep if still having character stuff. And Dr who can, but its most ly a story of the week, inless its a multiparter. And it does even talk about the Doctor needs a companion to be grroundsed and not loose his humanity . To not become a monster.
Back to the future has my least favorite trope for time travel. The vanishing because you messed with the past. Sure there's no YOU in the timeline technically. But you still exist due to YOUR OWN personal history that still happened.
@@ProfessorViral I get why you feel that way. But... it's also something that makes complete sense. A lot of original timeline troubles are caused by dad's spinelessness. So, when in the past the dad grows a spine, it causes a future where everything's better. Exaggerated for the sake of the story, ofc. But nonetheless, a good moral about learning from your mistakes and standing up for yourself/those you care about.
What I like about Life is Strange is that some moments you expect to require rewinding time to solve can actually be achieved without it on the first run. In some games, even if you know the solution beforehand, you’re forced to use your power to progress. Saving Chloe (Bathroom): This was achievable in the original. I tried it again in the remaster, but I couldn’t. I could see the button to crack the alarm, but it wouldn’t let me select it. Other Moments I Haven’t Tested Yet in the Remaster: • Entering the dorm • Reaching the top of the lighthouse before the path is broken • Saving Chloe (train tracks) • Saving Kate • Escaping the pool • Cracking David’s laptop password I’m not sure why finding Frank’s diary was in my video as another example of this. I can’t remember, lol. Maybe it was due to a time limit situation.
One of the few series that has time travel be something of beauty and that I thinks makes us arguably MORE human is “Before the Coffee Gets Cold.” All the stipulations like that they can’t change the future and they can’t leave the cafe, along with the quick time limit, makes it way less possible to experience the horrors of time travel. With that, every character we ever see finds solace with something that has haunted them, and they often realize that the ones they love dont hate them for something they did or forgives them. There’s peace to be found every time someone goes back or forward.
Okay this is the moment when I tell everyone to GO PLAY THE INDIE GAME “IN STARS AND TIME” it’s an rpg maker game about time loops and it’s perfect for the concept on even just the thumbnail of this video. It is of course a time loop game, which is time travel adjacent, but it was genuinely able to convince me that time loops are worse than the curse of immortality. The psychology behind all of it and it’s impact on a person’s mental state is fascinating
There is nothing more terrifying than travelling to a world where you don’t exist and not being able to leave. Especially if it’s the same time and place that you should exist in.
I think the thing about the uncertainty of the future is that it’s almost always taken to be greater than that of the past. Even if much of history is inaccurate or incomplete, there is at least some idea of its general events to expect. However, the future is something that linearly progressing humanity can only hope to predict, and its prediction is based largely on hope. Change is perhaps scary to individuals who thrive in the present, because they don’t know what the future will bring. However, to those who have already lost, those who are already out of time, anything can seem like an improvement in comparison, and they practically rely on the inevitability of change. What happens when someone sacrifices so much for a future that doesn’t live up to their hopes? What if humanity never becomes as advanced or civilized as someone hoped? The pain of losing the future can be even greater than losing whatever was of the past, because the hopes of the future can be made perfect in comparison to the limitations of the past. The moment someone is stuck in that future time, it becomes their present again, and they have that time to adapt and live in it just as they would in any time, but is it truly that much better? Change isn’t always additive, it can also be subtractive, and this is important, because maybe some things do have to be left behind for others to be preserved or created. One of the limitations of sentiments such as nostalgia is that people don’t remember the subpar aspects proportionally to the agreeable ones. Time comes with its tradeoffs, but for one who is prepared to sacrifice, it becomes a tool in and of itself.
Another anime I thought of while watching was Re:Zero, where the horror of time travel is partly about isolation as well as the accumulation of trauma. Would have fit in well, but you covered the topic quite well already. Subscribed!
AoT doesnt have "time travelling" per se, but it has elements of it. And it truly messed Eren up bad, something that I feel isn't talked about enough even amongst the AoT community.
The horror of it I think is that the only consistent timeline in which that type of time travel could have existed is the one in which Even is responsible for the plot that ensues... Which I think is the point of this video.
Surprised Dark wasn't mentioned! Adam's monologue captures the essence of what it is to be a time traveler so perfectly. It's originally in German and it's delivery is amazing with the soundtrack. "People are peculiar creatures. All their actions are driven by desire, their characters forged by pain. As much as they might try to suppress their pain, to repress desire, they cannot liberate themselves from their eternal servitude to their feelings. As long as the storm rages within them, they can find no peace. Not in life, not in death. And so, day after day, they will do all that must be done. Pain is their ship, desire, their compass. All that humankind is capable of."
@@ProfessorViral I'm going to second the recommendation for it. Dark genuinely might be the best TV show I've ever seen, as well as a prime example of time travel being horrifying.
@@ProfessorViralYou have to watch it! Not only is it easily the best depiction of time travel I’ve ever seen, it’s also just one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Depending on the situation, experiencing continuous time-loops like in the movie Groundhog Day could easily be a hellish existence depending on the day, location or your health at the time when the loops happen.
Steins;Gate is my favourite anime, and it's in part because Okabe, despite all the horror he experiences, still reaches a happy ending thanks to the power of human determination.
I’m sorry, but if you remember how his current self takes over the present okabe? Well when he saves her he will live a happy life, until the future moment when he sends the Dmail and will forget everything as the present okabe will only have known a life of suffering
@@inteallsviktigt Two things there: first is that when the D-Mail that altered fate from the Zero timeline to the canon end was sent, the Okabe of that timeline wasn't in that time period, so there wasn't one present to over-write the new Okabe that's coming along the Golden Ending timeline. Second is a fanfic, so clearly a grain of salt, but it had him writing a journal of everything that happens after achieving the Golden Ending so that if/when an alternate Okabe takes his place, he'll have something to help him know what's been happening.
@ Well to answer the former: The prime Okabe is in Steins gate zero. The ones perspective we follow all the time, so for him the world changed the moment he sent the Dmail. As we have to follow the chronological order that Okabe experiences. And the second: We just get to see the perspective from him in the timeline when he actually altered his past and he will live his best life with Kurisu for 10~ years, until the date his future self send the message. Even if he did write everything down, he still still have 10 years of memory without Kurisu that he essentially can’t experience. I would say it’s the most tragic part, even when he wins he still doesn’t get the luxury of experiencing it.
@ Again, to the first point, Okabe didn't send the D-Mail himself in the Zero timeline. He left in the time machine and had Faris send it back for him. So he wasn't present in the timeline when it was altered. So he wasn't there to overtake the Golden Ending Okabe. Regardless, this is just us both arguing our own perspectives of a show I presume we both enjoy. I see the hope and determination, you see the tragedy. Either way, what fun.
I'm only twelve minutes in, but the topic of loneliness has made me think of Interstellar again, which embodies this theme so well in my opinion. And i love the realistic take on time travel, meaning you can only travel forward. That adds to the horror aspect so well, because the loneliness is inherent in that. You travel out of all physical bounds, only going forward in a dimension everyone else will never experience in this way.
This is exactly how Eric Stoltz viewed time traveling in Back to the Future. He saw Marty as a tragic character because when he returned to the future it would no longer be his time, he is essentially a stranger and the life he previously had wouldn't exist.
My favourite time travel story is In Stars and Time, which really utilises the video game function to the fullest. You as the player feel the same despair and pain as the main character as you replay the same map over and over and over and over again. And there's a twist regarding the tutorial character which is horrifying when you think about it. I'd recommend it, it's 10/10 storytelling.
Dude should have absolutely mentioned Ekko from Arcane. Invention of Time Travel for the very singular use purpose of altering a cataclysmic event. It’s hopeful, and the way he yields it as a weapon if pretty unique to me as well.
This was such a pleasant listening, I feel like I haven't been able to find a video essay so lovingly crafted in a very long time. You actually made me listen to what you had to say rather than becoming just a voice in the background regurgitating information with no actual personal imput as I feel most content creators of this kind have turned into in the last year or so. Guess I'm sticking around
This was a fascinating watch! I can remember when I was 13 and during COVID, I wrote a story (instead of doing my work) where the main character rips a hole in space-time to save her best friend, and travels back to before she met her best friend and defeats the guy that would eventually have killed her best friend years before it happened. Because of this, she couldn’t go back to her time, because the world is now set to be irreparably different. My 13-year-old brain wasn’t smart enough to come up with a complicated solution, so the main character sacrifices herself on a mission because she fears meeting her past self and causing some messed up time stuff. The way I wrote it with my limited vocabulary at the time makes it a little more raw. I always thought time travel was horrific, my favourite trope now is time loops and time travel, although I’m not intellectual enough to write something coherent with proper rules.
it might be a lot of effort to put in, but if you want a horrific take on time loops, there's an alternate ending in steins;gate's visual novel (specifically suzuha ending) that messed me up for a long long time..
22:50 I get a lil upset when people hate on a fictional character for making bad decisions when the character is a kid or teen. Like oh you made no mistakes or dumb decisions when you were a teen? Sure bud
I mean, I also state that it's entirely within reason that she makes those mistakes and that they fit her character, and also that I like her as a character, so I hope this isn't directed at me haha
Of all the time travel stories out there, I think my favorite is Legacy of Kain. Kain regularly talks about the inevitability of time. Like a rapid river, a single man is only a pebble in its current. But suppose someone were to appear with some sort of special circumstance. Someone who, despite being only a pebble in a river, their impact is far greater than the river expects.
So far it's a fantastic video, but I have an argument in favor the Chloe ending of Life is Strange that still fits your analysis. You spend the entire game reversing time to fix mistakes, including undoing actions you've taken again and again. The Bay ending confirms what Chloe believed, however you could make the argument that Arcadia Bay being destroyed could be Max accepting consequences. She's letting go of her scrambles to fix things and accepting things as they are, no matter how painful.
Homura it's such a interesting character because she becomes less human everytime, her witch form has very interesting simbolisms but the ones I like the most it's her hat, which has a vinyl on it, and then she gets cut , a broken record, which repeats itself again and again. Her mouth it's covered, sewed, showing how she's unable to express her pain or to say anything. Such a hidden but good detail.
24:04 Something that's gonna stick with me forever is Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World's _"Behold, an unthinkable present."_ HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD past this point so please watch the series before reading the rest of my comment because it's one of the BEST time travel stories as far as I'm concerned. So anyway: Through a horrifying set of brief visions that assault Subaru, you get to see the consequences of everything he did to get to his current timeline, and the ones that stick out and get the most elaboration are the ones he self-deletes just to try and fix a problem. Starting with the time he slits his own throat just to save Rem, not thinking about how that would destroy Emilia, because why would he, he's just gonna reset, right?
Why would he think about it? What evidence does he have before then that those instances have any existence once he goes back to his save point? It's literally the author deciding to twist the screws to his already traumatized protagonist.
Alot of people fixate on the possibility of these worlds persisting as the thing revealed by this scene and miss the main message. In part because its so obvious if you're not an emotionally wrecked 17 year old who only recently upgraded from active self loathing to a simple lack of self worth. That Subaru's friends care about him and would not want him sacrificing himself "for their sake".
something i noticed watching this is the time machine in an episode of Phineas and Ferb where they time travel looks a lot like the one in The Time Machine
I already commented about Undertale, but Re:Zero would also be an interesting topic for this talk. Especially in regards with always trying to fix things and the self destruction of time loops. Honestly, I love time travel stories specifically because they're always horrifying to me; both for what it inflicts on the looper, and the people around them. You articulated a lot of the reasons why! Might be my new favorite video from you.
Subarus loops also come with the horrible experience of all the pain from his death carrying over into the next life. After so many "resets" it's hard to imagine how that would effect somebody's psyche.
Hey in defense of Homura, Madoka doesnt really that much better, she essencially ends the girls lives before they become witches, she just does it nicer, but its the only deasable thing that can be done, She wanted to put Sayaka out of he misory despite Sayaka alweays having been mean to her. And Madokas solution, does the same to all girls. Its not coldhearted, its just, the only thing that could be done. Hell Msadoka does the same and its the best outcome. Homura wasnt coldhearted not sociopathic, And she wanted tto save Madoka, she even was willing to be hated by her, away from her, so save her. She is very willing to move on if it mean Madoka could live. And in that case its literally the fate of the world too. In the original, Walpurgisnacht is that, witch Madoka, is that. Hell even Sayaka is mercy killing wit hhindsight, not dispassionate. And while Sayaka is a great character, she also is the one always opposing Homura, she isnt exactly a good person, she is a passionate person,but she is a very selfish emotional that cant think beyond that much. Homura tried to save her , she just wanted to save Madoka more. Homura defied any help, well written but, she is aeful to Sayaka near always and hating her and be jealous, as constant. And yes stopping her from beuing a wich is, mercy killing. She never lost he rhumanity, she just is broken. Yes in that situation its the most passionate and right thing to end her life. And Homura is still fristrated and sad over it. Its not her wanting to do it, it had to be done tragic. And that it didnt, did make her loose needed help to take Walpurgisnacht without Madoka becoming a magical girl/witch , and preventing her from being a witch too, so itt was right to do so and didnt did ruin the plan without ending the world, and stopping madoka from becoming was saving the world. So yes Sayuka, she was even trying to save he rbuut know Sayuka was beyond help because she is too emotional immature and biased against her, so she couldnt. And Homura was also justified that Madoka , does basically the same just kinder. Which is BS isnt it? So yes oh you do kill and thats fine but if i, Homura never lost her humanity, she just was broken reasonable having to still go whateve nessesary being isolated. If she wasnt willing to move on, she would, but there wasnt a way to move on, thats why she had only that, and broke. And she gave up on Sayaka because Sayaha is a fantastc character and understandable, bu an immature emotional girl that wont listen to reason, and understandable but, always in her way no matter what making eveything worse. And even ending her is out of mercy if calculated. Homura never was ok doing that, she just was desperate literally saving the world, which was yes she has flaws but its selfless at the core, which is , yeah Homuras flaw is what is also her saving the world at the end, And Madoka just makes that too if kinder but she ends lives too. Ther was no othe rway to go. Oh did you read/watch undead unluck, it, yeah. gets relevant.
It's not clear that killing magical girls on the cusp of turning is the only solution; it's just the best that a scared middle schooler could come up with in the time she had with the limited understanding she had. The entire story is about the aliens not understanding the powers they unleashed by granting Homura's wish, and the audience knows less about that than they do.
Futurama is built around that concept, maybe the trope of "fish-out-of-water" will always be a psychological horror for the individual involved. Moving a millennia into the future, so far out that no trace of your family and previous life seems to exist? You would be right to fear the immense despair of the unknown that he felt after falling back out of the cryogenic chamber. Maybe it's the lack of brevity through anchoring points like what Fry rediscovers as relics of his time period that makes it terrifying. Maybe it's also the horror of having anchoring points to have missed living through. Lost in an environment scales beyond what he was once used to, with technology he is no longer familiar with, it almost seems like a miracle that he didn't end up in the body disposal of the booth by a shiny metal ass.
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni has time travel elements that would fit into the box as well. They can't choose when it happens. But the world resets everytime Rika dies
I feel the urge to mention Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint as well, with the “protagonist” living through the apocalypse and every time he dies he “regresses” to the beginning, an hour or a few minutes before the apocalypse begins. What I say beyond this premise is gonna be spoilers for the webnovel/ manhwa so I’m just gonna keep it simple and say that the times this aspect of the character has been emphasized as horror in the story is truly insane. The character literally has an in universe title along the lines of “lonely pilgrim” or something.
I'm so surprised that you never mentioned doctor who, a series that I think perfectly encapsulates this idea that time travel forever changes and erodes your humanity and how that effects the people surrounding you. I think of Jackie Tyler, mother to the female protagonist of series 1 and 2, says to Rose "in 30, 40 years time there's a woman walking down a street on a planet some million light years away, but she's not my daughter, not any more."
If you like this subject, I think you'd like the show Link Click, which is a Chinese animated show about time travel. It's less about time traveling to save people (the first season at least) and more about time travel to appreciate human connections and experience different lives. I would highly recommend.
It is interesting how different stories that tackle time travel through direct actions are so different from time travel stories that are more reactive or forced upon the character. Re-Zero is a great example of a "fun" mix of both. Not only are we shown the horrifying implications of time travel removing bonds and memories from the people around you while you, alone, remembers everything that has happened, we also see how it becomes a part of the main characters biggest hurdles that he need to overcome in order to actually change and turn into the person he wants and needs to be to do what he wish to do. At the start of the show there is mostly the focus on his horrifying deaths. The horror of going through painful and sometimes outright tortures ends to his life are made VERY clear, and the fact he is unable to share his suffering and pain with anyone really enhance how this power is truly closer to a curse than a blessing. Yes, it makes him capable of surviving in such a hostile world, but it also breaks him several times. Makes him give up hope and let some of his worst aspects eat away at him. His self hate and self-doubt literally manifesting as another him trying to constantly break him down. It helps him survive, but it also mess with his ability to live. As he show goes on he slowly starts to use this power, turning into a more conscious decision on his part. He choose to go through the pain and suffering in order to correct his mistakes, by taking his own life a few times throughout the series. The pain and suffering he has to go through to activate this power perfectly illustrates the sacrifice and suffering he puts on himself in order to correct "mistakes" instead of changing his own outlook or himself. He becomes more distant and less human. He begins to rely on the power instead of on himself or the people around him, simply because he starts to see himself as the only one capable of taking on this heavy burden. But he isn't, because he can't actually handle it. It becomes even more of a curse when he starts to embrace it and worst of all, it doesn't even work. Since he isn't the one in control of how far back he goes when he dies, he suddenly lose the ability to correct what he sees to be his biggest mistake. Just when he began to believe that the power was his one and only redeeming part of himself, the power becomes nearly useless. He can't redo his choice no matter how much pain he goes through. This nearly breaks him, but what truly breaks him is when he tries to thank the person that gave him this power/curse. He hates the person that has handed him this cursed power, but he sees it as a means to an end. As his one redeeming quality that he can at least be the bearer of everyone's pain, so no one else have to suffer. It is his last clutch, and it gets removed when his "thank you" gets met by the person begging him not to use it. Not to hurt himself and not to think of himself as worthless. I actually love that in order to finally move out of the terrifying death-loop he had gotten himself into, what he needed to do was not going back in time, but outright promising not to use it. After he finally gets out of the death-loop he completely stops using the power. Yes, the power gets forced into getting activated, but he never wish to use the power. Even when he makes mistakes and end up getting his loved ones put into dangerous situations he doesn't resort to dying right away, like he would have had it been him prior to the death-loop. his time traveling goes back to being reactionary and against his will. He is still self sacrificial, but he has grown so much as a person that he stops using this morbid power as a clutch and instead rely on his friends and his own intelligence.
I can see the horror which you speak of, being stuck with something only you would know and only you would suffer from as well as the horror of becoming stuck in an unchanging world where there would only ever be outcomes which I don't desire despite having all the choices in the world. However despite that, the idea of time travel still captivates me for the sole reason of being able to right my regrets, change my choices and see new results. Maybe it wouldn't be as terrifying if it could only occur once and you could only have up to the second run through of events?
Absolutely fantastic essay! "Everything everywhere all at once" is my favorite movie in this vein It faces the existential horror of infinite possibilities and speaks to the parallels with modern life In our internet age we have "backwards time travel" where we can disappear, glued to our devices, watching endless videos and reading endless posts from years past, never looking up to engage in our current moment Never making meaningful connection, never needing to settle when you can always reach someone "better", smarter, wittier, more interesting, across the globe / time (spoiler alert) it ends with the decision to put all that choice and "settle", not because what's chosen is the best option, but because for your sake, you have to. You cannot live a life of infinite optionality, a human life is a life of moment by moment playing out the hand you dealt, warts and all
I just was talking to my friend yesterday about things like, what would my younger self think if they got to talk to me now? What would they say? I used to be so fascinated with everything sci-fi, but specifically time travel. If I had a conversation with my you get self we would clash so hard on whether time travel is good or bad, hell I’m not even sure if I fully think it IS bad, but I can recognize the pros and cons like those in this video.
This video was such an insightful dive into a favorite topic of mine in fiction. I know your channel is focused on anime, but I'd also love to see you dive into games like Xenoblade or something. Love your essays and how thought provoking they are, keep up the good work!
This video is absolutely, and astonishingly good, I'm surprised more people haven't watched it and liked it, this is a masterpiece! thank you for the extremely fun video, and thank you for all the work you have clearly put into it
The most tragic time travel tropes I've always considered are time loops. A full time loop. No escape, no secret way of breaking it, no humanistic lesson to be learnt in doing so, not even death can save you. The speedrun through the 5 stages of grief until either hitting a brick wall at depression and staying catatonic for eons because you just don't have any motivation left to keep trying or accepting your new reality and breaking your fundamental beliefs in morality and the concept of self to stay ""sane"" whatever that word means anymore in this new world. Your friends start becoming nothing more than videogame characters. The world, a cruel stage in which you can act your part as the star. Your own body, a prop in of itself with no importance and no real weight if anything bad happens to it. The pinnacle of dehumanization is to put someone through a time loop. The only being I've seen go through one and live on with their will intact is the Doctor and he did it by chipping away at a diamond mountain for 10 million years while dying at a rate of 1 death/18 hours xd
Time travel stories have always been my favorite. They always leave me with a great emptiness and feeling of isolation. The idea of time and/or causality itself as an antagonist always makes for a helpless struggle.
No normal human has enough time to read a VN. However, there are some scenes that’s are incredible explorations of these themes that are not as explored in the anime. Specifically, there’s a choice for Okabe to stay behind to prevent “the other John titor” from leaving. It causes Okabe to repeat the same day, over and over again, until he becomes cruel. There’s a conversation between them about what it means psychologically to give up on moving forward, to choose a real eternal reoccurrence. You should look up the other endings of Steins;gate if you are curious!
This was a PHENOMENAL video Mr ProfessorViral! I never thought of Time Travel as horror before, so hearing you out and reading some of the comments here was actually pretty insightful into a thought process/idea that i never took into consideration before. I think a tragic and lowkey terrifying time travel story is in Dragon Ball Z with Trunks, like he's trying his hardest to change the future but no matter what he does it doesn't affect HIS timeline, it only affects the one he travels to and that hits hard. All of his friends that made in the past are still dead in the future, his father Prince Vegeta the one who was supposed to help raise him he never grew up with, killed by the androids. His master the person who trained him how to fight and die like a true saiyan, Gohan, is nothing but a memory. And with Goku Black killing everyone including his own mother in his time and basically getting his whole world erased is just so tragic in my eyes. His mother built the time machine to try and save everyone and to a certain extent it did, it just didn't work the way they wanted to. And because of Trunks' actions in the past saving Goku and the others Zamasu got the idea for the Zero Mortal Plan and tried to execute it with his future self, and it was through those actions that caused Trunks even more pain and PTSD. Again PHENOMENAL video my good sir honestly 10/10 would watch again!
Ooh time travel is definitely my favourite topic in media! And youve done it so well! I would recommend looking into in stars and time, its a great rpg where the main protagonist suffers in a time loop, and I think youd find it interesting
Another interesting thing that makes time travel not something I would wish upon even my worst enemy is found in the movie Primer. There are so many ways time travel can work and have unintended consequences that once discovered, the notion of changing anything at all is enough to spiral you into existential anxiety like no other. The implications are too great to handle.
A good addition to this- There's a book series called "Mother of Learning" (Each book is called Arc 1, Arc 2, ect). Its a magic based fantasy that touches on this topic a bit, though it ends in a hopeful place. The premise is that the main character is pulled into a a time loop... that he's not in control of. It's not HIS loop, but someone elses, and he was unlucky enough to get sucked into it. And if that wasn't enough, he clocks on almost immediately he's NOT the only one pulled in- there's a third, malicious time traveler in the mix, so he cant dare reach out for help because he doesn't know who he can trust. It's a series that ends in a hopeful place, but it can be brutal at times, driving the characters to points they never would've imagined. Without spoiling to much, at one point the main character essentially starts running around torturing (bad) people to try and get even a CLUE of what's going on. It also gets really existential about life later in the series, once the true nature of the time loop is revealed. I highly recommend it if you're interested.
i have been thinking about these points for a while now but never could sort my thoughts out properly. thank you for making such an articulate video on this topic i love it!
Life is strange hates Chloe Pierce and no one will convince me otherwise. Want to save her dad to spare her grief, but now she’s paralyzed and doesn’t want to live. Save her, well I hope Chloe didn’t want to see her mom anymore and has a secure enough ego to handle the survivors guilt. She has no good ending
A very interesting topic and it made me reflect on a couple of my favorite titles that heavily feature time travel in the plot. The horror aspect is not a surprise in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, considering it deals with gruesome murders and such, but it's interesting to consider how the time travel factors into it. The discussion about Homura put in mind for me how she compares to Higurashi's time traveler Rika, how they are both reliving their worst days (for Rika, it's her own murder) while simultaneously trying to preserve their best (her happy days with her friends). Rika definitely has lost a lot of her humanity in cycling through so many loops, not only having to relive her own horrific death, but having to witness her friends' descents into paranoia and madness, often leading them to commit atrocities against each other. And yet remaining in the loop offers the only glimmer of hope in solving her murder and escaping that fate. It seems that having control over the time travel itself plays an important role in how the time traveler relates to it. One of my favorite films of all time is Groundhog Day, and it's interesting to contrast that story to some of the ones mentioned here. Unlike these stories, in Groundhog Day, Phil doesn't know why the day is on a perpetual loop. It's not something he wished for, he doesn't know how to control it, but he is aware of it happening. At first, he really leans into the aspect of the loop that lets him try different things until he gets it right, like in Life is Strange, such as when he sets up a date with Nancy by getting information from her the day before. He even at one point proclaims "I am a god" in regards to his ability to face zero consequences for his actions. But I think the fact that he doesn't control it and doesn't know when it will end makes a huge difference in how he relates to it, as he realizes that it could end at any time, so he has to live each loop like it's the one that will stick, giving him new purpose to his repeated day. Not knowing which version will be the one he has to live with forces him to act like the people who don't know they're looping, and do the things the best version of himself would do if he only had one shot. I think the beginning of the loop is the horror in that situation, because it is isloating to experience when no one else does, but later on it morphs into a positive, because the control is out of his hands.
For those that would like additional reading, I recommend the last short story of 'Friday Black'. I have no evidence other than topic/themes and timing, but I think it inspired Death Loop, the video game.
The 2014 film Mr. Peabody and Sherman execute the horror elements in such an interesting way. The fact that you could go back in time to a timeline where you already existed is such a bizarre concept. Despite it all, their lies a dangerous and catastrophic event that can easily be done by TOUCHING YOURSELF. Resulting in the end of not just the world but the whole timeline itself. It's...quite...chilling....
One paradox of time travel that ive always found fascinating is "If time travel could exist, it would have already existed."
The future implications of that is why I've always disliked the idea. The second it exists, the world is confirmed as deterministic; the future is already set and none of our actions matter
Bold of you to assume we're not extinct in the future 😂
“What do we want?”
“Time Travel!”
“When do we want it ?”
“It’s irrelevant!”
That makes a lot of assumptions about how time travel functions. If time travel splits timelines, such that your actions set you off on another branch, nothing you do in the past or future would affect THIS timeline. There could be literal quintillions of time travelers active right now that we know nothing about because they cannot affect this timeline.
I mean, if the many worlds theory is right, every possible outcome of every possible interaction creates a new universe. On that scale, a time traveler making a new reality to change arbitrarily is nothing unusual. Just another unlikely, yet still possible, interaction playing out.
@@myria2834 In that case time travel is pointless and it will not contribute to any meaningful story.
Nothing a time traveller could try to change in the past will actually change anything whatsoever because the universe where what they tried anew happened to begin with already exists.
Minor correction regarding Madoka Magica:
The wishes Kyubey grants aren't Monkey's Paw-style. He actually does his level best to grant the wishes exactly as intended with no corruption or sneaky tricks; the running theme, however, is that the girls he targets aren't experienced/mature enough to articulate what they actually want.
Sayaka's wish is a perfect example of this: she wished for Kyosuke to be healed, and that's exactly what she got- full recovery of his hand, back to being a virtuoso violinist, no strings attached. But what she actually WANTED was for him to love her, and to be with him, and when she starts to lose that it sends her spiralling. Kyoko revealing her backstory to Sayaka hammers this point home, complete with a moral as a little bow on top: "Use you wish for yourself, or you won't actually get what you want." The apocrypha reveals the backstory of several witches who essentially suffered the same fate (Charlotte's in particular is a big oof).
It takes Madoka herself the entire series to finally make her wish, at which point she's learned and grown enough to wish for what she truly wanted, and Kyubey grants it to the letter even though it goes against his agenda.
yeah but qb is also a liar by omission so he's still a scumbag.
@KyonV13 My analogy is those cartoon contracts with missable parts writen with very tiny letters, so that the other party doesn't notice and skips reading the clauses.
"It was there in the contract the entire time, not my problem if you didn't noticed it"
So, yeah, the end he still fooled the girls.
@@KyonV13 Oh yeah, not trying to defend him in the slightest, I just wanted to point out that the wishes themselves are never corrupted. That little speech he gives about "why do humans feel entitled to the truth" pisses me off to no end; he deliberately omits information or gives vague answers to questions in order to get what he wants, and then has the gall to act like he has some sort of moral high ground. Fuck Kyubey, Homucifer can't torment him enough.
Of course it's implied that, even in Madoka's case, the wish still backfired. In Rebellion she states that she would never choose to leave her life and family behind, and her arms are depicted as covered in self-cutting scars at one point. The fact that her family forgot about her adds even more pain to the pile, because it's a clear way to showcase that what happened to her is ultimately a tragedy.
I'm pretty sure that Kyubey doesn't actually grant the girls' wishes at all, but rather than the wishes are a side-effect of the soul crystallization process. This means that it's really the girls themselves who technically grant their own wishes, but that doesn't eliminate the factor that they actually have to know what they really want to wish for.
the time travelling movie by ADAM SANDLER, Click indeed gets so terrifying because the time he lost while travelling through his life makes him miss out on all the little moments that creates beauty in life. It is such an interesting movie due to starting out so tasteless.
Little moments don't create any kind of beauty it's a pointless moment in the human experience along with being a pointless moment in time
@righteous225wow, you're so edgy 😮
terrible movie but it gave me a lot to think about
@righteous225 Never had a parlay hit?
Can you imagine the impeccable story that was lost to rewrites into a whole other genre.
There is something so comforting that so many humans have made time travel stories from a shared feeling of regret.
We all only get one chance at life and it’s our first time doing it.
The fact that we get one chance at life is even more terrifying than what this video is explaining. And it sounds unfair and unforgiving.
I still believe in the infinite possibilities of time travel. As much as I can accept the reality as it is now, I'm still personally hoping to someday get the opportunity to go back and change something in my past in order to get the do-over at life I always want before I eventually pass away and go back to nothingness forever. I would do so only if the universe can give us the free will to create unlimited realities moving forward made by changes in the past. Because I don't want to break the fabric of the universe if there's only one. That would be terrible.
@@JakeBuccellato I hope one day we learn to accept instead of regret and move forward with the knowledge to make better decisions instead. in the end all those little decisions good or bad taught us something and took us where we needed to go and thats a beautiful thing when you can look back on it learn from it and accept it ❤🎉
@@JakeBuccellato Well, there is something called duplicates, where you have one in the past, and you repeat it yourself to end up having multiple copies who end up in the same timeline again and again. I do think time traveling is cool if you ask me, but combined with dimension traveling to explore other versions of earth you've never discovered before, it basically comes down to how well you survive.
@SuperFlashDriver Where did you hear that part?
@@JakeBuccellatoI'm still dreaming of being isekai'd, but with my luck I wouldn't be an adventurer and I'd just die at age 23 as a peasant.
Another aspect of time travel horror i was thinking about is the concept of cyclical time. I believe it was in an episode of Futurama where they essentially traveled back in time by traveling forward in time through the death and rebirth of the universe, eventually reaching the point they wanted in the first place.
This is straight up some cosmic horror shit, compared to the detachment of oneself from humanity.
Futurama as a whole is about letting go of the fear of death and embracing immortality for all its hardships, they have suicide booths because of how easy it is to just keep living, the whole universe is just cosmic horror
@@trenton8211it also covers a lot of philosophical ideas. It's my favorite American cartoon sitcom.
Also think of the last ever episode of (the original) futurama, before the new Disney episodes
Fry and Leela growing old together, forever trapped in a snapshot of the world they lived in, left to grow old together as their friends, co workers, and everyone else remains just the same age.
It’s not travelling in time strictly, but still feels like an interesting and relevant case study
Also I’m unashamed to say that episode has made me shed probably a pint of body weight just through my tear ducts and nose 🥹😂
You do not need time travel for the same effect. The universe if infinite eventually will repeat you, me and anything which is or was. Randomly go in to the void and you might find another humanity that has nothing to do with our abiogenesis but are a 1-to-1 xerox of us. Boltzmann brain concept on a diabolically comedic scale for eternal amusement in absurdity.
@heraadrian7764 That's kind of cool though. I learned a new thing today. Thanks!
When you time travel before & after your loved ones are completely different than the ones you knew
You're entirely different too; you've lived moments with them that they'll never know about
@@ProfessorViral I wonder if parallels could be made between talking to loved ones with dementia and this phenomenon
I definitely see time travel causing it @StarMirandaFlowerFruit
@@thehermitman822 you should watch the film
predestination (2014)
@@ProfessorViral
I'd say A Certain Magical Index explores this in a later volume where the MC undergoes a cruel trial under a demi-god
time travel is one of those story devices that horrifies me so much when i think too hard about it. im so hype to hear you speak on it ! :D
It fits right into my favorite category to analyze, which is nonsense extremes where common logic has to be discarded. I think it's why I like dystopian literature so much, because they often use the same idea
The best way to calm that feeling is to realize only the insanely rich and powerful will ever be able to do it in your life time if at all. If ever. Helps me. Maybe it'll help you too... Or maybe that's more terrifying 😐 Sorry!
@ its so fun to hear people travel down those nonsense extremes in video essays. usually i just have those trains of thoughts going in my head, but hearing someone else explore them is really refreshing. you gave some great new perspective, awesome work on this video :D
I think what you said about the horror of infinite choices and how unsatsfying and terrifying that is is very interesting because it goes against what undertale says. Part of the horror in undertale IS that it's fininte. The horror is a completionist one. Once you play all the options, those friends you made are just characters in a game you finished. Curiosity about the other options is the motivation to become an actual monster. Finishing the complete game, especially killing to finish it, and especially especially the genocide route is what makes you the villain of undertale. It being finite is apart of the horror; to the other characters the horror is facing against a time traveler, being reduced to entertainment for them; but the horror for Frisk/Chara and Flowey is that once you play long enough, that's all they can ever be: these friends you adored, now entertainment that eventually bores you. Because as Flowey describes...
"At first, I used my powers for good. I became 'friends' with everyone. I solved all their problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing... For a while. As time repeated, people proved themselves predictable. What would this person say if I gave them this? What would they do if I said this to them? Once you know the answer, that's it. That's all they are."
*I know everything about everyone by heart - all I need to do is enjoy. * -Not much of a horror fate, actually the best comedy is when you see people insist of crafting their own hell of misery and giving them this wish of the heart.
"those friends you made are just characters"
Post book depression. You can reread the series but that is just revisiting memories. They can never again be the dynamic people they were to you at one point. When you finish a story you literally kill the characters.
Altho is not a canon
In Undertale Yellow flowey even shows his dislike for the genocide route
since for him, yeah it was fun at first but then, it's all pointless, Good, evil, both become meaningless, boring
in end just becoming an spectator, just watching it unfolds without you,
I've only played it once. And i got the pacifist ending (true end).
To be honest, Angels With Scaly Wings also showed you sort of time travelling, but more of the amount of times you have died in the game, and by the time you get to the final ending, you see a huge pile of bodies that just so happen to be you, but the failure versions of yourself. At that time when I saw that, I was in shock that the thing I would be speculating, all those memories and experiences you went through many times before, it's still there in your mind, but now you end up going further into the endgame, and thus, you close that part of your chapter and free those dragons into the future, and thus, the next game unfortunately had the dragons create their own civilization besides the human beings in another city.
the speech at about a minute and a half in is so So true. I'm only time travelling at a speed of one second per second and I'm already experiencing the horrors!
I think that's one of the things that this misses about time travel stories. In the end, there's no difference between time travel and just living. We live in a world of infinite possibilities, that we have no way of predicting. Time travel simply allows you to remove one of an infinite number of paths, but infinity minus 1 is still infinity. Most of these stories show the worst possible outcomes because of entertainment value, but the reality is traveling back in time to make a change would have the same outcome as any other choice you make in your life - stuff will happen. Some of it will be good, some of it will be bad. But it would be no worse than just making choices in your linear life.
@@jonathanhibberd9983 This is true but there are certainly worse choices than others.
@@xCorvus7x But the thing is, if this were real life, we wouldn't know. If you go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, do you prevent WWII? Do you make it worse? Does nothing happen and some other guy rise to power to become the monster? How would you know, how COULD you know? All these stories make the outcome worse because that fits the narrative they want to tell of time travel being dangerous. But the reality is, all you're doing is making a choice given certain information you have at your disposal, just like everyone does every day. And just like everyone's choices, whatever new outcome you create, some of it will be good, some of it will be bad, and some will be neither.
@@jonathanhibberd9983 How strict do you mean the word knowing here? We always look back when we try to be careful going forward. Naturally experiences and insights from the past aren't literally 100% completely applicable to future events.
Whether stories take this or that turn just to fit the purpose of a narrative is a stark allegation. It all depends on how the consequences of a given change to the past unfold. Once you assume that it could have gone differently, there's a myriad of ways it could have gone and some of them are bound to be just as bad as or in fact worse than what happened originally.
Furthermore, I doubt that there exists such a narrative to begin with. With time travel being a fictional concept, there is no point to convince people in reality of it being safe or dangerous. These stories are really just dealing with human hubris touching on the order of the world and what is right, similar to Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Besides, it's not all stories that have changing the past turn out badly. The Back to the Future films have the past change in ways that improve the present quite radically.
Initial trouble caused by time travel have to be granted in the case that the story is about fixing those problems. Again, such a story isn't really about time travel but only uses it as a means for a somewhat magical adventure.
The year is 2025, and we still talking about peak fiction known as madoka
I swear I will talk about this series until they finally give us this god damn movie
@ listen I love this series to the point I made a oc and designed a fucking witch (that I’m still insanely proud of) so I’m for it
Tragic yuri my beloved!!
Masterpiece. Gen Urobuchi also wrote Kamen Rider Gaim and he pulled a lot of plot beats from Madoka.
@@akwilson1676 yep yep
Time Traveler's Wife also shows the horrors of time travel, but to a person who cannot control it.
is that the movie where he kinda groom her? 😭
And literally effed himself
@@chiki1010yeah, but to be fair, his adult self experienced visiting her at a child after years of his wife told him stories of their visits together, which puts the idea into his head kinda? She experienced it before he did, and since she had a positive memory of their times together I think that led him to feel better about talking to her when she was younger. Is it weird and troubling? Yes. But not from the perspective that he was problematic, more like the setup of reality was very problematic 😂
@@chiki1010 No. He interacted with her. He engaged with her. He did not groom her. Calling that grooming lessens the bad of actual grooming and is a disservice to victims.
That movie sucked. The book was better
A video essay??? abaout time travel?? and talk about the horrors beyong human comprehension?? AND LIFE IS STRANGE SEGMENT??? im gonna have a blast dissociating while im drawing, i have no idea who you are but please keep up the good work !!! Your videos are absolutely so cool thank you
I'm glad that I can make something so exciting!
I made one of my best looking drawings to this video
And madoka magica! Can't miss out on that
Another series that tackles this really well, i think, is Re;zero, specifically in season two.
Subaru has the ability to go back in time to a checkpoint (that he doesnt set himself) when he dies, and he got comfortable in abusing that ability. Its especially well done because it also addresses audience expectations. Its easy to see subaru making mistakes (which happens often) or when something bad happens (which also happens often) and think "why dont subaru just reset?"
There's also a what-if story by the author where Subaru failed and fell to greed.
In this story he agrees to a contract, where he uses his return by death ability to gather information for his contract partner who then uses said information to figure out the best path Subaru can take to achieve his goals. All his partner wants is to know as many what if scenarios as possible.
In this story after Subaru basically managed to save everyone on his own after countless deaths, he is found to have a seemingly perfect day until he upsets Emilia slightly and decides to kill himself just for that, as it is not a perfect outcome.
This hits home especially hard in the episode where Subaru is forced to see the suffering of those he left behind in the timelines he abandoned.
I could name another, but I don’t want to spoil it.
Re:zero is a really interesting example of time travel media imo because its length and maintained narrative focus on resetting means it explores it a lot more thoroughly than other media on the same topic. A lot of season 2 of the anime is about subaru not just learning how to survive (though thats been made harder than ever), but how to truly love and value himself and others, to trust others despite them not having his ability, and accept his own humanity in the process.
@@StarlasAiko there are no timelines just one timeline
Link Click is a chinese anime surrounding time travel that I recently discovered and I feel like you'd enjoy. I was intrigued by its portrayal of time travel and consequences of trying to alter the past for the future. It hooked me in from the first episode and got even better from there. Nice video!
Clicked on the vid bc i hoped I'd see link click lol
LINK CLICK MENTIONED
Yesss link click! It only keeps getting better hehe
Link click
@@duca_4951 TRUEEE especially with the bridon arc just releasing
Homura and Okabe in the same thumbnail hit me different. Absolutely love those two and the series they come from, seeing their determination and borderline obsession with fixing a problem and how it changes them is so compelling to see.
Ah yes, the pair that embodies the "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" quote.
And I love them for it.
The true horror of time travel in Steins;Gate specifically comes about when you realize the implications that Zero has. Up until that point you could technically handwave away any failed timelines as not happening, as there's some wishy-washy explanation that only one timeline is 'active' at a time or something, but now we see canonically and clearly that other timelines, including even other Okabes, all live out their tortured, pained realities just like normal. This means that throughout the course of the show, we see ONLY our one true Okabe lead his way to eventual happiness, but basically EVERY SINGLE friend he has in every single timeline but the last one all live out truly horrific timelines while Okabe himself instead got to fuck off to a better timeline.
This also leaves an interesting question as well: Would each given timeline continue on, with the point at which 'our' Okabe jumps back from instead resulting in them standing around confused why the time machine didn't function (both for either the D-mail or the mind-leap versions)? If not, the only other option would effectively be that the time machine literally DESTROYS that given timeline at that moment, which is all the more horrifying.
Then you pair all that with the fact that, even when they FINALLY manage to find the 'true' timeline, the "Stein's Gate" of the title, they will still be forced to live with the knowledge that anytime ANYTHING significant or negative happens in the world in that timeline, they, and THEY ALONE, could simply build another time machine and retroactively stop that tragedy from happening, yet knowingly have to not do so out of the sheer fear of the potential consequences it would bring. As you best put it, it's the power of a mad god, and the responsibility would be mind shattering at every corner. What happens when, even in the 'best' or 'true' timeline, some simple accident ends the life of one of his friends yet again?
The point of the story at the core, is that nothing good comes from time travel.
The point of the story is that time travel is both a curse and a blessing. The idea that it only causes bad things is just as contradicted by the script as the idea that it only causes good things.
Man-God you say hmmm…?
Reminds me of the video game SOMA!
I'd argue that that is one of many reasons it's clear that _Steins;Gate_ was a one-and-done.
I don't remember Zero exactly, long time ago I've watched, but I finished the show with the impression that all different timelines become mere possibilities relative to the main timeline that is currently happening.
I understood the only timeline existing is the one the Okabe we follow in the show is standing. The Sern Superpower timeline (Mayuri dies), the world war 3 timeline (Kurisu dies) and all its variants orbiting those become possibilities once Okabe reaches the Steins;gate timeline in the end (neither Mayuri ou Kurisi die). The other timelines existed for a brief moment while Okabe was travelling there, but ceased to exist once he made de 1% field attractor jump to the Steins gate.
My interpretation is that every version of everything that exists in the other timelines colapsed to be the only single version of the timeline currently on. That was WW3 timeline in the beginning, then Cern timeline for the most part of the anime, then the steins:gate timeline in the end. And those three timelines existed because Okabe was observing and interacting with them (he is the lone observer), they were created by the time travel.
(again, I may have missed or forgotten some part in Zero in which they explain accurately the things just like you said)
The thesis of this video funnily enough is the thesis of my favorite dnd character I've played. A time mage trying to break the laws of magic and spacetime to prevent tragedies they know in their soul it cannot be stopped.
It's a hype concept for a character given there's so much personal drama in reliving the same moments
"Divinity seems defined by echo"
One of my favorite lines from House of Leaves, and I feel like this essay gets why, especially in the Homura section.
I hadn't heard of that one until now, but I'll have to keep it in mind. It seems like a very interesting way to experience a story
I actually just got the book. It's so good so far.
I can’t recommend it enough - it’s wonderfully mind bending.
@@ProfessorViral Kinda seems like the quote represents taking a mirror and putting in front of another mirror. Echo = Infinity
@@ProfessorViral House of Leaves is genuinely incredible if you read it in the right (or maybe wrong) headspace. While it's canonically not at the end of the book the chronological last line of Johnny always gets me.
What really struck me about Madoka Magica is that despite trying to save Madoka and failing uncountable times, Homurs CAN'T give up hope. She MUST continue to rewind time and save Madoka, because in the act of giving up and giving in to despair, Homura will become a witch. So it is through her own willpower that Homura keeps going. She knows that her wish is doomed to failure, she knows now exactly what becoming a nagical girl means, and knows thst she can't keep any of them from meeting their fate, but she continues in the hope that she can save at least Madoka.
That's why, there in the last battle with Walpurgisnaught, Homura seems so desperate. Kyubey's revelation that with every cycle, she is making Madoka even more powerful, snd making it worse when she does become a witch, has her hesitating at the end. She is almost about to give up. We see her consider rewinding time, and then consider not rewinding. She's about to give in, and let herself become a witch, when Madoka shows up. At least that's the way I interpret it.
i am someone who ADORES H.G.wells and to hear someone use his stories for something like this, you had me hooked immediately
I have a dedicated analysis for The Island of Doctor Moreau that's been cooked and waiting for a few months. Hopefully I'll be able to turn it into a video soon 👀
If it's about the horror of time travel in Steins;Gate, there is also a sub-plot of Suzuha (best girl) going back in time to do an important task, just to get caught in an accident, lost her memory and completely missing it, then regain her memory again.
The pain and horror of realizing you are in a period that you do not belong to, having lost all your purpose and your connections, and knowing that you will never get the chance of being consolated by your important ones. It's like being stranded, but ways worse.
goooood, her letter when she finally remembered when it was too late? 😭
My favorites is Re;Zero for the fact that everytime subaru loops back to his checkpoint he can't control it and it would returned him at random point in times, doesn't help that he can't tell everyone about it so the feeling of isolation is slowly killing him inside and almost got him manipulated by certain character in s2. Even after he managed to slowly start fixing his low self esteem by learning to love himself, he still feel lonely and feels like even if he understand his friends... none of them will really understand him fully well even until now.
that short point in S1 where he wakes up hearing the first line spoken to him in the new world and for a tiny moment he fears he went all the way back. to a point where he had nothing, where he died multiple times just to get to stay with Emilia
Listening to the intro section, this is VERY true for the indie game "In Stars and Time."
Exactly what I’ve been thinking of this whole video!!
ISAT MENTIONEDDDDDDD EVERYONE NEEDS TO PLAY THIS MASTERPIECE
ISAT les GOOOO
Thank god a comment mentioned it!
Really? I forgot what the intro was, guess I gotta *Start Again*
ba dum tsss
Funniest line in life is strange
"Ah stupid gun!"
You think about how immature that response is and then you realize tons of people unironically think that
It's the "shoving a stick in your own bike spokes" meme lol
@ProfessorViral yup.
Except then you realize how many people are doing exactly that
What do mean by tons of people think that?
I’d wager maybe 20 people in the past 100 years have thought that. And 19 in the context of the gun being cheap and not working.
@@denimherdlevr2293 Like 'my dog pissed on the floor, it must be stupid'
I never liked the kind of time travel stories where the solution is to undo all the time travel. It's hard to articulate why.
To me that feels like a 'two steps forward, two steps back' kind of deal. Like, your sprinting through the story at top speed, spending lots of time and effort, only to find you were on a treadmill the whole time, and never actually moved anywhere.
I like how it's done in Steins;Gate, since they stress how much even that act changes him across many episodes, rather than just simply concluding on a single undo
@@shaihulud3140 Usually at least the time traveler has been impacted, so it's not like nothing has moved. The question I guess for me is what did they learn? What good lesson are WE supposed to take away?
This is actually a really interesting effect of going through the story rather than reading about the story. Every time you have to change a wish back in Steins, it is brutally painful. You have time to sit with each character, discuss the morality of their wish, discuss if it’s right for Okabe, and by extension the player, to undo the wish. Okabe and you get that time with each wish, and so you carry that with you to the end as stress. That buildup of stress made the ending the most cathartic I’ve ever seen.
Also, that’s for the VN, which is if you enjoy the anime I highly recommend. It’s the intended way to experience the story.
@shaihulud3140 Reminds me of learning about Work in highschool. If it's at the same point before and after, no work is done.
... Off topic... Why didn't they talk about Work in Calc Based Physics?..
I don't even need time travel to experience its horrors. All you need to do is grow up. As a child reaching your favorite times of the year, or school to end felt like it would take forever. But as an adult you are left with wondering how fast time goes by, and it feels like it's accelerating even though I am still simply going one second per second. For instance, I just celebrated Christmas, but that was already a month ago.
Thanks for making this video! Madoka Magica and Steins;Gate are ones of my favorite anime.
Damn... Christmas truly was a month ago wtf it seemed like yesterday
Okarin's journey legitimately fucked me up, even after finishing both Steins;Gate and zero I still feel like such a wreck. I don't think I've ever connected with a character and felt as much pain as I have with Okarin.
But my god did it feel good in Zero when he broke the laugh back out. All that pain, all that fear, all that certainty that he could never overcome the uncertain consequences of his actions, and then just "fuck it, I don't need to. I don't know shit but that doing nothing will change nothing, and that this is the worst. So better get back at it, it's not like it will drive me mad because as a scientist _I already AM!"_
The man metaphorically tells fate to fuck off over and over again until it just gives up and lets him win. And then _gloats about it_ with a Jojo's pose because why the hell not, he earned it.
Always thought time travel was fun concept when watching Back to the Future only to fear that a single change in you’ll risk causing more pain to oneself while phasing out of existence :(
Tbh back to the future or doctor who arent as well written or developed as deeply as stuff like steins gate.
It’s a fun movie but it def didn’t get the horror that time travel really is
Honestly the fact that everything ends up better in Back to the Future feels like a one in 100,000,000 chance. But I give it a pretty big pass for both having limited time as a movie, and also just being pretty damn great otherwise. A few lines to add that thematic relevance of chance and it could have been stellar in that way too
@@ColonizerChan Back to the future is, more about him , ok its not too deep if still having character stuff.
And Dr who can, but its most ly a story of the week, inless its a multiparter. And it does even talk about the Doctor needs a companion to be grroundsed and not loose his humanity . To not become a monster.
Back to the future has my least favorite trope for time travel. The vanishing because you messed with the past. Sure there's no YOU in the timeline technically. But you still exist due to YOUR OWN personal history that still happened.
@@ProfessorViral I get why you feel that way. But... it's also something that makes complete sense. A lot of original timeline troubles are caused by dad's spinelessness. So, when in the past the dad grows a spine, it causes a future where everything's better. Exaggerated for the sake of the story, ofc. But nonetheless, a good moral about learning from your mistakes and standing up for yourself/those you care about.
What I like about Life is Strange is that some moments you expect to require rewinding time to solve can actually be achieved without it on the first run. In some games, even if you know the solution beforehand, you’re forced to use your power to progress.
Saving Chloe (Bathroom):
This was achievable in the original. I tried it again in the remaster, but I couldn’t. I could see the button to crack the alarm, but it wouldn’t let me select it.
Other Moments I Haven’t Tested Yet in the Remaster:
• Entering the dorm
• Reaching the top of the lighthouse before the path is broken
• Saving Chloe (train tracks)
• Saving Kate
• Escaping the pool
• Cracking David’s laptop password
I’m not sure why finding Frank’s diary was in my video as another example of this. I can’t remember, lol. Maybe it was due to a time limit situation.
One of the few series that has time travel be something of beauty and that I thinks makes us arguably MORE human is “Before the Coffee Gets Cold.” All the stipulations like that they can’t change the future and they can’t leave the cafe, along with the quick time limit, makes it way less possible to experience the horrors of time travel. With that, every character we ever see finds solace with something that has haunted them, and they often realize that the ones they love dont hate them for something they did or forgives them. There’s peace to be found every time someone goes back or forward.
Okay this is the moment when I tell everyone to GO PLAY THE INDIE GAME “IN STARS AND TIME”
it’s an rpg maker game about time loops and it’s perfect for the concept on even just the thumbnail of this video. It is of course a time loop game, which is time travel adjacent, but it was genuinely able to convince me that time loops are worse than the curse of immortality. The psychology behind all of it and it’s impact on a person’s mental state is fascinating
I was looking for this comment. ISAT encapsulates the horror of time travel flawlessly.
I was looking for someone else to say this! God ISAT is a beautiful game
was JUST coming here for this, I only played it this week and I'm obsessed with it
I was just about to comment something similar lol
Reminds me of about time, where time travel causes the guy to have a completely different kid after he alters the past. Horrifying tbh
It creates a world where everyone knows you, but you don't actually know them even if you think you do. It would feel like you've gone crazy
Also Aporia, a 2023 film... Same idea. Edit: let's add Mirage from 2018... Spanish title was Durante la Tormenta (during the storm)
There is nothing more terrifying than travelling to a world where you don’t exist and not being able to leave. Especially if it’s the same time and place that you should exist in.
I think, it would be worse to travel to a word where you already exist and can't leave.
I think the thing about the uncertainty of the future is that it’s almost always taken to be greater than that of the past. Even if much of history is inaccurate or incomplete, there is at least some idea of its general events to expect. However, the future is something that linearly progressing humanity can only hope to predict, and its prediction is based largely on hope.
Change is perhaps scary to individuals who thrive in the present, because they don’t know what the future will bring. However, to those who have already lost, those who are already out of time, anything can seem like an improvement in comparison, and they practically rely on the inevitability of change.
What happens when someone sacrifices so much for a future that doesn’t live up to their hopes? What if humanity never becomes as advanced or civilized as someone hoped? The pain of losing the future can be even greater than losing whatever was of the past, because the hopes of the future can be made perfect in comparison to the limitations of the past.
The moment someone is stuck in that future time, it becomes their present again, and they have that time to adapt and live in it just as they would in any time, but is it truly that much better? Change isn’t always additive, it can also be subtractive, and this is important, because maybe some things do have to be left behind for others to be preserved or created. One of the limitations of sentiments such as nostalgia is that people don’t remember the subpar aspects proportionally to the agreeable ones. Time comes with its tradeoffs, but for one who is prepared to sacrifice, it becomes a tool in and of itself.
Gwenpool was a pretty good comic due to these themes
Another anime I thought of while watching was Re:Zero, where the horror of time travel is partly about isolation as well as the accumulation of trauma. Would have fit in well, but you covered the topic quite well already.
Subscribed!
AoT doesnt have "time travelling" per se, but it has elements of it. And it truly messed Eren up bad, something that I feel isn't talked about enough even amongst the AoT community.
The horror of it I think is that the only consistent timeline in which that type of time travel could have existed is the one in which Even is responsible for the plot that ensues... Which I think is the point of this video.
AoT definitely has time travel. Consciousness based time travel. The entire story has been manipulated since the beginning by a Future Eren.
More like 4d perception
Surprised Dark wasn't mentioned! Adam's monologue captures the essence of what it is to be a time traveler so perfectly. It's originally in German and it's delivery is amazing with the soundtrack.
"People are peculiar creatures. All their actions are driven by desire, their characters forged by pain.
As much as they might try to suppress their pain, to repress desire, they cannot liberate themselves from their eternal servitude to their feelings.
As long as the storm rages within them, they can find no peace. Not in life, not in death.
And so, day after day, they will do all that must be done.
Pain is their ship, desire, their compass. All that humankind is capable of."
It's the second mention I've seen here in the comments, so it's on the watch list for sure!
@@ProfessorViral oh boy, you're in for a treat 😂😂 I'm subbing cause you won't be able to help making a video once you see it 😂 Its a masterpiece
@@ProfessorViral I'm going to second the recommendation for it. Dark genuinely might be the best TV show I've ever seen, as well as a prime example of time travel being horrifying.
@@ProfessorViral dark is great!
@@ProfessorViralYou have to watch it! Not only is it easily the best depiction of time travel I’ve ever seen, it’s also just one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Depending on the situation, experiencing continuous time-loops like in the movie Groundhog Day could easily be a hellish existence depending on the day, location or your health at the time when the loops happen.
Steins;Gate is my favourite anime, and it's in part because Okabe, despite all the horror he experiences, still reaches a happy ending thanks to the power of human determination.
I’m sorry, but if you remember how his current self takes over the present okabe?
Well when he saves her he will live a happy life, until the future moment when he sends the Dmail and will forget everything as the present okabe will only have known a life of suffering
@@inteallsviktigt Two things there: first is that when the D-Mail that altered fate from the Zero timeline to the canon end was sent, the Okabe of that timeline wasn't in that time period, so there wasn't one present to over-write the new Okabe that's coming along the Golden Ending timeline.
Second is a fanfic, so clearly a grain of salt, but it had him writing a journal of everything that happens after achieving the Golden Ending so that if/when an alternate Okabe takes his place, he'll have something to help him know what's been happening.
@ Well to answer the former:
The prime Okabe is in Steins gate zero. The ones perspective we follow all the time, so for him the world changed the moment he sent the Dmail. As we have to follow the chronological order that Okabe experiences.
And the second: We just get to see the perspective from him in the timeline when he actually altered his past and he will live his best life with Kurisu for 10~ years, until the date his future self send the message. Even if he did write everything down, he still still have 10 years of memory without Kurisu that he essentially can’t experience.
I would say it’s the most tragic part, even when he wins he still doesn’t get the luxury of experiencing it.
@ Again, to the first point, Okabe didn't send the D-Mail himself in the Zero timeline. He left in the time machine and had Faris send it back for him. So he wasn't present in the timeline when it was altered. So he wasn't there to overtake the Golden Ending Okabe.
Regardless, this is just us both arguing our own perspectives of a show I presume we both enjoy. I see the hope and determination, you see the tragedy. Either way, what fun.
I'm only twelve minutes in, but the topic of loneliness has made me think of Interstellar again, which embodies this theme so well in my opinion. And i love the realistic take on time travel, meaning you can only travel forward. That adds to the horror aspect so well, because the loneliness is inherent in that. You travel out of all physical bounds, only going forward in a dimension everyone else will never experience in this way.
This is exactly how Eric Stoltz viewed time traveling in Back to the Future. He saw Marty as a tragic character because when he returned to the future it would no longer be his time, he is essentially a stranger and the life he previously had wouldn't exist.
It's a shame ReZero isn't explored here, it's a very quintessential case study of the topic of this video and reinforces a lot.
My favourite time travel story is In Stars and Time, which really utilises the video game function to the fullest. You as the player feel the same despair and pain as the main character as you replay the same map over and over and over and over again. And there's a twist regarding the tutorial character which is horrifying when you think about it. I'd recommend it, it's 10/10 storytelling.
Dude should have absolutely mentioned Ekko from Arcane. Invention of Time Travel for the very singular use purpose of altering a cataclysmic event. It’s hopeful, and the way he yields it as a weapon if pretty unique to me as well.
Oh 100%
Literally the best episode of the series
This was such a pleasant listening, I feel like I haven't been able to find a video essay so lovingly crafted in a very long time. You actually made me listen to what you had to say rather than becoming just a voice in the background regurgitating information with no actual personal imput as I feel most content creators of this kind have turned into in the last year or so. Guess I'm sticking around
This was a fascinating watch! I can remember when I was 13 and during COVID, I wrote a story (instead of doing my work) where the main character rips a hole in space-time to save her best friend, and travels back to before she met her best friend and defeats the guy that would eventually have killed her best friend years before it happened. Because of this, she couldn’t go back to her time, because the world is now set to be irreparably different. My 13-year-old brain wasn’t smart enough to come up with a complicated solution, so the main character sacrifices herself on a mission because she fears meeting her past self and causing some messed up time stuff. The way I wrote it with my limited vocabulary at the time makes it a little more raw. I always thought time travel was horrific, my favourite trope now is time loops and time travel, although I’m not intellectual enough to write something coherent with proper rules.
it might be a lot of effort to put in, but if you want a horrific take on time loops, there's an alternate ending in steins;gate's visual novel (specifically suzuha ending) that messed me up for a long long time..
4:59 I'm only 5 minutes in and you have captivated me with your storytelling already you do a great job.
22:50 I get a lil upset when people hate on a fictional character for making bad decisions when the character is a kid or teen. Like oh you made no mistakes or dumb decisions when you were a teen? Sure bud
I mean, I also state that it's entirely within reason that she makes those mistakes and that they fit her character, and also that I like her as a character, so I hope this isn't directed at me haha
Womp Womp
@@JustCrashanti spiral
Of all the time travel stories out there, I think my favorite is Legacy of Kain. Kain regularly talks about the inevitability of time. Like a rapid river, a single man is only a pebble in its current. But suppose someone were to appear with some sort of special circumstance. Someone who, despite being only a pebble in a river, their impact is far greater than the river expects.
Vea Victis!
@@LocustaVampa Ahem... ☝(≖ ͜ʖ≖)👉*Vae victis
@@heraadrian7764 Kaa Naama Ftah'n Cthulhu!
@ Young one, we agreed to speak mortal on these earths. Yes 👁
So far it's a fantastic video, but I have an argument in favor the Chloe ending of Life is Strange that still fits your analysis.
You spend the entire game reversing time to fix mistakes, including undoing actions you've taken again and again. The Bay ending confirms what Chloe believed, however you could make the argument that Arcadia Bay being destroyed could be Max accepting consequences. She's letting go of her scrambles to fix things and accepting things as they are, no matter how painful.
link click is doing time travel so well i’m hooked on it
Homura it's such a interesting character because she becomes less human everytime, her witch form has very interesting simbolisms but the ones I like the most it's her hat, which has a vinyl on it, and then she gets cut , a broken record, which repeats itself again and again. Her mouth it's covered, sewed, showing how she's unable to express her pain or to say anything. Such a hidden but good detail.
24:04 Something that's gonna stick with me forever is Re: Zero - Starting Life in Another World's _"Behold, an unthinkable present."_ HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD past this point so please watch the series before reading the rest of my comment because it's one of the BEST time travel stories as far as I'm concerned. So anyway:
Through a horrifying set of brief visions that assault Subaru, you get to see the consequences of everything he did to get to his current timeline, and the ones that stick out and get the most elaboration are the ones he self-deletes just to try and fix a problem. Starting with the time he slits his own throat just to save Rem, not thinking about how that would destroy Emilia, because why would he, he's just gonna reset, right?
Why would he think about it? What evidence does he have before then that those instances have any existence once he goes back to his save point? It's literally the author deciding to twist the screws to his already traumatized protagonist.
Alot of people fixate on the possibility of these worlds persisting as the thing revealed by this scene and miss the main message. In part because its so obvious if you're not an emotionally wrecked 17 year old who only recently upgraded from active self loathing to a simple lack of self worth.
That Subaru's friends care about him and would not want him sacrificing himself "for their sake".
@@nimnimn6930 It can be both, you know.
your presence, through your videos, is very comforting. thank you for making them 🩵🩷🤍
Of course, thank you for spending some of your time with them!
In Stars and Time is another great example from a video game standpoint. The Warrior Returns has another great time loop horror moment.
something i noticed watching this is the time machine in an episode of Phineas and Ferb where they time travel looks a lot like the one in The Time Machine
I already commented about Undertale, but Re:Zero would also be an interesting topic for this talk. Especially in regards with always trying to fix things and the self destruction of time loops. Honestly, I love time travel stories specifically because they're always horrifying to me; both for what it inflicts on the looper, and the people around them. You articulated a lot of the reasons why! Might be my new favorite video from you.
Subarus loops also come with the horrible experience of all the pain from his death carrying over into the next life. After so many "resets" it's hard to imagine how that would effect somebody's psyche.
I feel like the mind is so totally reliant on the present moment going in one direction that bucking that system would be dangerous psychologically.
Hey in defense of Homura, Madoka doesnt really that much better, she essencially ends the girls lives before they become witches, she just does it nicer, but its the only deasable thing that can be done,
She wanted to put Sayaka out of he misory despite Sayaka alweays having been mean to her. And Madokas solution, does the same to all girls. Its not coldhearted, its just, the only thing that could be done. Hell Msadoka does the same and its the best outcome. Homura wasnt coldhearted not sociopathic,
And she wanted tto save Madoka, she even was willing to be hated by her, away from her, so save her. She is very willing to move on if it mean Madoka could live. And in that case its literally the fate of the world too. In the original, Walpurgisnacht is that, witch Madoka, is that.
Hell even Sayaka is mercy killing wit hhindsight, not dispassionate.
And while Sayaka is a great character, she also is the one always opposing Homura, she isnt exactly a good person, she is a passionate person,but she is a very selfish emotional that cant think beyond that much. Homura tried to save her , she just wanted to save Madoka more. Homura defied any help, well written but, she is aeful to Sayaka near always and hating her and be jealous, as constant.
And yes stopping her from beuing a wich is, mercy killing. She never lost he rhumanity, she just is broken. Yes in that situation its the most passionate and right thing to end her life. And Homura is still fristrated and sad over it. Its not her wanting to do it, it had to be done tragic. And that it didnt, did make her loose needed help to take Walpurgisnacht without Madoka becoming a magical girl/witch , and preventing her from being a witch too, so itt was right to do so and didnt did ruin the plan without ending the world, and stopping madoka from becoming was saving the world. So yes Sayuka, she was even trying to save he rbuut know Sayuka was beyond help because she is too emotional immature and biased against her, so she couldnt.
And Homura was also justified that Madoka , does basically the same just kinder. Which is BS isnt it? So yes oh you do kill and thats fine but if i, Homura never lost her humanity, she just was broken reasonable having to still go whateve nessesary being isolated.
If she wasnt willing to move on, she would, but there wasnt a way to move on, thats why she had only that, and broke. And she gave up on Sayaka because Sayaha is a fantastc character and understandable, bu an immature emotional girl that wont listen to reason, and understandable but, always in her way no matter what making eveything worse. And even ending her is out of mercy if calculated.
Homura never was ok doing that, she just was desperate literally saving the world, which was yes she has flaws but its selfless at the core, which is , yeah Homuras flaw is what is also her saving the world at the end,
And Madoka just makes that too if kinder but she ends lives too. Ther was no othe rway to go.
Oh did you read/watch undead unluck, it, yeah. gets relevant.
It's not clear that killing magical girls on the cusp of turning is the only solution; it's just the best that a scared middle schooler could come up with in the time she had with the limited understanding she had. The entire story is about the aliens not understanding the powers they unleashed by granting Homura's wish, and the audience knows less about that than they do.
Futurama is built around that concept, maybe the trope of "fish-out-of-water" will always be a psychological horror for the individual involved. Moving a millennia into the future, so far out that no trace of your family and previous life seems to exist? You would be right to fear the immense despair of the unknown that he felt after falling back out of the cryogenic chamber. Maybe it's the lack of brevity through anchoring points like what Fry rediscovers as relics of his time period that makes it terrifying. Maybe it's also the horror of having anchoring points to have missed living through. Lost in an environment scales beyond what he was once used to, with technology he is no longer familiar with, it almost seems like a miracle that he didn't end up in the body disposal of the booth by a shiny metal ass.
"No one knows what the future holds, that's why its potential is infinite" -Okabe Rintarou
El.... psy... kongroo
it's pretty hard to describe how much Steins;Gate has influenced me.
I recall being bored with the first few episodes until the gel banana incident and got hooked ever since.
@@lyden1633 this happens to everyone i think
In summary, don't fock with time, time focks with you, you're just along for the ride.
Pretty much lol
Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni has time travel elements that would fit into the box as well.
They can't choose when it happens.
But the world resets everytime Rika dies
I feel the urge to mention Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint as well, with the “protagonist” living through the apocalypse and every time he dies he “regresses” to the beginning, an hour or a few minutes before the apocalypse begins. What I say beyond this premise is gonna be spoilers for the webnovel/ manhwa so I’m just gonna keep it simple and say that the times this aspect of the character has been emphasized as horror in the story is truly insane. The character literally has an in universe title along the lines of “lonely pilgrim” or something.
YESSS i thought of yjh a few minutes into the video 😭 I think his title is *[■■] btw + spoilers for orv chap 430!!
*[Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse]
I was searching for this broo 😭😭‼️
@@birdii64442 psssst let’s keep it lowkey and as vague as possible so we don’t spoil the new readers *wink wink* ifykyk
@ 🫡🫡🫡
I'm so surprised that you never mentioned doctor who, a series that I think perfectly encapsulates this idea that time travel forever changes and erodes your humanity and how that effects the people surrounding you. I think of Jackie Tyler, mother to the female protagonist of series 1 and 2, says to Rose "in 30, 40 years time there's a woman walking down a street on a planet some million light years away, but she's not my daughter, not any more."
My favourite time travel show is Dark.
And i think it displays how horrifying time travel actually is.
It's on the potential follow up list!
As ron stoppable once said "time travel is a cornucopia of disturbing concepts" it wasn't till much later I realized how real ron's words were.
If you like this subject, I think you'd like the show Link Click, which is a Chinese animated show about time travel. It's less about time traveling to save people (the first season at least) and more about time travel to appreciate human connections and experience different lives. I would highly recommend.
That was a very clearly articulated video. You should definitely have a million Subscribers
That's very kind, but I'm already lucky to have the numbers that I do!
The effort you put into that video definitely ran through keep it up man
I met a time traveler once. 15 years ago he was living 15 years in the future. We met what feels like just yesterday.
It is interesting how different stories that tackle time travel through direct actions are so different from time travel stories that are more reactive or forced upon the character.
Re-Zero is a great example of a "fun" mix of both.
Not only are we shown the horrifying implications of time travel removing bonds and memories from the people around you while you, alone, remembers everything that has happened, we also see how it becomes a part of the main characters biggest hurdles that he need to overcome in order to actually change and turn into the person he wants and needs to be to do what he wish to do.
At the start of the show there is mostly the focus on his horrifying deaths. The horror of going through painful and sometimes outright tortures ends to his life are made VERY clear, and the fact he is unable to share his suffering and pain with anyone really enhance how this power is truly closer to a curse than a blessing.
Yes, it makes him capable of surviving in such a hostile world, but it also breaks him several times. Makes him give up hope and let some of his worst aspects eat away at him.
His self hate and self-doubt literally manifesting as another him trying to constantly break him down. It helps him survive, but it also mess with his ability to live.
As he show goes on he slowly starts to use this power, turning into a more conscious decision on his part. He choose to go through the pain and suffering in order to correct his mistakes, by taking his own life a few times throughout the series. The pain and suffering he has to go through to activate this power perfectly illustrates the sacrifice and suffering he puts on himself in order to correct "mistakes" instead of changing his own outlook or himself. He becomes more distant and less human. He begins to rely on the power instead of on himself or the people around him, simply because he starts to see himself as the only one capable of taking on this heavy burden. But he isn't, because he can't actually handle it.
It becomes even more of a curse when he starts to embrace it and worst of all, it doesn't even work. Since he isn't the one in control of how far back he goes when he dies, he suddenly lose the ability to correct what he sees to be his biggest mistake.
Just when he began to believe that the power was his one and only redeeming part of himself, the power becomes nearly useless.
He can't redo his choice no matter how much pain he goes through.
This nearly breaks him, but what truly breaks him is when he tries to thank the person that gave him this power/curse. He hates the person that has handed him this cursed power, but he sees it as a means to an end. As his one redeeming quality that he can at least be the bearer of everyone's pain, so no one else have to suffer. It is his last clutch, and it gets removed when his "thank you" gets met by the person begging him not to use it. Not to hurt himself and not to think of himself as worthless.
I actually love that in order to finally move out of the terrifying death-loop he had gotten himself into, what he needed to do was not going back in time, but outright promising not to use it. After he finally gets out of the death-loop he completely stops using the power. Yes, the power gets forced into getting activated, but he never wish to use the power. Even when he makes mistakes and end up getting his loved ones put into dangerous situations he doesn't resort to dying right away, like he would have had it been him prior to the death-loop.
his time traveling goes back to being reactionary and against his will. He is still self sacrificial, but he has grown so much as a person that he stops using this morbid power as a clutch and instead rely on his friends and his own intelligence.
ORV has a side protagonist who literally lives his life over and over again, and it literally makes him less human the more he does it
Always nice to see another one of your videos get picked up by the algorithm. They do not nearly get the attention they deserve. Keep it up!
16:48 Tabbed back in here and my heart skipped a beat when the clock was only off by a minute...
As someone who's gearing up to write a timeloop story, this is an amazing piece of work to help me understand the medium better. Thank you
I can see the horror which you speak of, being stuck with something only you would know and only you would suffer from as well as the horror of becoming stuck in an unchanging world where there would only ever be outcomes which I don't desire despite having all the choices in the world. However despite that, the idea of time travel still captivates me for the sole reason of being able to right my regrets, change my choices and see new results. Maybe it wouldn't be as terrifying if it could only occur once and you could only have up to the second run through of events?
Absolutely fantastic essay!
"Everything everywhere all at once" is my favorite movie in this vein
It faces the existential horror of infinite possibilities and speaks to the parallels with modern life
In our internet age we have "backwards time travel" where we can disappear, glued to our devices, watching endless videos and reading endless posts from years past, never looking up to engage in our current moment
Never making meaningful connection, never needing to settle when you can always reach someone "better", smarter, wittier, more interesting, across the globe / time
(spoiler alert) it ends with the decision to put all that choice and "settle", not because what's chosen is the best option, but because for your sake, you have to. You cannot live a life of infinite optionality, a human life is a life of moment by moment playing out the hand you dealt, warts and all
With the other key theme being whether or not a normal life is worth living at all, with the final choice being "yes", we must make it so
I just was talking to my friend yesterday about things like, what would my younger self think if they got to talk to me now? What would they say? I used to be so fascinated with everything sci-fi, but specifically time travel. If I had a conversation with my you get self we would clash so hard on whether time travel is good or bad, hell I’m not even sure if I fully think it IS bad, but I can recognize the pros and cons like those in this video.
This video was such an insightful dive into a favorite topic of mine in fiction. I know your channel is focused on anime, but I'd also love to see you dive into games like Xenoblade or something.
Love your essays and how thought provoking they are, keep up the good work!
3:25 That's what she said.
This video is absolutely, and astonishingly good, I'm surprised more people haven't watched it and liked it, this is a masterpiece! thank you for the extremely fun video, and thank you for all the work you have clearly put into it
The most tragic time travel tropes I've always considered are time loops.
A full time loop. No escape, no secret way of breaking it, no humanistic lesson to be learnt in doing so, not even death can save you.
The speedrun through the 5 stages of grief until either hitting a brick wall at depression and staying catatonic for eons because you just don't have any motivation left to keep trying or accepting your new reality and breaking your fundamental beliefs in morality and the concept of self to stay ""sane"" whatever that word means anymore in this new world.
Your friends start becoming nothing more than videogame characters. The world, a cruel stage in which you can act your part as the star. Your own body, a prop in of itself with no importance and no real weight if anything bad happens to it.
The pinnacle of dehumanization is to put someone through a time loop. The only being I've seen go through one and live on with their will intact is the Doctor and he did it by chipping away at a diamond mountain for 10 million years while dying at a rate of 1 death/18 hours xd
Hello yoo joonghyuk
Time travel stories have always been my favorite. They always leave me with a great emptiness and feeling of isolation. The idea of time and/or causality itself as an antagonist always makes for a helpless struggle.
No normal human has enough time to read a VN. However, there are some scenes that’s are incredible explorations of these themes that are not as explored in the anime. Specifically, there’s a choice for Okabe to stay behind to prevent “the other John titor” from leaving. It causes Okabe to repeat the same day, over and over again, until he becomes cruel. There’s a conversation between them about what it means psychologically to give up on moving forward, to choose a real eternal reoccurrence. You should look up the other endings of Steins;gate if you are curious!
This was a PHENOMENAL video Mr ProfessorViral! I never thought of Time Travel as horror before, so hearing you out and reading some of the comments here was actually pretty insightful into a thought process/idea that i never took into consideration before.
I think a tragic and lowkey terrifying time travel story is in Dragon Ball Z with Trunks, like he's trying his hardest to change the future but no matter what he does it doesn't affect HIS timeline, it only affects the one he travels to and that hits hard. All of his friends that made in the past are still dead in the future, his father Prince Vegeta the one who was supposed to help raise him he never grew up with, killed by the androids. His master the person who trained him how to fight and die like a true saiyan, Gohan, is nothing but a memory.
And with Goku Black killing everyone including his own mother in his time and basically getting his whole world erased is just so tragic in my eyes. His mother built the time machine to try and save everyone and to a certain extent it did, it just didn't work the way they wanted to. And because of Trunks' actions in the past saving Goku and the others Zamasu got the idea for the Zero Mortal Plan and tried to execute it with his future self, and it was through those actions that caused Trunks even more pain and PTSD.
Again PHENOMENAL video my good sir honestly 10/10 would watch again!
I see steins gate I click amazing video
this is so real
Ooh time travel is definitely my favourite topic in media! And youve done it so well! I would recommend looking into in stars and time, its a great rpg where the main protagonist suffers in a time loop, and I think youd find it interesting
Another interesting thing that makes time travel not something I would wish upon even my worst enemy is found in the movie Primer. There are so many ways time travel can work and have unintended consequences that once discovered, the notion of changing anything at all is enough to spiral you into existential anxiety like no other. The implications are too great to handle.
A good addition to this-
There's a book series called "Mother of Learning" (Each book is called Arc 1, Arc 2, ect). Its a magic based fantasy that touches on this topic a bit, though it ends in a hopeful place.
The premise is that the main character is pulled into a a time loop... that he's not in control of. It's not HIS loop, but someone elses, and he was unlucky enough to get sucked into it. And if that wasn't enough, he clocks on almost immediately he's NOT the only one pulled in- there's a third, malicious time traveler in the mix, so he cant dare reach out for help because he doesn't know who he can trust.
It's a series that ends in a hopeful place, but it can be brutal at times, driving the characters to points they never would've imagined. Without spoiling to much, at one point the main character essentially starts running around torturing (bad) people to try and get even a CLUE of what's going on.
It also gets really existential about life later in the series, once the true nature of the time loop is revealed.
I highly recommend it if you're interested.
i was just entirely distracted the entire time by the dracosac giant card in the background, super jealous
I realized it in the latter half of the video and I was like "bro needs to talk about yu-gi-oh at some point"
i have been thinking about these points for a while now but never could sort my thoughts out properly. thank you for making such an articulate video on this topic i love it!
Life is strange hates Chloe Pierce and no one will convince me otherwise. Want to save her dad to spare her grief, but now she’s paralyzed and doesn’t want to live. Save her, well I hope Chloe didn’t want to see her mom anymore and has a secure enough ego to handle the survivors guilt. She has no good ending
Compared to being dead, Bae is a pretty good ending for her and Dontnod established that she and Max were able to move on together
A very interesting topic and it made me reflect on a couple of my favorite titles that heavily feature time travel in the plot. The horror aspect is not a surprise in Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, considering it deals with gruesome murders and such, but it's interesting to consider how the time travel factors into it. The discussion about Homura put in mind for me how she compares to Higurashi's time traveler Rika, how they are both reliving their worst days (for Rika, it's her own murder) while simultaneously trying to preserve their best (her happy days with her friends). Rika definitely has lost a lot of her humanity in cycling through so many loops, not only having to relive her own horrific death, but having to witness her friends' descents into paranoia and madness, often leading them to commit atrocities against each other. And yet remaining in the loop offers the only glimmer of hope in solving her murder and escaping that fate.
It seems that having control over the time travel itself plays an important role in how the time traveler relates to it. One of my favorite films of all time is Groundhog Day, and it's interesting to contrast that story to some of the ones mentioned here. Unlike these stories, in Groundhog Day, Phil doesn't know why the day is on a perpetual loop. It's not something he wished for, he doesn't know how to control it, but he is aware of it happening. At first, he really leans into the aspect of the loop that lets him try different things until he gets it right, like in Life is Strange, such as when he sets up a date with Nancy by getting information from her the day before. He even at one point proclaims "I am a god" in regards to his ability to face zero consequences for his actions. But I think the fact that he doesn't control it and doesn't know when it will end makes a huge difference in how he relates to it, as he realizes that it could end at any time, so he has to live each loop like it's the one that will stick, giving him new purpose to his repeated day. Not knowing which version will be the one he has to live with forces him to act like the people who don't know they're looping, and do the things the best version of himself would do if he only had one shot. I think the beginning of the loop is the horror in that situation, because it is isloating to experience when no one else does, but later on it morphs into a positive, because the control is out of his hands.
Ahh my twice monthly Dosis of existential crisis and philosophical lucidity. Thx 😊🙏🏻
Always happy to help lol
Watching this at 5:30am was quite the experience
Wonderful video essay! Enjoyed every second :)
Thank you, glad to be a part of the 5:30am vibes haha
For those that would like additional reading, I recommend the last short story of 'Friday Black'. I have no evidence other than topic/themes and timing, but I think it inspired Death Loop, the video game.
The 2014 film Mr. Peabody and Sherman execute the horror elements in such an interesting way. The fact that you could go back in time to a timeline where you already existed is such a bizarre concept. Despite it all, their lies a dangerous and catastrophic event that can easily be done by TOUCHING YOURSELF. Resulting in the end of not just the world but the whole timeline itself. It's...quite...chilling....
3:28 length, thickness AND duration. I dig it
Recomendation: in stars and time, an rpg where you time travel every time you die
So by that logic Dr who is a horror anthology