The Flash Reverse Flash timeline question

[Headliner]

Maybe I'm overthinking this but can anyone help me?

Ok so at the end of season 1, Thawne dies in the year 2015. In season 2 he returned under the understanding that this was an earlier version of Thawne that had not traveled back in time, killed Barry's mom and got stuck in the year 2000. So this meant that as the seasons progressed we were going to continue to see earlier versions of Thawne probably all the way leading up to when he first got his powers as the Reverse Flash. This makes perfect sense.

Here's where it gets confusing. Now that Barry screwed up everything by saving his mother. He stopped the Thawne in the year 2000 which means Thawne never got stuck in the year 2000. By saving his mother, they fast forward to 2016 with Barry's new life and Thawne is sitting in a cell telling him everything will change.

Barry sees it, lets Thawne go back to the year 2000 to kill his mother. Then Thawne brings him back to 2016. Thawne claims that everything for him will be fine, but Barry will basically have to wait and see what's changed for him. So basically everything was restored just like that?

In theory shouldn't this mean that Thawne never got stuck in 2000? Which means he never took over Wells body, STAR Labs, etc. And perhaps Thawne ever dies? Is this still suppose to be an earlier version of Thawne?

Does anyone see the confusion or is that just me? Does anyone see how time travel really screw up everything and cause things to not make sense?

And I'm guessing the Thawne that's currently in Legends of Tomorrow is the Thawne that brought Barry back to 2016, then traveled back in time to 1942?

I guess one answer could be that since Thawne traveled so much in time, there are multiple timeline remants of him scattered around.

I'm probably thinking too much and just need to accept the fact that this doesn't make sense?

 

[famicommander]

Speed Force.

The magical two word answer to all of the inconsistencies inherent to the Flash.
Why doesn't he hurt people when he picks them up at mach 3 or whatever? Speed Force.
Why does time travel seem to have different rules every time they do it? Speed Force.
How the hell could Barry actually be the lightning bolt that gave him his powers in the first place? Speed Force.
How does he vibrate his molecules though solid matter? Speed Force.
If Force =Mass x Acceleration, how come each[ one of Barry's steps isn't like a freaking atom bomb going off? Speed Force.
How come running really fast sometimes destroys street clothes and sometimes doesn't? Speed Force.
Why does Barry create sonic booms as he runs only sometimes? Speed Force.

The Flash conceptually is just so absurd that it requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief, or sometimes basic logic. I mean, some versions of the Flash are fast enough to traverse every square inch of the globe in less than a second. So why doesn't he just disarm all the criminals in a day? Why doesn't he just beat the crap out of the Rogues before a single neuron in their brain can fire to begin defending themselves?

 

[Syncos]

Maybe I'm overthinking this but can anyone help me?

Ok so at the end of season 1, Thawne dies in the year 2015. In season 2 he returned under the understanding that this was an earlier version of Thawne that had not traveled back in time, killed Barry's mom and got stuck in the year 2000. So this meant that as the seasons progressed we were going to continue to see earlier versions of Thawne probably all the way leading up to when he first got his powers as the Reverse Flash. This makes perfect sense.

Here's where it gets confusing. Now that Barry screwed up everything by saving his mother. He stopped the Thawne in the year 2000 which means Thawne never got stuck in the year 2000. By saving his mother, they fast forward to 2016 with Barry's new life and Thawne is sitting in a cell telling him everything will change.

Barry sees it, lets Thawne go back to the year 2000 to kill his mother. Then Thawne brings him back to 2016. Thawne claims that everything for him will be fine, but Barry will basically have to wait and see what's changed for him. So basically everything was restored just like that?

In theory shouldn't this mean that Thawne never got stuck in 2000? Which means he never took over Wells body, STAR Labs, etc. And perhaps Thawne ever dies? Is this still suppose to be an earlier version of Thawne?

Does anyone see the confusion or is that just me? Does anyone see how time travel really screw up everything and cause things to not make sense?

And I'm guessing the Thawne that's currently in Legends of Tomorrow is the Thawne that brought Barry back to 2016, then traveled back in time to 1942?

I guess one answer could be that since Thawne traveled so much in time, there are multiple timeline remants of him scattered around.

I'm probably thinking too much and just need to accept the fact that this doesn't make sense?

I think you're overthinking it. The events of season 1 and two still happened in the timeline so he was still Wells.

Thawne at that point doesn't know his future. So he kills Barry's mom, drops Barry off, then reassumes his timeline, presumably. Which is why he said "Things are back to normal for me". Which is why I assume the Thawne in Legends right now is a Younger version.

 

[hopeless]

Look at it this way, someone had to have told Thawne about Wells in the first place so as long as no one reveals Eddie killed himself and Thawne doesn't bother to check himself everything should be fine.

BUT if they're going to find a replacement Wells they are going to need a replacement Eddie since for Thawne to exist at all means at some point they have to find out where their Eddie went since Eddie's death should have wiped out Thawne completely from the timeline so no newer versions of him turning up.

Speedforce or no speedforce they have to account for that discrepancy the fact finding and returning him also returns the Wells version of Thawne should make for a fine way to have the newer Thawne to kill himself thinking its a parallel doppleganger rather than himself and that wouldn't effect the continuum!

That bs with Zoom last season was on par with the third season of Arrow barring at least Ra's made it look better!

 

[Syncos]

Look at it this way, someone had to have told Thawne about Wells in the first place so as long as no one reveals Eddie killed himself and Thawne doesn't bother to check himself everything should be fine.

BUT if they're going to find a replacement Wells they are going to need a replacement Eddie since for Thawne to exist at all means at some point they have to find out where their Eddie went since Eddie's death should have wiped out Thawne completely from the timeline so no newer versions of him turning up.

Actually, I think their rationale was "Because Thawne left his time and was in the time stream before Eddie was killed, only Thawne that was present at that time in 2015+ was erased." So we might still see Thawne turn up from a younger point in his timeline, before he went back to kill Nora.

 

[Gordonisnz]

Actually, I think their rationale was "Because Thawne left his time and was in the time stream before Eddie was killed, only Thawne that was present at that time in 2015+ was erased." So we might still see Thawne turn up from a younger point in his timeline, before he went back to kill Nora.

But if Eddie is killed, he never gets married & never has kids.. - Thawne (future thawne) will never be born, never go back in time etc.

 

[Syncos]

But if Eddie is killed, he never gets married & never has kids.. - Thawne (future thawne) will never be born, never go back in time etc.

Yeah, but the thought is that being in the time stream already makes him an anomaly. Essentially, his family and his past would be erased, but he is unaffected because he's in flux. Think of it like time being unable to erase him because it can't find him.

 

[Osiris-Rex]

Yeah, but the thought is that being in the time stream already makes him an anomaly. Essentially, his family and his past would be erased, but he is unaffected because he's in flux. Think of it like time being unable to erase him because it can't find him.

But it found RF at the end of season one. Why would that one out of his timeline vanish and the other RFs out of their timeline still exist?

 

[Headliner]

But it found RF at the end of season one. Why would that one out of his timeline vanish and the other RFs out of their timeline still exist?

Because we travel forward in history while Thawne travels backwards. And Thawne's traveling moments are probably fixed points in history BEFORE he actually dies in 2015 through Eddie killing himself due to the speed force.

So at the start of season 1, Thawne had already visited 2016 (season 2 episode 11), but we didn't know because we were in the year 2014 so we had to wait and catch up to 2016 to see him. When he's erased from existence in 2015, his current self and his future dies, but his past (2016, aka before he went to the year 2000) is still alive because they are fixed moments in history due to the speed force. He did not lose access to the speed force until he went back in time to the year 2000 to kill Barry's mother. That's when he got stuck in time. If Thawne didn't have access to the speed force then all earlier versions of him would have been erased too.

So due to the speed force protection, what we're going to continue to see if earlier versions of Thawne until we eventually see the moment he became the Reverse Flash.

Time is moving forward for us, and backwards for the "Reverse" Flash.

 

[Syncos]

Basically, Reverse Flash is River Song.

 

[Justin]

My understanding of it is that there are now two entirely different timelines. One where Thawne dies in 2016 (timeline erased by flashpoint) and one where he does not (or is yet to) - the current one. Eddie's disappearance from the new timeline could simply be that he never joined the police academy (in the same way Julian's appearance happened).

Same way Cisco's brother did not die pre-flashpoint but is dead now.

 

[Syncos]

My understanding of it is that there are now two entirely different timelines. One where Thawne dies in 2016 (timeline erased by flashpoint) and one where he does not (or is yet to) - the current one. Eddie's disappearance from the new timeline could simply be that he never joined the police academy (in the same way Julian's appearance happened).

Same way Cisco's brother did not die pre-flashpoint but is dead now.

Possibly. But they've alluded to the events of season 1 and 2 largely happening the same as we remember them. We know that they have a history with "evil wells'" so i'd say it's safe to assume wells of s1 (thawne) is still a thing.

We know that Robbie and Caitlyn were married, and Robbie is dead. So the events of the end of season 1 seem to be intact.

They could certainly still throw a misdirect that Thawne survived and escaped instead of died at the end of season 1. Which Barry would remember differently. Throwing a "who's Eddie" misdirect wouldn't be out of their comfort zone either.

That being said, Thawne (presumably) doesn't know he's going to die in 2015. Otherwise he wouldn't have run through those events in the first season, and if he doesn't know he's going to die, he wouldn't have any reason to alter his timeline. (Unless Barry was dumb enough to tell him he's dead. which they could always show later)

 

[TheRedWraith]

An easy answer would be that due to the fracturing of causality it turned that Wells into a time remnant/chronal duplicate able to exist independently of the other one allowing him to create the timeline as it is, but we can't fully know, and this is just one of the problems of writers forgetting stuff or just being lazy and ignoring them as well as not having a solid and set idea on how their time travel will work before making a series that will incorporate it.

 

[jihado86]

The show's perception and handling of time travel is a total mess, don't bother with it.

 

[Headliner]

I watched a video that makes sense of it. It makes sense for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVhJit6ipto

Starts at 7:53

 

[Eni]

So hard to understand

That's comic logic for you.