The Flash The Flash and the Time Paradox

[Teh Stranger]

The way I see it, Eddie's suicide (unnecessary, could have just shot himself in the nuts) renders RF non existent (obviously) so that is the future changed.

That doesn't mean because future RF (still the same RF we've been with through the whole show) never went back in time to kill Nora and the real Wells, they will be alive, because as RF said to Wells right before he killed him, Wells doesn't create the accelerator for a very long time so Barry probably hasn't even became The Flash yet but he still has his speed and everything else has remained the same after RF is erased. If everything RF has done in this timeline has been undone, there would be no singularity occurring because Barry's mother would be alive so there would be no need for him to go back in time to save his mother if she is already alive and his father wouldn't be in prison.

My theory is when Barry speeds into the singularity, he again goes so fast and resets the clock then finds some other way to stop RF and maybe even save Eddie. Of course I have a bunch of other ideas as to what's going to happen and there are some conflicts with my theory but I can't write up all of my thoughts. Please keep the discussion friendly, I am just here to share my take, learn and have fun

I am also curious to see if anything is going to change in Arrow with all this time travel crap

 

[paxau]

Another thing that could affect this is the idea that RF is "protected" from any time ripples caused by Eddie killing himself while in the Speed-Force on his way back in time.I don't know if that's a thing in the comics but it might simplify things somewhat.

That would make this more of a loop with RF arriving in Barry's childhood with his own memories intact but with no one in the future he left aware of his existence becasue Eddie killed himself thus removing any trace of pre-entering the Speed Force RFs existence from the future.

Not wonky at all right?

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

The way I see it, Eddie's suicide (unnecessary, could have just shot himself in the nuts) renders RF non existent (obviously) so that is the future changed.

99.98% of men would chose death over blowing their own nuts off with a gunshot.

 

[Teh Stranger]

99.98% of men would chose death over blowing their own nuts off with a gunshot.

Can't argue with that

Love your Location by the way

TONY STARK WAS ABLE TO BUILD THIS IN A CAVE! ... WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!

 

[Teh Stranger]

Another thing that could affect this is the idea that RF is "protected" from any time ripples caused by Eddie killing himself while in the Speed-Force on his way back in time.I don't know if that's a thing in the comics but it might simplify things somewhat.

That would make this more of a loop with RF arriving in Barry's childhood with his own memories intact but with no one in the future he left aware of his existence becasue Eddie killed himself thus removing any trace of pre-entering the Speed Force RFs existence from the future.

Not wonky at all right?

You made my brain hurt

 

[Wyrminarrd]

99.98% of men would chose death over blowing their own nuts off with a gunshot.

Eddie should just have scheduled a vasectomy.

 

[Headliner]

If they rely on time travel too much, it will confuse the audience and they'll lose viewership. I also hope they don't constantly use Time Travel to reverse deaths because that's another way you'll lose viewership. People should be able to buy that people are really dead. Not just say "well he'll be back so this means nothing".

Time travel is good in small doses. When you keep doing it, it's diminishing returns.

 

[Bathead]

Agreed.
It should be infrequent at best, maybe 1 or 2 stories a season, if that.

 

[Teh Stranger]

Agreed.
It should be infrequent at best, maybe 1 or 2 stories a season, if that.

Even that is too much IMO

 

[Wyrminarrd]

Agreed. Barry shouldn't learn how to do controlled time travel since it inevitably leads to either him using it to fix everything bad that happens or it leads to fans wondering why he doesn't use it in a particular case when it makes sense but the writers decided not to use it.

Accidental time travel if used right is ok though if done right.

 

[paxau]

You made my brain hurt

Made my own brain hurt a bit too after all that.

The important aspect of all that text was the possibility that Thawne himself was protected from any changes in the timeline that rippled out from Eddie taking his own life. Thus even if Eddie kills himself Thawne always ends up in the past anyway.

Sort of like the Enterprise-E in Star Trek: First Contact. It was protected from any changes the Borg made to the timeline because it was, so to speak, in transit on It's way back in time.

 

[Teh Stranger]

Made my own brain hurt a bit too after all that.

The important aspect of all that text was the possibility that Thawne himself was protected from any changes in the timeline that rippled out from Eddie taking his own life. Thus even if Eddie kills himself Thawne always ends up in the past anyway.

Yeah I re-watched the finale tonight and I also thought that.

 

[storyteller]

Well they basically established boundaries for time travel.

Method one required running back in time but Barry never learned how to duplicate it.

Method two utilizes the particle accelerator but the risk of a black hole is too high so they can't won't use that as much.

Lastly Barry and co are gonna learn to respect the timeline.

 

[robohobo]

So, Barry gains his powers in 2020 from the real Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan. 4 years later he is in a duel with Eobard Thawne (Reverse Flash) with help from Green Arrow, Hawkgirl and The Atom. Now at some point Eobard finds out Barry's name and goes to kill him as a child. This is where I get confused. His mothers death should have not effected Harrison Wells particle accelerator meaning he still got his powers in 2020 so 2024 Flash should have vanished after Eobard killed Harrison Wells. Now forward to 2014 where Eddie is killed. In this timeline Eddie kills himself so Eobard is never born. meaning he doesn't kill Barry's mother and doesn't kill Harrison Wells and Barry should not have his powers in 2014. So why does Barry still have powers after Eobard dies, why is Barry's dad still in prison and why was Arrow season 3 so bad ._. SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT

 

[Batmannerism]

I love the Flash, great show, but I do have 2 pet peeves - the first being Iris, man they have to make her more likeable and less of a fickle mush-head in season 2, the second is how time travel has been dealt with.
The main problem for me being that it's completely inconsistent:

- in Barry's first trip through time (24 hours back) he doesn't meet himself in that time period, which is just wrong - I've heard the "he merged with his previous self explanations" sorry, that just doesn't cut it.

- Barry travels back through time and doesn't save his mother (and doesn't merge with either his child-self, or future-self, for proponents of that particular explanation). However, he does change events which means that the future that results from his actions is different ( Mardon doesn't create the tidal wave to wipe out the city).

BUT....

When Eddie kills himself Eobard disappears, and presumably never exists (which is why Eobard was holding Eddie captive, as "insurance"). As the OP pointed out, and many others have, no Eobard means that none of the events in season one would have unfolded the way they did, so it completely undid season one, and should have triggered a total re-set of the timeline. Yet, apparently nothing else changes i.e. Barry is still the Flash, the particle accelerator is still there (even though Wells and Morgan would have then lived to build it, only a few years later).

Now personally I believe that the writers didn't think things through, which is surprising as it's a pretty obvious blunder ( Eddie killing himself = no Eobard).

While I would like an explanation, I would much rather prefer the writers started approaching time travel in a consistent way - it's a big part of the Flash mythos so it needs to feature in the show. Whatever approach the writers take (the "can't change the past" or "alternate timeline" or whatever, I don't care, so long as they pick one and stick to it - once they've laid some ground-rules then they can have characters try to figure out ways around them.

e.g. We all know that the RF will be back, but for us to even start to accept an explanation, we kind of need to know why he went away in the first place.

Okay, rant over. Cheers.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

Well they basically established boundaries for time travel.

Method one required running back in time but Barry never learned how to duplicate it.

Method two utilizes the particle accelerator but the risk of a black hole is too high so they can't won't use that as much.

Lastly Barry and co are gonna learn to respect the timeline.

Yeah I'm expecting a "Back to the Future Part II" scenario where Barry comes back to a real screwed up timeline.

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

Well none of that above really happened huh?


Anyway, last night's ep dealt with time travel again and raised a few issues.

1) Rev Flash from the future shows up, because in his timeline he hasn't gone to the past yet to kill Barry's mother leading to the events of Eddie committing suicide. In fact, him coming back to the present is how he finds out where Barry is from which leads him to eventually going back to the past to try to kill Barry.

2) Rev Flash gets imprisoned in Starr Labs but then Cisco starts to get erased from existence. Only when Barry opens up the worm hole and tosses him back to his time, does this stop.


Now with #1, I can sort of buy the logic there (at least in terms of whats been laid out by the show) although Barry being the cause of his nemesis going back to try and kill him as a child which eventually leads to him becoming the reason his nemesis wants to kill him is somewhat circular. Also, why would Rev Flash not have been able to find out what time period Flash was from before that? Wouldn't it be well documented when he started showing up in the news, etc. and that could at least be at least a starting point to rule out time travel?

#2 made less sense to me. Did Rev Flash save Cisco's life in Season 1? Why did he need him to go back to continue to exist And why wouldnt all of the Super Starrs feel the impacts from it?