Here's the thing. Time travel in fiction usually revolves around the trope "Going back to the past to change the present/future" where a character goes back to the past - their past or any point in history - to "fix" a problem in their present/future. I'm not going to be scientific about it coz science is overrated, but generally speaking, authors have two approaches to this: The Linear Approach - time is likened to a river, without any branches, where causing a ripple upstream (past or present) can affect the flow downstream (present or future). Branching Approach - time is still a river, but has branches. Causing a ripple upstream doesn't do shit to the flow downstream or to any of the existing branches (relative to the character); instead, a new branch is created (branching timeline). Now, my problem is... authors often pick the linear approach that I hate because I don't believe that you can change your present by going back to your past. That's just not how it works for me because I prefer the branching approach. Changing your past will not affect your current present but a branching timeline that has a present that is likely different from your previous one will likely appear. P.S. Yeah, I liked Stein's Gate.
This is actually the most common time travel result that I've seen mentioned in web novels. Used sometimes to explain why people don't just use time travel, and sometimes in the sense that "even if I can't change it for myself, I can change it for another timeline's me". The second most common is "I went to the past to change things, but [I was unable to change anything] / [what I did in the past was already reflected on the present and I didn't realize it]". But the more I think about it, the more I feel like there's no problem with what you're complaining about. If you insist on branching timelines, understand that every decision countless branches are made based on different decisions taken by each individual, not just humans but most animals and plants have the ability to create branching timelines. However, no one notices that they've changed to a different branch just because they decided to put their left sock on first instead of their right sock; what difference does it make if a time traveler goes to the past and does something, comes back to a new branch created by his actions, and goes "I succeeded in changing the past!"? It's kind of funny that you use the river analogy, because it's pretty easy for rivers to be dammed or diverted in a different direction for human convenience...
The linear approach is illogical and paradoxical. If you change the past, then there is no reason for you to time travel in the first place, ergo the past is unchanged. The only time it makes sense is if you couldn't change the past. You make what you thought were changes but it turns out that's what was supposed to happen and you just didn't know it happened that way.
Yes it is paradoxical, that doesn't suddenly make it illogical. You're dealing with magic here, you can create paradoxes.
I have seen equal amounts of Linear, Branching and "The character is not suppose to know which one it is and as such you readers wont either xd"
Or you can look it like this, past has happened but due to the "time travel" the past repeats, time does not loop but the state of the world does.
I don't know which time travel novels you read before, but I usually find a novel that the author uses the "butterfly effect" and "multiverse" theories. It seems like these theories are more meta than the "dynamic timeline" theory that you called the "linear approach". The "dynamic timeline" can result in paradoxes; this seems illogical, but it's logical in Philosophy. Usually, the author only writes about the timeline that Mc returns and success changing the outcome. The different timeline or the original one may be mentioned in extra chapters. Maybe that makes you think the author uses the "dynamic timeline" theory. It's hard to recognize these theories anyway. Also, if you watch Western shows about time travel, you can find there're 3 common theories about the timeline. The 3rd one you didn't mention is the "fixed timeline" theory. But of course, for fiction purposes, many authors won't use the theory that will prevent Mc from changing their life.
You mean the one that is like... You go back to the past to change something, but then you realize that the change was kind of already accounted for in the timeline you exist, and that it may in part be your fault that things are the way they are? I mean, I definitely saw that before in Manga. It's not something I saw that often, but... Well, it's not like I read that much stuff with time travel~
But as you said, that's not real time travel. That's just resetting the world like in a certain Korean novel that just finished being translated.
personally this cat neutral as long as it interesting~ if change, possibility there chance whatever change on past the result can be instant that make the story kinda mess up~ let say character try save their parent cuz without parents their live mess up~ success, da parents is good which make character personality instantly change, the memory, the taste and other~ fail, but it make present worse~ there was a movie about women get phone call from past which contain this element~ forget it title, it really good~ no it is time travel, the key is goes to past or future~ is there change or not it doesn't matter~ uh huh sometimes nature can change the course of the river which make great change on ecology or the river may dried up~ talk less about human
Yup, you can understand like that. But that's just the one type of "fixed timeline". The "fixed timeline" means the outcome is still the same even somebody travels back and changes one or many key events that lead to that event. It's something like the time fixes the outcome itself. For example, Mc wants to save their loved one who killed; they travel time then change some key events such as kill the murderer, bringing their loved one away, etc. But in the end, the loved one dies on that day at that time. Attempting to change "fixed timeline" may cause a loop, too, just like what you described. Movies or novels that use these elements are mostly tragedy, brain hack, and watching them can make me feel quite hopeless. This type is unsuitable for all audiences, after all.
Steins gate use a lot of time travel theory. The first struggle of the protagonist is to go against the fixed outcome. I heard the anime is pretty tame but the visual novel is pretty brutal with the first tragedy (without going too spoilery)
I agree. I read this webtoon "Time Roulette" yesterday w/c lead to me writing this post. The protagonist had this thought that as powerless as he was, he should at least save the people that he can save. I'm like "Bruh, you are literally in the past. All the shit that you are experiencing right now had already happened. Those people are already dead. What the f are you smoking?". But the protag still tried to save people that ultimately fucked up a part of his present; just another thing I hate - a "holier than thou" protag who doesn't think about the ramifications of his actions. ...and yet some authors are just too lazy to explain their concept of time travel; a chapter or two will suffice. Is that a lot to ask? I watched the first season and played the visual novel. I always got a bad end in the VN. I've read a number of butterfly effect and multiverse ones however they aren't that mainstream compared to those that don't bother. Probably because it already takes a lot of effort for the author to keep their story coherent, let alone adding divergent timelines and what-not.
Coming to think of it, I heard there was a 2nd season to the anime... I should watch it at some point~ I didn't feel like playing the VN, but I really wanna see a Mayuri route...
Personally I really don't like the linear approach and most of the time I can only really tolerate it if the author wrote it in a way that you can't actually determine which approach they actually went with. Problem is it feels like a lot of authors can't properly decide which approach they want so it end up feeling inconsistent. Also what I prefer personally is more just the idea that you can't go back in time at all but rather that any "successful" attempt at going back in time would rather have you jumping over to a completely separate timeline that might be a copy of your past but is otherwise just running in parallel with your own timeline. If it is a 100% complete copy it won't be much different from the branching approach, but what it would allow for is versions of the past that is maybe only 99% the same.