History Main / ButterflyOfDoom

* ''[[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/380650/little-glimpses Little Glimpses]]'' plays this darkly, giving "The Cutie Re-Mark" a HappyEndingOverride. As it turns out, ''any'' change to events, even something as small as Twilight and Starlight standing off to the side when Rainbow gets her cutie mark, can have consequences. Because Rainbow Dash saw them, she couldn't stop thinking about the weird alicorn that shouldn't exist, which led her to be distracted while crossing a road and accidentally caused an accident that killed her parents. Celestia, realizing that Rainbow is a future elemeny of harmony, adopts her, and things spiral further from there.

By simply throwing a stone at a tree in the Cretaceous period, once you arrive back at the present, you could find that [[CrapsackWorld civilization is now dominated by]] [[FunnyAnimal anthropomorphic frogs,]] [[Headscratchers/CSATheConfederateStatesOfAmerica the Confederacy won]] [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the civil war,]] [[PerpetualPoverty electricity and modern medicine were never discovered,]] [[FictionalEarth Pangaea never broke apart,]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking or ketchup's primary ingredient is now blueberries.]]

* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' features heavy butterfly symbolism: Max gains her time rewinding powers after taking a picture of a blue butterfly, a butterfly icon shows up any time you make an action that will have consequences, and the first episode is titled Chrysalis. Starting in Episode 3, Max makes changes to the past that have unexpected ripple effects. Most notably, [[spoiler: preventing the death of Chloe's father creates an alternate timeline in which Chloe is severely disabled and in constant pain and her parents are being bankrupted by medical bills]]. Finally, in episode 5, when [[spoiler:the tornado from Max's visions hits Arcadia Bay, Chloe realizes that Max saving her life is what caused the storm destroying the city. Max has to make the choice to either go back to when she took the butterfly picture and let Nathan kill Chloe, or sacrifice Arcadia Bay to keep her best friend/girlfriend alive.]]

** [[spoiler:This is Zeref's ultimate goal in the final arc: to empower himself with Fairy Heart and [[TimeTravel travel back in time to before Natsu's death 400 years ago]] to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save him]], which would have the side effect of [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt destroying the current timeline and replace it with a new one]]. Zeref hopes that the new timeline will result in a better world than the current one, though, since for one [[BigBad Acnologia]] won't exist in it.]]

* The entire Future Trunks Saga in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' is one big butterfly effect that messes up two timelines. [[spoiler:As Goku Black and Future Zamasu points out, it was [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Future Trunks' time traveling]] that allowed their rise since he created a timeline where Goku didn't die from the heart virus. If Goku had died, Present Zamasu would have never become interested in Goku and take his body using the Super Dragon Balls, which leads to Future Zamasu joining his past counterpart, killing the gods in every universe, and them eventually attacking Earth to punished the Earthlings for Trunks' crime]]. Even more, Goku would have never even met Zamasu if Trunks didn't return to the past again to get help fighting [[spoiler: Goku Black]], since Goku only went to U10 to see if Zamasu was Black, leading to a StableTimeLoop.

* In ''Manga/FairyTail'', this is the Defense Minister's argument against using the Eclipse Gate [[spoiler:to travel back in time to kill Zeref.]] Since [[spoiler:Zeref]] is such a huge part of their history, killing him in the past could have drastic consequences. [[spoiler:Then it was revealed to the readers later on that Zeref is the one who proposed the concept of the Eclipse Gate, meaning the [[GrandfatherParadox plan was doomed to failure from the start]] and wouldn't have ended well at all]].

* Almost the entire point of all events in ''Manga/XxxHolic''. Interesting that Yuuko's symbol is the butterfly, though that falls under [[ButterflyOfDeathAndRebirth another butterfly trope]].
* In an episode of ''Manga/PenguinMusume'', Kujira learns that she confessed her love to Sakura when they were both young girls (Kujira was raised as a boy.) Embarrassed into action, Kujira takes the Time-Penguin-X1 (yes, that's what it's called) back to prevent herself from confessing. After older-Kujira realizes she's made a horrid mess, she works to repair the timeline, causing her younger self to instead make a marriage vow.

* This is practically the premise of ''Ore ga Doutei wo Sutetara Shinu Ken ni Tsuite'' (''How I'll die if I lose my virginity'') where the protagonist goes back in time after his best friend kills him when he was 32 years old.
* In ''Manga/FairyTail'', this is the Defense Minister's argument against using the Eclipse Gate [[spoiler:to travel back in time to kill Zeref.]] Since [[spoiler:Zeref]] is such a huge part of their history, killing him in the past could have drastic consequences. [[spoiler:Then it was revealed to the readers later on that Zeref is the one who proposed the concept of the Eclipse Gate, meaning the [[GrandfatherParadox plan was doomed to failure from the start]] and wouldn't have ended well at all]].
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'': [[spoiler: In TheReveal, it turns out that the entire plot has been carefully constructed by the [[GodIsEvil Idea of Evil]]. It has, in its time, created demons, assemble the Godhand (its demigod-like emissaries), controlled human history and eventually shattered the boundary between fantasy and reality to disastrous effect. How? It distributed [[ArtifactOfDoom Behelits]] to ''just'' the right people at ''just'' the right times; [[HumansAreBastards human nature]] and [[TheTrainsRunOnTime the laws of physics]] ([[GambitRoulette down to the last detail]]) took care of the rest.]]
* The entire Future Trunks Saga in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' is one big butterfly effect that messes up two timelines. [[spoiler:As Goku Black and Future Zamasu points out, it was [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Future Trunks' time traveling]] that allowed their rise since he created a timeline where Goku didn't die from the heart virus. If Goku had died, Present Zamasu would have never become interested in Goku and take his body using the Super Dragon Balls, which leads to Future Zamasu joining his past counterpart, killing the gods in every universe, and them eventually attacking Earth to punished the Earthlings for Trunks' crime]]. Even more, Goku would have never even met Zamasu if Trunks didn't return to the past again to get help fighting [[spoiler: Goku Black]], since Goku only went to U10 to see if Zamasu was Black, leading to a StableTimeLoop.
** Some minor examples also occurred during the Android Saga of ''Anime/DragonBallZ''. Future Trunks' presence in the past results in, among other things, Goku contracting the heart virus six months later than he was originally supposed to, Androids 19 and 20 showing up at South City instead of 17 and 18, Androids 17 and 18 activating Android 16, and Androids 17 and 18 being ''stronger'' than their alternate counterparts. It also results in a timeline where Trunks never encountered Cell in the past and came back to defeat 17 and 18 in the future, only for Cell to kill him and take his time machine, causing ''more'' problems in the past. Needless to say, this whole trope is a slight point of angst for Trunks for obvious reasons, though fortunately for him, the end result at the end of the saga is largely ''much more positive'' than the future he came from ''partly because'' of this trope - the Z-Fighters are more prepared for the Androids than they were otherwise, Goku dies only after sacrificing himself to prevent Cell from blowing up the Earth (and decides to not come back despite the Dragon Balls being around to revive him), any damage and deaths are undone by the Dragon Balls because Goku is around to recruit Dende as the new Kami of Earth, and Android 16 turns out to a MoralityPet for his cyborg "siblings", who already decided they'd rather just cause mischief and chase after Goku rather than start a killing spree (or even deliberately killing ''anyone'' aside from Goku), eventually resulting in them both undergoing a HeelFaceTurn, which obviously has further consequences later on in ''Super'' when Android 17 of all people ends up being [[spoiler:the MVP of the Tournament of Power by virtue of being literally the last fighter standing and providing crucial support to Goku and Frieza in their final clash against Jiren, nevermind having the awareness and empathy to wish for the restoration of the erased universes, which ended up ''saving everyone'' from immediate destruction]].
** Though, from the point of view of the [[VideoGame/DragonBallXenoverse the actual overseer of the timelines, the Supreme Kai of Time Chronoa]], Future Trunks' actions were ultimately for the best in the long run, and outright tells him that the good he has done outweighs the bad, whether it be intentional or otherwise, in contrast to the opinion of [[spoiler:Goku Black and Future Zamasu]], and that her only punishment for him causing a timeline split is to recruit him to the Time Patrol to keep more mallicious bad actors from altering the time stream further, though for Future Trunks, this isn't really a punishment since he ''enjoys'' his new job.
* ''Literature/MushokuTenseiJoblessReincarnation'':
** [[spoiler:Hitogami]] can predict the future and lay out a plan to reach a given end state. However a small change in the present he does not know about will ruin the plan. Similarly, when he deploys too many apostles the future becomes too mutable for him to read.
** [[spoiler:Orsted]] is using a GroundhogDayLoop in an attempt to kill [[spoiler:Hitogami]]. Through multiple loops he has more or less identified all of the potential butterflies but two.
*** [[spoiler:Orsted]] has identified all of the apostles except for one, and each loop that single hidden apostle always disrupts his plans. This ultimate trump card is the seemingly-harmless [[spoiler:Gisu]].
*** The Rewind Miko, a girl whose unique ability lets her remember each of the previous loops. Usually she dies before she can have an impact on events but something [[spoiler:Orsted]] changed in the last iteration ended up saving her life. When a boy she had come to love died she tried to rewrite history with her power; this caused Rudeus's birth and the Mana Calamity in the next loop, completely upending [[spoiler:Orsted]]'s knowledge.

* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin'' actually uses this trope, but with a twist -- instead of unexpected consequences, there is an [[ClockRoaches actual guardian of time]] that hunts the Prince in order to restore time to its original flow.
** Played straight in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'' where the events of ''Warrior Within'' have undone the events of ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'' [[spoiler:meaning the Vizier from ''Sands of Time'' is still alive and still searching for the eponymous sands, sacking Babylon in the process.]]
* ''VisualNovel/TimeHollow''. The player makes small changes to the past and watches the subsequent results.
** This is also the plot for the [=PS2=] game ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' which was written by the same maker of Time Hollow. Dude loves his time travel.
* The basis for the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries''. The whole thing started when Einstein went back in time to kill Hitler, [[HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct resulting in WWII taking place between the Soviets and the Western Allies]].
** And in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3'', the Soviets go back in time to erase Einstein in order to save the Soviet Union, weakening both the Aliies and the Soviets(no nukes) and creating the Empire of The Rising Sun, resulting in a three-way world war.

* ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. By doing some minor things to avert a BadFuture, Raiden ends up making his and Earthrealm's future doomed. For instance, [[spoiler:preventing Motaro from killing Johnny Cage causes Shao Kahn to kill Shang Tsung and empower Sindel; Sindel subsequently ''slaughters'' nearly all of Earthrealm's warriors.]] Similarly, when Raiden prevents the Lin Kuei from turning Smoke into a cyborg, [[spoiler:they grab Sub-Zero instead.]]
* Used for a joke in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' where there's a point in the game where you can kill the young version of future turncoat agent Ocelot. Doing so ends the game instantly, with the game telling you that you created a time paradox. If you do this in the HD Rerelease you also get a trophy stating that all the problems in the series are solved, thus it's over. You still get a Game Over though.
* ''VideoGame/TimeSplittersFuturePerfect'' subverts this trope with Cortez causing countless paradoxes and shooting up everything. After all, he is cleaning up the mess of the actual villain. By the end, he manages to destroy the Timesplitters that had made a mess of the timeline, fixing up his own future. It's possible that all his deeds were always meant to happen or were simply erased from existence.
* Also subverted in ''VideoGame/Onimusha3DemonSiege''. Samanoske is stuck in present day and can therefore not affect events in the timeline, but Jaques in ancient Japan can and has to due to the Genma mucking around with time travel and causing the current mess in the first place. The two end up being time janitors, in a way.

* Although the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series generally runs on YouCantFightFate, this trope occurs in ''[[VideoGame/BloodOmenLegacyOfKain Blood Omen]]'' when [[spoiler:Kain goes back in time to kill William the Just before he becomes the Nemesis, thereby causing the sequence of events that leads to the genocide of Nosgoth's vampire population by the [[KnightTemplar Sarafan]]. However, the events are not the result of vengeance on the part of the timestream itself but it was precisely calculated by Moebius the Timestreamer.]]
* In ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject'', the Temporal Security Agency works to prevent this trope from happening, and each Agent - including Gage Blackwood, Agent 5 - is tasked with reversing any changes that some other time traveler would have done to the past.
** Ironically, The TSA made their own change to the past by hiding its Historical Log disc in 200 million BC, though it's lampshaded in that the area it's situated in will inevitably be destroyed by a volcanic eruption.
* Used ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''. During the "Ghosts" Featured Episode, your character and his team must go back in time to Drozana Station of the 23rd to stop the Devidians from causing havoc with the time stream. One of your crew members will make sure you invoke the Temporal Prime Directive, meaning you can't go around and muck with the time stream all willy-nilly. The first time you go back in time, you don't have much of a choice to muck with the time stream when you end up encounter Dr. [=McCoy=] - saving lives from the Devidians takes priority over everything else and you help pioneer a way to counteract the Devidians' absorptions. The second time, after you destroy a comet the Devidians were using to perform their time travel shenanigans, the Black Ops group you're aiding says they'll make sure everything you've done is kept off the books.
** It's done again in the finale of the Federation's "Klingon War" storyline. You chase Ambassador B'Vat through the Guardian of Forever and learn that his arrival had changed history with the original Enterprise destroyed. You arrived just in time to stop that and you go on to rescue Miral Paris.
** The Iconian War storyline mission "Butterfly" deals with this trope. In order to either stop the Iconian War or delay it, the Delta Alliance works with the Krenim to use Annorax's time ship to try and alter history. They ''do'' run some tests to figure out which is the best, which they determine is preventing the USS ''Yamato'' from finding Iconia in the first place, which is only the best because Romulus was restored, even though the Romulan Star Empire was still in power. [[spoiler:When they put it into action, it turns out that, oops, Romulus is now fully assimilated by the Borg and aiming for the rest of the Beta Quadrant. You're forced to create a CloseEnoughTimeline to prevent this from sticking]].
* The developers of ''VideoGame/UntilDawn'' refer to the mechanic behind the game's branching storyline as the butterfly system, with a butterfly motif appearing in the trailers. And sure enough, given that this is a SurvivalHorror game, some changes can end in doom, making this a case of the Butterfly Of Doom being enacted on ''the player''.
* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsReversal'', Raul and Fiona Graydon attempt to not use this trope when they and their friends are tossed back five years into the past. When they get to a crucial point in history (the GrandFinale of ''Anime/{{Zambot 3}}'' and ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWingEndlessWaltz''), they suffer a HeroicBSOD before deciding to ScrewDestiny and make sure things happen differently. Things get even worse as you find out that the mechanics found designs of future units such as the Nu Gundam and the Black Serena and have built them five years before they should and allowing you to defeat the BigBad. When you return to their normal time, they learn that their changes brought about ''good'' futures.

* ''[[VideoGame/MarySkelterNightmares Mary Skelter 2]]'' in its entirety [[spoiler:is what happens when a Nightmare alters the past to spare Little Mermaid from her death in the backstory]]. How does it end? [[spoiler:Little Mermaid lives while every other member of the Blood Team meets a horrible death. When said Nightmare regains her memory of the original timeline and explains the situation to Little Mermaid, they agree to re-rail the timeline to the first game's version of events.]] Doubles as a NecessaryFail for [[spoiler:Red Riding Hood, whose reckless behavior is partially to blame for Little Mermaid's death]].
* In the second loop of ''VideoGame/{{Drainus}}'', [[spoiler:Irina goes back in time to redo the events of the game but try to save Layla from a HeroicSacrifice this time, but notices that the enemy forces have gotten stronger. Gehnie expalins that this is the result of "the Chaos", in which even slight differences from the original timeline, like Irina deviating from her words to Layla in the first loop, can have a drastic effect on the new timeline. As it turns out, this is all a subversion. The BigBad, Governor-General Izumo, had ''also'' gone back in time; with his knowledge of the future, he's able to make better tactical decisions.]]

* In the ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'' WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror segment "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E6TreehouseOfHorrorV Time and Punishment]]", [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext a malfunctioning toaster]] transports Homer to the prehistoric past. He remembers some advice Grandpa gave him regarding [[LampshadeHanging this very trope]], then [[IgnoredEpiphany instantly forgets it]] to squash a bug. When he returns to the present, Ned Flanders has taken over the world and turned it into [[CrapsaccharineWorld a cheerful dystopia]] where HappinessIsMandatory. His attempts to fix the timeline cause alternate futures that range from even worse to just plain weird. When one of his sneezes causes all of the dinosaurs to drop dead, he moans, "This is gonna cost me." [[note]]Ironically enough, this results in a future that seems perfect for him: his sisters-in-laws are dead, his family is rich, the children are polite... but then he learns that donuts apparently don't exist in this timeline when he uses the word and nobody knows what he's talking about. He disappears into the past to try again, before we see that it ''rains'' donuts in this future.[[/note]] Homer eventually snaps and just starts whacking everything with a baseball bat, creating a future that's actually [[CloseEnoughTimeline pretty near normal]], except everyone has weird, elongated, lizard-like tongues.

* In ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'' Omi decides to use the Sands of Time hoping that he can save Chase Young from being turned evil by Hannibal Bean. In doing so, however, Hannibal turns Master Monk Guan instead, and not only is Master Monk Guan shown to be even more dangerous on the Haylin side than Chase Young (forcing the monks out of the temple and trapping Master Fung in the Ying Yang world), [[TheDragon but he's shown to be completely loyal to Hannibal]].

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] on the ''WebVideo/DreamSMP''. When Ranboo talks to Sam after [[spoiler:Tommy's death]], he insists that if he had talked Tommy out of griefing George's house, [[DisasterDominoes things might've turned out differently]] and [[spoiler:Tommy not have died]]. Sam says that might not necessarily be the case, and that Dream might've found another reason to exile him anyways, [[InSpiteOfANail leading to the same result]], and urges Ranboo to not blame himself for [[spoiler:Tommy's death]]. This is not far from the truth; Dream was going around griefing builds with Puffy and [[FrameUp blaming Tommy for it]] weeks before Tommy and Ranboo griefed George's house.

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': "Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo" featured an adult Candace going back in time to bust Phineas and Ferb for the rollercoaster and returning to her own time to learn it was now a BadFuture. As it turns out, her effort to bust her brothers not only created a wave of child-proofing hysteria, but it causes the helicopter that Perry the Platypus grappled onto to escape from Dr. Doofenshmirtz to change course since it was part of one of the services Linda called to have the boys rescued, and to get himself injured by Doofenshmirtz's evil scheme backfiring, instead of Doofenshmirtz like in the original timeline. This allowed Doofenshmirtz to ride the wave of hysteria and take over the Tri-State Area, turning it into a ruined industrial dystopia where fun and creativity are outlawed, kids are kept in PeopleJars until they reach adulthood, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking everyone is forced to change their name to "Joe"]].

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] on the ''WebVideo/DreamSMP''. When Ranboo talks to Sam after [[spoiler:Tommy's death]], he insists that if he had talked Tommy out of griefing George's house, [[DisasterDominoes things might've turned out differently]] and [[spoiler:Tommy not have died]]. Sam says that might not necessarily be the case, and that Dream might've found another reason to Exile him anyways, [[InSpiteOfANail leading to the same result]], and urges Ranboo to not blame himself for [[spoiler:Tommy's death]]. This is not far from the truth; Dream was going around griefing builds with Puffy and [[FrameUp blaming Tommy for it]] weeks before Tommy and Ranboo griefed George's house.