History Main / GrandfatherParadox

* In ''{{Johnny and the Bomb}}'', Bigmac suggests going back in time to kill Hitler. Johnny warns him of the dangers should he accidentally kill his grandfather, but Bigmac says it's safe since his grandfather doesn't look anything like Hitler. (Fortunately, by the time they obtain actual time travel, he's forgotten the plan.)

This type of paradox can be ignored if the type of time travel being used involves {{Alternate Timeline}}s instead.

This type of paradox can be ignored if the type of time travel being used involves [[AlternateUniverse Alternate Universes]] instead.

** The way the game handles this is pretty interesting since it involves "time waves" and a point in the past where time manipulation is impossible. Time waves sweep through the timeline from past to future and, to quote the [[http://www.achrongame.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page wiki]], "a time wave is what makes the past affect the future. So, when a time wave hits the time the factory was destroyed, the factory simply gets destroyed and the mech survives. When the next time wave hits, the mech will be destroyed because the factory doesn't exist in the future and the factory survives and so on. The "final" version of the event is the one when the event hits the point where time is immutable. [[MindScrew You know what, just watch the video.]]

** The way the game handles this is pretty interesting since it involves "time waves" and a point in the past where time manipulation is impossible. Time waves sweep through the timeline from past to future and, to quote the [[http://www.achrongame.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page wiki]], "a time wave is what makes the past affect the future. So, when a time wave hits the time the factory was destroyed, the factory will simply get destroyed and the mech survives. When the next time wave hits, the mech will be destroyed because the factory doesn't exist in the future and the factory survives and so on. The "final" version of the event is the one when the event hits the point where time is immutable. [[MindScrew You know what, just watch the video.]]

* Inverted in two separate ways in [[Rant]]: Traveling back in time to kill your parents will cause you to be outside of time, and therefore immortal (in-universe this is known as "severing ties"). Going back and impregnating your mother, or a direct matriarch of your family (grandmother, great-grandmother) will result in gaining heightened faculties (this is known in-universe as "stoking". Combo points for [[Squick impregnating each one down the line until you are born]].

* In an episode of ''{{Futurama}}'', Fry goes back to Roswell in 1947 and accidentally gets his grandfather killed in an atomic blast [[DefiedTrope while trying to avert this trope.]] He doesn't stop existing because he ''also'' ends up doing his grandmother, becoming his own grandfather. Or, as he put it, "I did the nasty in the pasty."

** We actually meet him. He's kind of a AnthropomorphicPersonification of FutureMeScaresMe - he's ''everybody's'' evil future self.

** We actually meet him. He's kind of a cosmic embodiment of FutureMeScaresMe - he's ''everybody's'' evil future self.
*** Cosmic embodiment, nothing. AnthropomorphicPersonification, no doubt.

* BobAndGeorge [[http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/010325c One more reason to hate time travel!]] (On top of ScrodingersButterfly questions of whether their acts can affect the author.)

* For the [[DoctorWho Time Lords]], Grandfather Paradox is an actual ''person'' who went back and, yes, killed his grandfather, which doomed him to a sort of undead temporal limbo. He's the Time Lord equivalent of the Bogeyman, and the splinter group/terrorist cult Faction Paradox considers him their spiritual leader, partly cause it pisses off the Time Lords.

** At one point, his appearance is described as eerily similar to the Ninth Doctor, which at that point would have been the Doctor's future self. In fact, the first time the Doctor encounters a Faction Paradox agent, the agent calls him "Gramps".

* The end of ''The Saga of Darren Shan'' explains how the story is an endless paradox because [[spoiler:the rule of Destiny is that if you kill someone, somebody else will take their place and do exactly as they would do (as an example, Evanna says that if you were to kill Hitler, somebody else would've taken his place and done exactly as he did.) and seeing as Darren goes through everything just to go back in time to stop the whole thing from happening, someone else will see the Cirque, join Mr.Crepsley and go on all the exact adventures Darren did, eventually having to stop themselves from seeing their best friend talking to Mr.Crepsley and then someone ELSE taking THEIR place and so on. Darren says that afterward you could read the books again and change all the names and it'd still be technically correct.]]

* The end of ''The Saga of Darren Shan'' explains how the story is an endless paradox because [[spoilerthe rule of Destiny is that if you kill someone, somebody else will take their place and do exactly as they would do (as an example, Evanna says that if you were to kill Hitler, somebody else would've taken his place and done exactly as he did.) and seeing as Darren goes through everything just to go back in time to stop the whole thing from happening, someone else will see the Cirque, join Mr.Crepsley and go on all the exact adventures Darren did, eventually having to stop themselves from seeing their best friend talking to Mr.Crepsley and then someone ELSE taking THEIR place and so on. Darren says that afterward you could read the books again and change all the names and it'd still be technically correct.]]

*** Cosmic embodiment, nothing. AntropomorphicPersonification, no doubt.