Line #192 Main/TimeTravelTropes


1	-> '''Bruce Banner:''' Changing the past doesn't change the future. [...]\
2	'''Clint Barton:''' Well, that's what I heard.\
3	'''Bruce:''' By who? Who told you that?\
4	'''Rhodey:''' ''Franchise/StarTrek'', ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'', ''Film/TimeCop'', ''Film/TimeAfterTime''...\
5	'''Scott Lang:''' ''Series/QuantumLeap''...\
6	'''Rhodey:''' ''Literature/AWrinkleInTime'', ''Film/SomewhereInTime''...\
7	'''Scott:''' ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine''...\
8	'''Rhodey:''' ''Film/HotTubTimeMachine'', ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure''. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel. This is known!
9	-->-- A quick discussion about time travel, ''Film/AvengersEndgame''
10
11	Of all the concepts in SpeculativeFiction, TimeTravel is probably the one that, ''[[{{Pun}} over time]],'' has provided us with the most possibilities for storytelling, and therefore the one that has been (''clocked'' as having been) exploited the most.
12
13	Whether you're casting a critical eye on the past, satirizing the present through a warped future, or just looking for an excuse to have dinosaurs rampaging through New York, time travel is the way to go. Or, possibly, the way to have been going. It's so hard to tell these days. Or those days. Or whatever. Or ''whenever''. We tend to get [[TimeTravelTenseTrouble grammatically confused]] when talking on this subject.
14
15	Also, try saying the name of this page ten times fast.
16	----
17	!!Tropes:
18	[[index]]
19	[floatboxright:
20	'''Main topics:'''
21	+ '''TimeTravel'''
22	+ TemporalMutability
23
24	'''Media index:'''
25	+ TimeTravelTales
26
27	'''Trope indexes:'''
28	+ AlternateHistoryTropes
29	+ WeWillNotUseAnIndexInTheFuture
30	]
31	* AccidentalTimeTravel: Characters wind up in another time by sheer accident.
32	* AdventuresInTheBible: Someone goes to the past and experiences a well-known story (usually a biblical one, hence the title).
33	* AlienSpaceBats: Something supernatural or technically natural but highly implausible that causes the alternate history to be, well, alternate.
34	* AllOfTimeAtOnce: Something makes every day in history happen again simultaneously.
35	* AlternateHistory: A story about a world where history happened differently from how it did in real life. This may sometimes be the result of meddling time-travelers visiting and changing the past.
36	* AlternateHistoryNaziVictory: An alternate history where the Nazis won World War II, or where World War II stopped with them still in power.
37	* AlternateSelf: There's an extra version of an existing person, sometimes caused by time travel.
38	* AlternateTimeline: An alternate continuity, where both continuities share a past.
39	* AlternateTimelineAncestry: Same person exists in alternate timeline, but with different family history.
40	* AlternativeSelfNameChange: The version of the alternate timeline changes their name either to better distinguish or to keep the original from finding out who they are.
41	* AnachronismStew: A story taking place in a specific time period features technology, cultural references, etc. that are either out-of-date or don't exist yet. This could be the result of time-travelers introducing something from another era.
42	* ArmyOfTheAges: An army of warriors from different times, except they're not all famous.
43	* BackToTheEarlyInstallment: Characters time-travel to a previous point in their own story, often a previous episode of a series.
44	* BadFuture: The hero time-travels to a future where the world is worse off without them.
45	* BadPresent: Someone from the past ends up in the present and dislikes it.
46	* BeenThereShapedHistory: Time travel is a very common way for fictional characters to become involved in major historical events.
47	* BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy: A historical figure is revealed to have an unusual aspect of their lives that isn't brought up in the history books.
48	* BornInTheWrongCentury: A character really wants to live in the past or future.
49	* ButterflyOfDoom: Changing the past, even in a minor way, results in something terrible happening.
50	* CantTakeAnythingWithYou: Time travel prevents you from bringing material objects with you. May sometimes have the outcome of time travelers arriving in their destination naked if clothes are counted as material things.
51	* CatchingUpOnHistory: A character has to catch up on what they've missed.
52	* CasualTimeTravel: Time travel is a normal hobby or occupation.
53	* CaughtInTheRipple: An installment of a work begins with something having radically changed and no-one noticing.
54	* CausalityMechanic: Changing the past to affect the future is available as a [[GameMechanics Game Mechanic]].
55	* ChangedMyJumper: Time-travelers somehow don't attract attention in the past with their modern clothes.
56	* ChekhovsTimeTravel: If time travel is possible, then the characters ''need'' to time-travel.
57	* ChristmasEveryDay (some variants): Something makes it so that Christmas occurs every day.
58	* {{Chronoscope}}: A device with a screen that shows things that happened or will happen.
59	* ClockOfPower: A timepiece that has superpower or grant superpowers to its user / inhabitant, usually time-related.
60	* ClockRoaches: Changing the timeline causes an infestation of dangerous creatures.
61	* CloseEnoughTimeline: Several attempts to alter the past and fix history ends with the protagonist settling for a timeline that's sufficiently similar.
62	* ColdSleepColdFuture: Someone wakes up from being a HumanPopsicle, only to discover that the future is a CrapsackWorld.
63	* CompoundInterestTimeTravelGambit: Trying to make money by putting some money somewhere, then travelling to the future when the money will supposedly be worth a lot more.
64	* ConquerorFromTheFuture: A conqueror from the future goes back in time to start his conquest in the past.
65	* TheConstant: Something or somebody that still exists, even in the far future.
66	* ContemporaryCaveman: A caveman ends up in modern times. Usually happens because the caveman was [[HumanPopsicle frozen]], but they can also end up in the present day because of time travel.
67	* CryoPrison: Freezing someone as punishment.
68	* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: A future that's sort of like a technologically-advanced version of Ancient Rome or Ancient Greece.
69	* DelayedRippleEffect: Negative effects of changing the past take a while to come true.
70	* DoctorWhomage: Characters clearly inspired by ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' and share similar time traveling adventures.
71	* EmergencyTemporalShift: A character evades danger via time travel.
72	* EyepatchAfterTimeskip: Someone is depicted wearing an eyepatch in the future.
73	* FantasticTimeManagement: If someone is pressed for time, they use time travel as a solution.
74	* FashionsNeverChange: Anything set before the twentieth century has the characters wear generic clothes for their time period as opposed to nuanced fashions existing.
75	* FieldTripToThePast: Someone learns history by experiencing it.
76	* FightingAcrossTimeAndSpace: Characters fight or chase each other while teleporting through different time periods.
77	* FightingYourFutureSelf: A character ends up fighting a version of themself from the future or vice-versa.
78	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Someone ends up forced to adjust living outside of their original time period.
79	* FlingALightIntoTheFuture: A message sent to the future when people in the past were unable to deal with a problem or situation.
80	* FloatingClocks: When someone time-travels, clocks can be seen floating around.
81	* TheFuture: A time that hasn't happened yet.
82	* FutureBadass: Someone who's wacky and/or a bit of a loser will be competent and gritty in the future.
83	* FutureFoil: In the future, someone will have at least one aspect of their personality changed.
84	* TheFutureIsShocking: Someone from the past ends up in the present, and while they don't find it to be a Bad Present, they do find it shocking.
85	* FutureLoser: In the future, someone will be unpopular, have a lame job, etc.
86	* FutureMeScaresMe: Someone is disturbed by their own future self.
87	* {{Futureshadowing}}: {{Foreshadowing}} by showing something that hasn't happened yet.
88	* FutureSelfReveal: A character is revealed to be another character's future self.
89	* FutureSlang: Funny words that will be used as slang in the future.
90	* TheFutureWillBeBetter: A utopian future.
91	* GetBackToTheFuture: Someone is sent to the past and has to find their way back.
92	* GivingRadioToTheRomans: Giving modern technology to people in the past.
93	* GodTest (to establish the veracity of the time traveller): Someone has to prove they're God/an alien/a time traveler/etc.
94	* GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel: An alternate history in which the Nazis won is ''very easy'' to accidentally create.
95	* GoneToTheFuture: Going forward in time erases you from the timeline.
96	* GrandfatherParadox: Altering the past in a way that would logically prevent one's time travel from happening in the first place. Named for the example of using time travel to erase oneself from existence by killing one's grandfather before he started a family, or at least before your mother or father was conceived.[[note]]After all, how could you have killed your grandfather if you never existed?[[/note]]
97	* GroundhogDayLoop: The events of an entire day repeat continuously.
98	* GroundhogPeggySue: A character is forced to live some past event in canon over and over in a fanfic.
99	* HaveWeMetYet: Someone meets a time traveler who already knows them.
100	* HelpYourselfInTheFuture: Someone goes back in time to help their past self.
101	* HistoricalDomainCrossover: A crossover between a multiple historical figures.
102	* HistoricalInJoke: A work mentions a historical event and implies that it happened differently than what we learned in history class.
103	* HistoricalPersonPunchline: Someone from the past is revealed to be a historical figure.
104	* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: Going back in time to kill Hitler won't ever end well.
105	* HumanPopsicle: Someone gets frozen and then thawed out in the future.
106	* IdenticalGrandson: Someone has an ancestor or descendant who looks exactly like them.
107	* IHatePastMe: Someone dislikes their past self.
108	* ImMrFuturePopCultureReference: Somebody goes back in time and uses a [[ShoutOut pop culture reference]] as an alias.
109	* ImmuneToFate: A person's superpower is that they ''can'' fight fate.
110	* InSpiteOfANail: In spite of one change, everything's the same as it was in the original timeline.
111	* IntangibleTimeTravel: You can only time travel as an astral being.
112	* InTheirOwnImage: Going back to the beginning of time to rewrite the world.
113	* InThePastEveryoneWillBeFamous: Going back in time always leads to unintentionally meeting historical figures.
114	* ItWillNeverCatchOn: Someone in the past thinks that something will never be popular. They're wrong.
115	* IWantMyJetPack: A work written in the past wrongly predicts a piece of technology being invented.
116	* JustOneSecondOutOfSync: Making something unobtainable by putting it a few seconds out of sync with time.
117	* KidFromTheFuture: A childless person or people meet their future child.
118	* LawOfTimeTravelCoincidences: When someone time-travels to a period with a disaster or significant event in it, they'll always end up witnessing or get involved with what happened.
119	* LikeADuckTakesToWater: A character has knowledge that makes them able to adapt to another time/world.
120	* ALittleSomethingWeCallRockAndRoll: Someone time travels, then plays modern music to the people in the different time.
121	* LoveTranscendsSpacetime: Love causes time travel.
122	* MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight: Using time travel to prevent good things from happening and to cause more bad things to happen in the past.
123	* MarriedInTheFuture: In an alternate future, two characters are married.
124	* MassTeleportation: When a whole lot of people are transported to another time/world.
125	* MeanwhileInTheFuture: The story shifts from one plotline to the other, but one plotline takes place after the other.
126	* MentalTimeTravel: Going back in time and possessing your past self's or someone else's brain.
127	* MergedReality: Saving the day by merging an alternate universe with the normal one.
128	* MerlinSickness: Aging backwards.
129	* MisterSandmanSequence: Could be about time travel, but it could just be for a PeriodPiece: when the past is shown, a lot of things are shown in sequence to signify the time period.
130	* MoreThanThreeDimensions: The idea that time is another dimension.
131	* MultipleChoiceFuture: The idea that destiny is unreliable and many things could happen in the future.
132	* MyFutureSelfAndMe: Someone meets themselves from the future and nothing bad happens.
133	* MyOwnGrampa: Through time travel and incest, a person becomes their own ancestor.
134	* NarniaTime: Another world has a different timeline which changes unreliably.
135	* NecessaryFail: Going back in time to prevent something bad from happening results in something worse happening.
136	* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: Meeting your alternate-universe self, or yourself from a different timeline, is bad.
137	* NewspaperDating: A time traveler finding out what year is it by looking for a newspaper or something else dated.
138	* NoBackwardsCompatibilityInTheFuture: Characters from the future time-travel to our time, but their technology doesn't work with ours.
139	* NoEqualOpportunityTimeTravel: Someone has problems when they time-travel to a time when a lot of people were prejudiced against a group they belong to.
140	* NonLinearCharacter: A character who can simultaneously see into the future ''and'' the past while still observing the present.
141	* NonSequiturCausality: Altering the past has consequences that realistically wouldn't happen.
142	* NoOntologicalInertia: The idea that if the creator is destroyed, the creation will disappear and/or also be destroyed.
143	* NowIKnowWhatToNameHim: A character meets their parents in the past, prompting them to name their child after that person as part of a StableTimeLoop.
144	* OminousMessageFromTheFuture: A person or people from the future send a message back in time, warning people that something bad is going to happen.
145	* OneManIndustrialRevolution: Someone makes enough technology to change the world significantly.
146	* OnlyOneMeAllowedRightNow: If there's more than one version of the same person, something bad will happen.
147	* OntologicalInertia: Making something "un-happen" is impossible. Technically, you might be able to change the ''way'' something happens, but if you have something specific that you want not to happen, you're out of luck.
148	* OtherMeAnnoysMe: Someone dislikes their alternate self.
149	* OurTimeMachineIsDifferent: Any significant time machine.
150	* OurTimeTravelIsDifferent: Ways of showing time travel onscreen.
151	* OutOfTimeOutOfMind: Someone experiences lots of out-of-place time, yet when they return to the normal timeline, they look/act as if nothing happened.
152	* PastRightNow: Something historical-seeming exists in the present.
153	* PeggySue: A fanfiction where a character goes back in time to change history.
154	* PlaceBeyondTime: A place where time doesn't exist.
155	* PopularHistory: Works set in the past will have an implausible emphasis on pop culture and/or portray their pop culture as being a mishmash of things from different parts of the era.
156	* PortalToThePast: A portal that allows time-travel into the past.
157	* PrecrimeArrest: Someone is arrested for a crime they haven't even committed yet.
158	* PresentDayPast: In the recent past, technology or fashion that hasn't been invented yet exists.
159	* ProgressiveEraMontage: A montage that shifts from one era to the next.
160	* ResetButton: Something which renders one or more drastic events unimportant.
161	* ResetButtonEnding: It looks like the main conflict has been solved, but at the end, something happens that resets the status quo and makes it so it hasn't.
162	* ResetButtonSuicideMission: Sacrificing oneself in an alternate timeline, knowing that it won't really happen.
163	* RetGone: Someone ends up erased from history alongside all memory and evidence of their existence.
164	* RetroactivePrecognition: A character who ends up in the past ends up seeming psychic.
165	* RetroactivePreparation: Someone is prepared because they time-traveled and made their past self prepared.
166	* RippleEffectIndicator: An object or sometimes even a person that signifies that time travel has been happening.
167	* RippleEffectProofMemory: Someone still remembers the old timeline in spite of it being changed.
168	* RubberBandHistory: A story that begins in an alternate history and ends in a non-alternate history.
169	* SanDimasTime: Someone has a limited amount of time to change the past before it somehow becomes too late to change it.
170	* ScrewDestiny: Someone successfully defies destiny.
171	* ScrewYourself: If having intercourse with oneself involves using time travel to have sex with one's past or future self.
172	* SelfDefeatingProphecy: A prophecy that would come true if it weren't for its own existence.
173	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: Trying to defy a prophecy actually makes it come true.
174	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Using time travel to prevent bad things from happening.
175	* SetWrongWhatWasOnceMadeRight: Someone goes back in time to undo a bad thing in the past, and (due to it creating a BadFuture, TemporalParadox, or something else terrible) has to go back and undo that change.
176	* TheSlowPath: Waiting is treated as similar to time travel.
177	* SpeculativeFictionLGBT: LGBT people feature a lot in sci-fi and fantasy.
178	* SpinTheEarthBackwards: Making the Earth spin backwards in an attempt to turn back time.
179	* StableTimeLoop: Events happened because a person went back in time and vice versa.
180	* StrandedWithEdison: Using a historical genius to introduce modern technology to people in the past.
181	* SupernaturallyYoungParent: Not always because of time travel but it can be: for a paranormal reason, someone is younger than their son or daughter.
182	* TemporalAbortion: A time travel plot to end someone's existence by preventing them from ever being born.
183	* TemporalDuplication: Multiple versions of the same person present due to time travel.
184	* TemporalParadox: When time travel causes a paradox.
185	* TemporalSickness: Time travel literally makes someone sick.
186	* TemporalSuicide: Someone killing their past/future self.
187	* TerminatorTwosome: Two people go back in time, one to change history and one to prevent history from being changed.
188	* ThisIsGoingToBeHuge: Someone in the past thinks that something will be very popular. They're wrong.
189	* ThisIsMyBoomstick: Using technology to impress people from the past.
190	* TimeAndRelativeDimensionsInSpace: A work tries to answer the question of ''where'' (not when) you end up when you time travel.
191	* TimeCrash: Someone "breaks" time via time travel.
192	* TimeDilation: Effectively traveling forward (but not backwards) in time, via Einsteinian relativity.
193	* TimeDissonance: A species that thinks of time in a different way than humans.
194	* TimeFreezeTrollingSpree: Playing pranks on other people while they're frozen in time.
195	* TimeIsDangerous: Time machines are dangerous to use.
196	* TimelineAlteringMacGuffin: Something from the future that will cause an alternate timeline if left in the past.
197	* TimeLoopFatigue: A character is exhausted physically or emotionally by a time loop.
198	* TimeLoopTrap: Someone uses a StableTimeLoop for imprisonment.
199	* TimeMachine: A machine that enables time travel.
200	* TimeMaster: Somebody who can control time.
201	* TimePolice: People who either outlaw time travel or make laws related to time travel.
202	* TimeRewindMechanic: A video game "mechanic" that allows you to rewind time.
203	* TimeStandsStill: Time stops progressing, thus freezing everything in perfect stasis.
204	* TimeTravelersAreSpies: A time traveler is mistaken for a spy.
205	* TimeTravelersBaby: A time traveler has a baby in the time period they traveled to.
206	* TimeTravelersDinosaur: An extinct creature makes an appearance due to time travel.
207	* TimeTravelingJerkass: Changing the past to benefit oneself or get revenge on someone.
208	* TheTimeTravellersDilemma: Changing the past raises moral dilemmas.
209	* TimeTravelTaboo: Time travel is not allowed because [insert reason here].
210	* TimeTravelEpisode: An episode of a series that focuses on time travel.
211	* TimeTravelEscape: Saving a dead person via time travel.
212	* TimeTravelForFunAndProfit: Using time travel to make money.
213	* TimeTravelRomance: Falling in love with someone from another time.
214	* TimeTravelTenseTrouble: Not knowing which tense (it was, it is, it will be) to use because of time travel.
215	* TimeyWimeyBall: The rules of time travel are inconsistent.
216	* ToTheFutureAndBeyond: Somebody can travel further into the future.
217	* TrappedInThePast: Someone accidentally ends up in the past without knowing how to come back.
218	* TragicTimeTraveler: A character who travels through time, but has had no end of misery because of it.
219	* TrickedOutTime: Changing the past while making it look like you didn't.
220	* TrustPassword: A phrase that proves someone's identity.
221	* UnstuckInTime: Somebody who randomly time travels with no idea when (and sometimes where) they'll end up.
222	* WaybackTrip: The protagonist/s have to fix a change in history but the change has happened for seemingly no reason.
223	* TheWebAlwaysExisted: If you bring a computer while time travelling, you can use the internet even before it was invented.
224	* WeirdnessSearchAndRescue: When someone ends up in another timeline, they'll get help from a more seasoned time traveler.
225	* WeWillAllFlyInTheFuture: Flying is effortless in the future.
226	* WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture: People in the future don't get sick.
227	* WeWillNotHaveAppendixesInTheFuture: In the future, people will lack useless body parts.
228	* WhatYearIsThis: Someone has time traveled but doesn't know when to, so they ask for the year.
229	* WhichMe: When somebody has been cloned, they don't know whether to use "me" or "you/they/he/she".
230	* WriteBackToTheFuture: Somebody writes a letter so that people in the future will read it.
231	* WrongTimeTravelSavvy: Someone mistakenly thinks they know how time travel works.
232	* YeGoodeOldeDays: A work that makes the past seem better.
233	* YearInsideHourOutside: A long time in another world is a short time in this world.
234	* YearOutsideHourInside: A ''short'' time in another world is a ''long'' time in this world.
235	* YouAlreadyChangedThePast: Someone attempts to prevent a tragic event from happening in the past, only to find in the end that the event happened ''because'' they traveled to the past.
236	* YouCantFightFate: No amount of altering the past will prevent your destined fate from happening.
237	* YouWillBeBeethoven: Someone travels into the past and accidentally kills someone important or finds out the important person never existed, so they have to "be" that person.
238	* YoungFutureFamousPeople: Past/younger versions of famous celebrities and historical figures.
239	[[/index]]
240	----
241	->'''[[Film/AvengersEndgame Scott]]:''' ''Film/DieHard''. [''beat''] No, that's not one.

Context Main / TimeTravelTropes