What's going on here?: Hitlers Time Travel Exemption Act

I'm just... confused. Maybe it's because I don't know the context of the picture, but from what I can see, the spaceman isn't shooting Hitler, but rather just two Nazi soldiers, who then shoot him back. Nothing about Hitler anywhere in there. Not saying the picture is bad, but I don't see Hitler anywhere in there.

I don't know, DRCEQ, I can deduce that he's out to kill Hitler (which is presumably in the room) with no problems.

Is that Hitler he is suppose to be shooting? It certainly doesn't look like him.

The point of the trope is that killing Hitler is immensely difficult. He clashed with Hitler's bodyguards. Hitler's in the room he tried to enter (and eventually failed) in the last panel.

My impression was the picture's all right, but maybe it's not as clear as I thought. We'll hear other opinions.

edited 11th Mar '11 8:01:48 AM by Catalogue

Maybe the opening movie from Red Alert?

That's what I was thinking too, though it might be hard to depict a 3 or 4 panel picture of Hitler being chrono-erased from history and then Stalin starting the war because he was bored.

That picture seems quite straightforward to me. Guy teleports into a Nazi base, attacks some guards, and gets shot before he can get into the next room.

^ Yeah, but what does Hitler have anything to do with that? He's still not shown, nor is it implied that it's his room the guy is trying to get into.

Really, it just kind of struck me as obvious. If you're going back in time to fight Nazis, you're after Hitler.

Well yes, but it's still more than adequate.

Incorrect. The point of the trope is that going back in time to kill Hitler would cause drastic changes to the Space-Time Continuum, hence why he has an exemption from being screwed around with in all time-travel scenarios.

edited 11th Mar '11 10:12:38 AM by SeanMurrayI

Umm Star Trek Enterprise.... (as bad as that episode was but still)

edited 11th Mar '11 10:12:18 AM by Raso

I don't really have a problem with the pic.

Only it doesn't show how killing Hitler while time-traveling would have a significant impact on the course of history.

Yes. If we define the trope that way, the picture is inadequate.

But consider this: I've always thought the trope is about the silliness of the idea (of trying to kill Hitler), and how it won't work as intended. The fact that it will screw up the events I thought as merely part of the problem, since, as the article reads, "First of all, it often proves near-impossible to kill the man in the first place". Seriously, the article reads in such a way that if it weren't for the laconic, I'd think I was right. "If you time-travel into the past and then try to kill Hitler, it won't work as intended. It may even backfire." "It may even" here translates to me as "the confusion afterwards is optional".

If we define the trope that way? But that is how the trope is defined.

The simple fact that it would be difficult to kill Hitler to begin with would not have anything to do with why he's exempt from being messed around with through time-travel activity. If anything, the part of the description you're quoting from about the difficulty to kill Hitler is just incredibly misleading and off-topic.

edited 11th Mar '11 10:37:55 AM by SeanMurrayI

The fact that (in fiction) Hitler is ludicrously hard to kill, regardless of whether Time Travel is involved, is a different trope.

This trope should be about how killing Hitler to prevent WWII invariably leads to something worse.

Then the image doesn't work, surely? Since what it shows is the difficulty of killing Hitler, not the screwed-up aftermath.

If it's misleading it's because I was misled and confused, not a deliberate attempt. To pick a page image requires us to understand the trope, I was unsure, and I asked a question.

( I see. Which one is that?)

edited 11th Mar '11 10:45:41 AM by Catalogue

We already have a trope for that. Kinda. It's not exactly the same, but it's really similar to that idea; namely that time traveling always helps the Nazis. There's a lot of overlap between the two.

edited 11th Mar '11 11:15:08 AM by JapaneseTeeth

Godwin's Law of Time Travel is not the same as this.

Godwin's Law of Time Travel = Changes to history through time travel creates an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WWII.

Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act = You cannot go back in time and kill Hitler because it would cause radical, unintended, unexpected changes to the course of history which can, in practice, have absolutely nothing to do with the Nazis.

There may be some overlap between the two, but these are two very different concepts.

edited 11th Mar '11 11:57:33 AM by SeanMurrayI

What I meant was merely that there are some overlaps between the two tropes. I just phrased it really badly.

In any case, the current image doesn't work all that great if you aren't familiar with the context.

^I'm not familiar with the context, unless you mean "knowing who the Nazis were."

Bump...just to clarify, the pic should be pulled because it's not representative of the trope?

It does show one of the trope's straight outcomes:

"First of all, it often proves near-impossible to kill the man in the first place — Like most dictators he's protected by various bodyguards and security forces."

edited 11th May '11 4:59:56 AM by EternalSeptember

Bump...any other thoughts?