This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
I'm wondering if Harry showing up and casting the Patronus charm to save himself near the end of "Prisoner..." counts. I mean, he thinks it's his Dad, but it actually him... I know it's not a perfect fit, but it is simliar to the Flash example.
Great Limmick: Is this parodied in Futurama, or played straight?
movie007: Yeah, I always thought it was played straight in Futurama. After all, the trip to Roswell did create a Stable Time Loop.
Micah: I don't know Charmed, but this reads weirdly to me: "Piper Halliwell's past life, P. Baxter, was the great-grandmother of her present life. She's also her sisters' great-grandmother." Is there something specific to the show that makes the second sentence less than entirely obvious?
T Paradox: I'm not here to whine about tropes getting slack, except I guess I am. It seems to me that the milder definition of this trope is a slippery slope, depending on how important you consider the difference in age between the two selves. Personally, I think the Harry Potter reference is not this trope, and just a vanilla Stable Time Loop. The second Harry is only a few hours older. Admittedly, he does something very important, but is it this trope when someone goes back in time an hour to rescue oneself? Half an hour? Five minutes? Self-interaction does not make a My Own Grampa. Propose we define it somewhat strictly as "adult-ish influences self as a child." To put a number on it, a minimum of around five years difference?
Lenoxus: From a strictly genetic point of view (excluding the physics of time travel and the psychology of incest), how plausible is this trope (in its literal form)? As far as I can tell, it would be the same as the odds of a couple having two genetically identical children who are not twins — that is to say, very, very small. (Or, since incest is at hand in the trope anyway, I'll disgust you with this example, which is even closer: a brother and sister have a son who is genetically identical to the brother. As far as I can tell, it's "possible", but requires exactly the same half of DNA to be copied twice, a very low probability indeed. Outside of those odds, a story with this has basically two options: either say that time itself caused the correct sperm take the correct path, or that there's a finite (or infinite) sequence of genetically different grandchildren mating with the "next universe's" grandparents. Ewww.
