History Main / TheStoryThatNeverWas

* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' Season 2, after the Legends spend most of the season trying to keep TheSpearOfDestiny out of the hands of the LegionOfDoom, ultimately they fail and the Legion uses the Spear to rewrite reality. Even trapped within the Legion's Doomworld reality, the Legends make a final attempt to steal back the spear and undo the damage, only for Eobard Thawne to destroy the spear itself. The Legends then reason that the only way to repair reality is to stop the Legion from getting the Spear to begin with, so they travel back in time across their own personal history to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI where the Legion had first acquired the completed Spear. In a FinalBattle of the Legends teaming up with their past selves to face the Legion, all of the future Legends end up being killed with the exception of Sara. Sara then uses the Spear's reality powers to disable its own reality warping ''before'' the Legion would use it, thus preventing the Legion from ever creating the Doomworld to begin with and restoring reality to its correct nature, but also [[NiceJobBreakingItHero breaking time in the process]].

* At the end of ''VideoGame/Persona2InnocentSin'', BigBad Nyarlathotep successfully destroys the world, and BigGood Philemon tells the heroes that the only way they can undo it is by undoing their meeting of each other when they were children, the "innocent sin" responsible for the entire plot. They accept, but main character Tatsuya ends up retaining his memories, kicking off the plot of the sequel ''VideoGame/Persona2EternalPunishment''.

** The two-parter "Year of Hell" is also this. ''Voyager'' ventures into a region of space controlled by an enemy, the Krenim, that has the power to change the past by erasing objects or people from history. At the climax of the episode, Janeway destroys the mechanism they use to change time, causing it to blow up and erase ''itself'' from history. The final scene of the episode shows them back at the beginning, with everything that happened up to that point now erased from history. With the correct balance of power now restored, their first contact with this version of the Krenim is much more civil, and the conflict (and subsequent Year of Hell) is avoided.

[[folder:Film — Live Action]]

* Subverted in the ninth and tenth ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants'' books. An evil time traveler named Tippy Tinkletrousers escapes from Captain Underpants by travelling back in time. When he returns to the present, he discovers that [[ItMakesSenseInContext he caused something while in the past that caused other villains to defeat Captain Underpants]] and is seemingly trampled to death by a giant zombie. The narrator then says that "the epic novels that we have come to know and love never actually happened." It's not until the prologue of the next book that we learn that the zombie moved so slowly that Tippy was able to put a jumbo ketchup packet under the zombie's foot and escaped back to the past to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong.

** The TropeNamer is the [[Recap/DoctorWHoNSS3E12TheSoundOfDrums two]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E13LastOfTheTimeLords part]] finale of Series 3 of the revival: [[ArchEnemy The Master]] has [[TheBadGuyWins succeeded]] in taking over the entire world, trapping the Doctor in a RapidAging state, and Martha Jones on the run on the ground. He accomplishes this by using a psychic MindControlDevice to gradually work his way into being elected Prime Minister of Britain, before using an army of Toclafane (cyborg future humans he transports to the present) to seize control of the whole world. The Master spends a year having his army gradually killing off the population of Earth, which is a TemporalParadox since they're killing their ancestors. This is only made possible due to the Master turning the Doctor's TARDIS into a Paradox Machine. The Doctor ultimately manages to defeat the Master by having Martha travel the Earth to every human survivor (linked with the Master's psychic device) and have them [[WordPower all think his name in unison]], allowing the psychic energies to be [[EmpoweredBadassNormal granted to him]]. Once the Master is out of the way, the Paradox Machine is destroyed, causing the entire year of the Master's reign to reset back to before the paradox machine was activated. Only the select few people present near the machine retained memories of the year, while the rest of the population of the Earth were unaware of it occurring. This year came to be known as "The Year That Never Was".
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E10JourneyToTheCentreOfTheTardis Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS]]", the TARDIS takes damage from a salvaging ship's [[TractorBeam magno-grab]]. This causes all sorts of problems, including Clara being trapped inside, moments from time seeping out, and zombie creatures roaming about the ship. Then, to top it all off, the TARDIS core is revealed to have hit critical and will eventually explode, with the zombie creatures revealed to be future versions of the TARDIS crew who had their flesh burned up and melted by the TARDIS. The Doctor eventually figures out the only way to repair the damage is to prevent the entire day from happening to begin with, which he does so by reaching through one of the tears in time to the point where the TARDIS got caught in the field and passes his past self the button to turn off the magnetic field, effectively erasing the entire day.

* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' Season 2, after the Legends spend most of the season trying to keep TheSpearOfDestiny out of the hands of the LegionOfDoom, ultimately they fail and the Legion uses the Spear to rewrite reality. Even trapped within the Legion's Doomworld reality, the Legends make a final attempt to steal back the spear and undo the damage, only for Eobard Thawne to destroy the spear itself. The Legends then reason that the only way to repair reality is to stop the Legion from getting the Spear to begin with, so they travel back in time across their own personal history to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI where the Legion had first acquired the completed Spear. In a FinalBattle of the Legends teaming up with their past selves to face the Legion, all of the future Legends end up being killed with the exception of Sara. Sara then uses the Spear's reality powers to disable its own reality warping ''before'' the Legion would use it, thus preventing the Legion from ever creating the Doomworld to begin with and restoring reality to its correct nature, but also [[NiceJobBreakingItHero breaking time in the process]].

** The two-parter "Year of Hell" is also this. ''Voyager'' ventures into a region of space controlled by an enemy, the Krenim, that has the power to change the past by erasing objects or people from history. At the climax of the episode, Janeway destroys the mechanism they use to change time, causing it to blow up and erase ''itself'' from history. The ending shows them back at the first scene of the episode, with the events of the episode never having happened. With the correct balance of power now restored, their first contact with this version of the Krenim is much more civil, and the conflict (and subsequent Year of Hell) is avoided.

!Examples:

[[folder:Comics]]

* In ''ComicBook/AdventureTime'', the "Dungeon Master" arc ends up with its entire timeline being erased from history as a side-effect of destroying the {{Eldritch Abomination}}s that were its villains.

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live Action]]

* ''Film/{{Primer}}'': when the power of TimeTravel proves too dangerous and too confusing for anyone to use, Abe Terger travels back as far as he can and interferes with his past self's experiments, hoping to stop the past versions of himself and Aaron from pursuing time travel any further. The future versions of Abe and Aaron, who went through all that character development, continue existing--since time travel in ''Primer'' results in the travelers cloning themselves unless they're careful to maintain a StableTimeLoop.
* Not in an "Old Testament kind of mood" at the time, God in ''Film/JesusBro'' decides to undo [[CaughtUpInTheRapture the rapture]] and the various deaths caused by Rick, Santa Christ and the Devil's actions in the film by resetting everything to before Elizabeth breaks up with Rick. Subverted, in that Santa Christ returns Rick's memories of everything that happened shortly after.

* ''Film/TheDevilsAdvocate'': The movie ends with Kevin Lomax deciding to screw fate and killing himself to destroy the Devil's plans for world conquest. Then he suddenly finds himself back at the courthouse at the start of the movie before he made the decision that would lead to him meeting and ultimately working for the Devil. He chooses differently this time, thus undoing all the film's events, but it turns out that the Devil is still watching him anyway...

* In ''Literature/ArtemisFowl: The Lost Colony'', Artemis and Holly, along with N°1 and Qwan (demon warlocks) are trapped in ''Limbo'' (a place outside of time) that Hybras (the Demon Island) is suspended in. But the spell holding Limbo there is unraveling causing time in the realm to warp all over the place, with constant past and future moments in the realm intersecting with the present. Artemis manages to figure out the pattern of the time jumps by observing the timer on a bomb that they had managed to drag along with them and they plan to use the energy of the kinetic bomb to power the spell. [[BigBad Leon Abbot]] however does not allow this, and draws his blade, slaughtering Holly and the warlocks. When he reaches Artemis he considers sparing the human, keeping him around as his pet and teach him tricks. But Artemis has a trick for Abbot, still keeping the count of the time jumps in his mind, he takes Holly's neutrino pistol and fires a laser bolt at the place where Abbot was about to stab Holly, just as the past intersects with the present, causing the laser bolt to get whipped into the past and hit Abbot before he stabs her. The present Abbot disappears while Holly and the warlocks get back up as if nothing had happened, because nothing ''had'' since Artemis had used the time jumping to prevent their murders from happening in the first place.
* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}: Be Careful What You Wish For'': Samatha Byrd gets a gift of three wishes from the witch Clarissa. But, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor as expected]], all these wishes come with terrible side effects. At the end, Samatha's uses her final request to wish that she had never met Clarissa.

[[folder:Live Action Television]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' being a time travel show does this a fair bit:
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E8FathersDay Father's Day]]", the Doctor takes Rose Tyler back to the day where her father, Pete, was killed so she could share one last moment with him just before he dies. However Rose disobeys the Doctor and saves her father's life by pushing him out of the way of the car that would kill him. As this was a fixed point in time, changing it causes catastrophic events on the world with the [[ClockRoaches Reapers of Time]] being released to deal with the paradox. Ultimately, the one way to fix the anomaly is to have Pete relive the event that was changed and get hit by the car that would have killed him. Accepting his fate as the only way to restore time, Pete walks in front of the car and gets killed, erasing all of the alternate timeline that occurred due to the paradox.
** The TropeNamer where an event known as "The Year That Never Was" takes place. In the [[Recap/DoctorWHoNSS3E12TheSoundOfDrums two]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E13LastOfTheTimeLords parter]] finale of Series 3 of the revival. [[ArchEnemy The Master]] had [[TheBadGuyWins succeeded]] in taking control over the entire world, trapping the Doctor in a RapidAging state, and Martha Jones on the run on the ground. The Master accomplished this by using a psychic MindControlDevice to gradually work his way into being elected Prime Minister of Britain, before using an army of Toclafane (cyborg future humans he had transported to the present) to seize control of the whole world. The Master would spend a year having his army gradually killing off the population of Earth, which was a TemporalParadox since they were killing their ancestors. This is only made possible due to the Master turning the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine. The Doctor ultimately manages to defeat the Master, by having Martha travel the Earth to every human survivor (linked with the Master's psychic device) and have them [[WordPower all think his name in unison]], allowing the psychic energies to be [[EmpoweredBadassNormal granted to him]]. Once the Master is out of the way, the paradox machine is destroyed, causing the entire year of the Master's reign to reset back to before the paradox machine was activated. Only the select few people present near the machine retained memories of the year, while the rest of the population of the Earth were unaware of it occurring. This year came to be known as "The Year That Never Was".
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E10JourneyToTheCentreOfTheTardis Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS]]", the TARDIS takes damage from a salvaging ship's magnetic cobble field. This causes all sorts of problems including Clara being trapped inside, moments from time seeping out, and zombie creatures roaming about the ship. Then to top it all off the TARDIS core is revealed to have hit critical and will eventually explode, with the zombie creatures revealed to be future versions of the TARDIS crew who had their flesh burned up and melted by the TARDIS. The Doctor eventually figures out the one way to repair the damage is to prevent the entire day from happening to begin with, which he does so by reaching through one of the tears in time to the point where the TARDIS got caught in the field and passes his past self the button to turn off the magnetic field, effectively erasing the entire day.
* At the climax of the ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "The Locket", the central characters are forced to use the strange properties of the NegativeSpaceWedgie that they are trapped in to reverse time and change history so that they never entered it. One of the two characters with a RippleEffectProofMemory who remember this feels guilt that they might have erased a number of people who were conceived and born thanks to one of the crew having children on a planet on the other side of the anomaly, but the other speculates that they might have split the timeline instead of erasing it.

* As well as referencing the ''Star Trek'' example (as seen in the page quote), ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' has this twice itself; at the beginning of chapter 4, and for the entire game.
** Max realises she can jump back in time via photos (as well as just reversing it briefly as is done in normal gameplay) and tries to fix the death of Chloe's [[GoodParents near angelic father]]. In the new timeline Chloe suffered a car accident instead and is dying a slow, painful death while confined to a wheelchair, suffering many of the bad things that were previously caused by her father's death[[note]]kicked out of school because they can't accommodate her rather than delinquency, the family are on the verge of poverty because of medical bills despite her father's job, Max still moved away (and seems socially isolated at school as an AlphaBitch instead of a wallflower) and all the mysterious events they were investigating -- including the random death of animals, freak weather events and the disappearance of Rachel (who Chloe never met) -- are still happening[[/note]], culminating in a choice of whether you [[ICannotSelfTerminate kill her with an overdose]] at her own request, or not. This is finally enough to make Max restore the original timeline, where Chloe is miserable and went through hell for the last 5 years, but is still alive. The entire scene is effectively {{foreshadowing}} for the endings...
** You first see Chloe when she's shot by Nathan, causing Max to manifest her TimeMaster powers and undo it in a JustifiedTutorial. At the end of episode 5/Season 1 you have a SadisticChoice of endings; "Sacrifice Chloe" or "Sacrifice Arcadia Bay". The former follows this trope, Max goes back in time (via a photo you took just before it happened) to let her get shot and DyingAlone (as far as she knows), never to be reunited with the former best friend crying her eyes out just feet away. A montage reveals that this also solves most of the story's other conflicts.[[note]]Nathan sells out Jefferson after being arrested for her murder (and presumably gets the care he needs), the Prescotts are being investigated for their involvement, Rachel's body is discovered shortly after as a result and Kate never attempts suicide, as the much larger scandal prevents the video of her going viral (and/or the arrest of Nathan making it clear she was a victim).[[/note]]
** The other ending subverts this trope. Max tears the photo up (echoing an earlier moment when she destroys her prize winning photo to retcon herself back to the town and be able to save Chloe), having decided to ScrewDestiny and let the storm that this damage to the timeline summoned [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl destroy the town]] (with a ShrugOfGod as to how many survivors there are). After it subsides an unspecified amount of time later, [[OnlyTheLeadsGetAHappyEnding Max and Chloe leave the ruined town together, moving on with their lives]].
* ''VideoGame/DeponiaDoomsday'' has a tangled story with time travel, time resetting and time loops that ultimately ends with Rufus convincing everybody that the tragic end of the previous game is the best option.

* ''VisualNovel/SuperDanganronpa2'' is all a computer simulation to retrain everyone to be better people. Well, at least that was the plan before Monokuma showed up and hijacked everything. A large part of the finale is about how to proceed with the situation, either undoing it all or letting the villain win. Despite all intents and plans, the reset turns out to ''somehow'' allow everyone to retain their memories and character developments, despite the timeline being thrown out.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' involved lots of time travel, and Dr. Eggman trying to harness the power of the god Solaris to conquer everything. Predictably, Solaris gets out of control and destroys almost all of time and space before Sonic and friends can stop him. The final cutscene involves one last bit of time travel, in which where Sonic and Elise extinguish the flame of Solaris, thereby preventing the lab accident that set the entire plot in motion. As the rest of the game wasn't very good, Sonic fans didn't particularly mind that it ended by erasing itself from the series timeline.

* The original ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Final Fantasy]]'' saw this happen upon the Light Warriors destroying Chaos and ending the cycle of Garland going back in time to become him[[note]]The time loop is effectively: 1) Garland is defeated by the Light Warriors and sent back in time by the present day Fiends, 2) Garland in the past becomes Chaos and sends the past Fiends to the future, 3) the Light Warriors travel back in time and are killed by Chaos. The time loop can only be broken is Garland at step 1 defeats the Light Warriors, or the Light Warriors at step 3 defeat Chaos, which is what happened in the game[[/note]]. The ending text makes it clear that ''no one'' will remember the events of the game, since they never happened (the Fiends were defeated in the past ''before'' Garland could send them to the present), and that it's incumbent on the ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall player]]'' to remember the events as the true arbiter of the legend.
* The plot of ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' is driven by the conflict of the PlayerCharacter Booker [=DeWitt=] and the BigBad Zachary Comstock over Comstock's daughter Elizabeth and her DimensionalTraveler powers. Towards the end of the game, it is revealed that Comstock is actually Booker himself who, in an alternate timeline, has had a religious conversion and changed his name, while Elizabeth was originally the player-controlled Booker's daughter Anna, who was taken to another dimension as a baby. After Elizabeth's power manifests fully, she realizes that the number of timelines is infinite and Booker becomes Comstock in about a half of them, so the only way to put an end to this conflict is by killing him just before the Comstock-Booker bifurcation occurs, effectively preventing the entire plot of the game from ever occurring, which she does with Booker's consent.

* Strange Bedfellows: Kronos decides to retcon the entire story by using god-powered time travel (which can only affect a few electrical impulses if you aim for twenty years ago) to prevent himself from inadvertently starting war between the Varkians and Sakkilians. Of course, a few outsiders were watching and decided to give a copy of the epic to Kronos after he and the others "woke up" from that strange dream... but anyone who ceased to exist is permanently unwritten from history.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Back to the Pilot", Brian asks for Stewie's help in finding a lost tennis ball. Stewie agrees to take Brian back in time so he can see the location, but Brian failing to listen to Stewie's warnings ends up telling his past self about the 9/11 attacks. This results in an apocalyptic BadFuture from the result of nuclear attacks. After multiple trips result in [[MesACrowd dozens of Stewies and Brians]] from the future arguing it out on whether or not to prevent 9/11, one of the Stewies decides to hold a vote. Upon the majority agreeing to allow 9/11 to happen, this Stewie and Brian then travel one minute back in time to the very first point they arrived via time travel, before they made ''any'' changes. Stewie then draws a gun on the past Stewie and Brian and forces them to go back to the present. By doing so, Stewie managed to erase the entire alternate timeline created by the constant time travel along with this version of Brian and Stewie.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' an episode revolves around Francis Grey, a clock-repair man who, because of his family's dire financial straits, stole an expensive watch. This leads to a cavalcade of DisasterDominoes which [[UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime landed him 20 years in prison]]. After developing TimeMaster powers and using them to lash out with an EvilPlan, he accidentally kills his son. Then he supercharges his powers and goes back to the moment before he stole the watch--this time, wisely deciding to just work overtime instead. The episode ends as it began; with the Bat-Family discussing New Years resolutions, but a clock that Alfred had trouble repairing has been fixed by none other than Francis himself. The episode ends less than a few minutes after it chronologically started with Francis returning to his van labelled "Grey and Son, Watch Repair" to spend Christmas with his family.
* The sixth season of WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}, Skybound, ends in this when Jay uses his final wish from [[JackassGenie Nadakhan]] to make it so that no one ever released Nadakhan in the first place. Nadakhan, who is forced to oblidge and is unable to twist Jay's words due to being weakened from Tiger Widow venom, grants this wish, and everything reverts to the way it was at the beginning of the season (with the exception that Jay and Nya retain their memories of the experience).

[[/folder]]

* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' Season 2, after the Legends spend most of the season trying to keep TheSpearOfDestiny out of the hands of the LegionOfDoom, ultimately they fail and the Legion uses the Spear to rewrite reality. Even trapped within the Legion's Doomworld reality, the Legends make a final attempt to steal back the spear and undo the damage, only for Eobard Thawne to destroy the spear itself. The Legends then reason that the only way to repair reality is to stop the Legion from getting the Spear to begin with, so they travel back in time across their own personal history to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI where the Legion had first acquired the completed Spear. In a FinalBattle of the Legends teaming up with their past selves to face the Legion, all of the future Legends end up being killed with the exception of Sara. Sara then uses the Spear's reality powers to disable its own reality warping ''before'' the Legion would use it, thus preventing the Legion from ever creating the Doomworld to begin with and restoring reality to its correct nature, but also [[NiceJobBreakingItHeroes breaking time in the process]].

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Back to the Pilot", Brian asks for Stewie's help in finding a lost tennis ball. Stewie agrees to take Brian back in time so he can see the location, but Brian fails to listen ends up telling his past self about the 9/11 attacks. This results in an apocalyptic BadFuture from the result of nuclear attacks. After multiple trips result in [[MesACrowd dozens of Stewies and Brians]] from the future arguing it out on whether or not to prevent 9/11, one of the Stewies decides to hold a vote. Upon the majority agreeing to allow 9/11 to happen, this Stewie and Brian then travel one minute back in time to the very first point they arrived via time travel, before they made ''any'' changes. Stewie then draws a gun on the past Stewie and Brian and forces them to go back to the present. By doing so, Stewie managed to erase the entire timeline created by the time travel along with this version of Brian and Stewie.

** The TropeNamer where an event known as "The Year That Never Was" takes place. In the [[Recap/DoctorWHoNSS3E12TheSoundOfDrums two]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E13LastOfTheTimeLords parter]] finale of Series 3 of the revival. [[ArchEnemy The Master]] had [[TheBadGuyWins succeeded]] in taking control over the entire world, trapping the Doctor in a RapidAging state, and Martha Jones on the run on the ground. The Master accomplished this by using a psychic MindControlDevice to gradually work his way into being elected Prime Minister of Britain, before using an army of Toclafane (cyborg future human he had transported to the present) to cease control of the whole world. The Master would spend a year having his army gradually killing off the population of Earth, which was a TemporalParadox since they were killing their ancestors. This is only made possible due to the Master turning the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine. The Doctor ultimately manages to defeat the Master, by having Martha travel the Earth to every human survivor (linked with the Master's psychic device) and have them [[WordPower all think his name in unison]], allowing the psychic energies to be [[EmpoweredBadassNormal granted to him]]. Once the Master is out of the way, the paradox machine is destroyed, causing the entire year of the Master's reign to reset back to before the paradox machine was activated. Only the select few people present near the machine retained memories of the year, while the rest of the population of the Earth were unaware of it occurring. This year came to be known as "The Year That Never Was".

'''''Note:''''' This is a SpoileredRotten trope, that means that '''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE''' on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked. [[YouHaveBeenWarned This is your last warning]], only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'' an episode revolves around Francis Grey, a clock-repair man who, because of his family's dire financial straits, stole an expensive watch. This leads to a cavalcade of DisasterDominoes which [[UnintentionallyNotoriousCrime landed him 20 years in prison]]. After developing TimeMaster powers and using them to lash out with an EvilPlan, he accidentally kills his son. Then he supercharges his powers and goes back to the moment before he stole the watch--this time, wisely deciding to just work overtime instead. The episode ends as it began; with the bat-family discussing new years resolutions, but a clock that Alfred had trouble repairing has been fixed by none other than Francis himself. The episode ends less than a few minutes after it chronologically started with Francis returning to his van labelled "Grey and Son, Watch Repair" to spend Christmas with his family.

'''As an {{Ending Trope|s}}, [[Administrivia/HandlingSpoilers all spoilers on this page are unmarked]].'''

* The sixth season of WesternAnimation/{{Ninjago}}, Skybound, ends in this when [[spoiler: Jay uses his final wish from [[JackassGenie Nadakhan]] to make it so that no one ever released Nadakhan in the first place. Nadakhan, who is forced to oblidge and is unable to twist Jay's words due to being weakened from Tiger Widow venom, grants this wish, and everything reverts to the way it was at the beginning of the season (with the exception that Jay and Nya retain their memories of the experience).]]

Sometimes the protagonist will wake up and find out that it was AllJustADream. This is a slightly darker take that shows up in speculative fiction that deals with TimeTravel, {{Reality Warp|er}}ing and alternate realities; the events really took place, but some key ForWantOfANail near the beginning [[SetRightWhatOnceWasWrong must be undone]] to resolve the plot's key conflict. It could be the solution to ending a GroundhogDayLoop (as opposed to getting the loop perfect), a matter of realising that a single trip was a case of MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight, or it could just be a case of the option to RetGone everything coming up in the finale. Reasons can include BalancingDeathsBooks, preventing a TimeParadox, or simply discovering that the unintended consequences of the event in question outweigh the good it does. More often than not, the event in question is the same one that brought about said conflict, making this an odd sort of CuttingTheKnot solution.

* At the end of ''Film/TheButterflyEffect'', the protagonist decides that the only way he can stop screwing things up with his MentalTimeTravel is to jump back to before he was born, and strangle himself in his mother's womb; deleted scenes imply he wasn't even the first of his mother's children to go through this.

* In ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' Season 2, after the Legends spend most of the season trying to keep TheSpearOfDestiny out of the hands of the LegionOfDoom, ultimately they fail and the Legion uses the Spear to rewrite reality. Even trapped within the Legion's Doomworld reality, the Legends make a final attempt to steal back the spear and undo the damage, only for Eobard Thawne to destroy the spear itself. The Legends then reason that the only way to repair reality is to stop the Legion from getting the Spear to begin with, so they travel back in time across their own personal history to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI where the Legion had first acquired the completed Spear. In a FinalBattle of the Legends teaming up with their past selves to face the Legion, all of the future Legends end up being killed with the exception of Sara. Sara then uses the Spear's reality powers to disable its own reality warping ''before'' the Legion would use it, thus preventing the Legion from ever creating the Doomworld to begin with and restoring reality to its correct nature.

* In ''Series/DoctorWho'',

** In the [[Recap/DoctorWHoNSS3E12TheSoundOfDrums two]]-[[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS3E13LastOfTheTimeLords parter]] finale of Series 3 of the revival. [[ArchEnemy The Master]] had [[TheBadGuyWins succeeded]] in taking control over the entire world, trapping the Doctor in a RapidAging state, and Martha Jones on the run on the ground. The Master accomplished this by using a psychic MindControlDevice to gradually work his way into being elected Prime Minister of Britain, before using an army of Toclafane (cyborg future human he had transported to the present) to cease control of the whole world. The Master would spend a year having his army gradually killing off the population of Earth, which was a TemporalParadox since they were killing their ancestors. This is only made possible due to the Master turning the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine. The Doctor ultimately manages to defeat the Master, by having Martha travel the Earth to every human survivor (linked with the Master's psychic device) and have them [[WordPower all think his name in unison]], allowing the psychic energies to be [[EmpoweredBadassNormal granted to him]]. Once the Master is out of the way, the paradox machine is destroyed, causing the entire year of the Master's reign to reset back to before the paradox machine was activated. Only the select few people present near the machine retained memories of the year, while the rest of the population of the Earth were unaware of it occurring. This year came to be known as "The Year That Never Was".

* At the end of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', Zelda resets the timeline to just before Link met her and she sent him of to try to stop Ganndorf on his own. They realize that Ganondorf would've never have risen to power if they had simply turned him over to the proper authorities instead of unlocking the sacred realm giving him the opportunity to steal the triforce. She also apologizes that all the time travel shenanigans deprived Link of a normal childhood. In doing so she actually failed to fully erase everything and created at least two timelines - one where Link simply vanished from existence after defeating Ganon as an adult, and one where he exposed the conspiracy as a child. WordOfGod is that despite being able to live out his childhood, Link retained memories of the events of the plot and lived an unfulfilled life because he never got to be the Hero of Time. However he managed to ease his regrets by passing on his knowledge to his successor as the Hero's Shade in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess''.

* At the end of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', Zelda resets the timeline to just before Link met her and she sent him of to try to stop Ganndorf on his own. They realize that Ganondorf would've never have risen to power if they had simply turned him over to the proper authorities instead of unlocking the sacred realm giving him the opportunity to steal the triforce. She also apologizes that all the time travel shenanigans deprived Link of a normal childhood. In doing so she actually failed to fully erase everything and created at least two timelines - one where Link simply vanished from existence after defeating Ganon as an adult, and one where he exposed the conspiracy as a child. WordOfGod is that despite being able to live out his childhood, Link retained memories of the events of the plot and lived an unfulfilled life because he never got to be the Hero of Time.

* The original ''[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyI Final Fantasy]]'' saw this happen upon the Light Warriors destroying Chaos and ending the cycle of Garland going back in time to become him. However, it is stated that their deeds at least live on in legend, and their own memories.

** The other ending subverts this trope ([[BuryYourGays as well as another]]). Max tears the photo up (echoing an earlier moment when she destroys her prize winning photo to retcon herself back to the town and be able to save Chloe), having decided to ScrewDestiny and let the storm that this damage to the timeline summoned destroy the town (with a ShrugOfGod as to how many survivors there are). After it subsides an unspecified amount of time later, Max and Chloe leave the ruined town together, moving on with their lives.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E13TimeWarped Time, Warped]]", Franchise/{{Batman}} tampers with the villain's time travel belt so that instead of going on his time traveling crime spree, as he did at the beginning of the previous episode, it locks him in a time loop at the point where he would have started. Ultimately, though, the events weren't completely negated: Green Lantern is left with a RippleEffectProofMemory of a KidFromTheFuture who is ''not'' the woman he was dating at the time.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E13TimeWarped Time, Warped]]", Franchise/{{Batman}} tampers with the villain's time travel belt so that instead of going on his time traveling crime spree, as he did at the beginning of the previous episode, it locks him in a time loop at the point where he would have started. Ultimately, though, the events weren't completely negated: Green Lantern is left with a RippleEffectProof of a KidFromTheFuture who is ''not'' the woman he was dating at the time.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueUnlimitedS1E13TimeWarped Time, Warped]]", Franchise/{{Batman}} tampers with the villain's time travel belt so that instead of going on his time traveling crime spree, as he did at the beginning of the previous episode, it locks him in a time loop at the point where he would have started.