History Main / TrickedOutTime

* In RobertAHeinlein's ''The Number of the Beast'', the protagonists rescue Long's mother by traveling back in time and swapping her body with a brain-dead clone, seconds before it is hit by a truck. It's made even more {{Timey Wimey Ball}}y by the fact that Long gets the idea to do it by going back in time and filming himself doing it.

* This is the only way to save two of the victims in ''GhostTrick'', as their killer would just kill them a different way if you stopped him or her directly.

%%[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

----

[[AC:{{Manga}}]]
* In TheLuciferandBiscuitHammer While she's uncertain that he's dead in the vision, a Psychic detective predicts Nagumo's (the horse Knight) possible death and sees him buried head first up to his waist. Anima tells him that "knowing a future event will cause it to happen" and for 5000 yen tells him a cheat to avoid it by "triggering it in such a way that makes the event harmless". Nagumo decides to ask Hakudou and her sword teacher to bury him for him and take a picture to trigger the event.

** Memnon also does this with A2-Z when he needs the computer to calculate a particularly complex Starslip path. He drops A2-Z off in the 20th century, replacing the first, primitive prototype of A2-Z with its own future version, and then instructs it to spend the following centuries secretly working on the problem while hiding its advanced status from everyone until the day Memnon returns to the future.

* Non-time-travel example: One ''[=~Dexter's Laboratory~=]'' comic book featured Dexter finding a copy of that very comic book. He flips to the end and finds a scene in which the rest of his family mourns his death. He saves himself by getting his family to act out that scene.

[[AC:{{Fan Fiction}}]]
* {{Harry Potter And The Methods Of Rationality}}. [[spoiler:DO NOT MESS WITH TIME.]]

** [[FridgeLogic Wouldn't this be just as likely to "fix" in place the future tampering?]]
*** [[FridgeBrilliance Except that by their established procedure, it's not tampering if they were watching it happen.]]

** But there's still knowledge of the bad thing's existence, thus there's still a paradox. Seeing something you change is a cause of a paradox, not a reason for it.
*** Ah, but that's only what she * thinks.* Without seeing it, the possibility of being wrong exists (without complex holographic technology and whatnot anyway).
**** While ThisTroper hasn't seen said comic, it most likely runs along the lines of "Okay, I'm the only witness to this bad event starting to happen, I'm going to look away now so I'm unaware of this section of my timeline and then time travel back to fix it before I know what really happened. This way, i won't be changing my past in the future" Which is not paradoxical, as she leaves before she can confirm whether or not the bad event really happened.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Averted in ''{{Futurama}}'' when they return to Roswell 1947. At first they try to fake a StableTimeLoop without interfering, but after [[spoiler: Fry kills his grandfather and impregnates his grandmother the Professor decides to attack the military base in broad daylight with a spaceship, rescue "the alien" Zoidberg, and steal their microwave dish.]] .. Or maybe that's how it was supposed to have happened.
-->''Professor Farnsworth'': "Oh, a lesson in not changing history from [[spoiler: Mr. [[GrandfatherParadox I'm-My-Own-Grandfather]]]]. Let's get the hell out of here already! Screw history!"

* In ''{{Homestuck}}'', Appearifiers can snatch people and items from other points in time, but only if they've played out their part and have nothing important to do, which would cause a paradox. If that would be the case (for instance, Rose attempts to Appearify Jasper before he can tell his terrible secret) the machine instead generates an ectoplasmic ghost image... which can be used to extract genetic material to create a clone of the original. But the clone is almost always mutated and damaged in one way or another... and when it's actually a perfect copy, that means it's destined to be sent back in time and turn out to be the original in a complex StableTimeLoop. Confused yet?

** This is of course based on the story "Air Raid", by John Varley.

-->''Professor Farnsworth'': "Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. [[GrandfatherParadox I'm-My-Own-Grandfather]]. Let's get the hell out of here already! Screw history!"

* In the {{Discworld}} book ''Discworld/NightWatch'', Sam Vimes takes on the role of the cop who trained him after the criminal who comes back with him kills him. Notably, the [[TimePolice History Monk]] who explains things to him says that, no, he did ''not'' teach himself everything he knew; he's basically holding the original's place in the timeline so that history will snap back into the proper position when everything's done.

* The whole plot line of the 2007 Spanish film ''[[LosCronocrimenes Time Crimes (Los Cronocrímenes)]]''.

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in the crossover between ''{{Kamen Rider Den-O}}'' and ''KamenRiderDecade''. Instead of tricking out time, the heroes trick out the time ''travellers'', [[ZanyScheme putting on an elaborate show]] [[FauxtasticVoyage to fake the operation]] [[FakeRipVanWinkle of the time machine]] to prevent the bad guys from stealing it. And [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome it]] [[CrowningMomentOfFunny is]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaaD9hLf-lY&feature=related AWESOME.]]

* [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] in the crossover between KamenRiderDenO and KamenRiderDecade. Instead of tricking out time, the heroes trick out the time ''travellers'', [[ZanyScheme putting on an elaborate show]] [[FauxtasticVoyage to fake the operation]] [[FakeRipVanWinkle of the time machine]] to prevent the bad guys from stealing it. And [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome it]] [[CrowningMomentOfFunny is]] [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaaD9hLf-lY&feature=related AWESOME.]]

* DragonQuest V has the main character sent to the past in order to retrieve a mystical orb he owned when he was younger until it was destroyed. This particular act can actually be either this or YouAlreadyChangedThePast depending on whether or not you approach the grown version of yourself while still a child in the beginning.

* ''{{Ever 17}}''. All attempts to save all of the protagonists results in the TemporalParadox. So... [[spoiler:the Entity Blick Winkel manipulates them into [[HumanPopsicle Cyrogenic Suspension]], and Cyborg and Robot Bodies in order to have their "deaths" not be permanent.]]

** This was done again in ''{{Back to the Future}} Part II'', when Doc and Marty go back in time to stop "young" Biff from getting the GraysSportsAlmanac. Doc warns Marty not to interfere with Biff receiving the almanac from his older self, because they had to make "old" Biff believe that his plan worked so he'll return the time machine (which he stole from Doc and Marty earlier) back to the future where they left it.