History Main / WrongTimeTravelSavvy

-->-- ''Series/DoctorWho'', [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E2TheShakespeareCode "The Shakespeare Code"]]

* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': [[ComicBook/AntMan Scott Lang]] and [[ComicBook/WarMachine Rhodey]] expect time travel to work just like in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' and almost every other movie dealing with the subject. A frustrated Hulk explicitly tells them that time travel doesn't work that way, explaining about TheMultiverse and alternate timelines. For instance, Scott believes in NeverTheSelvesShallMeet, while [[spoiler:present Steve ends up in a MirrorMatch with the Steve from just after [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Battle of New York]].]]

** His initial statements were correct: You can't change the future. Time is immutable. If you go back in time, you are already a part of the past that led to the present you came from, and you always have been (or will be). As Miles explains to Hugo, ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' was completely absurd. Either you participate in the past, directly or indirectly causing your future, or you just stand aside and let things happen. Actually, since whatever happened happened, it doesn't matter which you chose because, from your perspective as someone from the future, you already made the choice. [[spoiler: And you can't even create an alternate realities. That so-called AU in season six was really just a shared post-mortem hallucination. The fact that it looked like an alternate timeline was a complete red herring.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has had several examples during its long run -- it doesn't hurt that the series itself doesn't stick to any hard rules about what you can and can't change. The Doctor often has to tell companions that they can't rely on ForegoneConclusion when facing threats in their relative pasts, the most dramatic example being in ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E3PyramidsOfMars Pyramids of Mars]]'', when Sarah Jane Smith says they can just return to 1980 since they know Sutekh doesn't destroy the world in 1911 and the Doctor brings her forward in time to a version of 1980 where the world was destroyed in 1911, to demonstrate to Sarah that, yes, they do need to actually go back and stop Sutekh to keep her future intact.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has had several examples during its long run -- it doesn't hurt that the series itself doesn't stick to any hard rules about what you can and can't change. The Doctor often has to tell companions that they can't rely on ForegoneConclusion when facing threats in their relative pasts.

* On ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', Fitz spends most of the series assuming time travel works on YouAlreadyChangedThePast logic, giving an explanation about how time is the fourth dimension and we just perceive time in a linear way. For most of season 5, a few characters think they're effectively invincible because they went to the future and saw either their future self or their descendant. The end of season 5, however, confirms that Fitz was wrong and the future can be changed after all. Fitz dies, but his earlier time duplicate lives on and doesn't have to become that Fitz anymore. Season 7 then reveals that time travel works on multiverse rules, the same way it does in ''Avengers Endgame''. Daisy's mother got killed in the past, but Daisy doesn't disappear.

* In ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'', Louie hatches a GetRichQuickScheme where he uses Gyro's time travel tub to go into the past and bring back valuable treasures. To ensure he doesn't screw up the time stream, he makes sure to only take artifacts that were lost to history moments before they were recorded to be lost. Unfortunately, he learns the hard way that in the show's universe, taking ''any'' object from it's proper place in time disrupts the time stream and nearly causes time and space to collapse.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': [[BigBad Nox]] wants to set the universe back two centuries to [[spoiler:[[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save his family]]]] by [[TimTaylorTechnology amplifying]] existing [[TimeMaster time-control magic]] as much as possible, [[PoweredByAForsakenChild using whatever means necessary]]. [[BigGood Grougaloragran]] says this is likely to just destroy the universe, but Nox is [[{{Pride}} very sure of himself]] and [[TheUnfettered unconcerned with the consequences of being wrong]]. [[spoiler:It turns out Nox was closer to the truth, but not by much. He really could turn back time without damaging the universe, but even with the amount of wakfu he gathered over 200 years of research and genocide (up to and including draining the source of life for every Sadida on the planet, but not what he ended up wasting over the course of his battles), he could only manage to go back in time by twenty minutes. Assuming it scales linearly, going back two centuries would have required over five ''million'' times as much power as he had gathered.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': [[BigBad Nox]] wants to set the universe back two centuries to [[spoiler:[[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save his family]]]] by [[TimTaylorTechnology amplifying]] existing [[TimeMaster time-control magic]] as much as possible, [[PoweredByAForsakenChild using whatever means necessary]]. [[BigGood Grougaloragran]] says this is likely to just destroy the universe, but Nox is [[{{Pride}} very sure of himself]] and [[TheUnfettered unconcerned with the consequences of being wrong]]. [[spoiler:It turns out Nox was closer to the truth, but not by much. He really could turn back time without damaging the universe, but even with the amount of wakfu he gathered over 200 years of research and genocide (up to and including draining the source of life for every Sadida on the planet) not counting what he ended up wasting over the course of his battles, he could only manage to go back in time by twenty minutes; going back two centuries would have required over five ''million'' times as much power as he had gathered.]]

* Subverted in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}''. Dave has no idea how his time traveling powers work and doesn't plan on changing that.

[[folder:Film]]

* On ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'', Fitz spends most of the series assuming time travel works on YouAlreadyChangedThePast logic, giving an explanation about how time is the fourth dimension and we just perceive time in a linear way. For most of season 5, a few characters think they're effectively invincible because they went to the future and saw either their future self or their descendant. The end of season 5, confirms that Fitz was wrong and the future can be changed after all. Fitz dies, but his earlier time duplicate lives on and doesn't have to become that Fitz anymore. Season 7 then reveals that time travel works on multiverse rules, the same way it does in ''Avengers Endgame''. Daisy's mother got killed in the past, but Daisy doesn't disappear.

* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': [[ComicBook/AntMan Scott Lang]] and [[ComicBook/WarMachine Rhodey]] expect time travel to work just like in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' and almost every other movie dealing with the subject. A frustrated Hulk explicitly tells them that time travel doesn't work that way. For instance, Scott believes in NeverTheSelvesShallMeet, while [[spoiler:present Steve ends up in a MirrorMatch with the Steve from just after [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Battle of New York]].]]

* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' [[spoiler: Present Zamasu]] does this when Beerus, Goku, and Whis confront him about his plan [[spoiler: to murder Gowasu and steal Goku's body (though at this point they think it's his plan to murder Gowasu and create an EvilKnockoff of Goku)]]. Since they know about it from confronting his future self who succeeded in this plan, he thinks that means his victory is inevitable. Actually, time travel in ''Dragon Ball'' runs (for the most part) on multiverse theory, meaning changes to the past just split timelines. Beerus promptly disintegrates him, creating a new timeline in which he died before he could accomplish anything. Beerus then commits this trope when he assumes that [[spoiler: Zamasu's]] future self was erased, when in actuality he was protected from the change via the time ring he wore.

This trope occurs when the plot hinges on the fact that the characters ''think'' they know how time travel works in their world, but they are mistaken. Because time travel narratives often imply what events "must" occur, this trope can be a NecessaryWeasel so as to maintain surprise (including surprise that the foreseen events do in fact occur).

** That doesn't fit with ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' (though [[CanonDisContinuity that's okay]]; [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines T3]]/[[Film/TerminatorSalvation Salvation]] and [[Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles SCC]] are [[AlternateContinuity separate direct continuations]] from [[Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay T2]].) Chronicles actually has [[spoiler: different time travelers bringing back knowledge of different futures, though all feature the Skynet War]]; evidently time ''can'' be changed, but it's got a hell of a lot of inertia.

'''Martha Jones:''' It's like in those films: [[ButterflyOfDoom If you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race.]]\\

'''Martha Jones:''' It's like in those films: If you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race.\\

* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': [[ComicBook/AntMan Scott Lang]] and [[ComicBook/WarMachine Rhodey]] expect time travel to work just like in ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' and almost every other movie dealing with the subject. A frustrated Hulk explicitly tells them that time travel doesn't work that way. For instance, Scott believes in NeverTheSelvesShallMeet, while [[spoiler:present [[Characters/MCUCaptainAmerica Steve]] ends up in a MirrorMatch with the Steve from just after [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Battle of New York]].]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'': [[BigBad Nox]] wants to set the universe back two centuries to [[spoiler:[[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save his family]]]] by [[TimTaylorTechnology amplifying]] existing [[TimeMaster time-control magic]] as much as possible, [[PoweredByAForsakenChild using whatever means necessary]]. [[BigGood Grougaloragran]] says this is likely to just destroy the universe, but Nox is [[{{Pride}} very sure of himself]] and [[TheUnfettered unconcerned with the consequences of being wrong]]. [[spoiler:It turns out Nox was closer to the truth, but not by much. He really could turn back time without damaging the universe, but even with as much power as he could possibly obtain, he could only manage to go back in time by twenty minutes; going back two centuries would have required over five ''million'' times as much power as he had gathered.]]

* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "1969", Carter spends most of the episode telling the rest of the team they have to be careful not to change the past. Yet she doesn't seem to realize that Hammond's handing them the note before they left pretty much proves they're in a StableTimeLoop. In the other hand, later episodes dealing with TimeTravel reveal that history can be changed.

* In the ''Series/StargateSG1'' episode "1969", Carter spends most of the episode telling the rest of the team they have to be careful not to change the past. Yet she doesn't seem to realize that Hammond's handing them the note before they left pretty much proves they're in a StableTimeLoop. But this fits with Carter's regular habit of introducing unnecessary complications into other people's plans just because the writers think it makes her look smarter. On the other hand, later episodes dealing with TimeTravel reveal that history can be changed.

* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' [[spoiler: Present Zamasu]] does this when Beerus, Goku, and Whis confront him about his plan [[spoiler: to murder Gowasu and steal Goku's body (though at this point they think it's his plan to murder Gowasu and create an EvilKnockoff of Goku)]]. Since they know about it from confronting his future self who succeeded in this plan, he thinks that means his victory is inevitable. Actually, time travel in ''Dragon Ball'' runs (for the most part) on multiverse theory, meaning changes to the past just split timelines. Beerus promptly disintegrates him, creating a new timeline in which he died before he could accomplish anything. Beerus then commits this trope when he assumes that Zamasu's future self was erased, when in actuality he was protected from the change via the time ring he wore.

* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' [[spoiler: Present Zamasu]] does this when Beerus, Goku, and Whis confront him about his plan [[spoiler: to murder Gowasu and steal Goku's body (though at this point they think it's his plan to murder Gowasu and create an EvilKnockoff of Goku)]]. Since they know about it from confronting his future self who succeeded in this plan, he thinks that means his victory is inevitable. Actually, time travel in ''Dragon Ball'' runs (for the most part) on multiverse theory, meaning changes to the past just split timelines. Beerus promptly disintegrates him, creating a new timeline in which he died before he could accomplish anything (his future self was protected from changes in the past via the time ring he wore).

* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' [[spoiler: Present Zamasu]]] does this when Beerus, Goku, and Whis confront him about his plan [[spoiler: to murder Gowasu and steal Goku's body]]. Since they know about it from confronting his future self who succeeded in this plan, he thinks that means his victory is inevitable. Actually, time travel in ''Dragon Ball'' runs (for the most part) on multiverse theory, meaning changes to the past just split timelines. Beerus promptly disintegrates him, creating a new timeline in which he died before he could accomplish anything (his future self was protected from changes in the past via the time ring he wore).