Headscratchers / The Undead

• How on earth could Helene dying of natural causes possibly prevent her reincarnations from being born? Whether or not she dies of old age or on the chopping block, she's still dead.
  • They address that in the film. For one, Butterfly of Doom: Helene getting married and having children changes the future. Two, the timing is noted as being important to begin with.
• Artistic License – Religion: No religion that believes in reincarnation stipulates that it works this way.
  • Fridge Horror: Helene's future reincarnations along the "death" path speak to her, pleading to be allowed to live, which means potential incarnations possess some sort of consciousness. If her survival meant that an entirely different set of reincarnations (on the "life" path) would have come to be as a result, then what happened to all those perfectly innocent women when she chose to die?
    • Those women shouldn't have existed in the first place. The fact that the Devil wouldn't mind her staying seems to indicate he'd be able to pick the women who follow her.
  • Also, what's to stop Quintus from mucking around in the past? He has something like 700 years of scientific and cultural development to draw upon. At the end, Diana and Bald Scientist Guy should be lamenting Quintus's fate while sitting in a giant crystal spire or something. And why does the Devil think Quintus belongs to him? Time Travel isn't a sin, (though Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins and Quintus is a Smug Snake to end all Smug Snakes.)
    • Hypnotism and past life regression might be considered dabbling in the black arts, the Devil tells Quintus such when he calls him by name.
    • Strictly speaking, there isn't anything that would prevent Quintus from kicking off the Renaissance early, but he's a psychologist rather than a scholar of any of the "hard" sciences like engineering or computing, and superstitious locals probably wouldn't take kindly to him doing anything too strange. Satan doesn't seem to care either way; he tells Quintus that he's free to live it up as much as he wants, since he'll get his soul regardless.
  • After Quintus explains the paradox, Tom adds "Either that, or I'm wrong."