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After jotting down all the ideas you want to explore in your story, you decide you want to incorporate time travel. While it’s popular, appearing in many stories across the fantasy genre, it is fraught with risk, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. If done wrong, it can cause problems that can ultimately bring down the story. These problems come in the form of time travel paradoxes.
Since there is no concrete evidence that time travel has actually occurred in the real world, there is no way of knowing what issues can arise. Moving through time is purely theoretical, based on perceptions and interpretations of what can happen which has generated fierce debate for some time now. These issues regarding time travel are paradoxes.
One of three major time travel paradoxes is known as the closed loop. This is where the timeline isn’t altered when an object or person from another period appears in it and goes through a series of events resembling a loop before returning to its original time. In fact, it appears as if it has always existed.
The second paramount concern is the likelihood of changing the past. This is the most important one in that by changing it, it winds up altering the future, meaning the world the traveler came from will not be the exact same one he knows. This can cause an untold number of questions for the traveler and the audience as well.
Does the concept of free will exist in time travel paradoxes? This question has long been the topic of great debate since there are so many different interpretations that lead to as many different outcomes. By virtue of being in the past, does the traveler have the power to change the future or will the actions he takes wind up leading to the same one he knows?
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While the prospect of traveling through time is exciting and offers tremendous storytelling potential, it too can cause a litany of issues that require a lot of work to fix. These issues have the chance to overshadow an otherwise stellar story so it is wise to either work assiduously to avoid them at all costs or mitigate them as much as possible.
One of these time travel paradoxes is known as the closed loop. It is where someone or an object appears in a different era for a short period of time where it goes through a series of events that ultimately wind up becoming a loop before returning to its original time. Here actions are undertaken that do not alter the timeline at all, making it seem as if it was always meant to happen.
The perfect example of a closed loop appears in “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”. After becoming an adult, Link makes his way to Kakariko Village where he enters the windmill that towers over the town. Inside, he sees that it is spinning rapidly and he meets the man inside who is playing on his organ grinder. When he asks him, the man angrily tells him about that day seven years ago when a little boy played a song that wound up making the windmill move fast. He then proceeded to show him the song, named the Song of Storms.
Later on in the game, Link returns to the windmill in Kakariko Village, this time as a child to open the way to the Bottom of the Well dungeon. He plays the song the man taught him, causing the event the man would angrily remember that day seven years later to come to pass. In other words, in the future the man taught the song that Link would play in the past that would cause him to memorize it and teach it to him in the future, forming a loop.
What is particularly interesting in this scenario is that in the past, the well housing the dungeon remains full of water, at least until Link uses the Song of Storms to drain it. But in the future, the well is dry and the windmill is where he learns that song that he would eventually play later on when he travels to the past, finally draining it and gaining access to the dungeon. In the grand scheme of things, these actions do not change the timeline. It is as if this whole chain of events was fated to happen.
Out of all time travel paradoxes, the one you must work overtime to avoid is where the past is changed, whether by accident or not. Changing the past has the potential to completely change everything, even if it is just a small, tad modification. That minuscule change can generate ripple effects that quickly cascade out of control, leading to a wholly different world in the future.
This particular issue is also known as the “Grandfather Paradox”. How it works is that someone travels to the past and winds up either killing his grandfather or at least causing him and his grandmother to not meet and have his parent who then would beget the traveler. If the traveler doesn’t exist, then he cannot go back to the past to change it.
The danger of this paradox is that it can erase the original world or at least change it. In the example from the previous paragraph, the world winds up being different because the traveler’s grandparents never met, meaning he would never exist at all despite him being part of the original world.
This is precisely why of all the time travel paradoxes, changing the past is considered the most nebulous. The traveler could cause a chain of events to transpire in the past that when he finally returns home, he sees that the world he once called home is different, or at least not as he remembered it. And he would be the only one to remember as it originally was.
One could make the argument that the traveler, by virtue of being in the past, has changed it already due to his presence. He could do nothing and let it progress normally, becoming nothing but a spectator or do something that changes it and risk erasing the world he grew up knowing. Another could also argue that he was always fated to go to the past, meaning his being there was by design.
One of the most interesting aspects of the debate over time travel is what happens when someone travels to a period of time he is not from. Does he have the power to change it or is it fixed, meaning despite all his efforts, the traveler is unable to change it at all?
The debate between free will and predeterminism appears in many works across the genre but it is especially acute when it’s uses as one of several time travel paradoxes. It largely revolves over whether the timeline can be altered or not. Some stories show how it can change whereas others also show that it doesn’t.
What is particularly fascinating about this topic is that it largely boils down to what the time traveler does and the actions — or lack of — he takes during his time there. When he appears in a different era of time, the traveler has two options. He can become active in what’s going on or he can adopt a passive stance, meaning he is but a spectator, merely observing the events as they unfold without him interfering in them.
Should he decide to get involved, the question then arises: will what he does change the course of the future or not? This is where the debate over free will and predeterminism occurs. Some people say he has the power to do so whereas others insist that there is nothing he can do to change it despite his efforts.
Another intriguing facet to this is whether the traveler winds up causing the future he is trying to avoid. Yes, he exercised his free will but the chain of events he set in motion led to the scenario he strove to avoid at all costs, meaning that it was going to happen no matter what. This is why out of all the time travel paradoxes, this one raises so many questions that there is no sure fire way to solve.
There are many stories out there that utilize time travel effectively whereas there are others that use them in the wrong way, significantly dampening people’s feelings on them. When bringing this concept into the plot, be mindful of the time travel paradoxes. They have the power to completely unravel it.
Nevertheless, smart creators take advantage of them to create plot lines that get people talking without hurting the overall integrity of the story. One of them, the closed loop, can present interesting opportunities to craft a memorable storyline that doesn’t deter away from the main plot line. If used right, they don’t generally wind up causing any changes to the timeline since the actions become a loop.
One of the time travel paradoxes creators need to pay extra attention to is the one where the past is changed, causing the original world the traveler is from to either vanish or be different than the one he knew. This can cause ripple effects that lead to him fading from history, thereby eliminating the possibility of his traveling to the past in an attempt to alter it.
Free will vs. predeterminism is a top theme many fantasy creators explore in their works. It is more prevalent in stories that feature time travel in that it raises the question of whether the traveler has the power to change the course of history or not. Some particularly fascinating stories showcase how in an attempt to prevent the world he knows from coming to be, the protagonist can unwittingly cause a chain of events that lead to it actually coming to pass, essentially becoming responsible for it.
Time travel can be a powerful asset to storytelling as long as their paradoxes don’t cause its ruin. When incorporating it into your story, strive to either minimize their effects or use them to your advantage in a way that doesn’t hurt it.
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