The Flash

What if he pinky promised to never reproduce, ever? Would the Universe accept that?

D'awwwww! He does care!

Originally posted by Mindset
This is why it's best to just say, "OK, whatever", when it comes to time travel.

👆

Exactly, can't overthink this stuff. I see what Blaire is saying and I think he is right, but that also creates a paradox. Eddie would never have to kill himself in a universe where Thawne does not exist, which of course would mean Thawne would then exist.

Originally posted by Nephthys

D'awwwww! He does care!

just be glad tom cavanaugh is returning 🙂

Originally posted by ares834
👆

Exactly, can't overthink this stuff. I see what Blaire is saying and I think he is right, but that also creates a paradox. Eddie would never have to kill himself in a universe where Thawne does not exist, which of course would mean Thawne would then exist.

I was going with Blair's line of logic. If Eddie killing himself reset the timeline because Thawne no longer existed then that would mean in the "new" timeline Eddie would still be alive and thus Thawne would still exist. Of course, the problem with this means that Thawne would end up creating the show's timeline and Eddie would end up killing himself... Etc etc.

It's the grandfather paradox.

lol. i read that several times and it makes zero sense to me.

how would Eddie's death reset a timeline?

Eddie killing himself doesn't do anything to time as we know it, all it did was stop him from ever having children.

Which means Thawne never existed (as we see in this episode) and therefore he cold never have killed Barry's mom.

Like I said though, it completely over-thinking it. Time travel is almost always messy.

it's not complicated tho.

i already explained it:

Eddie killing himself does not mean Eobard has never existed, it only means that he wont exist now... the only way for Eobard to have never existed at all would be for Eddie to have killed himself before Eobard went back in time.

Nope, the Flash finale doesn't make any logical sense.

They're acting as if the timeline is interactive, self correcting and a singular entity. With Eddie invoking The Grandfather Paradox.

Yet they also speak of alternate timelines and Eobard speaks of his future as an alternate timeline, meaning that consequence shouldn't be felt by this Eobard but by the Eobard to come in this timeline.

The only reason Eobard is affected by Eddie's suicide is that Eddie is a direct ancestor of Eobard's and thus must procreate for there to be any Eobard at all.

What should have happened is nothing. Eobard should have been fine, but with Eddie's death, the Eobard of this timeline will no longer be born. So one less Eobard in the omniverse.

The timeline works to remove the future consequences that would have happened had Eddie not killed himself, that's the only logical interpretation of the events depicted.

Which means that Eobard never existed, which means that he never fought Flash, never went back in time, never caused Eddie to kill himself, so he was born and fought Flash and went back in time and caused Eddie to ... Paradox.

There is no other logical reason for Eobard-Wells to have died as a direct result of Eddie's suicide.

So you're saying a time paradox didn't make sense... Because they're usually so well defined and logical, right? 😛

I'm pretty sure the singularity at the end was literally reality going "Wait YOU JUST DID WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????" and throwing the mother of all bitchfits.

No joke, the paradox likely caused the black hole to reform.

Originally posted by -Pr-
So you're saying a time paradox didn't make sense... Because they're usually so well defined and logical, right? 😛

Yes, the creation of a time paradox should be logical, and only within a structure of time that doesn't branch off into infinite different timelines at each decision that they make.

Wells/Eobard should have been perfectly fine after Eddie's death. And there should have been no paradox related end of the universe situation.

Either that or Wells/Eobard should come from a time where Flash's mother was killed by the Reverse Flash and he's just going through the motions of his strand of time.

Great Finale, and Awesome season. This is still the Best superhero show IMHO.

And stop with the "Thawne disappearing from existence should have wiped out his whole history in this timeline". Have you guys never seen Back to the Future? Time travel movies/series hardly ever work like that because of this:

Originally posted by ares834
I see what Blaire is saying and I think he is right, but that also creates a paradox. Eddie would never have to kill himself in a universe where Thawne does not exist, which of course would mean Thawne would then exist.

The way it usually works with time travel fiction (and the way it worked here) is that if someone from the future changes the past, those changes stick no matter how much the future changes. At the same time it's always the case in sic-fi that if someone's past self is killed, their future self automatically disappears.

Oh and this:

Originally posted by Nephthys
I'm pretty sure the singularity at the end was literally reality going "Wait YOU JUST DID WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????" and throwing the mother of all bitchfits.

No joke, the paradox likely caused the black hole to reform.

I mean if this ^ is what they're getting at with the wormhole, then it's taken messing up the timeline a lot more seriously than most sci-fi would.

Originally posted by janus77
Yes and No.

Yes, the creation of a time paradox should be logical, and only within a structure of time that doesn't branch off into infinite different timelines at each decision that they make.

Wells/Eobard should have been perfectly fine after Eddie's death. And there should have been no paradox related end of the universe situation.

Either that or Wells/Eobard should come from a time where Flash's mother was killed by the Reverse Flash and he's just going through the motions of his strand of time.

Honestly, it feels like you're saying something that inherently doesn't make sense, should make sense.

I mean, even in the show they were all wildly speculating as to what would happen. Even they didn't know how it worked.

I loved the final! Great show!

Originally posted by -Pr-
Honestly, it feels like you're saying something that inherently doesn't make sense, should make sense.

I mean, even in the show they were all wildly speculating as to what would happen. Even they didn't know how it worked.

That's exactly how it works in all great science fiction though. You could apply the same "faulty" logic to all time greats like Terminator 2- If they stopped Judgement Day then Terminators are never created, so they never go back in time, so John Conner should cease to exist and everyone's memories of T-800 and T-1000 should just disappear.

But with such "logical" rules like that, no time travel story would ever work. The impression I'm getting though is that Blair Wind brought it up as honest confusion on the matter whilst Janus is just looking for faults. That's how it seems to me anyway.

Remember that Thawne tried to go back to kill Barry as a child, which would cause the same paradox since then he'd never have fought the Flash at all and had no reason to go back to kill him.

Originally posted by DARTH POWER
That's exactly how it works in all great science fiction though. You could apply the same "faulty" logic to all time greats like Terminator 2- If they stopped Judgement Day then Terminators are never created, so they never go back in time, so John Conner should cease to exist and everyone's memories of T-800 and T-1000 should just disappear.

But with such "logical" rules like that, no time travel story would ever work. The impression I'm getting though is that Blair Wind brought it up as honest confusion on the matter whilst Janus is just looking for faults. That's how it seems to me anyway.

So... We agree?