See how impossible it is to warn the past, despite having easy access.
– It never helps. No one listens. No one can ever understand until after the event occurs, then they always claim that what happened was “obvious”. No, it wasn’t.
– This is the heart of so many stories. Which makes them perennial.
Then there are prophecies that fail to warn people of the future.
Casandra
She made a deal with a god, to be able to accurately see the future, but reneged on the deal to have sex with the god. He didn’t take her power away, he simply added that no one would believe her.
Good Omens – Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter was the book, warning her descendants, but the entries were all jumbled and they did not understand most of the concepts that she was seeing.
She included another book knowing that it would be burned, freeing her descendants from the tyranny of losing freewill.
Watchmen
Doctor Manhattan could see the future. As long as he made no changes, he could see events clearly, but was then forced to have no freewill. If he made a change, the future vision would go fuzzy. That so terrified him, that he was trapped, essentially a puppet of his vision.
Slaughterhouse Five
The Tralfamadorians saw time as static, and they lived moving freely throughout their lives. They knew that the universe would be destroyed when one of their spaceships blew up in the future.
At some point the pilot will choose not to start the engine, the spaceship will not blow up, and their timeline will move on.
Groundhog Day
He relives one day over and over for decades until he gets it right, and he moves to the next day. The movie ends with him thinking that time has started up again, not knowing that he will repeat this new day for decades as well.
Edge of Tomorrow
The best example of a time reset.
Millennium – movie(Chris Kristofferson) and book(John Varley)
She meets him for the first time in his future. As she jumps back in time she knows him more, he knows her less.
Then of course there is Doctor Who and River Song, but more jumbled up so they were always having to coordinate what the other knew before they proceeded.
Remember, “Spoilers”.
If there is a silver lining anywhere in the pandemic, it is Julie Nolke’s weekly videos. I am not exaggerating, it is one of the few “good” things I’ve found in the last 14m.
I am enjoying all of her videos way too much. The first one with the conversation after a month (April self with January self) was legendary, going viral and putting her on the map. The new ones at 3m, 6m, etc. were all awesome.
Heck, I even like her product placements, outtakes, etc. I think I could listen to her read the phonebook, I’m sure she’d find funny adlibs to include.
See how impossible it is to warn the past, despite having easy access.
– It never helps. No one listens. No one can ever understand until after the event occurs, then they always claim that what happened was “obvious”. No, it wasn’t.
– This is the heart of so many stories. Which makes them perennial.
Then there are prophecies that fail to warn people of the future.
Casandra
She made a deal with a god, to be able to accurately see the future, but reneged on the deal to have sex with the god. He didn’t take her power away, he simply added that no one would believe her.
Good Omens – Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter was the book, warning her descendants, but the entries were all jumbled and they did not understand most of the concepts that she was seeing.
She included another book knowing that it would be burned, freeing her descendants from the tyranny of losing freewill.
Watchmen
Doctor Manhattan could see the future. As long as he made no changes, he could see events clearly, but was then forced to have no freewill. If he made a change, the future vision would go fuzzy. That so terrified him, that he was trapped, essentially a puppet of his vision.
Slaughterhouse Five
The Tralfamadorians saw time as static, and they lived moving freely throughout their lives. They knew that the universe would be destroyed when one of their spaceships blew up in the future.
At some point the pilot will choose not to start the engine, the spaceship will not blow up, and their timeline will move on.
Groundhog Day
He relives one day over and over for decades until he gets it right, and he moves to the next day. The movie ends with him thinking that time has started up again, not knowing that he will repeat this new day for decades as well.
Edge of Tomorrow
The best example of a time reset.
Millennium – movie(Chris Kristofferson) and book(John Varley)
She meets him for the first time in his future. As she jumps back in time she knows him more, he knows her less.
Then of course there is Doctor Who and River Song, but more jumbled up so they were always having to coordinate what the other knew before they proceeded.
Remember, “Spoilers”.
If there is a silver lining anywhere in the pandemic, it is Julie Nolke’s weekly videos. I am not exaggerating, it is one of the few “good” things I’ve found in the last 14m.
I am enjoying all of her videos way too much. The first one with the conversation after a month (April self with January self) was legendary, going viral and putting her on the map. The new ones at 3m, 6m, etc. were all awesome.
Heck, I even like her product placements, outtakes, etc. I think I could listen to her read the phonebook, I’m sure she’d find funny adlibs to include.