About "It's About Time" (Spolier Alert)

[Loona 287]

There's a possibility. Maybe Celestia is related to Discord (interesting thought, as well).

 

The classic way around such a paradox is to bring in the possibility of a parallel universe, in which a change in the course of history creates an alternate future instead of something logically impossible. Twilight could still make an error like this and warn a parallel self not to worry. The first visitor to the first Twilight would have started a chain that doesn't lead to a feedback loop or a paradox, but would still beg the question of what made her start the chain. That isn't much help in the end, really.

 

I remember reading an awesome Deviantart comic where Princess Celestia and Discord met when they were young and grew up as friends. It included Luna falling into a cave with alot of gems.

[cuteycindyhoney 13,307]

"Time can be rewritten."

 

- The Doctor

[Fghik 360]

"Time can be rewritten."

 

- The Doctor

 

Personally, when it comes to time, I prefer this quote:

[media=]http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw[/media]

Edited May 11, 2012 by Fghik

[Akemi Homura 7,680]

It's a time paradox. The initiating event perpetuates itself.

 

I HATE TEMPORAL MECHANICS

 

 

[Evilshy 5,090]

To be a bootsrap paradox, something has to have no origin. The circumstance in "It's About Time" fall under this.

 

Some events may or may not have happened anyway (Cerberus escaping, for instance), but the majority of what happened was due to Twi freaking out about what future Twi had told her. If future Twi hadn't told her, she wouldn't have freaked out, thus future Twi wouldn't have gone back to tell her not to freak out. There is no point where you can say "that started it", because it started itself. This violates causality and is physically impossible, hence why it is a paradox.

[Frankenbrony 16]

Here's another theory:

 

Let's say an actual crisis happens. Say the dam bursts, because the crack that Applejack repairs in the episode was not repaired. After a horrendous disaster, Twilight limps to the Starswirl archives in a last ditch attempt to travel to the past and save Ponyville. She succeeds in finding a time spell, and warns past Twilight. But she is unable to tell Past Twilight anything more than what she tells her in the opening of the episode. So, Twilight behaves exactly as we saw. She has no idea what happened in the alternate future, and one week later erroneously concludes that the alternate Twilight was simply trying to warn her not to worry. So she travels to the past again, and tries to warn another Past Twilight not to worry. Now the time loop is set up.

 

We don't know what the condition of the original Twilight from the disasterous future was, but the episode begins with a Twilight from one of the "saved" futures, who has the crazy hairdo, black outfit, eyepatch, cut on the cheek, etc. This is a result of the second tier Twilight's experience. Everything from here on out follows the pattern of the episode.

Edited May 12, 2012 by Frankenbrony

[letterone 1,204]

Paradoxes. I hate paradoxes.

[Swit Swat 536]

Makes sense... Yoy shouldn't think about it too much... just keep in mind that this is MLP FIM... There is NO LOGIC.

[Frankenbrony 16]

Makes sense... Yoy shouldn't think about it too much... just keep in mind that this is MLP FIM... There is NO LOGIC.

 

That's one reason that we have to come up with logical explanations. Well, at least that's the way I am. The less sense something makes, the more I think about it to try and come up with an explanation.

[Batbrony 16,055]

Well, since it's well after midnight and I really don't feel like thinking, well, at all right now, here's all I gotta say...

 

Works for me!

[That One Techpriest You Used To Know 2,286]

Time Paradoxes stink.

Memory spells too.

They almost always end up with family members killing each other.

:(