Since it has not been mentioned yet, I will. By going back in time and changing the timeline didn't Kara just create her own 'flashpoint"?
Spoilers Supergirl - Season 3
- Thread starter dahj
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Yes. It was about time, though given the situation, it still made no sense that Superman wasn't more in the thick of the action--not that Supergirl wouldn't have been, but he should have been there. And before anyone says that it takes too much focus off her, the entire episode took a lot of focus off her.
Why was a guest star essentially involved in the final fight (Sam)?
Bottom line--there were enough villains out there to give Superman something to do without taking the focus off Kara.
Also, wouldn't Allura want to meet her nephew?
Wouldn't Superman want to meet his aunt?
So yes, I'm glad they managed to deal with Superman, but they still needed a little bit more and they shy away from him too much. It's an insecurity. Superman can still be the top hero in the world without making Kara seem less.
As for Flashpoint, Kara only went back in time like 2 minutes, if that. In her actions, she saved the lives of a lot of people, and only in that room. Nothing in the two minutes was changed except the lives saved.
Their impact on the timeline in those two minutes was nil.
However, stopping that plague DID have massive ramifications on the future. That's why Winn and Mon-El had to go.
David Harewood isn't leaving the show. The producers say they want to show him following up on what he learned from his father and living more among the people of National City, rather than being locked up at the DEO all the time. It sounds like they want to explore the people of the city more and are using J'onn to do that, which is promising. I hope they remember that he's not the only alien refugee within that population.
Hmm, after the finale it would be easier to phase out the DEO.
Which wouldn't be a bad idea, mind you. I'd love it if next season focused more on regular life, rather than the workings of a secret government organization. Ever since they moved away from CatCo we haven't seen much of Kara Danvers' life, so I think a return there could be interesting, seeing Kara deal with her regular job and being Supergirl, and settling in after all the ups and downs of the past two seasons. CatCo also opens up room for drama other than the romance kind, the Kara/Lena dynamic could play out there, James' outing as Guardian and whatever he decides to do next, we could see Brainy adapting to life in the 21st century, and with J'onn walking the streets we could have a nice P.I./reporter dynamic between him and SG, keeping the show more grounded. The only odd woman out would be Alex, but it'd be easy enough to include her, especially if the new reporter character turns out to be her love interest
That's an interesting thought. I wouldn't mind if they went that way.
She only went back 2-3 minutes. Hardly enough to make any difference. Besides, the Legion came back 1000 years to alter their timeline and succeeded. So they've already created a "Legionpoint" (ugh, is this a thing now?) whose consequences led to Brainy and Winn swapping places.
Yeah, but Kara did make a big change by undoing the death of Mon-El and her mom. So Kara created an alternate timeline now, one in which Mon-El and her mom are alive instead of dead. Surely, having two characters not die would have an impact on the future. And yes, I do think the Legion created a "legionpoint" too. So I am being consistent here.
Good points. Winn left his scribblings with Braniac, but as a foundation for Winn's inventions, it goes nowhere since 1) Winn initial experiments were unanswered questions and/or failures and 2) he's no longer around (in the 21st century) to develop it, leaving all R&D on Brainiac's lap--and abilities, thus Winn would only be benefiting (in the legacy sense) from a choice, life and actions of a time traveler. Remove that, and Winn might be just another failed inventor.
But, one can imagine season 4 Winn will pop in at some point, having researched the development of any successful tech he's alleged to be responsible for, so he can continue to "find his place" and live up to a reputation he...did not earn?
Again: She only altered 2-3 minutes. She didn't come back from 20 years in the future and change the original event, she changed it immediately, before any of its consequences had a chance to be felt. So there was no future where they stayed dead. It had no chance to come into being.
The only consequence I can think of, really, is that it should've created a duplicate of Mon-El's Legion ring. Although the time travel worked strangely, because Kara somehow got deposited back in her own body several minutes earlier. So if she merged with her earlier body, maybe Mon-El's ring merged with its earlier incarnation too, and there is no duplicate. (Although there's still the mystery of how Superman had a Legion ring in the Fortress of Solitude back in season 1.)
Thanks for the explanation. I can see that she did not change much of her timeline since she only time traveled a couple minutes. I guess I was looking at it differently. I was thinking of what the original timeline would have become if Kara had not time traveled. Surely, with Mon-El and Alura dead, the timeline would have diverged over time from what we will get now in the next season.
It worked fine
Yeah, but from the perspective of the time traveler, the timeline really didn't change. In those 2 minutes, Mon-El and Allura didn't even leave the cave. They literally did nothing, so the only change in history was that a couple of people moved a bit rather than died.
Yeah but if you subscribe to the theory that time travel creates alternate timelines then there should be two parallel timelines, the original timeline where Sam kills Reign and Mon-El and Alura die and an alternate timeline where Mon-El and Alura don't die. Over time, those two timelines should diverge from each other.
But it would seem that Supergirl is using the theory that time travel rewrites the original timeline rather than creating an alternate parallel timeline.
As noted in the previous episode, Madagascar was the other pole of the geological disruptions happening in National City. Superman was rescuing Madagascar from the same problems happening in National City.
As I long ago decided, the only way to avoid spiking blood pressure with time travel stories is to just go with the flow. No time travel story EVER withstands scrutiny, so all it needs to do is entertain.
(This did not happen.)
Older Kara arrived in the past days or hours earlier.
Met her younger self, and convinced junior to switch places.
Older Kara replayed her life lockstep up to the pivotal moment where she believed things went wrong.
After the day was won, they flipped a coin.
One stayed in Capitol City, and the other quietly went "home" to Argo City.
Older Kara arrived in the past days or hours earlier.
Met her younger self, and convinced junior to switch places.
Older Kara replayed her life lockstep up to the pivotal moment where she believed things went wrong.
After the day was won, they flipped a coin.
One stayed in Capitol City, and the other quietly went "home" to Argo City.
So do The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, so I don't see why that surprises you. We've literally seen the timeline change before our eyes on LoT, with people or objects transforming Back to the Future-style in response to an alteration to history.
Time travel fiction generally uses whatever theory suits its storytelling of the moment. It's all fantasy anyway, and it rarely follows anything resembling realistic logic. Logically and physically, the only two realistic possibilities are either that there's a single immutable timeline or that different versions of a timeline exist side by side. After all, if there are two versions of a single moment, then by definition they're happening simultaneously, not one after the other. But the "overwriting" model is generally the preferred version in fiction because it creates higher stakes for time-travel stories if a timeline can be "erased." And we already know it's the version the Arrowverse uses, although parallel timelines do exist as well, as we see with the alternate Earths.
Really, I'll never get why people think there has to be a choice between one or the other, that you can't have both parallel timelines and overwritten timelines. The effect of a given physical law depends on the specific context and conditions. Letting go of an object while you're standing on Earth's surface will have a different result than letting go of it while you're in an orbiting spaceship. Trying to light a match in vacuum will have a totally different result than trying to light it in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, let alone in a pure oxygen atmosphere. The same physics will have different results given different starting conditions. So it stands to reason that time travel could work in multiple ways.
Not sure how much of a mystery that is, since any encounter with the Legion would involve time travel. Presumably, Clark met the Legion at some point in his past, but what would be, from the Legion's perspective, sometime in their future. And since Clark didn't appear this season, he had no opportunity to go, "Hey, you guys! Long time no see! Wait, why do you all look younger?"
That doesn't seem to be the case in the Arrowverse. So yes, time travel rewrites the original timeline.
True, and for all we know, from Legion's point of view, they met in their past too.
I was assuming otherwise since, in terms of the Legion's timeline, their appearance on Supergirl seems to be fairly early on, plus they don't treat time travel as commonplace and appear to find the past unfamiliar. Plus I just kind of like the timey-wimey idea that Superman has already met them, but they haven't met Superman yet.
Stuff like this is why I would love a Superman series too set in this universe.
Also, I wish the writers would take note--they did not push any politics in this episode--and the episode was far better. The show is so much fun when they leave that stuff out of it.
Rescuing King Julian hopefully.
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