Maybe he figured out a way to retain his memories if someone ELSE changes the timeline. Barry never lost his memories of things he changed.
No, but it was implied he WOULD have if he'd stayed in the Flashpoint timeline. He was gradually losing his speed and memories the longer he stayed and the more he used his powers, since they were now paradoxical.
I still don't even understand how Thawne is even there, or alive. Wasn't the most recent version of Thawne taken by Time Wraiths over on Legends? Which version / point in time Thawne are we watching now?
I suspect that is one of the reasons my bother and his son mostly stopped watching the show after the first season. They were really into it that first season and my nephew had legitimate questions about how Reverse Flash gained his speed. I knew the comic book version but had no idea if the show would use it. The show moved on to the next Big Bad. With only the occasional appearance of the Reverse Flash with no explanation of his origin or how he continues to exist. This series has so many unused characters and unresolved plot lines. The constant they have carried from season one - Maintaining the mystery of the new Big Bad as long into the season as possible. To generate interest with shocking reveals. But it’s become so repetitive. Team Flash being reactive to whatever the current Big Bad is doing. I would love a season of the Heroes being Proactive on their without a Big Bad. It’s rare that we get good character moments that are not connected to season long plots. They are just getting pulled along by the villains.
There's no logical explanation for why Thawne still exists. The only reason for it is supervillain immunity, the ability of arch-nemeses to come back from the dead no matter how many times they're unambiguously killed. See also Blofeld, the Joker, the Master, the Daleks, MacGyver's Murdoc, etc.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if Thawne lied about Eddie being his Ancestor? Seriously. Could he have telegraphed his own execution with greater volume? It's like how Elphaba tricked the morons from Oz, that she would melt if doused with water.
Remember that Time Remnants exist. It's entirely possible due to the Paradoxes Barry has created with Eobard that there;s multiple Eobard/Thawne Wells. This one not being the Nazi version but another created from time travel interference. This is basically "Savitar" Welles to an extent. But for an RPG, I'd just have Flashpoint have resulted in Eddie having knocked up his ex-girlfriend before Iris and not know it.
I just wish there was some connective tissue between legion of doom thawne, flashpoint thawne, Nazi thawne and execution future thawne.
Didn't the Thawne on Legends have to keep moving or the Time Wraiths would come after him or he'd poof out of existence or something? I've been wondering if this Thawne's means of execution isn't just being held in one place until his time runs out in a similar fashion.
I think that Thawne actually DID go poof and was taken by them at the end of that season. The only thing I can think of is a time remnant created when he kidnapped Thawne during Flashpoint. The memory thing might actually be fixing a giant plot hole from that encounter. But that Thawne wasn't a Wells, but would... maybe have the memory of the Wells Thawne, because of whatever trick they are talking about now? So maybe Original Thawne died on Legends, and this is Flashpoint Thawne, who moved on to Earth X, and later was somehow captured in the future, but the time trick they are talking about now allowed him to retain all of his memories from the original timeline?
Not even that. Time works the way writers dictate it does. Period.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/LEFT] Agree totally. In fact, when they first did the Wells/Reverse Flash reveal my first thought was "Okay, Letscher must have been unavailable and they were already committed to this arc." My second thought was "It makes zero sense but just go with it." My third thought was "Wish I had some Sour Patch Kids."
That actually makes some sense of it, though they seem to be making an assumption or two along the way. The key element is that the Arrowverse is now in an altered, post-Flashpoint timeline. Thawne's fate may not have played out exactly the same way as we saw in Season 1.
THAT is a great idea actually. What if Thawne had a brother, and that brother was the direct ancestor?
But didn't Thawne vanish when Eddie killed himself? That would certainly seem to indicate that Eddie was a direct ancestor. Otherwise, why would his death immediately cause Thawne to vanish?
There's no point trying to parse the logic of that event, since Eddie killing himself shouldn't have just made Thawne disappear, it should've erased everything he ever did, and thus erased the entire continuity of the first season and Barry's entire life going back to the murder of his mother.
I tend to give them a pass for something like that, because by the same reasoning, if none of it had happened, then Eddie wouldn't have had any reason to kill himself, Thawne would still exist, and it all still would have happened. So it's a time paradox. Thawne became a remnant of an old timeline that was prevented from happening because of his own interference.
It was a trick. I was suggesting that Thawne faked those special effects and pretended to die when it seemed like he unraveled because some dude he lied about being his grandfather, who was not at all related to him, put a bullet in his own chest.