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Author Topic: i'm an idiot--time, space, etc.  (Read 4157 times)
bigfluffypillow
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« on: May 20, 2006, 02:39:41 am »

*possible spoilers---warning*

hi guys! this is my first time here.  and i'm really enjoying it!
through a good friend, i recently started watching anime about 6 months ago - and i LOVE IT!  
he's shown me bubblegum crisis, flcl, elfen lied, the big 0, all sorts of stuff....then he showed me EH.

tonight we finished EH (7-episode original).  i really liked this show.  it's something i would watch again.

but let me get to my point-- i'm an idiot.  
not really, but let me explain...

i just cannot grasp the time/space concept of this show.
my boyfriend and my friend tried explaining it to me, but i don't know why i'm not undersanding it.
???
would anybody mind just giving me an answer to this?
how does he go back to save her? (the beginning is the end, i mean, wouldn't that just become a revolving door?)
am i an idiot?  please help me try to grasp this!!!  :bawl
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« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2006, 08:22:38 am »

Haha, don't worry about it too much.  How can the beginning possibly be the end?  Doesn't this violate time travel ideas?  Certainly from a typical "time travel" sort of perspective it really does.  It's the old can't go back in time to shoot your Grandfather without causing the reasoning to be invalidated by the action and initiating a paradox.

I once starting writing a fanfic-ish article on how I thought this could all work and I did it by extrapolating the regular four dimensions -- x, y, z, (3D space) and time (4D) -- and then adding a fifth dimension which I loosely called "existence" or an "existence version" or something like that.  

Our entire "existence" for every choice, every movement we make alters the course of the timeline which we'll be following.  By this theory, parallel worlds could exist all over the place at any given moment, down to the simple detail.  For example, let's try rolling a die.  It could land on any of the six sides.  But there's a million factors which might alter it, perhaps even a slight vibration in the floor that tilts it one way or the other.  The die represents at least six different possible outcomes of which each would be a different fifth component -- same precise time, but different "existences."

Since El-Hazard talks about dimensional travels and shifts, my theory about the Ifurita story would be this -- a different Makoto of a parallel world built a machine capable of making the leap to El-Hazard without any Ifurita apperance.  (Think "El-Hazard: The Wanderers" for those who have seen it!  The entire show is same time, same place, but different occurances.)  

So, in theory, let's say that this alternate world Makoto makes the jump to El-Hazard, either on purpose or by accident, and finds the Ifurita we know from the OAV.  They fall in love, etc., and end up having to stop the Eye of God.  Ifurita falls in, gets transported.  Only instead of warping back to the beginning of the dimension-machine builder Makoto, she winds up at the completely innocent Makoto of the OAV.  This way she "knows" everything and the beginning seems the same as the end, even though this particular "version" of Makoto at this point in time has no association with a dimensional warp device.  Maybe Ifurita knows this happened, maybe she doesn't.  Either way, she sends innocent Makoto away with the hope he'll be able to work his way back around.  

And that's one way to explain it.  Actually, I do recall having once read an EH fanfiction which featured an alternate world Ifurita showing up and attempting to kill Makoto for never coming back for her or something.  So I'm probably not alone in this theory.

There could be other theories, such as just sticking to time travel and blaming Makoto of losing his dimensional machine powers by Ifurita arriving early and goofing up something in the timeline.

Ultimately, it's never explained by any of the series anywhere, and if you want to just say "Cool, it happened" and not think about it, no one will think less of you for it.  I only do this because I'm the thinking type.  :)
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« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2006, 09:01:14 am »

Just read OR's explaination...
...
...
...

I then did an Osaka (from Azumanga). Meaning I sat there and stared at it... and just... boggled.  I couldn't find any sort of answer to her question in that post OR.

In fact, I think you just confused everyone.

Okay.. the down and dirty "Simplified version" of time travel  how it all works (tm) or... how innertubing can teach us space/time mechanics.

Okay, First off, if you think of time as a  river, it'll make things make sense.

On this river, you can get in an innertube (or raft) and float along on the current.

You have a "getting on" point and a "getting off" point, just like when you go tubing. You get on, upstream, float along, and get off downstream (hopefully with someone with a car waiting to take you home)

Now we get to the concept of time travel.

Suppose you are going tubing for a day, and you have 8 hours to play with, but only 2 hours of river length (the rest is kinda rocky and filled with rapids let's say... or maybe inaccessble from the road nearby.)

The logical thing to do in such a situation is have someone pick you up in their car at the end of the river, and for them to drive you back up to the "getting on" point.

This is basically what time travel is. It's using a method to move you either forward or backward along the river of time.

Now, the key thing to remember is that even though you are moving to different points in the river, you still have an internal chronology as well. Meaning those 8 hours of "tubing time" are passing, and just because you go back to the start of the river, doesn't mean time starts over from 8 hours again. Let's call this internal chronology IC for short.

So Makoto is floating along on his innertube of life in the section of the stream dedicated to Tokyo in his years of life, his IC is 16 years old.

However, Ifurita (with an IC of 12000+ years) happens to bump into him along the way and uses a power of hers to freeze the river (the timestop you saw in episode 1.)She uses another power and kinda pushes Makoto to a different point in the river (either miles and miles upstream or downstream... I'll explain this later) and unfreezes the river.

Okay... so... Makoto(IC 16 years) went from being at one point in the river to another. Meaning he is now in an entirely different point in space and time. He could be millions of years in the past... or millions into the future. We don't know the direction... and time travel makes the direction kinda unimportant, all we need to know is that he moved. That said, El hazard could be in an entirely different universe... we dont' know... but let's not dwell on it, let's just say... same universe... different point in space and time.

Okay... so, the events of El hazard unfolds, and Makoto runs into Ifurita... but here's the key... this ifurita is from a point in her lifespan prior to having met him, her IC is (let's say IC 2000). Now.. you might ask "How's that possible? She just sent him there. How can her IC be lower than when it started?" Okay, remember when I mentioned getting on and off the river? Well, this is where things get a little tricky. Let's say that Ifurita has "tubing time" of 20000 years. Meaning she can go tubing for a long long time if she wants. The Ifurita that Makoto met in the ruins under his school had tubed for 10000 years waiting to meet him again as well as a couple thousand years of hanging out asleep in the ruins of demon island.

It's the IC that's the whole key here.

Makoto meets this version of Ifurita who has barely even started tubing, and ends up freeing her.

The Eye of god shoots her upstream (or down... direction isn't important so much here) and she then drifts downstream from whereever the eye shot her (think of it as a friend who picked her up in his car and drover her to another point in the river and dropped her off) for 10000 years before she encounters IC 16 Makoto. She end sends him to El Hazard.

So, what about the Makoto who shows up at the end. Let's say that by the end of EH (when he rescues Ifurita on earth) he's grown roughly 3 years give or take So he's IC 19. That IC 19 Makoto is the person who showed up (note the more mature features, the longer hair... clearly he's older)

You see, there's no loop... everything is in chronology... from the standpoint of the characters.

They simply jumped around on the river of time.

Makoto has had 3 years of his life pass choronologically, and Ifurita has have 10000 years of her life pass chronologically as well. They've simply lived those years in different parts of the river.

So, El hazard doesn't really have any time "loops" it just has people getting on and off the river at one point, and getting on and off the river at another point.

Everyone is burning up hours tubing, they're just doing it at multiple and various different points in the river.

Make sense?


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deadpan
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« Reply #3 on: June 02, 2006, 10:22:11 am »

You see this sort of thing in some western films and shows as well.

Terminator: John Connor sends his own father back in time to protect his mother and so that his father and mother can meet and he can be born.  The second movie continues this with Future John sending a reprogrammed terminator back to protect his younger self.

Back to the Future: Doc Brown builds a time machine, which carries his younger friend Marty back in time to the point at which Doc Brown first has the idea that will lead to the development of the time machine.  Younger Doc Brown then helps get his future invetion to work for the return trip.  More fun and games in the two following movies.

---------------------------------------

Here's another take.  With time travel there is not only the sequence of events as seen by someone living through time normally and then there is the sequence of events as it appears to a time traveler.  The normal perspective is like going down a one-way street and watching all the buildings and landmarks as you pass them.  The time traveler can turn off the one-way boulevard and use side streets to double back to earlier spots on the road or bypass sections ahead.  

Thus, the person who stays on the main street sees the local library, then two blocks later he sees the courthouse, on the next block after that is town hall, and the convention center/sports arena takes up the equivalent of three or four blocks after that.

The person cutting through side streets can go to the arena first, then to the library, then bypass the courthouse to get to town hall.

Getting back to EH.  There is the outsider perspective that would view events in their strict chronological order.  There is Makoto's POV, which we follow for the most part.  And then there is Ifurita's POV.

Let's assume that most of EH takes place in the far future. (Debatable, but go with it for the moment)

If you mark it on a calendar from and ousider's perspective it woud go something like this:

  XXXX BCE - Ifurita appears from the future.  Guided by the memories gained from Makoto, she builds or comendeers the ruins that will eventually be under Makoto's school and settles down for a long period of suspended animation.
  A Big gap containing most of recorded human history occurs here while Ify sleeps and waits for Makoto to be born and reach high school.
  199X CE - The ruins are discovered, Makoto's presence awakens Ifurita, and she sends him and the rest of the group forward.  She, however, stays in 199X.
   Another big gap occurs here, while civilizations rise and fall, including the folks who built the Eye of God.  This also includes the period when Ifurita is created and fights in various wars, the rise of the Bugrom, the Phantom tribe, etc.
  ???? CE - Makoto and Co appear.  They eventually meet Ifurita, Makoto makes spiritual and mental contact, Ifurita is sent back in time by the power of the Eye of God, starting this sequence of events.

The difficulty of understanding this is that its a loop.  Future events cause past events which in turn cause the future events that led to the past events and it goes round and round.  Adding to the confusion, Makoto and Ifurita are both getting on and getting off this temportal merry-go-round at different points.

Makoto's perspective is what you see in on the screen.  He grows up as a normal kid, meets Ifurita under the school and she zaps him to somewhere else.  He meets her again but she doesn't remember him.  They bond, she gets whisked away, and he is left trying to figure out how to find her again.

Ifurita's perspective is one of being created as a war machine and fighting, probably with several rounds of sleep and being reactivated by new masters.  She is awakened yet again, but this time meets this boy who awakens new thoughts and feelings within her.  She is transported far into the past, where she uses the knowledge gained from Makoto to fulfill the events he remembers and thus ensure they will meet.  After that, she is left in 199X, hoping that Makoto will find a way to reach her from the future, or that she will find a way to propell her self to the future to join him.

« Last Edit: June 02, 2006, 10:22:29 am by deadpan » Logged
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