Fairy Tail Anime Episode Discussion Thread [Episode 165 and Onward]

[Jaden]

Originally Posted by dniv

There are lots of different theories of how Time Travel works, so it isn't wrong persay. It's only wrong due to current theories about how it works. When he wrote it, it wasn't that arbitrary.

Then what is the theory that is followed in this story arc? From what I have seen, the answer is "none of them", and it makes no attempt to explain itself.

I am not concerned with a fantasy universe following the laws of physics, especially when its premise is that people have amazing magical powers. What's important is that it stays elegant and consistent with itself. Introduction of too many plot holes, deus ex machinae, mysteries that never get solved, unfitting elements etc. corrupts the universe that has been established. It's like bad fan fiction that I have to recognize as canon.

Time travel is a massive can of worms, and it makes me mad when an author decides to throw it in as a gimmick without proper explanation. To me, it's as bad as a story arc where someone randomly discovers a way to resurrect people and brings back a bunch of dead characters. Not that it's likely to happen in FT since it has a huge cast and is super stingy about killing them off.

[MAX_COLA_POWER!]

Originally Posted by ImperialFlameGod8190

So basically the only time you want to deal with time is when it involves Dialga and Palkia huh...

As for the filler arcs new character Lets face it this girl looks more like a grown up meredy then the one we know in CS (of course the whip is a nice touch and if she had meredy's powers.... that would be some fun S&M stuff

Pretty much yep. At least the concept of Time and Space are represented AS dragons. When it's like, trying to makes sense of itself inside the story without the proper amount of attention and detail added to it, I basically get like Jaden and go like, UGH! TOO MUCH NONSENSE/WORDS/ETC! JUST GIVE ME EXPLODEY BOMBS AND FANSERVICE LIKE YOU'RE EXPECTED TO AND LET'S MOVE ON!.

[Robotech Master]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Then what is the theory that is followed in this story arc? From what I have seen, the answer is "none of them", and it makes no attempt to explain itself.

Seems to follow split timelines. There continues to be a future where Lucy went back in time and closed the gate, and there continues to be a future with evil Rogue, but the "main" timeline has now diverged on a third path.

Sort of like how in DBZ when Trunks traveled back in time, he didn't actually change his future, just created a new timeline, and when he traveled back to his future, none of the changes they had made affected his timeline at all.

The Destruction of the gate seems to shatter the link between these timelines, forcing everyone to return to their specific one. So the timelines that Mirai Lucy, Mirai Rogue, and the Dragons returned to were distinctly their own.

As for why the destruction the dragons caused and the memories of the events remained, the characters do comment on that but are uncertain of the rules involved, so its exact details are as much a mystery to them as it is to us.

[Jaden]

Yeah...it does remind me of DBZ. The time travel in DBZ was god-awful. Don't even get me started on that bullshit.

I guess if I had an answer for these questions, I'd be somewhat satisfied:

1. In the original timeline, why does Lucy close the gate?

2. In the original timeline, how are Future Lucy and Rogue able to use the gate to time travel freely?

3. How does Hisui, who created the gate, not know how to use it but Future Lucy and Rogue do?

4. What is Future Lucy even trying to do?

5. How is Future Rogue able to manipulate the gate in the present to summon dragons from 400 years ago, without anyone noticing?

6. How is Future Rogue able to control dragons that are 400 years in the past to come through the gate and help him out?

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Yeah...it does remind me of DBZ. The time travel in DBZ was god-awful. Don't even get me started on that bullshit.

I guess if I had an answer for these questions, I'd be somewhat satisfied:

1. In the original timeline, why does Lucy close the gate?

2. In the original timeline, how are Future Lucy and Rogue able to use the gate to time travel freely?

3. How does Hisui, who created the gate, not know how to use it but Future Lucy and Rogue do?

4. What is Future Lucy even trying to do?

5. How is Future Rogue able to manipulate the gate in the present to summon dragons from 400 years ago, without anyone noticing?

6. How is Future Rogue able to control dragons that are 400 years in the past to come through the gate and help him out?

1. To be fair we don't which time line had Lucy closing the gate. In the original timeline our resident black dragon annihilated everything. Seems like Rogue found it and then hatched his time travel plot. But in general since the gate is related to celestial spirit magic her old investigative spirit could figure out how it worked. In this time line she closed it because she got the update as to what it did. I'd presume her actions of closing the gate in other timelines would be for similar reasons.

2. Lucy seems pretty simple. Investigation done and then she knows how to work the thing. Rogue....maybe Zeref left a book on how to work that gate laying around .

3. Hisui probably just followed an instruction manual or maybe the gate was always constructed and they just figured out how to charge it with magic through trial and error. Honestly, she never seemed to have a clue what was going on.

4. I believe her big plan was: 1. Go back in time. 2. Warn everyone or figure out a way to stop 10,000 dragons 3. Everyone is not dead and she can relax

5. Well since we have no idea how this gate works, I have no clue . But again if he's one of the few who knows how the thing works he can just tell people what to do and they'll unwittingly set up their own doom.

6. Well once they are through he has dragon control magic. Maybe he just opened it up during a big battle and the dragons out of curiosity flew into it.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Yeah...it does remind me of DBZ. The time travel in DBZ was god-awful. Don't even get me started on that bullshit.

I guess if I had an answer for these questions, I'd be somewhat satisfied:

1. In the original timeline, why does Lucy close the gate?

2. In the original timeline, how are Future Lucy and Rogue able to use the gate to time travel freely?

3. How does Hisui, who created the gate, not know how to use it but Future Lucy and Rogue do?

4. What is Future Lucy even trying to do?

5. How is Future Rogue able to manipulate the gate in the present to summon dragons from 400 years ago, without anyone noticing?

6. How is Future Rogue able to control dragons that are 400 years in the past to come through the gate and help him out?

1. She probably closes the gate to prevent dragons from coming out just like they did in the current one but which timeline its rather unclear

2. Probably using Crux the clock spirit she figured out how to use it. Rogue probably learned from the shadows that turned him dark from despair

3. 1st off hisui didnt create the gate very likely she found it and did small research on it

4. Future lucy is likely trying to protect a present day FT from experiencing her horror.

5. The gate problem was clearly explained in the manga Rogue used the power of the red moon to make the gate lose control

6. I dont think Rogue controlled the dragons to come through they just came through because they saw the portal and attacked. Frankly i think its an extremely lucky break that things happened the way they did.

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by Jaden

1. In the original timeline, why does Lucy close the gate?

I always thought the 3 timelines went like this:

1) In the first timeline, no one travels back in time, so the Eclipse plan went as planned and 10,000 dragons invaded. (If Lucy does close the gate in this timeline, it was after 10,000 dragons came through)
2) In the second timeline, Future Lucy travels back in time and warns the Fairy Tail team like we currently see. However, there was no Future Rogue, so Lucy closed the gate before any dragons came through, to prevent what happened in in the first timeline. However, in this timeline, Acnologia conquers and takes over, and Future Rogue is created.
3) In the third timeline (which we see in the series), Future Lucy from the first timeline and Future Rogue from the second timeline travel back in time.

As for how they concluded the time travel events, it made no sense. A paradox was created, and the universe should have imploded on itself, but oh well.

[ImperialFlameGod8190]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

I always thought the 3 timelines went like this:

1) In the first timeline, no one travels back in time, so the Eclipse plan went as planned and 10,000 dragons invaded. (If Lucy does close the gate in this timeline, it was after 10,000 dragons came through)
2) In the second timeline, Future Lucy travels back in time and warns the Fairy Tail team like we currently see. However, there was no Future Rogue, so Lucy closed the gate before any dragons came through, to prevent what happened in in the first timeline. However, in this timeline, Acnologia conquers and takes over, and Future Rogue is created.
3) In the third timeline (which we see in the series), Future Lucy from the first timeline and Future Rogue from the second timeline travel back in time.

As for how they concluded the time travel events, it made no sense. A paradox was created, and the universe should have imploded on itself, but oh well.

not gonna lie that makes a whole lot of sense and it would explain everything

[Jaden]

Yeah...thundrakkon is right. With that, it makes sense that Future Lucy and Future Rogue have conflicting accounts of the future. And in Carla's prophecies we also see a couple of scenes from the second timeline.

So to make sense of things, we'll say that one new timeline is created whenever someone goes back in time and makes some changes, but the originals also remain in existence in unaltered form (evidenced when the dead Future Lucy is sent back, she meets her friends in the afterlife)

This also means that timeline 1 creates one additional timeline that is never referenced. It's one where 400 years back during the dragon wars, 10,000 dragons suddenly disappear. Timeline 3 also removes 8 dragons for a short while, and the information that the dragons bring back is probably enough to create a completely divergent timeline.

Also when Ultear uses the ace in her sleeve, she creates one more. So now we got 6 timelines. This is what sucks about applying the "split-timeline" theory. It's my least favourite one, but oh well.

When the eclipse portal is destroyed in one timeline, it's breaks down in all timelines (otherwise, Future Rogue would just keep coming back...unless Natsu killed him? it didn't seem that way though.), and all time travelers are sent back in a way that matter is conserved, but information is not. (fml)

Alright...if I accept all of this, are there still paradoxes left?

[Titans25]

It seems that the concept of time travel still alludes people

[ginger02]

Originally Posted by immblueversion

Hiro Mashima has confirmed that there will be another filler arc starting this October, and has posted an image of a new character he designed for the arc:

Spoiler:

Was kind of hoping for a dude, or no new character. There are so many characters that don't really get much attention. Most of the men are kind of the same it seems in FT personality-wise though.

[thundrakkon]

@Jaden

Yeah, there were 6 timelines in all, when you point it out.

The only thing that really bothered me was the conclusion, though. If they destroyed the gate, it should have trapped the 8 dragons and Future Rogue in the current timeline, not send them back to their respective timelines. I'm not even sure what time theory the author used to conclude the arc. It went from multi-verse to single timeline, in which the single timeline events remained but changed at the same time. It was a paradox. I give up trying to figure that out.

[immblueversion]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

@Jaden

Yeah, there were 6 timelines in all, when you point it out.

The only thing that really bothered me was the conclusion, though. If they destroyed the gate, it should have trapped the 8 dragons and Future Rogue in the current timeline, not send them back to their respective timelines. I'm not even sure what time theory the author used to conclude the arc. It went from multi-verse to single timeline, in which the single timeline events remained but changed at the same time. It was a paradox. I give up trying to figure that out.

I'd say it's fairly obvious: Mashima was focused less on making the ending make any sense and more on just making it end.

[Blueknight78]

another character for the next anime arc

Spoiler:

アニメオリジナルキャラ第2段！名前や設定はまだ秘密。色々想像して下さいな。

horrible google translation

Second stage anime original character! And settings name is still a secret. Na Imagine variety.

this arc looks gonna be good.

[sergel02]

^

Catboy looks cool. Also villainous.

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

@Jaden

Yeah, there were 6 timelines in all, when you point it out.

The only thing that really bothered me was the conclusion, though. If they destroyed the gate, it should have trapped the 8 dragons and Future Rogue in the current timeline, not send them back to their respective timelines. I'm not even sure what time theory the author used to conclude the arc. It went from multi-verse to single timeline, in which the single timeline events remained but changed at the same time. It was a paradox. I give up trying to figure that out.

Couldn't one consider them on a kind of tether connected to then portal, and if it's gone then so are they?

Though the way they explained is that if they destroyed the current portal, then the future one wouldn't exist, but it makes me think wouldn't that mean all the damage would go away too, as if nothing happened?

[Houreki]

Those 2 new characters look awesome, it reminds me of Jackal.

[sergel02]

Originally Posted by Houreki

Those 2 new characters look awesome, it reminds me of Jackal.

Wonder if they'll be villains, heros, anti-heroes?

[Houreki]

Originally Posted by sergel02

Wonder if they'll be villains, heros, anti-heroes?

Based on the looks, they look evil, but Arcadios turned out to be good so, you never know with Mashima

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by sergel02

Couldn't one consider them on a kind of tether connected to then portal, and if it's gone then so are they?

Though the way they explained is that if they destroyed the current portal, then the future one wouldn't exist, but it makes me think wouldn't that mean all the damage would go away too, as if nothing happened?

Yep, and that's the paradox. If nothing happened, they are back to timeline 1, with rebuilt portal and 10,000 dragons. I guess they can go the portal never existed route, which would mean the whole Eclipse Project never happened.

[ginger02]

Doranbolt was really cool this episode. I always like seeing more of him. I like his interactions with Wendy, so hope we see some in the next arc. I didn't get one thing though, why would it be a good thing if the people of Fiore never found out about the kingdom's dark magic? Uprising, coups, discord, etc.?

I caught up on the last episodes, and really like the animation of some of them like Ultear's Lost Ages magic and Lucy and Yukino summoning the spirits.

Some people said they found Ultear living to be sadder than her dying. Thoughts?
It's hard for me to say, since I read the manga, but I did find it much more emotional and poignant in the anime when she gave that letter to Jellal and Meledy and shook her head at Gray. Even teared up a bit =(

I'm excited for the filler arc. I really enjoyed the last one, in part because I had no clue what was going to happen. I wonder how long it'll be.

Edit: Also wanna add that as emotional as Ultear's scenes were, I found the scenes of future Lucy in the golden grasslands even more emotional. I guess that's supposed to represent heaven.