Personally, I’d think that would have resulted in a very different World War in the following years, but I am genuinely of the opinion that it was unavoidable. The conflicting imperialist interests were getting more and more tense, and Bismarck’s web of alliances to keep the peace had not only already failed but had become impossible to maintain (due to those ever more rising tensions)

It is both.

I used to think the Great Man of History idea was silly. Clearly, it was a about a complex set of conditions that made somebody like them inevitable.

Then I worked for a few CEOs, good and bad and realized that, even in a company of thousands, the vision and charisma of one man makes all the difference.

Now, I think I see it like great plays in sports. It is the whole team, and the other team, and an uncountable number of factors ( bump in the turf ) that setup the conditions for that perfect shot. Once conditions are right though, you also need somebody capable of capitalizing on that moment and making history. Perhaps the most important element is that history making player. You still have to put them in the right spot though and a lot goes into that.

Indeed. Some people wrong place wrong time completely alter the course of history from that point forward.

True, individuals aren’t completely without influence of course, it would certainly re-roll details of what exactly happens, which could turn out significantly better. Unfortunately it could also be worse.

Also, there are limits to what can be achieved with it. For example, even without Hitler, to achieve a successful socialist movement in Weimar Germany, you’d have to do a lot more, Hitler was raised into a fascist demagogue by organizations active long before him, and their foundation was so rooted in the sense of revanchism and the rampant conspiracy theories drenching with antisemitism in Germany at that time, I genuinely think he was not important enough as a rallying figure to have tipped the scale, it was weighted heavily in their favour to begin with.

Keeping the SPD from hiring and strengthening the protofascist Freikorps alone would be more influential than killing Hitler, for example.

Nuke it from orbit. It is the only way to be sure.

Well, history is actually full of those guys. Successful enough to actually conquer territories? Much less, but still quite many.

But just as that certain other US politician, he mostly came to power due to complacency and collaboration by more moderate nationalists and conservatives. And while the mythos of Hitler was immense, his draw not to be underestimated, without people like Goebbels, without the people hungering for just about any populist figure that enabled their own conspiracy theories, he would have been just another charismatic figure.

Let’s put it this way: If you went back in time and somehow turned Hitler into a communist would that have led to the KPD being voted into power by the enabling act? I seriously doubt it, he was an exceptionally skilled speaker and decent political tactician, but he was no hand that pulled the strings of fate on his own.

Go back in time and try to flag down Archduke Ferdinand’s motor carriage only for the driver to get freaked out and go down the alternate route right to where Gavrilo was trying to get to the original route but was running late because another time traveler delayed him…

:(

As a Canadian, I always knew the Zamboni’s would take over eventually.

I welcome our new ice resurfacing overlords

Best case?

https://youtu.be/_WzxiWWZnww

Maybe Hitler is actually a time traveller that pretends to be a nazi because from his timeline, the german fascist took over the world was way worse so he had to join the nazis to defeat the nazis? Maybe the Holocaust was like 10 times worse in his timeline and he intentionally did stupid decisions to reduce the kill count.

Which episode?

That’s just the Red Alert series, but ok.

1. Closed loop, meaning you cant change anything cause it already happened. You time traveling was already written.

2. Back to the future, you can change things just be careful and dont accisently erase yourself through the butterfly effect.

3. We’ll call this one reverse flash, not only can you change things but you can litterally kill your parents because you are disconnected from the timestream. (Not exclusive to number 2)

4. Future Trunks, congrats you just created a new timeline. You cannot change your future, have fun.

5. Alternate dimension, you just went to an alternate dimension that looks like your past. Dont let the British museum find out.

There’s really only 2 not 5. Most are just variants of the two:

1. Singleton universe: time is linear, causality is set in stone, either through fix points (events that can’t be changed). Time travel will just create a loop but causality dictates that this will already have happened and you can’t change events.
2. Multiverse: You can go back in time, but doing so will branch the timeline and create a different universe. This will not have impact on any causality as you’re an anomaly and you can do whatever you want (kill your grandpa, have a relationship with yourself etc.) and nothing will happen because you are in a parallel dimension and effectively can’t produce paradoxes.

Sometimes movies just ignore paradoxes or logical fallacies because it makes for better screen time. But really all time travel is one of the two.

Primer is 1.
MCU is 2. (Endgame pretends to be 1 but really with the series Loki it’s clear it’s 2)
Predestination is 1.
The series Dark is actually a weird mix of the two. First it’s 1. And then morphs into 2.
Triangle is 1.
Rick and Morty is 2.

I meant in fiction pedant. And there is one type of time travel, forward.