@Frostycat
Ah, but this line of thinking defies the logic of personality continuity. Basically, there is no "choice" in the sense that, King is King, and being who he is, will only ever and always, infinitely choose the path he did choose, therefore there does not exist a version of him that would choose to not try to save Gerheade.
Understand the fact that, the logic used here is infinite iterations of time *within* the same universe, not a parallel *different* universe. Essentially, we can never have not chosen to do what we did within the same universe, even if we were "taken back to the starting point" of the event. This also implies the erasure of the memory of every prior completion of time of said event. To have retained the original or every prior memory of the iteration would be to sidestep into a parallel universe, meaning creating a new timeline.
In this case, King will have always chosen to save Gerheade, *because* he already chose to save Gerheade, and every rollback of time to the starting point necessitates the erasure of the prior memory, meaning he will always again choose exactly the same path as he did, because his personality and memory will be exactly the same as it was at every beginning of each reiteration of time.
In simpler terms, the past cannot be changed without creating a NEW timeline, where the original timeline still remains to pass exactly as it already did. And, the creation of a changed past will always end up this way, with an original and a new separate timeline.
Now, with this in mind, if we changed the question to purposely consider the creation of a new timeline, where he was able to retain the memory of choosing to try to save Gerheade, but in the new timeline chose to do something else, and disregarded the original timeline and its outcome as impertinent to the specific question being asked: If King chose to do something else, the conditions of the "test" created by Gloxinia will have been sidestepped, because the whole point of the test in and of itself *was* for Gloxinia to see what King would do or not do to Rou. From here we can speculate either 1. That Gloxinia would have involved himself into the illusion to guide King to the original purpose of the test, therefore reestablishing the meeting of King and Rou, or 2. That Gloxinia would consider his choice not to save Gerheade as a failure and King would have remained in the illusion - key point here - it isn't possible to change the past, as Gloxinia himself stated directly to King in this episode. See, because of Gloxinia *pulling King out of the past* we know the original reality didn't change (as we saw by the jumpscare scene, Rou WAS killed by the real Gloxinia of the past!) and can thus conclude nothing DID change, and will remain as it was. Another key point here is that the real Gowther explains the amazing fact that doll Gowther *will have forgotten* the past in the future. Now, although Gloxinia says he sent them to the real past, that doesn't mean he sent them to the real TIME of the past, but rather the real events of the past within a simulation shared between his (Gloxinia's) conscience, King's conscience, and Diane's conscience. This means the law of the timeline will not be broken, and if Diane fucks up somehow and remains in a coma (physically dead for simplicity's sake) and only alive within her conscience, as soon as Gloxinia sees she has failed, he will STOP the shared conscience simulation, killing her for real... OR, 3. Gloxinia *creates* a new timeline by merging the simulation with reality, and Diane continues within a separate timeline.
Personally, I doubt the writer's will make Diane fuck up. I mean, she's pretty integral to the show. So. I mean... We'll see, I guess.
(When I was in college I spent months of free time learning about time travel and the logics/philosophies previously contended and argued about. The "paradoxes" don't exist, there is always a way to prove them wrong by either the creation of a new timeline or the usage of practical logic. Essentially, for the grandfather or father killing paradox, if you kill your grandpa or father - or mother or ANY direct ancestor - you will die in your original timeline, but through the act, a new timeline is created where you continue to exist. But nonetheless, all of this is hypothetical philosophy. Time travel into the past is not possible, physically. This is partially proven by entropy, or the "using up of" energy, which always leads to an end. The universe does have an expiration date, or rather, all energy will, at some point VERY far in the future, be used up. Time can be slowed or sped up, relatively speaking, by temperature and/or velocity, but cannot be reversed in a way that we could consciously experience. By that I mean, the only possible way time could have a theoretical chance at reversing necessitates immediate death: black holes.) |