It should be stated up front that The Time Traveler's Wife works brilliantly well as a fixed time theory story. Nothing ever changes; the main character even comments more than once that he has attempted to change events and failed to do so. If you can accept a few minor predestination paradoxes (events whose causes are their own effects, the uncaused cause that is so problematic in some stories), the film tells a coherent story in which all causes and effects fall into one history.
It helps immensely that the time traveler has no control over his abilities. Even after his daughter suggests that she sometimes forestalls her own disappearance by singing, he, whose mother was an operatic vocalist who died horribly when he was six, never could bring himself to sing and so never could prevent his own trips. It is thought to be a genetic defect, and the fact that his one child also has it suggests that it is. There is some suggestion that it might be induced by stress or by alcohol, and some that it might be controlled by drugs, but this is all inconclusive, and we are left with the fact that he travels in time when he does, completely outside of his own ability to cause or prevent it.
The predestination paradoxes are informational. He explains to his younger self what happened when he had just experienced time travel for the first time. He gives his future wife the name of the geneticist who is working on his cure, who later gives it to him, resulting in him tracking down the doctor and persuading him to take the case. He also gets his daughter's name before she is named by traveling to the future and meeting her.
Another challenge in the film is determining which version of him we are seeing. It is humorous when he vanishes while dressing for the wedding but then, somewhat older and with greying hair, shows up in time to throw on the tux and stand in for himself. It is more complicated when she rescues a younger him in a parking lot late at night. There are also scenes we never see--when they are shopping for a home, he very quickly determines that the first two are not right by looking out a window for something he sees at the third, as if he already knows something about the house in which they will live in the future.
We could end the discussion at this point, declare that it is indeed an excellent fixed time film and that the predestination paradoxes are the tropes of such a story and of no special consequence. However, there are several reasons to challenge the fixed time concept entirely (not the least of which is the predestination paradox itself, but also its handling of the grandfather paradox). Thus our analysis will ask how the film works under replacement theory. There are several challenges to this, the most significant being that we often see one side of a time journey--the departure only, or the arrival only--and although we are given a few dates and a few durations, there are also suggestions that he has made many more trips than the film shows, and constructing even an accurate incomplete overview will require several "best guesses". However, it is a movie worth watching despite its complications, and worth examining despite its seeming simplicity.
Comments
Mark,
I've been following your articles for quite awhile and came upon the post where it says you are actually in South Jersey. This is great news for me. I'd like to meet in person to talk time travel theories and faith. I just was in Bridgeton, NJ the other day for a softball tourney, had I known you lived in South Jersey I would have notified you sooner. I am not sure how close you are to Delaware but I will be doing a signing for my book and collectibles at AB Sports in Concord Mall in Wilmington on August 21 from noon - 1:30 pm. If you are just far enough to where it becomes a trip for you I welcome you to call the day of to confirm. The number is 302-478-1993
I look forward to meeting you.
Sincerely,
Dutch Daulton
Dutch, I am tentatively flattered--tentatively because I sometimes get pseudepigraphal posts, so I can't be completely certain yours is genuine. Someone mentioned your book to me a while back; I'm afraid I'm not a sports fan, so I had to look up who you were then, but I remember, and would love to meet. It's a shame I didn't know sooner, because I'm not in Bridgeton but near enough that our mail comes from their post office.
Regretably, I would not be able to get to the Concord Mall much before 6 on that Saturday--Saturdays have their own obligations, and it's more than an hour from here. I'd like to meet at some time, though. Drop me an e-mail (it's in my profile) and we'll try to work something out. I'm going to have limited computer access this weekend, so I probably won't be able to get back to you until early next week, but hopefully we can arrange something.
--M. J. Young
I think there is a problem even under the fixed time, but it is only tangentially related to time travel.
We are told, as you say, that Henry has a genetic disorder, and that it is backed up by Alma possessing the same ability. However, we're invited to conclude a much stronger supposition than that - it is implied that all of Clare's miscarriages prior to Alba being born are the result of the foetus time travelling (due to stress, apparently - Alba doesn't find being born stressful?)
If this is true - and while it may just be coincidental, we're certainly not led to believe that - then the genetic disorder must be a dominant trait. Clare's not a time traveller, we have no reason to suppose that anyone in her family was, so a single copy of the gene must be enough to confer the ability, with Henry have this version of the gene on both the X and Y chromosomes.
The question therefore becomes - how did he get it? Neither his father nor his mother were time travellers - they'd have to have been if the gene is dominant - which means that Henry has two simultaneous and identical mutations. This is staggering unlikely. It is far more conceivable that Henry's father is not who he thinks it is. :)
GAZZA--
That is certainly a thought, and I am very accepting of such genetic arguments. On the other hand, despite the seeming odds against it, it is possible that all of Henry's conceived children were female. In statistical terms it's a 50/50 chance; yet many families have runs of all or mostly one gender (we have five sons out of five children). Theories for why this is include everything from genetic predisposition to vaginal acidity to scrotal temperature due to male underwear choice (boxers for girls, jockeys for boys).
So if we accept that it is a mutation on the X chromosome, make it a dominant trait, and suppose that for whatever reason this couple is strongly predispositioned toward female offspring, we resolve the matter. Because there is no X-Y gene transfer all Henry's female children would get the trait.
It's a good point, but it's not fatal to the fixed time version.
Thanks again for the comment.
--M. J. Young
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