One of the most interesting moments in The Time Traveler's Wife occurs when Henry proposes to Clare. She says, "No." What is interesting is not that she says "No", nor that he is stunned by this, nor that she immediately changes her answer to "Yes", but the reason she gives for saying "No" and for changing it to "Yes": she wanted to see whether she could. She wanted to test whether she had what she perceives as "free will" or whether she was forced to do what she was destined to do.
She discovers that she can say whatever she wants, but what she wants to say is "Yes". On the one hand, she fears that she has no control of her own life because the fact that her afianced travels to the future strongly suggests that the future is fixed and she just playing a part in the play. On the other hand, the part she plays is, right now, the part she wants to play.
The scene proves nothing at all. If we take it as fixed time, we conclude that Clare is compelled to say "Yes" ultimately, and when she says "No" first that was just part of the history, that she would first reject and then immediately accept his proposal. She can't not marry him, because in the future she already has done so.
If, though, it is replacement theory, it is revealing of the type of predetermination that controls history under that theory. Clare marries Henry because it is what she wants. Theoretically she is perfectly free to choose not to do so; she recognizes this even as she considers the choice and voices her rejection. However, when she comes to this moment it is always the first time she comes to this moment, and she always feels as she feels the first time. She freely makes the same choice because all things considered it is the choice she wants to make, and unless something has changed in the past to cause her to feel and think otherwise, she will want to make that choice every time.
That raises questions about the fact that Henry is still tampering with the past. The first time he proposes to her, he has never visited the little girl in the meadow; she is choosing to marry him based on their developing relationship, their history together since meeting in the library. It is not until after the wedding that her past is altered by his visits to her childhood. Her feelings for him are changing; but we have every reason to believe that with each visit they are being reinforced, that she is hoping and dreaming that she will someday marry him. If she said yes to the time traveler who had never visited her in the past, she will certainly say yes to the one who spent time innocently playing house with her at childhood tea parties.
People often ask whether when history repeats itself in a replacement theory anomaly someone could change history inadvertently--eat the hamburger instead of the pizza, take the senic route home, vote the other way in the election. The answer is that in theory he could choose to do whatever he wishes, but in practice what he will wish will be based on everything that brought him to that choice and caused him to choose as he did. Unless his personal history changes in a way which impacts what he brings to this choice--someone warned him about the pizza, or the traffic, or the winning candidate--he will make the same choice because it was and will be the choice he wants to make.
In that sense, Clare cannot choose not to marry Henry. It is not because history resists paradox, but simply because she is driven by her own personality and desires and needs and thoughts, and being the same person at the same moment will make the same choice. She is not bound by time, but by love.
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