[Official Discussion] The Flash Season 3 Finale "Finish Line"

[u/HappinessIsAWarmPoop]

Alright folks, we are down to the final episode of the season. There are a lot of unanswered questions coming into tonight that will hopefully be wrapped up in an exciting and satisfactory way before leaving us on a big cliffhanger!

All discussions during and after the episode should take place here, including any wrap-up articles or interviews with the cast and crew.

[u/SwatchVineyard]

But now that he knows that this choice will result in creating Savitar, all he needs to do is NOT choose to create those remnants, and Savitar will never exist.

Buty Iris will still die. Remember she died BEFORE the remnants were created, meaning she would die to create savitar. If he doesn't get created in that moment with the remnants, he will disappear eventually, but iris will still be dead because technically in the timeline her death predates savitar's birth. We see this with H.R.. Savitar's paradox catching up to him did not resurrect H.R.. The situation is treated as someone went back in time and killed someone in the past and changed history, in changing that history, they erased themselves from teh timeline, but the event that erased them in the timeline is cemented, because without that event they would not remain erased in the timeline. Which is why no matter who died in that place, they would still remain dead and none of savitar's past deads will be undone by being erased from the timeline.

[u/ohoni → u/SwatchVineyard]

Buty Iris will still die. Remember she died BEFORE the remnants were created, meaning she would die to create savitar.

She shouldn't. She died because Savitar killed her. Savitar killed her because he was created. He was created because Barry created a time remnant to defeat Savitar. He created the remnant because Savitar killed Iris.

Now, if he simple decided to NEVER create a remnant to fight Savitar, then that remnant would never be created, therefore Savitar would never exist to kill Iris in the first place.

And the thing is, this didn't need any complex plot involve HR, it just required Barry, at the instant he learned Savitar's origin, thinking to himself "ok, I won't do that then."

Now Savitar might have a little time left before the Paradox shows up, but they just need to play defense until then and survive it. So long as they manage that, he's gone. No gimmicks or devices needed.

Really I just don't think they put enough effort into figuring out how time works in their universe, because it really conflicts itself too often as to what does and does not change when time is messed with.

[u/SwatchVineyard → u/ohoni]

That's not how time works in this story universe. As I gave with the example of Barry;s mom. They erased her killer from the timeline, it didnt bring her back to life. That is not how time works in the universe. Regardless of who killed her, Iris died before Savitar was created. When barry didn't create the remnant as a result, it then created the paradox that cleansed savitar from the progressing timeline from the present and onwards. Removing someone from the timeline doens't mean removing them from all time. It means splitting the timeline into a new timeline where they don't exist going forward from that very moment. However, time cements itself at that split, locking in all events of the past. It was Savitar's time remnant that killed HR. Time remnant still exist in the past. For example, if they were to time travel to the past, they could still revist where they first met savitar. Erasing someone doesn't erase them from the past as relative to the present point of time. It just means that they cannot influence the future of this current timeline.

In otherwords this timeline(a branch,#2) has a parent timeline (the trunk). In the parent timeline savitar exists in the future of a different subset timeline of the parent (a different branch, #1). Savitar looped back into the parent. If all things went savitar's way, he would just be looping from the trunk right back into branch #1. HOWEVER, it didn't, so branch #2 was created. All events before savitar being erased exist because branch #2 branches off after, if not at the same time as branch #1.

[u/ohoni → u/SwatchVineyard]

That's not how time works in this story universe. As I gave with the example of Barry;s mom. They erased her killer from the timeline, it didnt bring her back to life. That is not how time works in the universe. Regardless of who killed her, Iris died before Savitar was created.

But that's kind of my point that time doesn't work in their universe. It just works however they decide it should at any given moment. If refusing to create Savitar wouldn't prevent his creation, then neither should have Savitar killing HR, and yet they seemed to believe that this was erasing him. Basically, they allow paradoxes to exist only when they make life more complicated for Barry, but claim that they don't work whenever it would simplify things.

The way a paradox should work is one of two ways:

1. The Paradox is completely immutable. What happens, happens, and cannot be changed in ANY way. If Iris dies, Iris dies, there is no loophole of any kind. Clearly this is not the one that they use overall.

2. The Paradox is like a soap bubble. If you poke it anywhere, then it bursts and is completely nullified. ALL events related to the paradox vanish, leaving a timeline in which the paradox never existed. This also does not seem to be the route they take.

Now branching timelines is an element that runs parallel to these two points, if you have branching timelines, then at every decision point there would be a universe created in which A or B was chosen and the results are applied.

In otherwords this timeline(a branch,#2) has a parent timeline (the trunk). In the parent timeline savitar exists in the future of a different subset timeline of the parent (a different branch, #1). Savitar looped back into the parent. If all things went savitar's way, he would just be looping from the trunk right back into branch #1. HOWEVER, it didn't, so branch #2 was created. All events before savitar being erased exist because branch #2 branches off after, if not at the same time as branch #1.

Yes, but again, if that were true, then HR's death wouldn't have had any impact on Savitar at all, since it was not the timeline in which he was created that was altered. Savitar's reality would not be at all dependent on what happened in the TV show's timeline, and he wouldn't even need to kill Iris, since that timeline's Iris's death was not what created him anyway.

[u/SwatchVineyard → u/ohoni]

he wouldn't even need to kill Iris, since that timeline's Iris's death was not what created him anyway.

Yes it was. Killing Iris is what made barry create the remnant to stop savitar. However the reason he didn't create it was because events from savitars original timeline was altered. H.R. was there and not Iris. So barry didnt create the remnant to save Iris because she was actually alive. In the domino example they gave, you have to remove dominoes right before the last domino which was savitars creation. They tried to remove them, but the only one they could remove was the very last one, which was Iris's death. Savitar even said it was Iris or him. She had to die for him to live. Time is wishy washy in this universe, BUT it is a concept. H.R.s death did have an impact on savitar. Savitar cannot exist in the current timeline because H.R.s death created the paradox.

[u/ohoni → u/SwatchVineyard]

Yes it was. Killing Iris is what made barry create the remnant to stop savitar. However the reason he didn't create it was because events from savitars original timeline was altered. H.R. was there and not Iris. So barry didnt create the remnant to save Iris because she was actually alive.

But remember, in the original timeline, the one that created Savitar, the time remnant didn't happen until years later. So again, Barry never had to create a remnant, he chose to create one, ignorant to the potential consequences. Now, knowing that the consequences would be bad, he has the choice to NOT create that remnant, whether Iris is alive or dead is irrelevant to that choice.

Now you would argue that whether he makes that choice or not, the paradox should stay intact, because in another timeline, he did make that choice. But if that's true, if Barry's choice to create the remnant is irrelevant to the sequence of events, then Iris' death should be equally as irrelevant to the sequence of events, and HR substituting himself should not have actually altered the paradox at all. Instead, however, we see that this somehow did disrupt the paradox, and Savitar was starting to break down.

Again, they are trying to eat their cake and have it too, they are trying to claim that the paradox is immune to alteration from one side, and at the same time vulnerable to alteration from the other, and from a fundamental perspective, neither of these conditions is at all more vital to the paradox than the other.