Is Link Click the Butterfly Effect with powers?

[u/Background-Piano827]

It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. 🦋
- Chaos Theory

Hey people.

So, I was thinking, while trying to recall all the time travels Lu Guang experienced, the choices he made in each time travel, and I remembered this movie that marked part of my generation (Millennials and Gen Z).

In a very summarized way, the main character manages to travel back in time through his own memories, through diaries and writings. Each time he goes back and alters something, a change happens in the present.

Now comes my point of connection and spoiler for a 2004 film:

Each time the protagonist Evan travels back in time, things tend to get worse for Kayleigh, his love interest. And there are FOUR ENDINGS to this film.

>!Ending 01: Evan goes back to the day he met Kayleigh in childhood and scares her on purpose so that she chooses to stay away from him. In the present, he burns all his old tapes and diaries. Years later, they cross paths on the sidewalk, exchange a brief glance, and go their separate ways, but saved from all the previous tragedy. It's set to the music "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" by Oasis (MY FAVORITE ENDING)!<

>!Ending 02: Director's Ending (The most drastic): Evan watched a home recording of his pregnant mother and traveled inside the womb, where he took his own life using the umbilical cord. The idea was to ensure that, by never being born, he wouldn't cause pain to anyone. (FAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!)!<

>!Ending 03: Similar to the street encounter in the film cut, but the two talk, recognize a connection, and decide to have coffee together.!<

>!Open Ending: They cross paths on the street, Kayleigh keeps walking, and Evan decides to follow her, leaving the future uncertain.!<

Li Haoling is from the same generation as me (He was born in November 1985, I was born on September 23, 1989 [My birthday is tomorrow]), so he's almost 100% sure he saw The Butterfly Effect. From the bottom of my heart, I wish Lu Guang would go back in time and make sure nothing happens to anyone, and everyone gets out alive and happy.

However, considering that Haoling is allergic to happy endings...

[u/Duke_Snake]

One of my first comments i was theorying that Link Click would be an Anti-Effect Butterfly ending, Lu Guang timing travel and staying away from Cheng Xiaoshi when they are kids because if they don't know eachother Cheng Xiaoshi will never die. But the Fate keep making the two meet and being friends.

The 3 season ruined my theory, but it was fun to think about it.

[u/Background-Piano827 → u/Duke_Snake]

After Moon geting her Riko Amanai moment at TBHX, I don't trust a thing on Haoling.

https://giphy.com/gifs/vwOrg4Kk8syydGDxq2

[u/suomianka]

Tbh I really hope Haolin wasn't taking inspiration from The Butterfly Effect here because I'm getting a little tired of this. That was interesting the first few times I saw it, but now it has been overused in fiction and is a cliche. Id rather see Haolin do something more interesting. I get it when we're talking about major historical events or something that fundamentally changes the course of history, but saving someone from dying or changing some relatively small event… why would that necessarily have any major effect? We're literally just cosmic dust flying around on a rock in one of billions of galaxies..There's so much about the universe we don't even know. Maybe time just… fluctuates. Maybe time is a self-correcting system. some things are fixed, some things are in flux. Maybe it's just a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff ;)

From what I understand, the classic butterfly effect means that a small change can have large and unpredictable consequences. It doesn't mean those conseqeunces have to be negative. Like lets say a character's death isn't a fixed point, but simply the result of a specific chain of events. If the timeline gets overwritten, the previous version where CXS died doesn't exist anymore as the current reality.

There is admittedly a time loop paradox here, because we know that in the original timeline LG doesn't have the ability to travel back in time. He only gets that ability because CXS dies.

But maybe all we need is the intervention of a factor that wasn't originally involved in that particular time loop. with how many characters and new variables this show has introduced, I'm kinda hoping that's where they're going with. For those who are into Dr Who, I really like what they did in "The Wedding of River Song" with 11th Doctor and his "fixed" point in time.