I think there’s something to be said about human nature when it comes to the popularity of the “time loop narrative”, and the “genre”/tropes itself. Over the course of many pieces of media, the idea of the “time loop” has been used time and time again to play on the very human question of “What if?” when it comes to past actions affecting future ones, while coming out with a very philosophical and existential narrative that somewhat falls apart under a microscope but is welcomed all the same. Why is this trope so welcomed when it comes to the broad expanse of genres it covers in all corners of media?
My own interests in writing and media consumption tend to hinge on the more realistic narratives and realistic scenarios of life, as I like to think about the implications of such things on the real world (and also I find myself too lazy to get into worldbuilding sometimes, oof.) With this, however, I do find myself often drawn into time loop narratives, despite the fantastical element behind them–because they don’t feel fantastical, for some reason. I think that there is something deeper here when it comes to the trope of the time loop, as while of course time travel is not real, the time loop narrative often creates a cross-section at the mundane aspects of life and the overwhelming fantastical reality of endless possibility (and lack thereof). More often than not, time loop narratives lean into the small moments of life (such as in Groundhog Day and Twelve Minutes) to create a story that in itself has the impossible elements of the time loop, yet seems very grounded in the reality of small decisions affecting whole outcomes of lives.
This brings me to the question I am trying to answer in this blog post–why is the time loop narrative so popular, again across all kinds of genres? I think that the answer to this lies in that it is a very human and common experience that ties us all together, the thoughts of what could have been different in the past and what we ourselves could have done differently in order to change things–and then the looping narrative that ties this into a neat package to allow the reader/player/consumer of the media to speculate based upon set parameters to come to their own conclusions. Ultimately, time loop narratives create a paradox in that through the usage of predictability, the unpredictability of life is actually showcased throughout and brought front and center as a device to push the consumer of the media to question the unpredictability of their own lives–and continue to ask the “what if’s” that push us toward thinking twice about how our actions have real-world consequences.
This is a very interesting question, what’s interesting is that we can think more effectively about change when we think about the past — in terms of what we can do “differently”, whereas when we look to the future, which where our decisions are truly ‘variable’ or ‘free’, we do not feel like we are empowered to change anything. In a sense it is this sense of empowerment when we fantasize about changing the past that makes this genre so fascinating.
Your post makes me think about another possibility of narrating the entire time loop trope. So far the general trope narrates time loop as something that people don’t desire, or would want to avoid, which was said to reflect people’s anxiety during economic recession etc. (didn’t remember this 100% clearly sry). So in games the goal is to break the time loop through gameplay, so is the characters’ motivation in movies. However, what if someone wants to go back to some day, and never leave it? What would happen if the motivation of the characters in time loop narratives changes, say, their goal is to create a time loop and enter it? Then how would time loop story unfold, and what does it say about the human desire? And if we switch this attitude to time loop (from wanting to break it to wanting to create and enter it) in stories, would this genre still be as popular?