Theory: Why Chao’s Mission Was Always Impossible
I’ve read through Negima’s manga a few times now and like many fans, I was absorbed into Chao’s mission to save her future by altering the past. She had the drive to make her reality one for the better and as a super genius, she was on the verge of succeeding, right?
At this point, I don’t think her mission would ever have come to fruition and she herself may have caused her own future. Please allow me to make my point.
Chao using a device she made herself, the Casseopeia. This watch allows people to travel back in time and is powered by the World Tree. Chao is in possession of one as if Negi.
We first see it in action when Negi and Setsuna fall asleep at the infirmary and wake up during the night on the first day of the festival, but are then warped back to the beginning of the first day.
This seems like basic time travel - they traveled through time and are back in the past, but we need to look at the rules of this form of time travel. There are multiple possible theories.
Split Timelines - Each time you travel, any changes you made will either create or allow you to hop to another timeline where the possibility occurred. The idea is that there infinitely many timelines for each choice and outcome that everyone person has ever made. This theory was used in the ever popular Steins;Gate series.
Overwrite - This theory says that when you travel back, anything you do in the past can drastically effect the future. Think butterfly effect. This theory also leads to many paradoxes, too, such as the Grandfather Paradox. If you kill your grandfather in the past before your father is born, how can you be exist to kill your grandfather? In addition, there’s another idea that if you travel back in time in a period where you exist, there cannot be two of you, so you will replace your current self. Another idea that falls into this theory is rewinding, where you can redo the past events in your life with your memories of the future intact.
Looping - This theory says you can travel back in time, but you do not rewrite anything. This takes place in a single timeline and if you continuously travel back, many yous can exist at the same time and while it’s discouraged to interact with your past selves, it’s possible. Everything you do in the past is already reflected in the future because the future is built upon your past actions. This idea can be seen in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya series.
II. Which Theory is Used?
If you’re familiar with the series, you may realize that every single one of these theories has been present in some way, but let’s not jump the gun. During the time of Chao’s revolution, only one of these theories occurred and which one exactly on several occasions.
Most notably, this can be seen when Negi and his lot run into their past selves. They comment how they remembered this happening and despite that, it still occurred.
Because of this, we know what the time travel theory is: Looping.
Because this is the theory that occurs as a result of using Chao’s invention, her going back to the past would not result in a new future, but was likely the foundation in which her future was built. The best way to explain this is look at the same idea.
Overcome with grief with her crush seeing her scar, Ako runs away and at the sight of blood, passes out, thus missing the concert entirely. Of course, she is totally upset that she failed to come through for her band mates and is worried she disappointed her crush.
What happens when Ako is passed out?
We know Negi uses the Casseopeia and takes her back in the past and she is able to make her concert. Despite it being the past and not traveling through the future yet, the future is already determined.
Before Negi even used the Casseopeia for the first time, when he and Setsuna fell asleep, he was still actively participating in the events of the festival with his future selves. That future had already been determined and the outcome was the same, it was simply a matter of going through the motions.
Chao’s trip to the past is no different than Ako’s. Yes, she jumped a much greater time and Chao did not exist in the past, but it’s been determined that with this form of time travel, it will not change the future because it she was always suppose to go in the past. Think back to when Negi and his lot ran into each other. They knew from the past they ran into each other and despite this knowledge, it still happened. You cannot stray from the course.
Chao did change the future and revealed the existence of mages to the world.
While this technically rewrote the timeline, from the rules we’ve seen, Negi and his companions were always going to escape from captivity and stop Chao. It’s been set in stone. No matter what Chao did: the future was absolute and had already been set.
What happened in Chao’s future, though? She’s always been rather vague, but we know that there was a war and much suffering and she wished to prevent. Poyo did however give us a bit more info:
Hell, this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. If we take what we know and apply it, Chao was always going to travel back in time and encounter Negi. Her future was set and could not be changed. Thus, Negi would take this experience and what he learned from Chao and use that knowledge in the future.
Most notably, this would be the knowledge that Chao was from Mars and Negi used this to realize that Mundus Magicus was in fact on Mars. This would lead to Negi establishing Project "Blue Mars".
We know for a fact that the Magic World is not destroyed within 9-10 years time. We’ve seen that far into the future and Negi’s plan worked.
But how does that make sense with Chao’s future.
It’s simple: Poyo doesn’t know what caused Chao’s future. She does not say it was Chao’s word that led her to that conclusion, but research. Will the Magic World eventually be destroyed? If that is what actually happened in Chao’s future, then yes. In the current setup, that cannot be avoided and Negi may have temporarily put it hold, but it will inevitably occur. Or is should, but that leads up to our next point.
VI: Other Time Travel Theories
As I mentioned before, there are indeed multiple theories and each of the ones I mentioned would eventually be seen in the series.
The one that we should look at is the different timelines theory.
With the knowledge Chao gave him, Negi set his plans in motion and Asuna was tasked with being in a comatose state for 100 years so her power could repair Mundus Magicus.
When she woke up, it was over 100 years later and the job had been completed, but she was alone. Then enter Evangeline and Chao, who send Asuna back to the past.
But how was this different? Due to the theory we established, wasn’t she always in the past then? No! Chao in all her genius made a new device: the TransWorld Machine.
This allows her to skip to alternate timelines and doing this, she created a totally new timeline where Asuna would be present for those 100 years.
Because of this, she created a new way to travel through time, but unfortunately, this only allows her to skip around to new futures. Her original time line will remain unaffected by this.
Despite this, we do know from UQ Holder that were are individuals who possess abilities to rewrite time, such as Kirie.
When she dies, Kirie will restart at her save point and can redo her life with her current knowledge. We know this is different than Chao;s method, she Kirie simply restarts. There is only one of her present and her future is not pre-determined. In UQ Holder, they use this ability to prevent many tragedies.
However, we know Kirie is not alive during the time of Negima, but there’s certainly a possibility that someone with the same or a similar ability could exist during this time that would change the future, but as there is no evidence of this, I’m going to say it’s unlikely.
There is another method of time travel I did not mention before that would be called: Dana.
Dana is a noble, an immortal with god-like powers. She’s commonly known as the Witch of the Rift and is able to bend the ideas of time and space. Any set laws are going to be broken when she’s present as she just does not care.
Could she change Chao’s future? Yes.
Will she? It’s certainly possible, I would not put a single thing past her, but it just depends whether she feels like it or not.
We are unraveling the future of UQ Holder, which has been confirmed to take place on Negima’s original timeline before Asuna was sent back to the past. So, is UQ Holder take place in the same timeline as Chao?
But there is a hiccup in this theory.
We are given this chart at the end of Negima and it seems to debunk this entire theory. It’s confirmed Negi did change the future, but this doesn’t seem right. Given the theories of time travel, we know the future has been determined, but Chao even throws a wrench into what she just laid out.
She says Evangeline helped her make the TransWorld Machine. However, the chart shows she skipped to another timeline where she would meet the Evangeline that would help her, which does not make sense.
If we ignore that, we still need there are three timelines, so even if Chao did go back and lead Negi to create a new timeline, it wouldn’t matter. It would only create a new timeline and not change another one.
How do we explain Chao’s diagram then? Simply put, we don’t! She lied or it’s a mistake on the author’s end. Time travel makes things infinitely more confusing, so it’s certainly possible Ken Akamatsu made a mistake. If we want to be optimistic however, let’s just say Dana did it.
No matter what way you look at it, Chao’s future could not be avoided and odds are, she came to this conclusion. She’s a genius, she wouldn’t overlook this. Either she went back to set things in motion like it was determined or her honestly felt she could somehow change a future she knew was set. It’s pretty sad to think about it that way, but who knows what will happen in UQ Holder. Maybe we will get to see Chao once again!
Do you have other ideas that relate to this theory? Any mistakes? Please let me know!
