but what if... the timelines are split? jack goes back and kills aku and saves the world, but the "future" timeline doesn't get erased?
well, that would be kinda complicated. would jack killing aku in the past also kill the aku in the future, or would he have to do it twice? either way, it’s also a possibility. really, the thing with time travel stories is, we never really know what type it’s going to be until we see any consequences happening.
i’d say that there’s 3 common types of time travel in media, and they probably have more elaborate names but i like to call them:
the straightforward travel. you go back to the past, change something in it, and when you go back to the present, the thing is changed in your timeline, usually something that affects you personally rather than something with world-wide consequences. rather simplistic (aka, a back to the future kind of deal, as seen in the first movie)
the ‘everything is connected’ travel. you go back to the past, think you are changing something, but in fact, your interference is what helped to cause what you were trying to change in the first place. in this type, the future and past are deemed as immutable. (aka, the first terminator movie)
the different timelines travel. you go back to the past, change something, but when you return to your present, everything still is the same as before. then you realize that your interference actually created an alternate timeline, one that will not affect your own. (god, the only example that comes to mind now is future trunk’s time travelling plot in dragon ball z, which is probably not the best example but, you know, you can get the gist of it)
anyway, my point is,there are no rules for time travel, and we don’t really know yet which type of time travel samurai jack decided to have, so, we can only speculate, since any of these options are valid. let’s see what they will do!
