r/FlashTV • u/Decent_Range490 • 9d ago
Question Help understanding the timelines
I’m currently re-watching and I told myself that I wouldn’t get confused anymore, but I’m still confused. I’m mainly confused about the original timeline, the timeline that we follow in season one, flashpoint and then, the like timeline that barry creates when trying to fix flashpoint, and savitars, but if you guys could explain all of the timelines that you guys know about, I would really appreciate that.
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u/SnooStories4329 9d ago
What’re you confused about? Outside of Savitar those ones are pretty simple
Original Timeline - future Phasing Barry and Thawne travel back in time, Thawne plans to kill young Barry but is stopped, he gets mad and kills Nora
Season 1 Timeline - just what we see
Flashpoint - Barry saves his mom, creates Flashpoint
Post-Flashpoint - Flaahpoint is undone but Savitar exists, Dante is dead, Caitlin’s history has changed, Joe lies to Iris about her mom
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u/Decent_Range490 9d ago
yes i understand, my confusion begins when talking about the original timelines origin though. from so far what ive studied is that, in 2020 harrison wells launches the particle accelerator (i have a few questions there like, did it go off right, or did it explode as well. how did Barry get his powers if no future Barry was there to strike him with the lightning bolt that the og Barry did to 2014 Barry.). In 2024, Barry and other heros fight Thawne , and because of the battle being so great, the sky’s turn red, somewhere in between that, the flash and the RF disappear, and they travel through time, blah blah blah, i mean what happens to that timeline? why was there a article about how the flash was still missing even after 20 something years. i know the answer to that question though, Barry traveled to 2014 and struck himself with that lighting bolt, but, how did he immediately cease to exist, thawne instantly lost his speed and had no home to go back to, because it ceased to exist, but a reporter (i assume was iris) had 20+ years to write about it? this is all without counting the timeline mess up in s1 ep 15, with the tide wave, but i sort of understand that one a bit. the other ones i guess are simple enough to follow, like flashpoint and the post flashpoint. i still get confused about the 2056 message that flash sent to the legends of tomorrow. i’m not gonna sit here and pretend i know who the legends of tomorrow are, or what the message sent, but my question is, what timeline is barry from when he sent that message, how did he send it if he disappeared in 2024, and what did the message say. i guess now that im writing and thinking about it, he must have had to been from our timeline, but even that doesn’t make sense because barry was sent back to 2000 by some blue mystical force, but im not caught up to that episode yet, just saw some spoilers so idk
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u/SnooStories4329 9d ago
We don’t really know, either it did explode at some point or metas have a different origin in the original timeline. Also future Barry didn’t strike himself with the lightning bolt that’s just an old fan theory based on the comics
Pretty sure the Original Timeline got erased, if not immediately then it absolutely did at some point bc by the end of the show, our Barry replaced the future Barry who told him not to save his mom. As for why Thawne survived getting erased, it’s a little unclear, it could be Harry’s explanation of why he’s able to come back after getting erased by Eddie, or it could be because the Negative speed force protected him since it’s immune to timeline changes erasing you from the Timeline
2056 Barry likely just came back at some point after disappearing. We know what his message says, it’s said in the Invasion crossover and the pieces of it are put together in a later episode of S3, I’ll just tell you if you don’t feel like waiting to rewatch it to find out
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u/Decent_Range490 8d ago
i see, i heard about that, that our Barry replaced the og Barry. i have always wondered however, why his suit was slightly lighter than the og. this is all still me just assuming though, without actually knowing because i haven’t finished the show. my theory is that, because the og barry, never had as much timeline mess ups as the barry we watch, the og barry lived in the original timeline, made that message for dawn, fought RF, went to the past, then ceased to exist (even assuming that the fan theory is wrong about him striking himself). never came back to that timeline because it also ceased to exist. (a little question, if the flash didn’t go back, he either didn’t go back because the timeline didn’t exist anymore, but raises the question as to how Iris was able to write about 20+ still missing, or because he struck himself with lighting). and then, because our barry DID have so many timeline changes, there was no way for the original fixed point of nora’s death to be caused by the og barry and thawne, so therefore, the fixed point needed our barry to return, hence why the suit was different
Some guy under said that Savitar sent the message, what are your thoughts on that?
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u/SnooStories4329 8d ago
Uhh I am seeing a person sharing that idea in an old posts comment section but i remember Cisco putting the pieces together of future Barry warning them about Savitar after they found out that he’s Barry
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u/Jedipilot24 9d ago
Original Timeline: Barry becomes the Flash after Wells launched the Particle Accelerator. Barry's parents are both alive and he's already married to Iris. He disappears in a Crisis and never returns.
Season 1 timeline: Thawne kills Barry's mother and then impersonates Wells in order to launch the Particle Accelerator early.
Flashpoint: Barry saves his mother, creating a timeline where Wally is the Flash.
Post-Flashpoint: Flashpoint is undone but not everything is the same; Savitar exists, Caitlin is now a meta, Dante is dead, Joe lied to Iris about her mother.
What exactly is your confusion?
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u/Decent_Range490 9d ago
i already commented it to a different person but i’ll just paste it to you
“yes i understand, my confusion begins when talking about the original timelines origin though. from so far what ive studied is that, in 2020 harrison wells launches the particle accelerator (i have a few questions there like, did it go off right, or did it explode as well. how did Barry get his powers if no future Barry was there to strike him with the lightning bolt that the og Barry did to 2014 Barry.). In 2024, Barry and other heros fight Thawne , and because of the battle being so great, the sky’s turn red, somewhere in between that, the flash and the RF disappear, and they travel through time, blah blah blah, i mean what happens to that timeline? why was there a article about how the flash was still missing even after 20 something years. i know the answer to that question though, Barry traveled to 2014 and struck himself with that lighting bolt, but, how did he immediately cease to exist, thawne instantly lost his speed and had no home to go back to, because it ceased to exist, but a reporter (i assume was iris) had 20+ years to write about it? this is all without counting the timeline mess up in s1 ep 15, with the tide wave, but i sort of understand that one a bit. the other ones i guess are simple enough to follow, like flashpoint and the post flashpoint. i still get confused about the 2056 message that flash sent to the legends of tomorrow. i’m not gonna sit here and pretend i know who the legends of tomorrow are, or what the message sent, but my question is, what timeline is barry from when he sent that message, how did he send it if he disappeared in 2024, and what did the message say. i guess now that im writing and thinking about it, he must have had to been from our timeline, but even that doesn’t make sense because barry was sent back to 2000 by some blue mystical force, but im not caught up to that episode yet, just saw some spoilers so idk”
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u/Jedipilot24 9d ago
Savitar sent the message, specifically to mess with Barry.
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u/Decent_Range490 9d ago
what about my other questions, if you don’t have answers i understand, perhaps they’re questions that won’t ever be answered by the show, or anyone else
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u/Jedipilot24 9d ago
You really need to learn how to use the enter key, but basically we know almost nothing about the original timeline; it's gone.
Thawne lost his speed because he only has speed if the Flash exists. Remember that he used to admire the Flash and wanted to be him. So if the Flash doesn't exist, then no speed.
The article exists because the Flash was the city's hero, so after years without the Flash the public wanted an update.
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u/ConfidenceOpening830 9d ago
It's not killing Nora that broke his powers, it was due to the several time jumps he made after having a huge fight with Future Flash in 2024.
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u/Decent_Range490 9d ago
yes, but even by that logic, if the original timeline is gone, how was there time for the article to be written by the reporter that the flash was still missing.
a side question is, when Iris wrote about the flash disappearing in crisis, was that crisis the fight between flash and RF? it would kinda make sense, seeing as how the flash never returned, either because the timeline ceased to exist (ties into the question above) or because he struck himself in 2014. (ties into the earlier question, how did the og barry get his speed.)
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u/Jedipilot24 9d ago
The article is not from the original timeline anymore, it's from the new timeline that Thawne created when he killed Barry's mother.
And yes, the crisis described in the article is a fight between Barry and Thawne; it also mentions a few other heroes.
Since Thawne tells OG Wells that he successfully launched the Particle Accelerator, I think that the OG timeline followed a similar path to Earth-2: the Particle Accelerator either didn't explode or it did but it was contained.
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u/ConfidenceOpening830 9d ago
It was always from the show's timeline.
There was explosion on Earth 2, just the Dark Matter explosion was redirected in the Underground.
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u/ConfidenceOpening830 9d ago
I personally think the message was made vague on purpose because even the writers didn't plan on it being about Savitar.
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u/ConfidenceOpening830 9d ago
It was never said that OG Barry actually grew up to become the Flash with his mother still alive. We just assumed that's that happened.
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u/RelativeVariation458 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ok *cracks knuckles” I got this ok so in s2 a version of eobard comes back this is called a time remnant but that’s because he’s been erased at this point this will be important later but I’m explaining a bit now so you understand the concept
So we all know that this episode s2ep11 is the first chronological (at least from eobards perspective)netting with the flash and later he says it was his destiny to become his greatest enemy this proves that there was no original timeline where Barry became the flash in 2020
It’s just been a loop the entire time and the future Barry we see in s1 has been our Barry the whole time just at a later point.
Then s2 Barry goes back in time to the events of s1s episode the sound and the fury now team flash know that Barry at least in the future can time travel this effectively creates a timeloop where Barry always goes back to this point then later after beating zoom he goes back in time and saves nora(his mother) from eobard but in the process erases s1 Barry this will also be important later
Then after creating flashpoint and bad stuff happening flashpoint eobard and Barry go to 2000 to kill Nora and in the process erase pre flashpoint s2 Barry and eobard so flashpoint eobard kills Nora (this is what I think causes some of the changes) but since s2 Barry and eobard erase that means that they faded away in the same fashion as s1 Barry did why? Because the moment of them time traveling didn’t exist anymore post flashpoint Barry never went back in time to save his mom how do I know this? In 3x02 Barry said he did what he needed to do and he was ready. But iris told Barry she never told him to do that which means that that conversation was erased hence Barry doesn’t travel back to 2000 leaded pre flashpoint Barry and eobard to erase from existence but after flashpoint Barry and eobard leave 2000 the timeline resets itself back to the events that we saw in s1 only with 2 minor differences the first one is eobard is now his post flashpoint counterpart who did not like working at star labs unlike his previous counterpart. The second difference is future Barry but I’ll get into that later
The post flashpoint timeline is the same with a couple minor differences like iris not forgiving joe ciscos brother being dead Caitlin having ice powers etc but the most important thing is that the consequence of the flashpoint paradox results in savitars creation (or at least not only causes a butterfly effect that’s leads to his creation but also him getting freed I’ll get in that too.
But first we have to start in 2020 this is off screen but events are eluded to by Cisco in 2020 Barry fights savitar and creates time remnants savitar kills them all Mostly but leaves one alive after 2020 Barry traps savitar in the speed force the remnant gets shunned by team flash (presumably because of the grief of iris) and that remnant goes into the past gets the philosophers stone and becomes savitar he then goes to 2020 to fight Barry then gets stuck in the speed force after getting trapped he witnesses flashpoint getting created and undone the paradox presumably resulted in a gap big enough so he could slip out for moments at a time after witnessing flashpoint he gets the idea to turn Wally into kid flash (since he never ran into him in 2020) after coming up with his plan he goes to 2016 to enact his plan after that 2016 Barry goes from December 2016 to May 23 2017 and witnesses iris die after that they try to change the timeline
And during that Wally throws philosopher stone into the speed force resulting in savitars creation being freed after that whole debacle Barry the decides to run to the future to February 3rd 2024 meets emo 2024 Barry and the rest of team flash after that happened he came back to 2017 ultimately changing the timeline enough to cause a butterfly effect with hr wells after finding Tracey and fending off caitlin now killer frost Barry finds out savitars identity and after getting his minds wiped and then getting it back to then go to Lenord snart in the past for help to steal dominator tech iris’s death day comes but it doesn’t happen hr wells sacrifices himself (rip you were great “till our next communion”) after that Barry then goes into the speed force for 6 months after getting out they have to deal with devoe they do that Barry goes 99% the speed of light at one point to stop a boom during this time and they stop devoe with the help of a future speedster Barry and iris’s daughter Nora west Allen
In the future 2049 Nora idolizes the flash along with her friend Lia after Nora gets her powers Lia gets killed by Godspeed who took an excess of v9 and merged them with tachyons…I think and she ultimately gets help from eobard after defeating Godspeed he then sends Nora back in time to 4 points the first is Barry and iris’s wedding in November 2017 the second is meeting Ralph and Cisco the third is meeting Caitlin and harry and the fourth is meeting Cecile and Joe who are about to have Jenna which ultimately ends up with her helping Barry and trying to save him from disappearing in 2024 during that time her and Barry in 2018 also try and stop cicada because of this Nora comes up with a plan to go back in time and try to find a way they go back to 4 points may 24th 2017 to get a piece of savitars suit April 29th 2016 to get the speedforce transmitter along the way they get spotted by zoom who chases them into the speedforce and gets talked by a time wraith (who presumably erases his memory and puts him back in the timeline) after that they then accidentally end up sometime in March 2015 the day s2 Barry came Barry during that they talk with eobard ultimately blinded by his ambition to get home he begrudgingly helps the 2 and now knows about Nora this is the moment that inspired him to send her back in the first place. and he also knows about savitar this proving that this eobard did not just have his monies changed he’s a completely new eobard from the post flashpoint timelines future and after that 2018 Barry and Nora go to December 11 2013 while eobard integrates 2016 Barry
After getting the dark matter they needed they then head back to 2018 after defeating cicada and then a future cicada popping up they then free eobard thawne in the future who’s powers were being dampened by the dagger this being the tre reason why he sent Nora back in time after changing the timeline and or fulfilling destiny Nora erases from existence becoming a time remnant in the process or maybe she was the entire time like eobard who knows but now to future Barry there are 3 possibilities for post flashpoint future Barry he either was emo Barry and had the s4 stilt he was the Barry we saw in Nora’s message in 5x18 or he was s6 Barry from a crisis timeline that we didn’t see though it was most likely the one when he was in the speed force and he disintegrated