Detail Diatribe: The Multiverse Problem

Red: Hello everybody, and welcome to another very special Detail Diatribe. I don’t know why I said very special,

this is pretty much on brand for the other Detail Diatribes we’ve done so far.

It’s not a special holiday event or whatever. But I’m excited about this.

Blue: Medium-special at best, but still very exciting!
R: Moderately special, you know,

in the grand calculus of the multiverse.
B: Somewhere, Red and Blue are sitting down

to record a Detail Diatribe that is the most special Detail Diatribe ever. But we’re not in that multiverse.

R: No, we’re in this timeline instead. In case you didn’t pick up what we’re putting down,

the subject of today’s Detail Diatribe is something that I have been mulling over for a while now, and I like to call it

“the multiverse problem”. And to explain what exactly the multiverse problem is, I’ve prepared a handy-dandy,

super efficient 40 slide slideshow-
B: Yes, Yes!

R: -to discuss what exactly is going on. So, to start we must define the parameters

that we’re going to be operating on. What is a multiverse? Now obviously, in this specific context

we are discussing fictional multiverses, not Real Multiverse Theory, none of that stuff.

Not particularly interesting to me. But in fiction the concept of a multiverse is essentially a setting

that contains multiple universes or timelines, and the setting that the protagonists - the main characters -

are from is typically just one universe out of many. A story will often introduce the concept

of a multiverse in the context of a plotline that threatens the integrity of this home universe,

like a bad future timeline or a threat that’s moving across dimensions or an evil alternate version

of themselves intruding, stuff like that. It’s a very, very broad concept that covers a lot of ground.

A lot of that ground is just fine, some of that ground is very, very bad. So let’s talk about it!

B: This is exciting, because I have passing familiarity with some multiverse stories in kids’ media,

like evil Danny Phantom and stuff like that.
R: Oh yeah, yeah. That’s on my list.

B: Aside from a couple, you know, instances of Marvel coming into the phase four-game

with multiversal nonsense, I am largely an outsider on this topic and I have some thoughts, but only some,

and I don't know how strong they are. So we'll see how that develops as we go through this slideshow.

R: Yeah, I'm excited for your input because there are a few examples in here that I know you've got thoughts on.

But to start off, a little bit more categorization. There are, broadly speaking, two different kinds of multiverses.

There are many worlds-multiverses and there are branching timeline-multiverses. Many worlds-multiverses,

that's how you cover things like magical other world-stories, Narnia, Oz, you know, stuff like that.

The characters travel from their world to another world. You know, it's essentially just a multiversal flavor on, like,

the old sword and planet fantasy where people would be- or like Star Trek, where you've got a bunch

of different inhabited planets and they're all very different but the people from them can come and hang out.

B: Yeah. I believe Shakespeare's word for that was isekai.
R: Yes, the Bard himself, as we all know.

So that type of multiverse, that doesn't tend to be where the problems lie. The branching timeline-multiverse

is a different format for these stories, where instead there is this sort of concept that these are alternate versions

of our universe, so there might be alternate versions of familiar characters. It's like, if you go from Earth to Oz,

you're not gonna find an Oz-version of yourself. But, like, my example on this slide is Into the Spider-Verse,

where all of those universes are extremely different, but they are on some level all different versions

of the same universe. There are often going to be stories that have this sort of vague ambiguity between like,

is this a branching timeline, alternate, “somebody made a different choice and now you live in Toon Town”,

or are these worlds with different fundamental physical laws, but also there are different versions

of the same guy across all these universes for some reason?

B: Just imagining, like, Edison didn't get the patent for the motion picture and then therefore 150 years later

we live in Toon Town.
R: Yeah, yeah. Obviously that's the only logical explanation

for how Spider-Pig happened.
B: Yeah.

R: So these universes will either strongly or superficially resemble each other. You know,

this is where you start getting things like the time plot where it's like, “Ohh, I'm you from an alternate universe

or from an alternate future or whatever”. Those ones tend to be a little bit more fast and loose.

And the branching timeline-multiverse is where the problems begin. Now, multiverses disrupt the story

that they're introduced into to varying degrees, because of course, the basic premise of a multiverse of

“Hey, there's multiple universes, yours is just one of them” is usually accompanied by the concept

“And your universe is under threat”, and that is the disruption. So essentially the introduction

of the multiverse can either disrupt the story a little bit, or it can disrupt the story a whole bunch.

Low disruption stories are like the standard multiverse travel isekai-things. The character travels from one world

to another, but the consequences of their actions tend to be limited to whatever world they're in at the time.

B: It’s more of a personal journey thing, and it affects how the character comes back rather than anything tangible,

world level-stuff.
R: it serves, in the hero’s journey cycle

as "this is what happens after you cross the threshold", and then when you come back the world is unchanged

behind you. There might be sort of a large-scale general existential “Ohh, the multiverse is under threat!

If we fix things in this world though, that won't be a problem. We'll be fine actually”.

You know, Spider-Verse style.

This tends to be pretty much fine. This doesn't really disrupt the audience's ability to get invested.

It's just like, “Oh, there's a looming threat and we have some fun new characters to play with for this arc”.

Medium disruption is when you have multiverse stories where alternate timelines and futures are visited,

but they're usually treated as sort of compartmentalized object lessons, like, you go to the bad future

where someone died or someone turned evil and the world is being dominated by an evil emperor

who might be your best friend. And that's bad, but the general goal for the heroes is “get back to the past

and prevent that from happening”. So the idea is, like, this isn't going to disrupt the main timeline,

they're not gonna go back farther and mess up their own history. They're just gonna go back to their original timeline,

beat the bad guy, and then everything will be sunshine and roses from then on. So a lot of time plots

tend to follow this format. Evil characters from the future usually show up in this version.

There might be a bit of a scare where it's like “Oh no, they’re winning, the dark future is assured!”

But then they'll lose in the end. It'll be great. Your Danny Fantom example was very serendipitous

because that's exactly what this is.
B: One brain cell.

R: One brain cell. Then you start getting into high disruption multiverse stories,

which is where there are shenanigans that are typically but not always of the time variety

that alter the hero’s home timeline dramatically. Usually these alterations are fixed, but often

there are little bits leftover that are sort of still changed. So if a bad guy goes back in time and takes over the world

in the mid-1900s - just to pull an example out of absolutely nowhere - and then in the present the heroes

are dealing with some weird changed alternate reality where everything sucks and then they have to go back

and fix that, that's technically high disruption, but it does usually get mostly repaired,

although sometimes characters, relationships will be slightly changed. Somebody might have died in the past

or something like that can happen. This is a little bit of a danger zone because, well, we'll get to it. But basically,

if you introduce anything that retcons things that the characters and the audience have already

gotten invested in, you're flirting with danger. And that's when we reach the maximum level of disruption,

which is where characters' multiversal travel or alterations to the timeline are permanent.

Whatever they do irrevocably changes their universe or their timeline. Maybe the characters leave their universe

of origin and they never return, or that universe is permanently changed. There's basically no concept

of a true timeline in this setting. Continuity is completely flexible by multiverse fuckery. There are many examples

of this, we will discuss all of the ones I have listed later in the slide show. But basically this is where I believe

the multiverse problem begins to rear its ugly head, and it is why, when you have an established story

where there's one main universe, one timeline that we've been following, and then the writer introduces

a multiverse into the mix, that can be a harbinger of doom. Now, the thing is, when a writer wants to shake up

the status quo in a big way, a multiverse can be a fun way to do it. You know, you bring in new characters,

you bring in a threat, not just to the world, but to the very fabric of reality, it's a reasonable escalation of stakes

from the standard “save the world”-plot line. But there are other reasons a writer might want to introduce

a multiverse. And oftentimes when the concept is introduced, it signals that the main universe

that we've been following is about to get rewritten, overwritten, or otherwise fundamentally changed.

Because there is no easier way to do that, narratively speaking, than introducing “There are many worlds,

many universes, many timelines. Things can happen that change everything fundamentally from the ground up,

and it's totally fine!” This basically means that the cannon that we, the audience, have gotten invested in

can very suddenly and thoroughly be changed with very little justification other than “There's a multiverse now!

All kinds of crazy stuff can happen in the multiverse!” And a lot of writers like doing this

when they don't want to “yes, and” their own continuity anymore and they want to start retconning things

because that'll make things easier for them.
B: There is a certain point of writing long form media

where you find that you've either written yourself into a corner or you choose to write that that wasn't actually

a corner, that was an open doorway to a whole bunch of other stuff. And I think there's a reason that this problem

gets highlighted in the realm of comic books and other hyper-serialized, decades long -

approaching century long - continuities that keep building and building and building, and eventually

some author somewhere is like “Ah shit, wait a second”.
R: No, yeah, exactly. Essentially,

when you really want to basically excise a part of the cannon that you don't wanna deal with anymore,

especially if you are working on a long form project that a ton of other people have been building up -

like for example comic books - there's very easy ways to internally justify doing that. The problem is

when you use a multiverse for this, it creates a canonical in-universe mechanism to retcon the plot.

Once that concept is introduced into the setting, it can't be unintroduced. You know, you can't put that toothpaste

back in the tube. The writer and every writer that comes after them now has permanent access to a reset button.

And the audience therefore knows that nothing in cannon is set in stone anymore.

B: Yeah. Once you introduce what's essentially Checkov’s gatling gun of retcons, there's no way to undo that.

R: Yeah. So basically, when you introduce a multiverse specifically for the purpose of completely changing

the main timeline without having to actually go back and do the heavy lifting of telling that story, you're just like,

“Oh, things are changed. Now, that thing that happened in the 70s? It’s different! We don't need to worry

about it anymore!” Now the audience basically knows that you can just reach back in the plot, in the timeline,

into wherever, and say “This is different now because of multiverse stuff”. And in this context, basically,

“multiverse” is being used as, like, “Because I said so”. But once the multiverse is introduced,

it can be very easily used this way. And the biggest problem is one that I think a lot of writers

don't actually think about. Because when you are the writer, your concept of the world and the story

you're telling is already extremely flexible, because you are constantly considering possibilities and angles

and things that you might introduce or that you might not do, or you aim to do one thing, but then

the way it comes out on the paper, it's different. That's just a fact of how writing works. But for the audience,

the plot is rigid, unchanging. It is set down, and then those are the axioms that they operate in

when they are fans of this work. So I think for a writer, it can be easier mentally to be like “It's actually fine

if I go back and tweak this thing because I was already thinking of doing it that way anyway, so it wouldn't be

that different”. But for an audience, that's like shaking the very foundations of this world you've created.

Where a writer's perspective on their world is by definition creatively fluid, the audience's perspective tends

to be a little bit more like this is a foundational structure. It's solid. And when the audience sees the writer

essentially reach back and be like “Just kidding, this is different now!”, it shakes their investment.

A writer cannot predict what specific parts of the story the audience will be very strongly invested in.

In a typical story without multiverse fuckery, there are tons of things an audience can get invested in.

They can like the heroes, the villains, the supporting characters, the romantic subplots

with the supporting characters, just the background characters sometimes. They might really like the setting,

the worldbuilding, the magic system, the weird little quirks of “Oh, I introduced this one fun character

who hints at a much broader universe behind them. That's pretty cool”. They might like that guy.

But if you're the writer, you can't predict what parts of the story are going to completely resonate with your audience.

And when you go back and you change things, it's entirely possible that you're going to rip the tablecloth out

from under a part of the story that your audience really, really liked.