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.