1063: Kill Hitler

explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Kill Hitler
Revised directive: It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.
Title text: Revised directive: It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history until you've at least taken a class on it.

Explanation

In this comic, which I believe Randall created just to put in "BRB, Killing Hitler", Black Hat creates a one use time machine. Cueball selects the most common suggestion for Time Machine usage "Killing Hitler". Black Hat finally relents and goes to kill Hitler, however, he goes to the year 1945, when Hitler is already in his bunker. Hitler has already committed his atrocities and the war was already turning against him. Later in 1945, he reportedly died by suicide in that very same bunker. The joke in here being that Black Hat didn't save any lives or prevent the Holocaust or a global war by killing him in 1945 because he went back in time too late. He needed to go earlier, before his rise to power, like 1932. The image text also references the time travel theme from the Superman movie in which Jor-El states: "It is forbidden for you to interfere with human history". It is surprising that Black Hat did not stay and replace Hitler and do a better job thus altering History and maybe becoming his own descendant.

Transcript

[Black Hat and Cueball stand in front of a double door, which bears the label 'TIME door'. Black Hat has his hands on his hips.]
Black Hat: I finished my time machine, but it's one-use only.
Cueball: You gotta kill Hitler.
[Close-up of Black Hat, one hand palm upward.]
Black Hat: You are you so obsessed with this Hitler guy? We have all of time we could explore!
[Close-up of Cueball with both hands palm upward.]
Cueball: He's evil incarnate! He murdered millions and sparked global war! Everyone agrees -- if you get a time machine, you kill Hitler.
[Black Hat enters the now open Time door as the other man looks on..]
Black Hat: Fine, fine, I get it! Calm down. - BRB, killing Hitler.
[Black Hat returns and shuts the door, the other man has outstretched arms.]
Black Hat: There. Done. Are you happy?
Cueball: Thank you.
Black Hat: He was in some kind of bunker. 1945 was loud!
Cueball: NO!


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Discussion

Actually, I think the joke here is that Black Hat actually did end Hitler's atrocities, but that history is not actually changeable. Hitler's "suicide" was actually Black Hat killing him. This is then layers with the impossibility of changing history. This would imply that anyone that wants to stop Hitler before he rose to power will be circumvented.

UnaSalusVictis (talk) 01:26, 25 November 2012 (UTC)UnaSalusVictis

True, killing Hitler before he rose to power and committed all his atrocities would cause a Grandfather paradox... Cueball invented the time machine and send Black Hat back because he wanted Hitler dead, but if Hitler died before that, there would be no reason to invent the time machine and send Black Hat back which ergo cause the initial trip to kill Hitler not possible and ergo Hitler couldn't die before he rises to power and committed his atrocities. 175.137.100.81 01:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Maybe in the original timeline, Hitler's atrocities extended beyond 1945. When Black Hat went back in time and assassinated Hitler in 1945, a new time-line was created. When Black Hat returned to the current date, he returned to a different timeline than the one he left. In this timeline (ours), Hitler died in 1945, and because this timeline is based on that fact, Cueball thinks that Black Hat has not changed anything, when in fact, Black Hat's actions created the new timeline. -- mwburden 70.91.188.49 15:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
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