I am struggling a bit to word the question so I’ll explain my thought process a bit.

I was thinking about Back to the Future style time travel where someone goes back in time, makes alterations to the past, and returns to a different life around the time they left but without actually acquiring the memories of their new life. Most of the time this happens at the end of the movie or series and they’re depicted only slightly confused but the viewer is given the impression they’ll integrate just fine. I’m wondering what’s out there for media where the conclusion of the protagonist’s adventures with time travel is just the beginning and the protagonist now has to struggle to make sense of everything.

Even with the short time loop/do-over premise that’s in movies like Palm Springs, Groundhog Day, and Omni Loop I feel like it could be difficult to interact with people afterwards. I imagine knowing everything about someone and having them regard you as a stranger would be frustrating and overwhelming.

From what I’ve seen the premise seems a bit under explored.

  • A1kmmA
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    1 month ago

    Stargate SG-1, Season 4, Episode 6 has a variant of the loop trope, but everyone (including most of the protagonists, and everyone else on earth) don’t remember what happens, while two protagonists remember every loop until they are able to stop the looping.

    They debrief the others who don’t remember at the end (except for the things they did when they took a loop off anyway!) - but they didn’t miss too much since everyone else on earth missed it.

    Another fictional work - a book, not a movie / TV show / anime - is Stephen Fry’s 1996 novel Making History. The time travel aspect is questionable - he sends things back in time to stop Hitler being born, but no people travel through time. However, he remembers the past before his change, and has to deal with the consequences of having the wrong memories relative to everyone else.