What is the time travel model in Outlander Season 7 actually like? Explained in depth

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses major time travel plot points from Outlander, Interstellar and Tenet.

Streaming its seventh season, Outlander has been airing for a decade now. It began its run in August 2014 and will end with the final eighth season soon. It is a historical fantasy show based on the novels by author Diana Gabaldon. Outlander Season 7 continues with its paradoxical time-travel model.

The Outlander Season 7 time travel model explained

As stated before, Outlander repeatedly uses the paradoxical model of time travel. The paradoxical model of time travel ensures that no matter how hard a character tries, a major event in their life will remain a major constant. This is what happens in Outlander season 7 when the character of Roger MacKenzie meets his father, Jerry.

In Outlander Season 7 Episode 13, "Hello, Goodbye," Roger starts having visions of his younger self playing with his father, Jerry. Jerry was presumed dead in a World War II plane crash, but his tags were discovered by Roger and Buck in 1739. After successfully locating Jerry, Roger helps the former return to the 20th century so that the latter doesn't grow up fatherless, but that does not happen.

However, there is more to this story in the books. A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows paints a picture of what happens to Jerry after he returns to World War II. Jerry had returned just in time to save his wife and the five-year-old Roger from the Blitz. However, in that process, he dies, and his body is unidentified as he did not have his tags on him.

Did Roger change his past in Outlander Season 7?

As stated earlier, the visions seen in this episode of Outlander are a show-only addition. Fans have speculated that Jerry's "vision" with a five-year-old Roger is just a memory from an earlier time. Doing so will re-establish the paradoxical time travel model the showrunners faithfully followed per the books.

Furthermore, this is not the only event in the show that follows the paradoxical time travel model. Brianna traveled back in time to prevent her parents' death from the housefire. However, in a cruel twist of fate, she ended up being the one who caused the fire in the first place. The show uses the paradoxical model in tragic ways.

Paradoxical time travel in other stories

One of the best examples of the paradoxical model of time travel in addition to Outlander in recent years has been in two Christopher Nolan movies, Interstellar and Tenet. In Interstellar, future Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) successfully leads his younger self to the NASA facility so that he can be a part of a mission to find a new planet to sustain humanity.

Even after a decade, a lot of questions remain unanswered. Like, are the beings who designed the tesseract humans? How did they manage to create it? How far did technology advance them in developing such an abstract structure?

Tenet is an espionage thriller in which all the characters can move backward and forward through time. The main character, played by John David Washington, simply named The Protagonist, is recruited by a mysterious organization named "Tenet." The mission is to stop the Russian oligarch Andrei Sator from dooming the world.

He is aided by a young man named Neil and Kat, Sator's estranged wife, during this mission. After successfully saving everything, it is revealed that Neil is the Protagonist's ally from the future. The mission was just beginning for the latter and ending for the former. It is further revealed that the "Tenet" was founded by none other than the Protagonist himself.

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If you are a fan of sci-fi and time travel stories, don't miss out on Outlander.

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