The Netflix series ‘Dark’ by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Fries is a very complex sci-fi thriller that raises many questions about the function of time and how our actions are connected from one generation to another. The plot follows the lives of four families in the German town of Winden, whose last names are Kahnwald, Nielsen, Tiedemann, and Doppler. The connections between the lives of these individuals are so intricate that it sometimes becomes necessary to consider cause and effect in a counterintuitive way.
The actions take place in three interconnected worlds. First, in a world where time is linear, the clockmaker H.G. Tannhaus loses his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter in a car crash in 1971. He spends several years building a time machine to go back in time on this occurrence. When he activates the time machine in 1986, instead of going back in time on this occurrence, he establishes the two knotted worlds in which the majority of the series takes place. In these two worlds, time is a never-ending loop, and the attempt to go back in time on any occurrence might become the cause of the occurrence of future events.
How Time Travel Turns Fate into a Cycle of Paradox and Conflict
Each of the three seasons has an underlying theme of events repeating in cycles of 33 years. The events within the cycles prove that it is actually the effort to avoid tragedy that becomes the cause of tragedy. In each of the three worlds, there are two older versions of the main characters, and they belong to different groups. Jonas grows up to be Adam and attempts to escape the cycle. In the alternate world, Martha grows up to be Eva and attempts to sustain the cycle.
Season 1 opens with the end of one story and the start of another. In 2019, Michael Kahnwald passes away, and Mikkel Nielsen, Ulrich and Agnes’s youngest son, disappears while exploring the caves in Winden. During the search for Mikkel, a wormhole is found that connects 1986 to 1953. At the end of the season, it is revealed that Mikkel traveled back in time to 1986, where he grew up as Michael and became Jonas’s father.
Love, Loss, and the Persistence of Time in Dark’s Last Season
This is the beginning of the central paradox in which the past and the future become one. Ulrich Nielsen tries to avoid the paradox by traveling to the year 1953 and attacking Helge Doppler when he was a child. Unintentionally, he becomes a part of the events that give rise to the creation of Helge’s life. Towards the end of the season, Jonas, or The Stranger, tries to shut down the wormhole but ends up sending his younger self to a world from the year 2052. By the time we reach the second season, it is apparent that there are more storylines than one could possibly think of. We witness Jonas’s future form as Adam, who is the leader of the Sic Mundus Creatus Est cult. Adam believes that he wants to stop the cycles and lure young Jonas into thinking that he can save Michael from death. The season ends with the apocalypse that takes place in 2020, showing how different characters try to save themselves and others from Adam’s activities. There is a new Martha from another dimension. One of the strangest developments happens when Charlotte Doppler learns that her daughter, Elisabeth, is also her mother because of time travel. Claudia Tiedemann, one of the former allies of Adam, realizes the tricks of Adam and decides to save her daughter, Regina, who is dying of cancer. The final season brings along numerous questions as the story moves to the alternate dimension where Jonas never existed. Martha is a vital part of this storyline, and the older version of Martha, named Eva, is the leader of Erit Lux. Eva wants to keep the cycle so that her son, the Unknown, who comes from Jonas and alt-Martha, lives. Claudia discovers the Origin World and informs Adam that there is a point in the apocalypse where time freezes. This gives a chance to finish the cycle. Adam gives Jonas and alt-Martha a mission to travel to 1971 in the Origin World, where they make sure that Tannhaus’s family does not die in the car accident. Worlds that were tangled untangle, and the characters developed by the travels in time, like Jonas, Martha, and the Nielsen family, disappear. The series finale shows the other characters living their normal lives. Pregnant Hannah has an episode of déjà vu and chooses to name her son Jonas.
