Temporal fold

Temporal fold
Spike experiences time being reversed.
Effect	To alter time.
Users	Rupert Giles (Wishverse) Willow Rosenberg Anya Jenkins The Oracles Jonathan Levinson Kurskov Rwasundi demons Illyria Senior Partners
Appearances
Debut	"The Wish"
Last seen	After the Fall, Part Sixteen

Temporal fold was a disruption in the natural fabric of time, altering reality to restore a place in time through time travel. It could affect the stream of time in general, over a specific individual or space, or even one reality at a time.

Examples

General

To prevent his transformation into human by coming in contact with the Blood of Eternity, Angel convinced the Oracles to perform a temporal fold. He was the only one who kept the memories of the original timeline, so time turned back to the moment Angel first met the Mohra demon that would infect him, then with enough knowledge to kill the demon on sight.

Illyria had the innate capacity of time manipulation. Soon after her resurrection in a human shell in 2004, her unstable power made her suffer random jumps in time, repeating and changing certain events, such as killing the entire Angel Investigations team then leaving them surviving in a second encounter.

The Senior Partners were forced to perform a temporal fold to prevent the death of Angel during the Fall of Los Angeles. As a result, Los Angeles and its inhabitants were restored to the moment before the town had been sent to Hell. The entire town kept the memories of the months they had remained trapped in Hell, but they were all reverted to their original physical states, such as Angel being restored to a vampire, while Gunn was turned back into an injured human.

Localized

At least since 1890, Count Kurskov had the Prima Ballerina of Blinnikov World Ballet Corps pulled out of time and of any reality beyond the theater, cursed to dance for him forever. During the first act, her foot slipped a little every time during the courtship dance; she was not dancing each night, but rather just repeating her movements for eternity. In 2002, the ballerina changed the dance, making the other dancers disappear and weakening the magic holding her prisoner. Angel used the opportunity to attack Kurskov and smash his power center, allowing the Prima Ballerina to vanish.

In 2001, as the Trio performed tests on the Slayer, Jonathan cast a time loop spell on Buffy. While she was the only one aware of the time loop inside the Magic Box, Buffy was forced to repeatedly assist two costumers until they left the shop satisfied.

Months later, Andrew summoned Rwasundi demon to frame Buffy for the death of Katrina. As human perception was based on linear chronology, Buffy's confront with the demons appeared to be vivid hallucinations, and their temporal distortions created the impression that she killed Katrina by accident.

Alternative realities

In the Wishverse, Giles broke the Symbol of Anyanka, resulting in time being turned back to the moment Cordelia made her wish in the mainstream version of reality. In the new timeline, Cordelia was alive once again, and Anya, deprived of her powers, was unable to reveal her demon face and grant the wish.

Later, Willow helped Anya perform a spell to retrieve the Symbol of Anyanka from before its destruction in the alternative reality. However, in the midst of the ritual, Willow saw images of her counterpart in that reality and accidentally corrupted the ritual. As a result, instead of the necklace, the vampire Willow was teleported through time, moving her into the main reality from the moment before she had originally died. Afterward, Willow and Anya returned the vampire to her alternative reality to that same moment, this time cursing as she died again.

Appearances

• "The Wish"
• "Doppelgängland"
• "I Will Remember You"
• "Parting Gifts" (Only mentioned)
• "Life Serial"
• "All the Way" (Only mentioned)
• "Waiting in the Wings"
• "Dead Things"
• "Time Bomb"
• After the Fall, Part Sixteen
• Live Through This, Part Two (Only mentioned)