This is a great mashup of the song “In the End” from Linkin Park. Really puts a tragic spin on Jack’s quest:
In many ways it is a kind of pessimistic story – after all, Jack routinely fails to return to the past, despite epic heroism. He really does try hard, but in the end it doesn’t seem to matter, at least not to the billions enslaved by Aku throughout time. However Jack is making a difference to the people in the future who he liberates from Aku’s reign, so perhaps that is the true measure of his destiny.
I think they understood that implication, which is why they gave us one episode which hinted at the resolution. There is one time portal that exists, which not even Aku can close, and eventually Jack will use it to return to the past. But that will only happen when he’s middle-aged.
agreed, though even that prophetic image still implies that Jack will spend decades fighting Aku in the future-present. And, if you think about what it would mean for him to then travel back in time and succeed in destroying Aku and preventing the future-present, it means all those decades are essentially wasted effort, because all the races he had freed from Aku would neverhave been enslaved.
Unless one assumes that Jack has a specific destiny to fulfill in the future present, of course, which is presumably why the portal will not permit him to pass. Butwhatever that destiny is, it presumably would also be “reset” if Jack succeeds in his quest. So my feeling is that Jack might never succeed – that his destiny lies in the future-present and that when he does use the prtal, it wont be to go back in time to “reboot” but for something else.
I don’t think it’s quite that bleak.
Jack took on Aku in the past and didn’t win. If he returns to the past before he’s ready, and tries to take on Aku again, again he won’t win. That would be useless.
The guardian of the portal won’t let him pass until he’s strong enough and fast enough — and ruthless enough — to finish Aku off the next time they fight. In fact, it may be that he’ll have to prove that by killing Aku in the future. Then, and only then, will the guardian let him pass through the portal and return to the past.
If he kills Aku in the past, time changes, but that doesn’t mean the things he did in the future are wasted. They are part of his training, to make it possible for him to achieve the goal of killing Aku.
I can see the argument for training, but thats pretty cruel, given that its also all of humanity that has to suffer under Aku’s rule first.
Though it shoudl be noted that Aku was defeated by Jack in the opener, and Aku threw Jack into the future before the killing blow. And everytime they are matched in the future, Jack wins and Aku flutters off. The only way to really defeat Aku is to completely obliterate him, and we’ve seen that there are Great Powers who could do the task but presumably dont for some prophetic reason.
In any fight between Jack and Aku, if Aku survives then Jack didn’t win. “Close” doesn’t count.
Jack could have killed Aku in the original battle, but didn’t manage to do it, and the result was Aku’s total domination of the earth for centuries. That is the key point.
When the time finally comes that Jack is permitted to return to his own time, then when he re-engages with Aku in the past, he’ll really win, and Aku will be dead and gone.