10 Plot Holes You Haven't Noticed In The Arrowverse
4. The More You Time Travel, The Less The Rules Apply To You
The Flash's third season relied rather heavily on time travel and, as a result, some of the logic that the show applied to that concept began being rewritten for the convenience of the plot - something we also saw on Legends of Tomorrow that year (but we'll get to that later).
Yes, the introduction of Savitar suggested that events were fixed in time and couldn't be altered no matter how much Team Flash tried - and yet, that completely contradicted the basis upon which Season 3 was built. The season opened with Barry saving his mother in the past, creating an alternate timeline known as Flashpoint before he ultimately put her back in place and created a slightly altered version of the original timeline.
More to the point, the new logic may have made sense if it wasn't Savitar that was spouting it. "That's the thing about time travel Barry, the more you do it, the less the rules apply to you." An interesting statement that, looking back on the show, certainly carries weight, but it's one that doesn't feel right coming out of Savitar's mouth.
The evil speedster was determined to kill Iris on a specific date at a specific time so that he could live in the present. How could he live in the present, you ask? Why, Iris' death would drive present-day Barry mad and result in him becoming Savitar of course! And yet, the villain was also willing to allow Barry to kill himself because, according to him, the timeline had been so messed up already, it wouldn't have an effect. Sorry but how, how does that correspond with the logic? How can Barry become Savitar if he's dead?
Moreover, if Savitar's ascension was so fixed, why was the present-day version of it (Iris' supposed death) a different event than his original birth as a time remnant in the future? And if it was so fixed, how was it that Team Flash were ultimately able to thwart it and erase him from existence?
The time travel logic was all over the place in Season 3 and resulted in what had been, for the most part, a thoroughly compelling season coming off as unnecessarily confusing.