Time Heals All Wounds: The Time Loop Beyond Groundhog Day, Disability, and Higurashi Gou and Sotsu (2020-21)

Linear time is out of joint with and oppressive to alternate bodies, minds, and lives in a plethora of ways. In recent years, critical interventions such as Alison Kafer’s crip time and Elizabeth Freeman’s chrononormativity have revealed the oppressive force of time on marginalised groups. The time loop structure inherently complicates the linear flow of time, providing a space for readers and authors to resist these norms and find alternative ways of reimagining worlds. Traditional time loop narratives emphasize the time loop as a positive reforming tool in which people learn moral lessons to return to status quo society. In analysing the intersectionality of the issues many groups have with time, I problematise this assumption, coining the term chronopolitics to describe the antagonistic relationship time has to a variety of marginalized groups and how it abets their abjection within the status quo. I examine the recent phenomenon of what I have termed the Hostile Time Loop, a subversion of the traditional model of benevolent time loops. In these Hostile Time Loops, protagonists grapple with the time loop as a systemic mechanism which is bent not on their rehabilitation, but on their destruction. The primary works discussed in this thesis are Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou and its sequel Sotsu, (2020-21) and their limitations and successes in resisting chronopolitics. These works are built upon a cascading series of subversions of the time loop model. In this critique, a particular focus is cast on crip time, the manner in which disability is codified and castigated through norms related to time, and its intrinsic presence within the system of the time loop. Time loops place tension on representations of disability, for they simultaneously create an infinite amount of disability in their constant trauma-inducing mechanisms, yet the function of time as a loop also erases experiences of disability.