Board Thread:DC's Legends of Tomorrow discussions/@comment-9346948-20171129021421/@comment-2112031-20171213005011

SeanWheeler wrote:

Ninja72 wrote: This guy explains the plothole in the reverse-flash returns. But he disagreed with the whole thing about Thawne being a time remnant as stated in the show. If you have to disagree with what the characters say to resolve a plot hole, then it's a really bad plot hole. The original explanation regarding time remnants given within the episode is that Eobard was being preserved by the speed force in order to play out his intended role as Flash's arch enemy. Basically, the time remnant was being preserved in order to lead to the series of events that resulted in this current timeline, which would conclude with the time remnant finally erased when Eddie killed himself.

It's rather unfortunate that this pretty simple explanation was seemingly ignored in later on, with the term being used much more broadly to refer to any temporal duplicates whose creation did not resemble that of Thawne, leading to much confusion.

It certainly doesn't help that it's never really been explained how Thawne was preserved post-Flashpoint. It seemed as though he and Barry traveled to 2016 right after Eobard killed Nora, which should logistically have resulted in a different timeline where Eobard wasn't stranded in 2000. It would have been nice to have had at least some kind of explanation.

Eobard presence on Earth-X could perhaps be handwaved away by suggesting that this is him pre-Spear of Destiny, meaning that, from his perspective, the events of Season 2 of LoT haven't happened yet.