Rory’s time travel in Lucifer season 6 gives a definitive conclusion to the Devil’s stay on Earth, but it also presents some paradoxical issues that put its existence into question. After defeating his twin brother Michael in a celestial war, Lucifer’s new role as God of all Creation could have granted him omnipotence and a great deal of peace of mind. However, his doubts about taking over heavenly duties lead Amenadiel to step up and accept the responsibility himself while Lucifer stays on Earth and deals with the biggest and most unexpected challenge of his life.
A disgruntled Aurora Morningstar, aka “Rory”, arrives in Lucifer’s life to grant him his ultimate redemption. She comes from a future where her father, Lucifer himself, abandoned her without an explanation. But while Rory, Chloe, and Lucifer try to understand why he would leave his own daughter, their bond grows to the point where Rory realizes the answer: her own trip to the past convinces Lucifer to permanently depart to Hell and become a healer of lost souls. If Lucifer decides to stay and witness his daughter’s childhood, Rory wouldn’t be able to travel to the past, and without her trip to the past, the lessons multiple Lucifer characters learn wouldn’t happen. Thus, Lucifer needs to leave Chloe before Rory is born so Rory can eventually get angry with him and travel back in time to keep the loop going.
There are several ways Lucifer could avoid the pain that comes with abandoning his family. However, the loop doesn’t depend exclusively on the logic of time travel. Here’s how Rory’s trip through time works, why it technically isn’t necessary, and why it had to happen nonetheless.
How Lucifer’s Time Travel Works
Rory’s ability to time travel isn’t voluntary. All the angels in Lucifer can “self-actualize,” which means that they can develop both abilities and defects if their minds are set on it. Just like Michael’s “chip on his shoulder” literally became so heavy that it ruined his posture, Rory’s fixation on her father’s abandonment caused her to travel to the moment before he left her. In order to reverse the effects of self-actualization, angels need to get to the root of their inner conflict. Hence, Rory can’t time travel at will.
With Rory stuck in the past, she becomes the one that puts the idea of abandonment on Lucifer’s head, prompting him to scramble for every possible way to avoid it. For a brief time, it seems that destiny does force Lucifer to die or disappear at the exact moment Rory believes he would, as Lucifer finds himself forced to exit his self-appointed quarantine and risk his life to save Rory from Dan’s murderer in Lucifer season 5, Vincent Le Mec. But since both Lucifer and Rory survive the encounter, it becomes apparent that they have the chance to change the future. On top of that, Lucifer also learns through Le Mec that Dan has found salvation, and that Le Mec himself is going to Hell despite wanting redemption.
This is the moment when Lucifer realizes that he needs to depart to Hell and devote himself full-time to the redemption of lost souls. It’s also the moment when Rory realizes that Lucifer’s return to Hell needs to be permanent, as it allows her to grow angry at his absence and eventually travel to the past to allow the same events to happen. Therefore, the time loop has been renewed, and Rory once again self-actualizes her ability to time travel in order to return to her future, where everything has already been set in stone.
Why Lucifer Had to Leave Chloe and Rory
Now, if everyone involved understood what had to happen to keep the time loop going, why did Lucifer still have to abandon Chloe and Rory? While it’s true that Lucifer could visit them once in a while without creating logical bumps in the timeline, Lucifer’s permanent departure ensures that everything happens exactly the same way. After all, the central element in the loop is Rory’s involuntary ability to time travel, which is only fueled by her anger. If she could develop the same ability at will, she could simply choose to go back and inform her parents of what needs to be done without any additional trouble. Unfortunately, she can only do so if she’s convinced that Lucifer disappeared without a reason.
Lucifer also needs to avoid returning to Earth so he doesn’t affect the impact of his departure. Leaving forever makes it a sort of spiritual death for him and his “Deckerstar” love story with Chloe, making Chloe a single mother and Rory a fatherless child. If Lucifer decided to visit regularly, Lucifer’s bond with Chloe and Rory would instead become a long-distance relationship, which wouldn’t affect both women the same way. Finally, Lucifer gives his word to Rory. Despite being a character with a penchant for finding loopholes, and despite having a literal eternity’s worth of time to find a way to see his loved ones, Lucifer’s promise to Rory means that he would not risk changing destiny, as he has also found his purpose back in Hell. Besides, Lucifer knows how difficult it was for Dan to finally forgive himself and escape Hell. With Dan living eternally happy with Charlotte, Amenadiel as a kind-hearted God, and Ella, Maze, and Eve enjoying their respective dream lives, Lucifer would never dare to change the timeline and potentially affect them negatively.
How Rory’s Time Loop Is Actually Broken
Fitting endings aside, Lucifer‘s concept of time travel depends on a paradox. Rory always causes the time loop to restart, so Lucifer always abandons her because she convinced him to do so. Rory is always an angry teenager in the past before she’s even born in the future, and changing anything in the time loop (if it’s even possible) not only would pluck her away from existence but also erase her from any point in the timeline. There might be a scenario where Lucifer first departed for a different reason, causing Rory to time travel for the first time and start the loop, but after the first cycle is completed, that original scenario is erased from existence. Fortunately, this paradox isn’t detrimental to Lucifer‘s series finale, sharing the same concept of time travel with stories like The Terminator and The Flash. In the end, Lucifer and Chloe reunite in Hell, where they can enjoy eternity together, and Rory lives on to enjoy a more peaceful life without any resentment. Additionally, Chloe dies of old age knowing exactly where Lucifer went and where she can find him. Although the loop Rory caused in Lucifer continues forever, time keeps moving forward once destiny is fulfilled.
