Why did time traveling Jake Epping prevent the JFK Assassination?

The novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King is about a time traveler who went back to 1958 to work up his way to prevent the John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963, on the title date of the book, 22^nd November 1963. After I read the book I felt that the main protagonist, Jake Epping did not really have to prevent the assassination.

Book was never about time travel

First of all we need to take into consideration that the story was never about time travel. It is not some science fiction where writer dive deep into time travel paradoxes. If that was the case writer could have chosen any disaster to prevent.

This book is about JFK assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald’s role in it. There was a note at the end of the book by Stephen King describing his motive to write the novel. Author got an idea to write about the assassination few years after the actual grim affair. But he pushed back the project because memory was still new in minds of people and it would have negatively affected the book. He wanted to address some conspiracy theories behind the JFK assassination and discuss whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone or not. Especially he wanted to know whether Oswald pulled the trigger himself or not. In the book he also get into alternate history line where JFK had survived the assassination attempt, and how world’s fate change under his second administration. In order to show these events to the reader he use protagonist as a point of view character, a set of eyes on the ground. That’s how time travel fits into the story because protagonist needed to be present in that Oswald’s time and in the alternate future.

Did Jake Epping have a reason to meddle in the JFK Assassination?

He was not an adventurer or a daredevil or some kind of a hero who would risk his life for no apparent reason. He was a young English teacher who happened to have a failed marriage. Then how did he ended up in 1963 during JFK’s Dallas visiting? Apparently he did not have any other better things to do with his life.

Jake Epping was a regular customer at a less popular dinner near the school where he was teaching. He knew the old man who was the owner of the place from his frequent visits, but they were not close friends. One day this man revealed to Jake that he got cancer and going to die soon. Then he confided in Jake that he got a time portal inside his dinner. Then as his dying wish he asked Jake to stop the Kennedy assassination. He believed that John F. Kennedy would have prevented the Vietnam War if he was not assassinated in Dallas. His reasons to why should Jake Epping meddle in all that was Jake was a recently divorced, lone guy who had nothing to lose and 60s are not going to be any different to him anyways.

But Jake was not a lost cause. He was a tall, good looking man in his 30s who happened to be a good dancer, already with a stable job. His first relationship was failed because of his wife’s alcohol abuse but he could have found a new girlfriend in his current time just like he did in 60s.

Jake did not have personal investments in the JFK Assassination

Jake Epping wasn’t even born when JFK assassinated. Also JFK was not someone like princess Diana who was adored by millions or may be billions of people at her time and later. Apparently John F. Kennedy had divisive popularity among people even in his first term. Even if he survived that fateful day there was a chance that he could have lost his second presidential election. Also he was not a healthy person. He had been plague with various illnesses since his childhood. When Kennedy was 30 he got diagnosed with Addison’s disease and the doctors thought he was going to die within a year. With his bad health there was a good chance that he would have died even before he could prevent the Vietnam War.

Jake did not have any connection to the war. None of his relatives died in Vietnam. So even JFK prevented the Vietnam War Jake could not have care less.

Nature of the time traveling in 11/22/63

Owner of the dinner found a time portal inside his dinner. He did not know about the origin, how long it existed or how long it going to be open. After experimented with it by traveling back and forth he discovered few basic characteristics of the portal. It always send the time traveler in to a specific moment in the past. Traveler can do anything and stay any time as they wish. When the traveler return to his own time, only two minutes will be passed in his time despite how much time he had spent in the past. Traveler’s actions in the past will affect the future of his timeline. If anyone use the portal again, everything the previous user did will be reset.

The time portal doesn’t make the traveler any younger

Portal does not reset the user’s age. Time traveler can go back and forth through the portal many times as he wish and do and redo things in the past. He can stay days, months, years, and decades in the past. Then he can reset all the changes he did to the past if he wish. But there is a one thing that time traveler cannot reset. That is his age. So no matter how the traveler use the portal, he will always age in normal rate.

When Jake Epping stopped the JFK assassination, he traveled into 1958 and stayed in the past 5 years until 1963 to prevent the incident. When he came back to his time, he aged 5 years than he entered the portal which was 2 minutes ago in his time.

If the time portal reset the user’s age when he come back, then Jake could have tried different methods, different ways to prevent assassination and chose the optimum way. In that way, technically he could have live longer than his natural life span by reliving in the past and resetting his age from the portal. Since the portal does not work that way it was stupid idea to throw away 5 years from someone’s life for an unrelated politician.

The past fights back against changes

Past does not like to be changed. Whenever a time traveler tried to change the past, the past shows resistant to the change. The resistant is in positive correlation with the change. So if the change is significant, resistant is also higher. When dinner owner and Jake Epping were testing the portal they chose two people with unfortunate fates and tried to change their past to prevent their misfortunes. Dinner owner prevented a hunting accident and Jake prevented a father from murdering his own family. Doing so both dinner owner and Jake Epping faced series of misfortunes such as vehicle breaking downs, sudden illnesses, freak accidents.

So if that theory was true and someone tried to change a historically significant assassination from happening resistance of the past could have been huge. I think Jake Epping got out of it easy. It was foolish of him to pursue his course with the previous knowledge of the phenomena. He got beaten to memory loss, his girlfriend in the past got disfigured and ultimately died. He risked his life and his girlfriend’s life all for a thank you from the president and the first lady.

In reality time portal does not change the past

Jake Epping later found out that time portal does not reset time at all. It simply create different time lines each time someone uses it. So in reality he didn’t even save JFK in his original timeline. He simply created a different timeline where JFK did not die in Dallas in 1963. Also saving JFK did not bring peace and prosperity to the world, instead it lead into a dystopian future timeline. So Jake gave up on the mission and went into the portal to come back into a time which was similar to his original timeline.

If I was Jake Epping, I would not have risk my life for a politician

It was not even his idea to prevent the assassination. The owner of the dinner had enough time to do it himself. Instead he used the portal for personal gain. To be specific he used it to source cheap meat from the past so he could sell burgers at lower price. Then he decided to do some responsible work with the portal and came up with the idea. But before he could finish the task his cancer got worsen and he impose the task on Jake. Jake did not have any obligation to follow his request.

It could have been a believable plot

With few slight changes Stephen King could have given Jake Epping some valid motive to prevent JFK assassination. Instead of some dying old man imposing it on him, let him decide to do it by himself. Make him a history buff so he wanted to see what it would be like to live in a world where JFK survived. Or make him a science nerd who wanted to meddle with time to watch the outcome. Or make him a conspiracy theorist who wanted to prove that Oswald did not act alone. Or make him a person who uses the time portal for personal gain and just messing around until he meets his love of live Sadie in the past and decided to stay there, then somehow lead him into the Lee Harvey Oswald conspiracy.