Time Traveler's / Reincarnator's 'Hitler' Dilemma

[Kiradien]

It's been long asked: If you could travel back in time, would you kill baby Hitler?

For a multitude of reasons, the answer usually ends up no, but reading a Star Wars fanfic left me wondering, how many story plots would effectively solve themselves or would at least be better if you offed the protagonist before it started?

If you reincarnated before the plot of the story, are there protagonists you would consider killing off for "the greater good"?

What stories and what characters would make you consider doing so?

 

[Kiradien]

I would consider killing off these protagonists.

Star Wars - Anakin Skywalker
Darth Vader is iconic, he is THE bad guy in movie history... He does an enormous amount of harm, he kills the younglings, he's quite literally evil... He's evil, it'd save trillions of lives, Sideous' plans would struggle without someone positioned like him... But I don't think I'd actually be able to kill him as a kid.

High School DxD - Issei Hyoudou
Issei is an irredeemable pervert, but he's also the source of all problems in DxD. His breast obsession opened a gateway to the breast god of another reality - a gateway that the Chaos Brigade noticed and researched. It could be argued that the Chaos Brigade only grew in activity *because* of Issei, but it's a fact that the ExE plotline falls squarely on his shoulders. Yeah. I'd definitely kill Issei.

Warcraft 3 - Arthas Menethil
The Patricidal Lich King, slayer of kingdoms and spreader of undeath. All around bad guy. I'd probably consider trying, but considering he's a prince raised into a powerful Paladin, I don't like my odds.

 

[Lightbringer]

High School DxD - Issei Hyoudou
Issei is an irredeemable pervert, but he's also the source of all problems in DxD. His breast obsession opened a gateway to the breast god of another reality - a gateway that the Chaos Brigade noticed and researched. It could be argued that the Chaos Brigade only grew in activity *because* of Issei, but it's a fact that the ExE plotline falls squarely on his shoulders. Yeah. I'd definitely kill Issei.

Click to shrink...

Wait, the fact he is obsessed with breasts did that?

 

[Tera Forma]

High School DxD - Issei Hyoudou
Issei is an irredeemable pervert, but he's also the source of all problems in DxD. His breast obsession opened a gateway to the breast god of another reality - a gateway that the Chaos Brigade noticed and researched. It could be argued that the Chaos Brigade only grew in activity *because* of Issei, but it's a fact that the ExE plotline falls squarely on his shoulders. Yeah. I'd definitely kill Issei.

Click to shrink...

And this won't change anything regarding the EXE invasion.
In fact, in the last volumes, in the Machine Interlude, it was stated that the fact of Issei's connection with the Spirit Faction was only discovered by Regalzeva after his arrival in the DxD world.
In fact, even Rizevim wasn't the reason. Because the Melvazoa Faction had actually already started genocidal invasions of other worlds long before that. In fact, Regalzeva arrives in the DxD world from a meep that was already halfway through its takeover.
So, you're just going to destroy the guy who has the potential to be the one to stop the invasion.

 

[Kiradien]

Wait, the fact he is obsessed with breasts did that?

Click to shrink...

More complicated than my original wording, but in effect, yes. His breast obsession was single handedly responsible for maintaining the dimensional rift between the two universes.

And this won't change anything regarding the EXE invasion.
In fact, in the last volumes, in the Machine Interlude, it was stated that the fact of Issei's connection with the Spirit Faction was only discovered by Regalzeva after his arrival in the DxD world.
In fact, even Rizevim wasn't the reason. Because the Melvazoa Faction had actually already started genocidal invasions of other worlds long before that. In fact, Regalzeva arrives in the DxD world from a meep that was already halfway through its takeover.
So, you're just going to destroy the guy who has the potential to be the one to stop the invasion.

Click to shrink...

The EXE gods need a connection to the universe they're invading, and unless I'm horribly wrong, the only reason the connection from DxD to EXE was maintained was because of Issei's utter devotion to Chichigami. Without that, the rift would have been a blip, appearing and disappearing within seconds and never connecting again within that century.
Without that tunnel's existence, EXE would continue their invasions, sure, but not into the DxD universe - at least not immediately.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'd doom the universe. But there was too damn much emphasis put on that connection to Chichigami for me to believe that everything isn't actually Issei's fault in the first place. Personally? I'm willing to bet that without "The Great Issei Tunnel", the ExE idiots would have bit off more than they can chew against far stronger gods long before reaching DxD.

 

[Soupervan]

Some versions of the DCU might be better off without Batman, after all most of his villians got their start because of the Bat's actions. Joker usually falls into a vat because of the Bat, Two-face get's his good looks from Batsy choosing the girl or choosing him but getting tricked by his last mistake and so on. Batman also occasionally has his computer hacked, and given that he has information and plans about and against everyone it often ends badly. Course Batman usually is the one behind the Justice League starting up, to say nothing of funding it and he saves the world occasionally so it depends if others can stand up... so really it depends on the writers.

Same goes for his analogue in Marvel, Spider-man. A good chunk of Spidey's rogues gallery wouldn't be around without him, the second Green Goblin was out for revenge against him, Electro hated that Spider-man lied about being friends and that seemed to be the last straw for him, and so on. Those that would exist regardless can mostly be mopped up by Iron Man, Dare Devil and the like without much issue, and given that he's a friendly neighborhood Spider-man the world as a whole is saved by him a lot less than the Bat if I'm not mistaken.

Potentially Buffy the Vampire Slayer too. They claim in the show that she's the bestest little Vampire Slayer who ever slayed... but she stayed in school, barely trained, and let Angelus go on a killing spree because she couldn't seperate him from the vampire she bonked the soul out of enough to kill him for months. I think Kendra could have been better, it was just bad luck she died so early via Dru's hypnobeam.

 

[riotous living]

Muzan from Demonslayers would be an easy pick, he was also extremely sick as a child. Although, it might be better to kill the doctor who found the blue spider-lily, since had he never found the cure probably no one else ever would.

Edit: Also, Sozin from ATLA. He only got away with what he did because he was childhood friends with Avatar Roku, any other imperialistic Firelord wouldn't have that advantage.

 

[Savinkov]

Ash - Evil Dead saga
He screwed everything up.