Everyone keeps looking at cause-effect as if it followed the rules we follow, moving one-way through time (excepting only instantaneous timegate transfers).
I don't see why this is necessary for beings such as Lavos. If you gain the ability to exist outside the linear flow of time the rest of us are stuck in, if you could look at it in its entirety the way we look at
a fishbowl in its entirety, the cause-effect thing, as being described, goes away.
Because cause-effect is how things work in the Chrono setting when it comes to time travel. Once again, look how 2300AD is ruined in-game despite Lavos being eventually defeated. How the Black Omen isn't already floating in the sky despite Crono and company's eventual meddling of the Ocean Palace Events. Event A follows Event B follows Event C. It's how it is.
Consider this. When people bring up the "timey wimey" quote, it's usually accompanied by a ball of yarn, to represent how time isn't linear. The thing is, that's not the whole picture. The ball of yarn, from the perspective of the linear plane it's on, does makes it look like it's a jumbled mess, but, the string itself is still linear. From the plane it's on, the string may go forward, or backwards, or sideways, looping, etc. But it's still just one linear course. It's just not linear from the perspective of the surface it's on. There is still an order, and said order is how we see and witness things in-game. We play following the string of that ball of yarn all the way to its end.
Regarding Lavos, it's only "out of time" from the perspective of the dimension's timeline. Lavos is in a pocket dimension that can connect to any point of the timeline. However, the place where Lavos and Schala merged, the Darkness Beyond Time, is a separate area altogether. One that Lavos doesn't enter until after its defeat. Look at this way. The pocket dimension is confined within the timeline, but the DBT is outside of the timeline. Lavos's pocket dimension would be the fishbowl, and the DBT is the outside of the room that houses said fishbowl. Lavos can't be outside (DBT) until it's thrown out (being defeated by Crono and company) from both the fishbowl (its pocket dimension) and the room (the timeline). Something like that.
Wait, Lavos's defeat was necessary for the merging?
Now, was it Lavos's defeat that caused Schala's merge with Lavos? Or was it Lavos's defeat that cause Schala's merge with the Time Devourer?
Both questions are the same one in context, and the second would be wrong since the Time Devourer is already the merge of both Schala and Lavos. Anyway, it's none of them. Lavos's defeat caused its move into the DBT, where Schala was already there. Once both are there, they merged. Why? I don't think there's a why exactly, it happened.
