Having just read through the Lavos article and the notes on the Time Devourer, a thought came to me, and I felt like sharing it. Yea, I just joined the boards to share a random idea I had. Go me. I don't even know if this is original, as I've only read the article and didn't take a lot of time checking this on the boards. Anyway...
As I'm sure most of you are aware, there's some debate as to whether Lavos purposely made/evolved into the Time Devourer, and if so, why it it would even do so if the Time Devourer's purpose was so contradictory to Lavos's plans. The idea I had was that the Time Devourer was not made to consume all of time and space, but rather just the timespace composing the planet it landed on and was eventually defeated by.
Consider, for a moment, an insect with an incredibly bitter taste (look up the Battus or Machaca for examples), perhaps even containing a poison deadly to other creatures. If some predator tries to eat it, it'll probably spit the thing back out (or, using the poison example, die), thereafter avoiding the bugs. The species as a whole thrives with the mere sacrifice of a few unlucky members. The Time Devourer may serve a similar purpose, albeit on a much larger scale -- an entire planet, no less. Destroy Lavos, and you risk having your planet's entire history poisoned and killed. Imagine such a result had Serge and company failed; Lavos's decent in prehistoric times may have well just eradicated the planet, thus insuring nothing arises there that may jeopardize the existence of its species throughout the universe.
The most obvious refute I though of was the fact that the game actually states the Time Devourer would end up "destroying all of existence," later stating that the remaining sane half of Schala took actions to "save the universe." I'm wondering if this was misspoken or downright overstated, as one could consider their own planet "all of existence/the universe" to a point, or if the Time Devourer would, by its nature, be limited to consuming/destroying the planet it inhabited regardless of its desires , or a handful of other things, but at this point, I'd just be splitting hairs.
Anyhow, I'd love to hear some thoughts on this theory, even if it is just my first post. Thanks for reading though.