[HPforGrownups] Time Travel in the Series

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 19690

At 08:09 PM 5/29/01 +0000, mss4a at cstone.net wrote:
>Okay, here are some thoughts on time travel.  Actually I can't take
>credit for this theory, because a friend of mine thought it up, but I
>think it's quite brilliant.
>
>JKR treats time travel differently from other writers.  Think of the
>Back to the Future movies -- you have different timelines that go on
>concurrently.  I think this is also true in StarTrek.

And _Red Dwarf_, and even Oz, if you accept the recently published
_Paradox in Oz_ (in which Ozma inadvertently changes the past --
giving us a glimpse of a grim "Pottersville"* version of Oz -- and must
go back in time again and puts things right)...

* As in, the Mr. Potter of _It's a Wonderful Life_, not Harry.  :)

>If this "one timeline" theory is true, then, no HP character can
>actually change the events of the past; the only thing the Time
>Turner lets you do is be in two places at once.

But then you've got a world in which there's no free will, which
always really bothers me, especially in the Hogwarts universe,
given Dumbledore's statements about "the choices we make".

(Many physicists believe that quantum mechanics is only
reconcilable with a universe with multiple timelines.)

My own theory is that occasionally when the Wizarding World
is at the cusp of two important branches in history, someone
glimpses a vision of one possible reality, as Harry did when he
saw his future self.  From this moment, Harry, Ron, Hermione,
and Sirius are actually in an ambiguous "limbo" state until Harry
and Hermione actually go back and resolve everything.  If
Harry had failed, he, Hermione, and Sirius would have vanished
and rematerialized in front of the Dementors, "worse than dead"!

By allowing these kind of temporal "snags" that are "ironed out"
in a few hours, you allow free will and prevent "closed timelike
loops", e.g. future Harry saving past Harry so that he can go back
in time, become future Harry, and save past Harry.  ( As the late
Douglas Adams pointed out, the main problem with time travel
is not one of technology or of paradoxes, but of grammatical
coherence! :) )



                         -- Dave