[HPforGrownups] Time Travel Paradoces

[Lissa B]

No: HPFGUIDX 57735

Mycropht wrote:
> > I call my theory "Not Really".
> > I don't see her returning to that particular Deux Ex Machina to
> > "solve" her overall story.  At least I hope not.

Dan replied:
> I'm right there with ya! I was actually quite disappointed when she
> introduced the time travel bit in the first place. It opens up too many
> problems and introduces the blatantly obvious question: "Why didn't
> McGonagall or DD just jump back in time to save the Potters?"
> 
> Once you go down that "time travel" road you have a hell of a time
> keeping things in check.... [snipped some of Dan's discussion]
>
> I honestly think it would have been better if JKR just hadn't gone
> there.

Lissa replied:
Hi Dan.  I've just got to ask you this.  (I'm fearful, however, that my
words might come across as sarcastic, so I'm imploring you right now to
please imagine me typing them with a calm, humble, but weary smile. 
Really. I tend to have the same reaction to plots using time-travel
that, apparently, you do.)

Since you grant that time travel introduces potential chaos in a
writer's fictional universe, why would JKR bring in the silly thing to
accomplish ends that could just as easily have been achieved without
time travel? Did Hermione really *need* to be present for every class? 
Couldn't she have simply alternated days she attended those overlapping
courses and worked doubly hard to keep up with the other students? 
Couldn't Buckbeak, menacing Malfoy-thirsty creature that he is, simply
have broken free in a fit of blood, feathers and violence? Couldn't
Sirius have escaped the Dementor's kiss in a dozen other ways?

Rowling controls the flow of her story.  None of these plot situations
required time travel *at all*.

I have to ask again, why oh why oh *why* would she introduce it?

She's built amazing suspense in the other novels without resorting to
time tricks.  I don't think you can legitimately argue she used such an
extreme plot device just to generate a little tension.  Or, well, maybe
you can... (smiles)  I just think it'd be silly.

I guess what I'm trying to point out here is that JRK's use of time
travel in PoA almost mandates that the device play a crucial role in the
series.  Otherwise she's done the equivalent of putting a big old ocean
liner in her story--a ship so ugly and cumbersome that no reader can
ignore it--then using it to move a passenger from one dock to another
about two hundred feet away.  Okay, it's not *impossible* that she
pulled time travel into her series just for its use in PoA and will
refrain from employing it again.  It could be a red herring.  But if it
is, it's the most swollen and silly bird of that species that I've
encountered in all my years of reading fiction.

I think it's more absurd to conclude that Rowling is *not* going to make
serious use of time travel in the series than to conclude that she is.

Oh man how I wish I didn't have to argue this sort of stuff.  It makes
the serious writer and reader in me feel all icky inside. :)

Defender of extreme silliness,
Lissa