Time, Repetition and the Uber-Dimension (was: Narrative Function

[sevenhundredandthirteen]

No: HPFGUIDX 79954

Corinth wrote:
 
> Talisman is saying (if I understand her correctly), and I agree, 
that 
> the Harry-*must*-save-himself scenario is implausible.  Time can't 
> motivate a person; if Harry had wanted to change something while 
time-
> traveling, he could.  He did.  But time doesn't record it that way.

<snip>

 While there, Harry2 sees Harry1 
> trying to fend off the Dementors, gets worried that maybe things 
will 
> happen differently this time,  and decides just to be safe to cast 
a 
> Patronus to save himself.  As soon as this happens, Harry1's 
memories 
> change to that which is recorded in the book.  Because Harry2 is in 
> reality Harry1 plus three hours, his memories also change.  The 
> result: the one and only Harry has only one memory, one which 
> includes both present him and future him.  He interprets his 
actions 
> as being directly motivated by his memories, when in reality the 
> opposite is true.  The must-go-back-in-time situation presents 
itself 
> only after the time travel has already ocurred.


Wonderful! Now it all makes sense here... The only problem I have 
with this is about Harry2's memories being suddenly wiped over. The 
reason that I'm having an issue with this is because I don't see how 
JKR is going to reintroduce us to the 'original saviour' (Snape, 
whoever) if Harry's memories are now actually legitimate. If Harry2's 
memory was wiped over the second he cast the Patronus, then surely 
Snape's memory was also wiped over. It follows that Snape now has no 
memory of attempting to save Harry at all. 

Who, then, *does* have memory of the inital incident? Dumbledore, 
perhaps? But how did *he* escape the memory modification that time 
caused? Perhaps *no-one* has any memory of the initial version. Is 
it, perhaps, only trapped in Harry's subconscious mind (hence why the 
Occlumency lessons were bringing it back)? (We've seen that an 
Obliviate charm can be broken into, perhaps Time's memory changing 
charm works the same way). But why would Harry believe this version 
of events when Snape will deny them (he, like Harry, had his memory 
changed when Time was changed) and he has his own explanation (Harry 
saved them all along) that makes perfect sense?

If no-one has memory of the initial incident I don't see how it's 
going to come back into play. In fact, I don't see how it even 
becomes relevant anymore because there is the completely internally-
consistent version of events that Harry now believes. Whilst Snape 
may have actually saved Harry, that version of reality no longer 
exists. We're now following the version of reality in which *Harry* 
saved Harry. That is, the inital version of events have become 
redundant.

What's more- how did Harry manage to cast the Patronus? We have seen 
that Harry wasn't able to cast a corporeal Patronus up until that 
point. In the book (the modified memory version, if we follow this 
theory) Harry states that he could only cast one because he knew he 
already had. *BUT* in the memory-changing version of events he cast 
the Patronus as a precaution even though he knew that someone else 
was going to save him. He knows that he's already saved, but does it 
as a precaution. That, to me, doesn't sound like a good enough reason 
to be suddenly instilled with enough confidence to cast his first 
ever corporeal Patronus strong enough to ward off a hundred Dementors.


Actually, I think I now understand why Talisman had such issues with 
the 'it-only-happened-once' theory. 
If we apply Corinth's line:

Time can't 
> motivate a person; if Harry had wanted to change something while 
time-
> traveling, he could.  He did.  But time doesn't record it that way.

to the self-consistent version of time then Harry *could* have 
changed something, but *didn't*, so his memories remain perfectly 
intact. That is, Harry has perfect *true* recall of the events 
because he never had to change anything. On the other hand, if he 
*didn't* cast the Patronus over the lake (that is, if he was forced 
to change something), then Time would have over-ridden his memories 
with *that* version of events- a.k.a. we're left with a soul-sucked 
Harry. 

Talisman followed this thought to reach the conclusion 'therefore, if 
Harry wasn't there, we are left with soul-sucked Harry. Harry wasn't 
always there. Therefore, someone else must have saved him.' Whereas 
I'm following this statement to the conclusion 'therefore, if Harry 
wasn't there, we are left with a soul-sucked Harry. But Harry *was* 
always there. Therefore whilst he was in real danger, so long as he 
cast the Patronus no-one else needed to have saved him.' That is- if 
Harry failed to cast the Patronus (as he might at any time) Time will 
rewrite itself to include soul-sucked Harry. BUT, so long as he *did* 
cast the Patronus (which he did) then Time will remain as the itial 
version of itself- non-soul-sucked Harry, Harry as saviour.

Corinth's line actually works pretty well with the self-consistent 
version of events. What Talisman and I now find differences in is 
just one tiny little point:

Talisman wrote (in #79635):

>Though Time stubbornly shows Hermiones 1,2 & 3 as 
>being "always" "simultaneously" there, we know that
>they arrived in 
>a serial fashion.

Whereas I'm looking at it from Time's point of view- I am saying they 
*didn't* arrive in a serial fashion at all. They were always 
simultaneously there (just the way Time sees it).

One tiny little issue. To think we spent all think time arguing and 
it all boils down to one tiny little point.

~<(Laurasia)>~