Time-turning as literary device (was: Just a comment about Lupin's malady)

[iamvine]

No: HPFGUIDX 109563

Replying to an old message I should have seen before:

Eleanor wrote sometime last week:
> > Also I don't know if you've ever thought about it this way, but 
> > there are two basic ways for JKR to use a plot device:
> > 
> > 1) Harry uses it to do something clever, or someone else uses it 
> > with his knowledge.
> > 2) Someone else uses it, probably against Harry, and he and the
> > readers are surprised when he finds out.
> > 
> > We've had Polyjuice Potion used both ways - first by Harry and
Ron,
> > then by Crouch Jr.  We've only had the Time-Turner used in sense
1 
> > (I don't count Hermione using it to manage her timetable, because 
> > that was mainly setup too).  

SSSusan replied:
> Thanks, Eleanor, for these thoughts.  I actually kind of *like* the 
> thought that Fred could pretend to be both himself & George while 
> George goes off to do something. :-)  On the other hand, wouldn't 
> that break DD's "rule" that the person doing the time-turning can't 
> see himself?

Eleanor now:
Yes, but I don't see that that rule is absolutely necessary.  The
crucial thing is to not contradict what happened the first time.  If
you saw yourself, then when time-travelling you must let yourself be
seen again, and you must do the same thing.  This could be hard.  If
you simply keep out of your other self's way, you have fewer
obligations and more freedom.

SSSusan:
> Anyway, I also think it's interesting that you've split the
possible 
> uses into Harry (and co.) using the "device" or someone else using 
> the "device" *against* Harry.  You're right that this might make TT 
> more interesting if it were to reappear.
> 
> I still have a problem with the idea that Harry & Hermione didn't 
> *change* the past--or, as you said, "or rather, they could only 
> change things they assumed had happened, but turned out really not
to 
> have done."  Now, it is very possible indeed that I just don't have
a 
> clue what you're talking about bec. I don't do well with the TT 
> concept in general, but it does seem to me that Harry indeed
changed 
> the past.  I can get myself royally convoluted in trying to explain 
> this, but when Harry saw what he thought was his dad creating the 
> stag patronus which drove away the Dementors and saved Sirius & 
> himself, wasn't that Harry going back to *change* the past?  Or am
I 
> just misconstruing your meaning with "changing the past"?

Eleanor:
Sorry.  I have been trying to analyse, for my own amusement, the
different rules of time travel in several different stories, and this
probably does tend to make me incomprehensible.

What I was trying to say is that people don't know everything about
the past.  We are not all-seeing.  When Harry was in the Shrieking
Shack, he did not actually know whether Buckbeak was dead or alive. 
He only assumed.  He also assumed he saw his father conjure a
Patronus.  Just suppose for a moment that only the bits of the past
that Harry really knew about were fixed, and the rest was fluid until
he found out more about it.  Kind of like Schroedinger's cat, which is
not really alive or really dead until you find out which.  In the
fluid area, there was room for Harry's time-travelling self to act. 
Depending on what he did when time-travelling, his original
assumptions about Buckbeak and James could have turned out to be right
or wrong.  Maybe if he hadn't gone down to the lake and performed the
Patronus Charm himself, it would have turned out to really be his
father, and he could have met James's ghost.  That would have changed
the story a bit!

That's the real meaning of Dumbledore's "You must not be seen": Don't
go out of the fluid area.  Don't contradict anything that you knew had
happened.  If Harry had tried to go into Hagrid's hut when his earlier
self was there, something bad would have happened.  Or maybe something
would have materialised to stop him doing it.  I don't know.

Please understand that I'm not trying to say anything about physics
here, or even really about the laws of the HP universe.  I suppose I'm
working somewhere in between the HP universe and whatever was going on
in JKR's head when she wrote it.  I don't think I can explain it any
better than that.

Back to your question:

If by "changing the past" you mean "going to the past and doing
something that made a difference to someone", yes, they did that. 
They rescued Sirius and Buckbeak.  That was the point of going back. 
Harry conjuring the Patronus was the same sort of thing, only not
planned.

If you think Harry really changed the past, i.e. made history happen
differently from how it originally did, then you have to suppose there
was a timeline where he didn't conjure the Patronus.  Then you'd have
to explain why he thought he'd seen someone do it and how he got away
from the Dementors.  I think we're intended to assume Harry did see
himself, and that all the things he did in the past had always
happened, but he just didn't know about them.

I hope this makes a bit more sense!

Eleanor