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

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 109584

SSSusan previously stated:
> > 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 [replying to an old message I should have seen before] 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:
No problem that your response is late, Eleanor; I'm behind again, 
too.  Anyway, I guess my question is, are you *hypothesizing* that 
the rule isn't an absolute necessity?  (That "they're more like 
guidelines," to draw a phrase from Pirates of the Caribbean.)  Or is 
there something in canon which makes you pretty certain that a TT!
character can see him/herself without problem as long as their 
actions are consistent?  Because I guess I took the warning more 
literally.  

PLEASE forgive if this is movie contamination, but as many times as 
I've read the books, I have two little kids and so have seen the 
movies multiple times, too.  Does Hermione in canon!PoA say they 
CAN'T see themselves, and then uses the example of what would Harry 
think if he barged into Hagrid's hut and saw himself (that is, he'd 
think he was mad)?  If that's not canon, then I don't have as much 
problem with your statement that the rule isn't absolutely 
necessary.  If it *is* canon, then I guess my objection still stands.



SSSusan previously:
> > 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:
> 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.  <snip>
> 
> 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!


SSSusan:
Well...um...er....  I was doing pretty well with the first 
paraphraph, about Schroedinger's cat, but by the end here, you lost 
me again.  BUT that's more because I don't like/do well with time-
turning than with any problem in your explanation, believe me.  I do 
appreciate your taking the time to try me again and only wish my 
brain worked more this way so I could grasp it better!

Siriusly Snapey Susan, back again after a camping trip that ended 
with an emergency visit to the doctor to get my husband 14 stitches 
in his mangled finger.