Time-Turning as a Cure-All

[Berit Jakobsen]

No: HPFGUIDX 88683

Robert wrote:
> The main reason time-travel is not a clumsy and very unsatisfying 
> plot device is that you can make up any rules you want.  "You can 
go 
> back in time to participate in saving Buckbeak, but not to kill Tom 
> Riddle."  It is not like there are some laws of physics involved — 
> it's all science fiction.  This means JKR can make up any laws she 
> likes to make it come out the way she wants.  And that's too easy 
> and therefore not a very satisfying in the end.
> 
> Second, the whole distinction between "you can go back in time to 
> participate in events so that they occur the way they really did" 
> and "you can't change what already has occurred" doesn't really 
> hold.  In an editorial over at mugglenet, they analyze the night 
> Burkbeck was saved in POA to show (as JKR has it) that Buckbeak was 
> never really killed — but they have to admit that history after 
8:45 
> PM that night was changed.  And if history has to be changed, why 
> can't you go back and just kill off Tom Riddle?  (Also JKR has 
> McGonagall telling Hermione that there are instances of wizards 
> going back in time and killing their earlier selves -- so under her 
> theory you can change history.)
> 

> 
> All in all, if time travel becomes an essential part of the final 
> events in the series, I will feel cheated.  We will have been 
> wasting time reading and thinking about an unsatisfying sci fi 
novel.

Berit replies:

I agree with Robert; I don't think we'll see the time turner being 
used again in the HP books. It has already been done. Just a comment: 
For Buckbeak, Harry and Hermione history was changed because they 
were able to use the time turner. Otherwise all three of them would 
have been dead (or had their souls sucked out). It didn't have much 
impact on Sirius's future, however. Yes, it did buy him two more 
years among the living, but that's all. Not much to gain for Sirius. 
To me it looks like the purpose of keeping him alive a little longer 
was to satisfy Harry's need of getting to know his godfather a little 
better.

Berit
http://home.no.net/berjakob/snape.html