Time travel is dangerous (part 2)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 88794

This is the second part of a post regarding time travel in the HP 
books (part 1 can be found in #88636). Here I'll try to explore how 
JKR might bring off the really-big-time-travel-twist without (pardon 
my language) biting her own behind. In this part I assume that it is 
possible not only to travel to the past, but also to change it (see 
part 1 for this important distinction).

As my test case I use the Ron=DD theory, which is discussed as part 
of the knight2king theory (read all about it in 
http://www.knight2king.net , hoping I got the link right this time). 
Maybe I should make it clear that I'm not putting all my money on 
this theory yet, but since it has some support in canon I thought 
that it could be a good test case for demonstrating the problems and 
the possibilities in a really-big-time-travel-twist. And besides, it 
was fun trying to work it out. Time travel does add a whole new 
dimension to HP speculating.

So, here we go again into to the DD=Ron theory: At some point before 
the outcome of the match in book 7, Ron is somehow sent 130 yrs into 
the past and becomes DD, and now the question is, does he try to 
change the past and prevent the war? If he doesn't, we get the 
horrible (IMO) scenario of a man who, for 130 years, is doomed to 
watch all the terrible events he knows are going to happen unfolding 
again, as I discussed in part 1. I find it difficult to imagine a 
worse doom for any person. I feel certain that DD could not have gone 
through such a long and terrible punishment and remain the cheerful, 
twinkling optimist that he is. But if he tries to change the past, 
and especially if he succeeds, then the course of events must be very 
different than what is described in the books. And in this new course 
of events, Ron might not be born at all. Or he might grow up to be a 
very different person, or the event that caused Ron to be sent to the 
past might not happen. Paradox! 

Interestingly, the ingenious originators of the knight2king theory 
must have felt what a nest of pixies they set loose here, because 
they had this idea: In GoF, DD seems to try preventing Harry from 
getting into the Triwizard Tournament with his age line. He seems to 
have some premonition that it is bad for Harry to participate. What 
if, in the last turn of the wheel, Harry was elected as the official 
Hogwarts champion? Ron had witnessed the terrible outcome of this, 
and so when he travels to the past and becomes DD, he tries 
preventing it with the age line the next time around. But his 
meddling with time not only fails to prevent Harry from 
participating, it also causes poor Cedric to enter and get killed.

So maybe meddling with time is indeed, as Hermione claims in PoA, 
extremely dangerous. DD knows this, and this explains why he mostly 
avoids changing the past, but sometime he just can't restrain 
himself. Note that from purely theoretical considerations of time 
travel there is no reason to think that, if you change the past, the 
change must be for the worse. This is entirely a JKR thing. But since 
this is JKR's universe, she can make the rules of time travel too, 
and maybe even find a good reason for them. Perhaps some powerful 
wizard at the dawn of time put a curse on past changing.

I have two problems with the above scenario. The first is a matter of 
taste. Personally I find it just as horrible for poor DD as the 
previous scenario, if not even worse. Now he has to watch all the bad 
things he knows are going to happen, and he *is* permitted to try and 
prevent them, but he also knows that any interfering is likely to 
<yuck!> bring even a worst outcome. This is kind of like a man dying 
of thirst on a raft in the middle of the ocean. All the water in the 
world is right under his nose, but he knows that drinking will only 
make him thirstier. 

My second problem is more fundamental: this scenario assumes that 
there was a different history, call it H-2, which Ron/DD is coming 
from. In H-2 the events were somewhat different then the history as 
we know it in the books (which you may term H-1). This is actually a 
good thing, because it prevents the terrible paradox. If DD changes 
the future of H-1, the events of H-2, from which DD is coming, are 
not affected at all. So you can change the past without fear you will 
change yourself, because you don't change your own history, you just 
start a new history. But by the same logic the DD in H-2 should come 
from a yet different history H-3. And the DD in H-3 from H-4, etc. 
etc. So JKR is saved from paradox only by <yuck again!> having an 
infinite number of histories.   

But this scenario *can* be improved. Actually, JKR can save herself 
from paradox by devising just two histories. This may be termed the 
Double Loop Ploy (DLP): Ron travels 130 years into the past, and 
becomes DD. He does everything he can to prevent LV rise to power, 
and succeeds, but this causes an unexpected, tragic turn of events. 
Say, in this history DD fails to defeat Grindelwald, so there is a 
war all over again, only a different war with another Bad Guy. 
Somehow, a Ron is born in this history too, and this Ron is also, 
somehow, transported to the past. Note that this is a different Ron 
(call him Ron-2). He must be different because he has a different 
history, H-2. In fact, it might not even be Ron this time around. It 
might even be <shudder> Percy. After all, this is Percy-2, who is 
also different from the Percy we know. But I digress. So Ron-2 goes 
into the past and becomes DD-2, who does everything he can to prevent 
the terrible events of H-2 and (surprise!) causes things to happen 
exactly as they are described in the books, what turns out to be H-1. 
In which there is the Ron we all know and love (and now turns out to 
be only Ron-1), who is transported into the past... but wait, JKR 
already took care of that. So H-1 originates from H-2, and H-2 
originates from H-1, and nowhere along the way there is a paradox. 

BTW it is also possible to carry out a Triple Loop Ploy or a 
Quadruple Loop Ploy, etc. but I'll leave this to your wild 
imagination. Only take care to tie the two ends of the loop together 
securely when you finish.

What I like about the DLP scenario is that DD is *not* Ron. He is in 
fact Ron-2, a different person with different memories, and thus we 
are spared the horrible scenario of a DD who, for 130 years, is 
doomed to watch all the terrible events he knows are going to happen 
unfolding again. What I still don't like about the DLP is that, well, 
as Harry says to Hermione after completing a mere 3 hrs excursion 
into the past: "you explain!". Only in this case it is JKR who is 
stuck with explaining the above to her readers. And what about the 
events of H-2? Is she going to write another 7 books describing them? 
I'm not sure I can stand it. Does Tom-2 marry Myrtle-2 instead of 
killing her? Does Sirius-2 get to the finish line alive? 

But not to worry, JKR might still bring off the loop within a single 
history, and tie it all together neatly. This is the Single Loop 
Feint (SLF). Watch carefully: Ron is hurtled 130 yrs into the past, 
but in the process he suffers a complete amnesia. He wonders around 
in the past, not knowing who he is, and is found and adopted by the 
kind Dumbledores. He becomes the great DD and all the sad things that 
are described in the books happen because he does not remember that 
he has to prevent them (only he still might retain some vestigial 
memories, which explain his amazing intuition about some events and 
people). Only by the end of book 7 he witnesses young Ron falls into 
a giant time-turner and disappears, and then it finally dawns on him 
what happened here and who he is. So he hugs Molly and Arthur, 
crying: "my beloved parents! You have not lost your son. You have 
just found him again, only he is now old and wise. What, don't you 
believe me? I'll prove it to you". And to the surprise of all 
present, the great DD lifts his robe and uncovers his left 
knee. "Here, surely you recognize this scar!" <JKR smiles 
mischievously to herself, writes "THE END" in big capitals, throws 
the pen on the finished manuscript and does the hand-dusting thing>

OK, the SLF is kind of cheating. The trick (did you catch me there?) 
was that the person did travel to the past, but the information about 
the future, which is the really important and really problematic 
part, did not. My point is, however, that JKR might still find ways 
to get away with the time travel thing. But for this she must be 
pretty ingenious and very, *very* careful.

We are used to think of JKR as pretty much the god in the universe 
she has created. She has the complete freedom to plot the story in 
any way she wants to, and she can introduce any kind of strange magic 
to help herself along. This is not entirely true, because JKR can't 
have a plot that plainly contradicts a previous part of the plot, but 
this still leaves her a lot of freedom as she plots her path into the 
open future. What I tried to show here is that this freedom 
drastically shrinks if she goes into time traveling. Looping the plot 
backward and forward in time means the chances for contradiction 
increase exponentially, and in unexpected and devious ways too. 
Suddenly it becomes difficult to find even one consistent plot, not 
to mention finding a good one. And thus I conclude this humble 
treatise with a dire warning: authors beware! There are many kinds of 
time travel in this world, and none of them should be used lightly.

Neri