what does Ron (not) know - resolving the unpleasant alternatives

[Helen R. Granberry]

No: HPFGUIDX 89024

Helen (LizardLaugh) here, throwing out some ideas regarding Ron's
knowledge (or lack thereof) and the two unpleasant alternatives with
regards to Time Travel proposed by Neri (whose first essay, I think I
may have missed). It is difficult for me to follow HP4GU, so if I ask
questions you have already answered or bring up points already covered,
please have mercy :)

Ok, I understand you (Neri) have some issues with Ron/DD knowing the
past, because he either has to sit back and let things happen (if he can
change it) or his not being able to change things, no matter what he
does, subverts the theme of choice. Well... I agree, or did agree at one
point, but I thought Troell's essay did a decent job of explaining how
the question of free will does still work in an immutable past. What
happens in the past happens, but it happens as a product of free will.
The outcomes are still a product of choices; the choices are just made
out of order. The past is a product of decisions by the future self when
time travel is involved. Soft determinism? I don't know. And I don't
think we can be certain precisely what model of time travel JKR is
using. Our suggestion in Knight2King was that she might be using
something in the middle, though I admit that Troell's model is certainly
the most tidy and given what we see in PoA, probably the most likely.

Now, does Ron/DD know he can't change the past if he can't? I don't
think he does, mainly because of what Hermione says about wizards
changing time and it being dangerous and all of that. I think Ron
probably did *try* to change things he knew about, to some degree. He
doesn't trust Tom Riddle from the beginning, for one... would a
different approach, reaching out to Tom, have changed things? Why not
try to prevent Tom Riddle's birth? Well, maybe he did, we don't know.
Ron, again, doesn't know all of the details. He knows Tom Riddle is
Voldemort, but he doesn't know who his parents are. Riddle isn't all
THAT uncommon a name, and Tom is even more common. Harry's got the first
name of a (probably wizard) grandfather, but no maiden name for TMR's
mom, and that's it. Ron (as far as we know) doesn't even know that.
Doesn't know the town they live in... Ron knows even less than Harry. He
just knows Tom Riddle, he doesn't even know that Tom is named after his
dad (as far as we know)... so all that aside, what if he is able to find
Tom as a baby/child, does he kill him? It's the old 'do you kill Hitler
as a baby?' chestnut. People debate that still. And anyway... remember
this question has already been brought up in the story by JKR in the
Time Room when the Death Eater gets turned into a baby -- 'You can't
hurt a baby!', Hermione says... as JKR's author avatar, Hermione has
answered that question for us -- you can't kill a baby, you can't kill
baby!Hitler, you can't kill Tom Riddle. It's wrong (whether or not *we*
think it is wrong is beside the point). Ron/Dumbledore, JKR's OTHER
author avatar, her authorial voice, won't do it. (for more explanation
on JKR's own place in the story... see the interview in the CoS DVD and
various other interviews when asked about Hermione)

Then, there is the whole Trelawney business. DD's not too keen on
bringing Trelawney to the school, and Ron is seen saying, quite
explicitly, that he thinks that DD probably would want to get rid of
Trelawney and that Divination is a crock of crap anyway. I wouldn't put
it past Ron/DD to try to keep her out or get rid of Divination as a
subject. Remember, that while we are talking about Dumbledore, we are
also talking about RON. 

Now, on re-reading PoA, I discovered something we got very, very wrong
in the Ron=DD essay on Knight2King -- Ron doesn't know about Trelawney's
Second Prophecy. Harry never had a chance to tell him. The explanation
is interrupted in classic JKR fashion by the Hagrid/Buckbeak fiasco.
It's never referred to again, aside from where Harry tells Dumbledore
about it (but then it's too late, right?). Ron doesn't also (so far)
know anything substantial about the First Prophecy except that there is
a Prophecy. That's it. He doesn't know who made it, and let's face it,
would Ron even suspect it came from Trelawney given his present
knowledge of her? He doesn't know what it is about. He doesn't know that
Dumbledore heard it. So, Ron, assuming Harry never tells him about the
two Prophecies, will be sent back in time not knowing anything about the
Second Prophecy and only that the First Prophecy exists. Once hearing
Trelawney make the First Prophecy, he has to bring her to the school to
protect her and the knowledge. Does he yet know that *this* was the
Prophecy Voldemort was after in fifth year? Yes, he probably does make
that connection, assuming one thing... he keeps all his memories. He
doesn't know if (or when) Dumbledore ever told Harry about the First
Prophecy, so he has to wing it'. And he does in what I think is a
believable way, considering Harry's own reasons for not telling Ron and
Hermione about the Prophecy in the first place. If Dumbledore is Ron, he
loves Harry from the beginning, and he doesn't want to hurt him any more
than he already knows he has to. He has already had to make him live
with the Dursleys, KNOWING at least in part, what it would do to Harry.
A tangent... the lines regarding this issue in OotP are quite
interesting with Ron=DD in mind... DD said he knew what living with the
Dursleys would do to Harry, just not the extent. As Ron, he probably
wasn't quite aware of the damage, and doesn't see the full extent until
Harry returns to him. In any event, he had no choice. It was the only
way to keep Harry alive.

Back to Ron and what he doesn't know... Ron actually knows very, very
little and has to 'wing it' quite a bit, which also makes me lean
towards the immutable timeline as Troell suggested. If he's lucky, he'll
have one of those Dumbledore Chocolate Frog cards he's always getting in
his back pocket when he goes back. Does this mean Ron has no choice? I
think he does have choice, but the present we see is the product of
Ron's choices that have already been made. He knows so little of what
Dumbledore actually does, that everything still is a choice from his
POV.  So... while the two uncomfortable alternatives you put out have
always bugged me about the Ron=DD theory (despite being a huge fan of
the concept from the moment I heard about it), I've now changed my mind.
I'm totally fine with the immutable past. Ron can't change the past
because he has MADE the past. His choices have created the present we
see. My best guess is that Ron/DD doesn't even himself fully understand
Time Travel, as it is something studied in the DoM. 

So, I don't see it in quite the tragic light you do. I do see Ron/DD as
a tragic figure, but for different reasons -- notably, the issue of
family and love and never realizing his true wealth until it is too
late. Ron wants be great and noticed and wealthy and a hero and stand
out... and he gets that, everything he wanted and more. He becomes
Dumbledore, this great wizard he idolizes, the greatest wizard of the
age... yet (and I get all teary eyed just thinking about it) as an old
man, after achieving all of the dreams he had for himself as a boy, he
sees himself holding a pair of woolen socks in the Mirror of Erised.
What do you want to bet those socks are maroon?

Ok, back on topic... ixchelmala has been real keen on the idea of the
Veil being the time travel device and it erasing memories in whole or in
part (there is also the accompanying Sirius=Aberforth theory, but...
heh, I am not convinced of that just yet). I think Veil=time machine and
Time Travel=memory erasure are too big a leap to make (together OR
apart). I also think having Ron/DD lose all his memories makes the whole
idea of them being the same person completely pointless (and also
contradictory, because DD does indeed know stuff). HOWEVER... we do have
an incident that makes me think Ron/DD may have had *some* memory
erasure. That is, of course, the attack by the brain and the measures
taken to cure it -- Ubbly's Oblivious Unction. Oblivious? Obliviate? Now
THAT is interesting. Could Ron have some of his recent memories clouded?
Like, maybe, some of the events of GoF and OotP? Dumbledore makes great
use of the Pensieve... watching things over and over. Trying to
remember? Trying to piece together what he has seen as Dumbledore in
*his* recent past to make up for some things that got a little obscured
with the brain attack?

So, in the end... Ron knows very little. From his POV, everything is a
choice. He doesn't know all of the answers, and he may very well have at
least attempted to change the past with the knowledge he had. He may
have also lost his memory to some degree, though not to a large degree.
That, coupled with the idea that the past *is* Ron's future and his
choices lead to the present we see... makes the immutable past model,
well, not so deterministic as it first seems. 


Helen, who hopes some of this made sense