Time-turning (was: Snape and DADA)

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 112587

SSSusan:
>>>See?  We're back to different definitions of what TT is, how it 
can or can't work.  Hannah, PK, and Tylerswaxlion all seemed to 
agree that I *had* gotten it right as to JKR's version of TT:  that 
the past doesn't CHANGE as a result of TT, but that the two time-
threads co-existed all along, only one of the two "versions" of a 
person wasn't aware of the 2nd "version" being present.  Yet here we 
have others saying that's NOT the way JKR is doing it--that she IS 
using TT to change time/events/the past.<<<

Naama:
> Actually (if by "others" you mean me), that's *not* what I meant. 


SSSusan again:
At this point, I'm not sure to whom I was referring! :-)  The 
discussion went off in so many different directions that, mostly for 
my sanity, I attempted to bring it back into one thread, with a 
summarization.  But actually, Naama, while I may indeed have 
misunderstood you on that matter, there were others who much more 
clearly were stating that JKR *was* using TT to change time or 
events.

Naama:
> What Harry and Hermione did was *not* changing the past. I think 
> it might make it clearer if we think about DD when he sent Harry 
> and Hermione back in time. Did he see Buckbeak being executed 
> i.e., the thud of the ax was decapitation and Hagrid howled with 
> misery) OR did he see Buckbeak gone? Based on *the text* we know 
> that there is dire warnings against using the TT to change the 
> past. We also know that DD takes the limits of knowledge seriously 
> (there's that line about the difficulty of predicting the future). 
> Would he have sent the two to *change* what he had seen, with his 
> own eyes, to occur? I.e., if he had seen Buckbeak decapitated, 
> would he have sent H & H to save him? To me, the answer is 
> obviously "no." So, that means that when DD sent them on their 
> mission, he knows (having just seen it) that Buckbeak had not been 
> killed. *Therefore*, his sending H & H back is not to change the 
> past, but to fulfill it. 
> 
> (Susan, maybe telling the story from DD's point of view to your 
> daughter could help her understand that Buckbeak never had died?)


SSSusan:
Indeed, I agree with you.  I also don't believe Beaky was killed and 
that H&H went back and *changed* that fact.  I seem to have found my 
peace (or close to it) with the idea that DD recognized Beaky had 
escaped and that that's WHY he explained to Hermione that they could 
possibly save TWO lives that night.  I believe DD understood what 
must have happened--that H&H had led Beaky away--but that H&H may 
have made the assumption that Beaky was DEAD.  He needed, of course, 
for them to go back and fulfill this mission and hoped--since he 
didn't yet know if this part would come to fruition--that H&H could 
also, in the process, develop a means of rescuing Sirius.  I 
actually have LESS difficulty at the moment with the Beaky part of 
the story than with the Sirius part.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion of telling the story from DD's 
perspective to my daughter Kristen.  I think it might be helpful.  
(Not that she's losing sleep over this--she's quite happy w/ her 
interpretation of the events.  It's her mum who's fixated on her 
getting it right. :-))


Naama: 
> However, I do think that as a genenral theory of TT, in JKR's 
> scheme it is possible to change time - again, for the simple 
> reason that we are told that it is possible to do so. 

SSSusan:
I see where I likely misinterpreted you, then.  You believe in JKR's 
scheme it is *possible* but that in the episode we say, it's not 
what occurred.  (Did I get THAT right??)  I've considered the same 
thing that you went on to discuss--that JKR may not have put the 
thought (or perhaps the interest or concern) into the TT 
mechanism/possibilities that others who are big TT fans have done?

Siriusly Snapey Susan, who thinks she understands TT better now, but 
who's still sick of it and doesn't want it back in books 6 or 7.