Paradox of Time Travel in PoA - Before & After

[Jon Loux]

No: HPFGUIDX 136946

P. Alexis Nguyen wrote:
> I find this entire conversation fascinating, especially since 
> people are approaching it so scientifically while JKR obviously 
> just didn't give it that much thought.  (After all, this was the 
> woman who pulled out the timeturner deus ex machina in the first 
> place.)  .....


Personally, I think that the best time travel stories don't change 
history.  Instead, the act of time travel causes history to happen 
the way it does.  The ambiguity of the story telling is that you 
don't see everything in one pass.  You have to view it from two 
different angles to see that nothing has really changed.  You can't 
change history.  In other words, if you go back in time to prevent 
something from happening, you will actually cause that thing to 
happen.  

There is an old story about a time traveler who decided to go back 
in time and kill Hitler.  He arrived at an important Nazi rally in 
the thirties and found if full of other time travelers, also there 
to kill Hitler.  When Adolph came out and asked all these crazy 
people what they were doing there, they all said they were there to 
prevent him from becoming the greatest monster of the twentieth 
century, waging war and killing millions.  He said that he would 
never do anything like that, how could they think such a thing, 
etc.  Finally, one of the time travelers pulled out a gun and shot 
him dead.  Satisfied, they all left except for the narrator who was 
curious to see what would happen next.  Hitler's top generals came 
out, found him dead and said, "What will we do now?  I know.  We 
will bring out his double..."

Jon.