*MY* confusion about the Time Turner

[sevenhundredandthirteen]

No: HPFGUIDX 123961


Tammy Rizzo wrote:

>>>
HOW can anyone POSSIBLY be confused about the Time 
Turner? It's so simple and straightforward, after 
all. Everything happens as it happens, as it has 
always happened, as it will always happen; nobody 
changes anything, nobody *can* change anything-- 
'Time' only happens once, no matter how many 
times a character travels through it. All a Time 
Turning character can do is what he's already done,
so what *IS* the big confusion? There is no 'first 
time/second time' of anything -- it's all THE ONLY
TIME.

Different perspectives from different trips through
'time' bring light to different parts of the 
incident, but it's all THE ONLY TIME, and anything 
that happens is what has always happened and what 
will always happen. It's *SO SIMPLE*! 
>>>

Laurasia replies:

Whilst I realise that you were asking a rhetorical question, the
question certainly persists. Why is there no unanimous understanding
of Potterverse Time Travel?

There are many stories involving Time Travel that employ the device
differently, but usually in a self-consistent manner. So whilst the
time travel in 'Harry Potter' is inconsistent with 'Back to the
Future' (and we don't expect any consistency) is there an internal
inconsistency that is enabling multiple interpretations of it?

The problem, I think, is choice.

JKR has spent a good deal of time showing us the importance of
choices. And she gets the most credible, experienced and wise
character she has (Dumbledore) spout freewill/choice rhetoric at
regular intervals. 

In which case, mustn't time be malleable? If JKR wanted to prove to us
that every character has freedom of choice, mustn't she be showing us
a version of Time Travel where characters go back and radically change
past events? Undoing outcomes; changing events to their own choosing;
creating a history that follows their conscious decisions instead of
tolerating the events as they are throw at them.

But she doesn't. Instead JKR shows us Hermione hiding behind Hagrid's
Hut pleading with Harry that he *CANNOT* burst in and seize Pettigrew!
Why is Harry's freedom of choice so resolutely BLOCKED? Why not send
Harry and Hermione *4* *turns* back so they can nip down to Hagrid's
ahead of time and whisk Wormtail out of the jug?

JKR shows us a pair of feet and a door slamming in the Entrance Hall 3
hours before Harry and Hermione leave to make them. We have seen the
_cause_ shown before the _effect_. 

The normal understanding is that cause must always come before effect.
Until we see and experience the cause, the effect cannot exist. Until
we see Harry *go* back in time, he cannot already *be* back in time.

The only way we can see effect *before* cause is if Time is
predefined. If Time is fixed then order isn't important. If Time is
fixed then the future is not dependant on the past. Time and
cause-and-effect could flow backwards or forwards or back and forth
because the future isn't defined by actions in the past- it has
already been decided.

If Time is fixed, then it makes perfectly plausible to see the effects
of Harry and Hermione's Time Travelling before we see the cause of
it. 

But, back to choice. How the hell can Time exist in a predefined
fashion if JKR's most significant theme is that it is our choices who
define who we are? *THAT* makes apparently no sense, right?

A fluid, malleable, repeatable version of Time means freedom, right? A
fixed rigid version of Time would lack choice, right?

Malleable Time enables indefinite changes. Time would be endlessly
repeatable, instead of unique. Choices are diminished because of their
abundance. Nothing that you choose to alter in Time really matters
because you can always go back and change it later or erase it
entirely. If you can always go back and change you mind, why bother
stressing the importance of making the best choice?

In this version of Time Travel, choices are largely irrelevant,
because they are so reversible.

At the end of his fifth year, Harry *chose* to 'rescue' Sirius, Sirius
*chose* to go to Harry's aid. These choices lead to Sirius' death. If
Harry finds a Time-Turner and makes 84 attempts of engineering a
scenario that doesn't involve Sirius' death, won't that undermine the
other 83 attempts, not to mention the original choices he and Sirius
made? Won't it mean that no choice has consequence?

Alternatively, is a fixed rigid version of Time lacking in choice? It
is certainly unique, which means choices can't be undone which
increases their significance. That would account for Dumbledore's
emphasis on the importance of choices. The problem is that it has to
be *fixed* in order to know effect before cause. 

BUT, why is this logic never wheeled out to contradict the presence of
Prophecies? Isn't a Prophecy proof that a future event is known before
the cause of it has come into play? Is it because Prophecies work in
vague and cryptic ways? Is it because there is only a mystic voice
telling you what the future holds, instead of a character's own memory
and eyes? Is it because a Prophecy is only appears as a guide, not an
indisputable fact? 

What does "fixed" mean anyway? Does "fixed" mean no character chooses
their own actions, or does it mean the just aren't aware of their
choices yet, but Time is (magically...)? 

I think the reason why there is no unanimous understanding of Time
Travel in the Potterverse is because there are many version of Time
Travel to begin with, and because there is an apparent discrepancy
between JKR's most visible theme of freewill and Time Travel.

In order to resolve this discrepancy I suppose we might interpret Time
Travel as more Prophecy-like: a guide, not a rigid demand. That is,
Harry has no choice about things he *knows* happened (Pettigrew was in
the milk jug), but he has normal choice over the things he doesn't (a
swish and a thud does not ensure an execution). 

In this way, we could still see effect before cause without
annihilating choice and without making All Time predefined. All it
would mean is that what a Time-Traveller observed from their original
point of view must be protected. This does not portray the entire
system of Time as rigid or fixed, it just makes personal awareness and
knowledge the most important factor in making a choice. Knowledge and
experience create freedom of choice, not a fun toy around your neck.

I don't think there is any thematic consistency with an endlessly
repeatable version of Time because it eliminates repercussions by
giving each Time-Traveller the opportunity to change any action
indefinitely. Just as a perfectly predefined system of Time has
obvious flaws as well.

Of course, JKR doesn't explain it this way at all, except to say 'I
knew I could do it this time because I'd already done it...' ;-)

~<(Laurasia)>~
Off to shut up about Time Travel for another 18 months.