Paradox of Time Travel in PoA

[davenclaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 132110

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "jlv230" <jlv230 at y...> wrote:

I'm going to burn my third post of the day here...

> JLV:
> I'm afraid this view is definitely logically impossible. If time 
> went one way first, then Harry and Hermione went back and changed 
> it, the new events would effectivly 'erase' the old ones, as you 
> say, so Harry and Hermione could possibly *never* go back to 
change 

I think it is logically impossible to say that Harry was ALWAYS 
saved by a time-traveling Harry, when Harry didn't get the 
opportunity to go back in time until after the encounter with the 
dementors.  He was about to be killed, and if he had been killed, he 
never would have had the opportunity to go back in time.  It is only 
after he went back in time and saved himself, that that version of 
events became the one-and-only version of events that everyone knows 
of and remembers.  I just don't see how you can ignore this and just 
happily accept that he ALWAYS was there to save himself.  That is 
only the perception left in everyone's minds as a result of the time-
travel.

As JKR presents the risks of time-travel, I think she makes it clear 
that the past CAN be interfered with.  Otherwise, there is no risk 
of encountering your past-self if you have no memory of already 
doing so when you were your past self.

The moment that you do something that alters the course of events, 
it erases any memory of how things had occurred the first time 
around, so although you are ACTUALLY causing events, you only THINK 
that you are participating in events that already happened.

Heck, this basically means that if you go back to fix a problem, 
after having fixed the problem, you're going to say "Wait, this is 
how it always happened - so why did I have to go back in time in the 
first place?  Huh, I guess that it didn't happen this way the first 
time... weird."  (This is sort of like the scene in Quantum Leap 
where we learn that Sam has saved Jackie Kennedy's life, but didn't 
realize it because to him, that's how it always happened.)


Consider this:

TT-H&H are watching normal H&H walking in a field. Hermione 
says "don't interfere."  But Harry has no memory of seeing himself 
as a time-traveler, so he thinks there is no risk.  So he runs out 
into the field screaming like a banshee.  IMMEDIATELY TT-Harry only 
remembers seeing the events that he is now causing, back when he was 
normal-Harry, who is now watching himself screaming.  As every 
moment goes by, the events occurring become the only timeline anyone 
ever knew.  But this doesn't change the fact that we, as omniscient 
observers to the entire situation, are aware that things were 
different before the time traveling took place.

Perhaps that is the disconnect here: everyone else is describing 
events as they are understood within the Potterverse, whereas I am 
complaining that we, as outside observers, are left out of the 
series of events that were not tampered with.

- davenclaw