Time Turners (this is long!)

[smilingator4915]

No: HPFGUIDX 142275

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Magpie" <belviso at a...> wrote

> >smilingator wrote:
> > This issue seems to pop up every few weeks... and it all depends 
> on how you view time travel in the Potterverse. If you believe that
> > when Hermione and Harry traveled back in time and CHANGED the 
events that
> > happened (i.e., saved Buckbeak from death after he had already died,
> > rescued Sirius after he had already been "kissed"), then you would
> > definitely find it "absurd" that you can go back in time to fix some
> > things but not everything that goes wrong.
> > However, I believe that JKR provided more than enough evidence that
> > when Harry and Hermione used the time turners, they did not "change"
> > anything. 
<big snip>
> > JKR did an outstaning job of fooling me the first time with the events
> > and then throwing in the time travelling twist and carefully placing
> > clues that showed that the events NEVER changed; we just viewed them
> > from two different perspectives.
> > So, why can't Harry just time turn and save Dumbledore and Sirius
> > (besides the fact that it seems the time turners were destroyed)?
> > Because you can't change what happened in the past.
> 
> 
> Magpie:
> 
> Warning--twisty time-talk ahead...
> 
> I assume this keeps coming up because what you described doesn't
make any 
> difference to the question of why Harry didn't use the Time Turner
to save 
> Sirius in OotP.  

smilingator:
Okay, so let's say Harry had used the Time Turners in OOTP... Sirius
still would have died. My point in my previous post was that you can
CHOOSE to travel back in time if you want, you are not going to change
what happened in the past. At least, that's how JKR wanted things to
operate in her story. Other time travelling theories say you can
change the past, but as I said in my previous post, JKR just put too
much effort into showing that two Harry and Hermiones were present
that evening.
So, here's how I look at trying to go into the past to stop something
from happening. Let's say you go to school in the morning and when you
come home, your dog is gone. So you use a time turner to be able to
stop the dog from running away. It is MY belief that something will
happen to prevent TTYou! from being able to stop Fido from leaving.
Maybe you fall asleep on the couch and he rushes out the door. Maybe
some thieves try to break in to your home and your brave dog chases
them away. Maybe your dog turns psycho on you and starts biting you
and you call animal control to have him taken away. The fact that Fido
was gone when non-time travelling you got home from school will not
change, though TTYou! may know why the dog left.
Now, a lot of people argue that takes away from free will; I don't
think that it does. You still have a choice and make choices in the
situation, it's just that your choices may end up causing the very
thing that you wanted to prevent. 
So even if Harry had time travelled to save Sirius, something would
have happened to stop him from being able to do so.

magpie: 
<snip>>From her [JKR] god's eye perspective, she 
> decided to show us the already changed future.  She could just as
easily 
> have shown us Buckbeak dying, then have Harry go back in time and
show us 
> him saving Buckbeak, and just have everyone remember Harry as always
having 
> saved Buckbeak because the past was changed.

smilingator:
Had JKR "just" shown Buckbeak dying and then Harry going back and
saving him, then that would mean that past events COULD be changed,
and I, too, would be wondering why in the world no one went back to
warn Harry's parents about Voldie's impeding attack. 
But as it is, JKR chose not to (thank goodness) show the audience the
event happening one way and then go back and change everything the
second time we saw it. Fandom would have been in an uproar!

> So why can't they do that in in OotP?  They can't just not do it 
> because...they didn't do it.  The fact that we don't see a Future!Harry 
> saving Sirius shows us Harry never used the Time Turner, not that he 
> couldn't--I mean, what would have happened if, moments after the
battle, 
> Harry had grabbed a Time Turner and gone back in time?  I can see no
reason 
> why it wouldn't work.  

smilingator:
Well, I hope my earlier explanation showed you why Harry grabbing a
Time turner would not have worked in the Potterverse. Past events just
don't change, we just see them from two different perspectives. So,
the second time we witnessed the events, Sirius still would have died,
we just would have looked at it through the eyes of TTHarry instead.
Something would have stopped TTHarry from being to help Sirius.
Buckbeak never died in PoA, that can't be changed. Sirius did die in
OOTP, that can't be changed.

magpie:
To say that the past can't be changed, and wasn't 
> changed in PoA, is to deny Harry and Hermione's decision and action
of using 
> the Time Turner and saving Buckbeak by saying you can't use the Time
Turner 
> unless you are going to use the Time Turner.  But when do you go
from being 
> a person who can't use the Time Turner to someone who is going to
use it to 
> someone who has used it and therefore can use it?  The logic gets
circular.

smilingator:
Not 100% sure what you meant by all this... but to tackle the first
part, saying the past can't be changed is not denying Harry and
Hermione anything at all. They had a choice in that moment when
Dumbledore was trying to persuade them to time travel. I would love to
go into a "what if they hadn't used the time turner ramble" here, but
the fact is that they did CHOOSE to use it and when they time
travelled, they made other decisions that impacted events; but still,
nothing about that evening was changed. 

magpie:
> For instance, from 10-11, let's say, Hermione takes Arithmancy. Then
she 
> uses the Time Turner to take Divinations.  From Harry and Ron's pov, 
> Hermione "always" took Divinations, because she experienced the hour
with 
> them.  If Divinations and Arithmancy were in the same room we would
see two 
> Hermiones in the class, just as there were two Harrys and Hermiones
in PoA. 
> But from Hermione's perspective, she took Arithmancy *and then* she
took 
> Divination.  She remembers two hours where everyone else remembers
one.  She 
> remembers an hour when she took Arithmancy and had *not yet* taken 
> Divination. When Hermione misses a lesson it's because she forgot to
turn 
> her clock back, not because she couldn't turn her clock back because
she 
> wasn't in the lesson--that's backwards.

smilingator:
Your explanation of how Hermione got through her lessons and how
everyone else viewed it is dead on. So when she missed that one
lesson, that just goes to prove my point of not being able to change
anything in the past. She missed it... can't make it up. And even if
she had tried to make it up, something would have happened to prevent
her from making it to that class. She wasn't there the "first time",
so she wouldn't be there the "second time" either.

magpie: 
> The reason Harry doesn't save Sirius in OotP with the use of the
Time Turner 
> is, I think, far more mundane: the Time Turners are all destroyed in
the 
> battle (symbolically, they can no longer go backwards, only
forwards).  And 
> I think that was put in partially to answer this question, because
there 
> really is no other reason they can't use the things.  Except to say
that 
> they can't do it because the author didn't write the scene that way,
which 
> isn't something the characters can be aware of themselves.

smilingator:
I agree with you that the answer to the question is that the time
turners were "conveniently" ALL gathered in one area and destroyed.
And you are right, there would be no other reason the characters
couldn't use the things. And if they made the decision to use them,
they still wouldn't have been able to change anything because what has
already happened can't change. I just think JKR thought ahead and
wanted to avoid that whole sticky argument, which, haha... still comes
up at least once a month on here.

smilingator... 20 days til GoF