[HPforGrownups] Re: Time Turners (this is long!)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 142285

> 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:

Right, but it's because the *narrative* can't change according to the rules 
of the Potterverse.  But a person going back in time is still effecting what 
they would consider the past.  For instance, in the example you gave about 
the dog, my dog might still wind up lost whether or not I go back in the 
past, but there is still would be a different sequence of events if I go 
back in time or if I don't.  Like, in your example of the dog going crazy 
and biting me when I tried to bring him home.  If I don't go back in the 
past, that doesn't happen.  The dog might stay lost both times, but anything 
Future!Me does obviously wouldn't happen if I don't go back in time. But I 
would have no memory or a sequence of events without Future!Me's actions.

> 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:

Well, now I understand more what you mean.  You aren't saying that a person 
can't choose to use the Time Turner unless we've seen the results of their 
future selves' actions in the text, so that makes sense.  In the narrative 
we're always seeing the time stream which will become permenant so even if 
the characters do go back in time, we know whatever their double selves do 
will match up to the narrative that we are seeing now.  That's how the 
author chose to write it.  As opposed to in, say, "Back to the Future," 
where we see Marty McFly's life and hear about the life of his parents 
without the use of a time machine: they didn't meet Marty until he was born. 
Once Marty uses the time machine and does something to change the way events 
are going.  When he returns to the present it's a different present.  No one 
else in that present remembers the original universe.  They, like the 
characters in HP, would remember the past as always including a meeting with 
Marty.  The original timeline no longer exists for them, though we, the 
audience, remember it.    The future selves are always affecting the past, 
but in HP we know that if any Time Travel is going to happen, then it will 
have "already happened" in the narrative.  We will not know any possible 
alternate universes.

-m