Time Turners and Lupin's apparent premature ageing

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 157052

> bboyminn:
> 

> The present and the future are infinitely variable. They 
> are filled with endless possibilities. The past however 
> is generally fix, it is known. To change it, is to take 
> far greater risk, than making decisions to change the 
> present and the future. 
> 
> Again, the farther back in time you go, the greater the risk
> you take. If you change something very locally just an hour 
> or two ago, the consequences to the present are much much 
> smaller that going back a year or years and making a major 
> change to history.
> 
> I simply can't agree that changing the present and the 
> future are in the same class as changing the past.
> 

Ken:

We will just have to disagree then. The only difference I see between
the two is that if you go back in time and kill Hitler during WW I
(good grief, *not* during WW II, why bother if you are going to wait
that long?) you *know* that the future will be changed profoundly. If
today you decide to father a child you have no idea what effect you
are having on the future. Your great grandchild descended from that
child may turn out to be the most important human who ever lived, for
good or evil. You will never know. I have no more effect on history by
luring Adolf to the precise spot where I know a 75 mm shell is about
to land than his greatgrandfather did that night he got a little
horny. The only difference is that I understand *some* of the
consequences of the action I am about to take.

> bboyminn:
> 
> I've generally found from discussion in this group that people who see
> problems with JKR's time travel are people who refuse to actually see
> what happened. Generally, they insist that time happened twice; one
> time with and one time without (with and without whatever).
> 
> If you take the approach that time happened only once, but Harry and
> Hermione happened twice, it gets much easier. If you view it right,
> JKR's account of time travel is as reasonable and consistent as is
> possible for time travel. 
> 
> Just one man's opinion.
> 

Ken:

In "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" Zaphod Beeblebrox claims to
be his own grandfather due to an accident with a time machine and a
condom. This is a causality loop, the conception of Zaphod's father
depends on Zaphod already existing and that is impossible. But that is
OK, absurdity is the lifeblood of Hitchhiker. Much the same thing 
happens in PoA when Harry saves himself from the dementors. There is
no future Harry to come back and cast the Patronus if the dementor
attack succeeds. Harry's survival of the attack depends on itself to
be possible. I don't find that either reasonable or consistent. 

Of course book 7 could reveal to us that the Patronus was irrelevant
and someone else actually drove off the dementors before Harry2 could
cast it. Snape, who was nearby and is known to have a different means
of dealing with dementors, is a possibility even though he disavows
any knowledge of the cause of the dementor's retreat and claims it
happened before he came to. So is this an enormous mistake on
Rowling's part or a clue to ...? My crystal ball just went cloudy
again, I don't know what it is a clue to, just that it could come up
again in book 7.

I could go on and on about the holes in the time-turner device. In
fact I did in an earlier reply to you that seems to have fallen into a
space-time vortex. Instead this time I will cut this short and just
say that these are, after all, novels intended for children. They
don't have to meet an adult science fiction fan's standards for
plausibility (if one can use that word about a topic he finds totally
implausible from the git-go) in order to statisfy the target audience.
It is self evident that they do satisfy that audience in a way that is
quite wonderful to behold. So I will try to enjoy them as a child
would and not worry so much about the silliness of this plot device.

I will still hope that it *does not* reappear and if I somehow found
myself back in northern France in 1915 I would hunt that bug down and
squash him without one moment's concern about what I was doing to the
future.

Ken