[HPforGrownups] Re: Time turner theory

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 162005

 Carol responds:
> Agreed so far, except that there is no alternative memory to be
> erased. Because the kids *did* go back, that alternate version never
> happened. They heard Macnair's axe hitting the fence and *thought* he
> was killing buckbeak, but he wasn't. Harry saw himslef saving himself
> and Sirius Black and *thought* he was seeing James, but he wasnt. If
> Harry and Hermione hadn't gone back in time, Harry would have been
> soul-sucked along with SB. so much for the WW and the HP series. So he
> did go back in time in the one-and-only timeline, as fara as I can see.

Magpie:
Right, in the timeline we're reading there is no alternative.  Harry 
remembers it exactly as it happened, which always included his future self 
appearing when he did.  Had Harry not gone back in time the memory would 
have been different--not just because Buckbeak probably would have died, but 
he wouldn't have heard the exact sounds that he did this time (sounds he 
mistook for Buckbeak being killed, but were really him escaping).

As to whether there was any alternative, I'm just saying another writer 
could have written it that way as many other writers do--JKR could have 
chosen to have Buckbeak die, and then have that past literally changed.  If 
the past was changed the "original" version would have ceased to exist, just 
as it does in Back to the Future (though in that movie the protagonist 
remembers it).  In JKR's book, there is only one version of the timeline, 
which includes Future!Harry acting in the past in all the places he did.  So 
any Time Travel has to fit exactly into the events as we see them the first 
time.

> Carol responds:
> Here's where I disagree. As I said above, there's only one timeline,
> and Harry saving Sirius Black doesn't enter into it. JKR has said that
> once a person is dead, he's dead, and no magic can bring him back.
> that includes Time-Turning. Harry and Hermione could prevent Buckbeak
> and Sirius Black from dying/being soul-sucked only because *they had
> already done it* under the delusion that they were changing, as
> opposed to creating, the past.

Magpie:
Yes, but as far as I can see we're still talking about Harry not being able 
to time travel for literary reasons--the author chose to write the timeline 
a certain way, and once it's written it can't be changed because anything 
Future!Harry would have done to change things would already be there in the 
present.  But how does it work as a real reason for the characters within 
the story?  There has to be some moment when the character can freely decide 
to use the Time Turner, just as Harry and Hermione did in PoA.  Sure there 
was the surprise that he'd actually already seen himself doing what he was 
just deciding to do in that moment, but the Time Turner worked the way it 
always would.  Dumbledore saying Time Travel can't bring back the dead also, 
to me, sounds like just the author throwing in an arbitrary rule.  Time 
Travel can change lots of things; of course it can prevent a death.  A 
future!Harry popping up and pushing Sirius away from the Veil wouldn't be 
bringing back the dead, but it would be preventing a death that would have 
happened otherwise.

It's bringing back the dead because Harry didn't do that and Sirius died. 
But that still seems more to be saying to me that we know Harry *didn't* use 
a Time Turner rather than saying Harry can't use one.

Carol:
> Hermione's Time-Turner is an hour-glass with a charm on it that allows
> her to go back an hour or so at a time. "Three turns should do it,"
> says Dumbledore in the scene we're talking about. Three turns takes
> her back three hours. But suppose that Harry wanted to go back to save
> Sirius Black from Bellatrix and the Veil. He'd have to know exactly
> when Black died, not only the number of days in the past but the
> number of hours. Let's say that it's two years to the day after
> Black's death and Harry wants to go back to roughly an hour before
> Black died. Let's say that he's made the proper calculations and it
> has to be 365 days times two minus ten hours. Or was one of those
> years a Leap Year? (For the sake of our example, let's say that he
> checks the calendar and it wasn't.) Okay, that's 730 days times 24
> hours or 17,520 hours minus ten or 17,510 turns of the Time Turner to
> get back to the time when Harry has to be at the DoM to save Sirius.
> How long will it take to turn the Time Turner that many times? (I come
> up with 292 minutes or four hours and 52 minutes of turning the hour
> glass if each turn takes one second. That's a long time to stand there
> spinning an hour glass, and what if he miscounts?) And that's just
> going back two years. Going back to Godric's Hollow and saving his
> parents, supposing it could be done, would take far more turns and be
> far harder to do even if he could manage to arrive at the right time
> and manage to save his parents, and would have unimaginable
> consequences if he succeeded. You don't mess with time. Maybe Harry
> *could* end up killing his past or future self, unimaginable as that
> sounds, just by fooling with it.

Magpie:
Now these, I agree, are all good, practical reasons for why Harry can't go 
back in time--and I agree with all of them.  Given the way Time Turners work 
I don't think any of these are really possible without dire consequences.  I 
just feel that if we were talking about Harry using a Time Turner right 
after the Battle at the MoM, when Sirius had just died, sure he could have 
used the Time Turner the same way he did with Buckbeak.  It might have had 
dire consequences, of course.  Given the way JKR writes things we know that 
any actions a time traveling Harry would have taken during the battle would 
have already been witnessed by us, if not understood.

So I just tend to say that we know Harry didn't go back in time to prevent 
Sirius death because we'd have seen it if he did--we only get one timeline. 
And the reason he didn't wasn't because you can't bring back the dead (since 
pre-death Sirius isn't dead) but because all the Time Turners were destroyed 
and any other practical reasons there are for not Time Traveling at that 
moment.



> Carol responds:
>
> Much as I like Magda's suggestion that it was Harry who saved the
> teenage Severus Snape from werewolf!Lupin, I just don't see how that's
> feasible, nor do I see Harry being motivated to save the future Death
> Eater/eavesdropper, HBP or no, especially since it was Snape who
> killed Dumbledore. If anything, he'd want James to let Severus die, in
> which case, the consequences would be much worse. Voldemort would
> never have been vaporized and there would be no Prophecy Boy to stop him.

Magpie:
I would also add that it would change Snape's character a lot if he suddenly 
realized the Life Debt he'd been under all those years was false.


-m