[HPforGrownups] Re: World Building And The Potterverse

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 167370


Jordan:

JA> You seem to have mistaken HP for the former, and maybe
JA> you're not even aware of the latter's existence at all.

Dave:

This is okay for something like "A Christmas Carol", where the
characters are passive observers, but you *still* cannot have a
"closed timelike loop" without creating a paradox of causality.
An example of a "closed timelike loop" is Harry going back
in time to save himself from the dementors, so that later
he can go back in time to save himself from the dementors.
There's only two ways that I see to resolve the paradox, both of
which are problematic:

1. Everything in the Potterverse is predetermined from the
   Creation onward, in which case all of Dumbledore's talk
   about "the choices we make" is just meaningless lip service,
   because in such a universe of determinism, (doing my best
   impression of Alec Guinness in _A Passage to India_) "you can
   do what you like, Mr. Fielding, but the outcome will be
   the same."

2. There was a second Patronus-caster behind the grassy knoll(!)
   to initially save Harry's life, before he goes back in time
   to save himself.  But then the question is, WHO??  (It can't
   be Snape because his testimony in _PoA_ is that the dementors
   were already retreating when he regained consciousness.)