Time-turning (Was: World Building And The Potterverse)/The Dursleys

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 167434

> Carol responds:
> Harry and Hermione #1, who had already been saved by Harry #2 
because
> for this scene, time is circular and there is no alternate reality,
> are taken to the hospital wing by Snape, for whom those three hours
> only exist once. They are told by DD, who has somehow figured out 
what
> happened, to use the Time-Turner to save "more than one innocent
> life"--lives that have, in fact, already been saved because they 
have
> *already* saved Buckbeak and been rescued by TT!Harry's Patronus or
> Snape would have found only de-souled bodies to take to the 
hospital
> wing. They go out, rescue Buckbeak, witness what they only heard an
> misinterpreted the first time, Macnair furiously swinging his axe 
into
> the fence and Hagrid crying out with joy, witness themselves, 
Lupin,
> and Snape going into the Shrieking Shack, etc. Harry sees the
> Dementors about to suck his and Sirius Black's souls, realizes that
> the Patronus caster was himself and casts the Patronus that saves
> them, he and Hermione rescue Black (who exists, like Snape and the
> others, only in the linear time sequence) and return to the 
hospital
> wing *just as HH#1 are becoming HH#2* (using the Time Turner to 
relive
> those hours). 

Magpie:
Yes, I completely understand how it happens in canon. But it's the 
loop that I'm talking about, that Harry and Hermione can not be 
saved unless they go back in time after they have been saved. I get 
that the way JKR writes it there is no alternate universe and that 
they have misinterpreted the stuff they saw the first time. I'm just 
saying that it creates a totally circular loop. Who saved Harry so 
that he could live to save himself in the future? Harry from the 
future.

Carol:
At the same time, the returning Harry and Hermione #2
> resume the normal time sequence and become, in effect, Harry and
> Hermione #1. HH#2 have ceased to exist because the time during 
which
> they were traveling back has ceased to exist. They have changed
> nothing; they have only done what always happened. (But, of 
course, if
> they *hadn't* traveled back, Buckbeak would be dead and Harry and
> Sirius Black would be soulless bodies.) There is no gap ("unknown
> pocket).

Magpie:
That's the unknown pocket I'm talking about--I realize that it 
doesn't exist in canon because Harry and Hermione #2 were "always" 
there in this sequence, but it's the alternate universe we don't see 
I'm wondering about, because Harry is saved by a version of himself 
that doesn't exist yet. Like, if I was going to be killed by 
something, even if I knew I could go back and change it later by my 
future self, I'd still have to wait to become my future self before 
I could save myself. I wouldn't remember waiting for it because my 
future self would appear in the past, but it doesn't fit the way I 
actually experience time. If I'm going to be saved at 3:00 by my 
5:00 self, I would still be saved at 3:00 but I would have to wait 
two hours to become my 5:00 self, I would think.

Carol:
> If there were "an alternate universe where Harry #2 didn't go back 
in
> time," Harry #1 would be soul-sucked and the WW doomed. 

Magpie:
And perhaps that universe exists somewhere.


Carol:
> Does that make sense to you? I don't know; probably not. But it 
makes
> sense to me. There's no gap; there's no change in what actually
> happened. Only the perception of what happened has changed. 

Magpie:
It does make sense--but that part always made sense to me. I'm not 
confused about exactly what happened in the story. This is all stuff 
in my head. Just like, for instance, I've got no problem 
understanding the Pensieve scenes but if I think about it I wonder 
how people remember things they didn't see the first time, and how 
memory is subjective etc.

I think within the books it's just like you said--it's about 
revising your understanding of what you saw. The books aren't making 
a case for Time Travel, just using it the way they want for the 
plot. 

zgirnius:
Assuming the 'time happens once and the past cannot be changed'
paradigm of time-travel in the Potterverse

Magpie:
Hoping I'm not confusing myself further by repitition, but that's 
the loop. If Time can't be changed, what was Harry #2 going *back* 
in time to do? What didn't change was the experience of the 
characters. Harry's #1's experience did not change. He, and we 
readers, never experienced or read about him being soul sucked or 
Buckbeak being executed. But if Harry #2 had never traveled back in 
time, obviously those things would have happened (or something else 
entirely would have happened). Harry #2 was returning to a time that 
had already happened to interfere with it, iow, to interfere with 
the past. It's only at the moment that Harry #2 uses the Time Turner 
that what we saw becomes possible, right? It's not like Harry #2 
would be able to say, "Oh, we were all saved, so there's no need to 
use the Time Turner" and still be saved. (At least not in the way it 
happens in the book.)

When we say "time cannot be changed" what we mean is "the narrative 
cannot be changed." Time travel is possible. It is possible for a 
person in this universe to turn back time and spend an hour 
differently than they did the first time. Hermione can take an hour 
of arithmancy and an hour of Divination and experience them as two 
consecutive hours, both with the clock saying 10-11 am. What she 
can't change is the scene as described by Rowling the first time.

zgirnius:
It follows, if the paradigm is the correct one, that if someone went
back in time to save Sirius at the MoM, nothing would change in the
past. We know, as an objective fact, that Sirius fell through the
Veil, so this is what happened, period. 

Magpie:
Yes, but that means nobody went back and saved Sirius, not that 
nobody could, if they had a Time Turner that went back years, decide 
next week to go back and save Sirius, right? I mean, what would stop 
them? We know this *didn't* happen because we would have had to have 
seen it happen in OotP, not because it's impossible for a person in 
the present to travel to the past and affect it.

zgirnius:
He made his choice when we saw him make it, in the hospital wing
after Dumbledore made is suggestion. If he had made a different
choice, Sirius would have died shortly thereafter. And the escape of
Bucky and the rescue of Harry and Sirius (neither of which was either
known or explained at that point) would turn out to have had a
different explanation. Dumbledore can't always be right. <g>

Magpie:
But my point is, if you say a person can only make the decision to 
go back in time if they'd seen the results of going back in time, 
then when did they make the decision? That would be saying "I can't 
because I didn't, but if I had then I could." It's a loop. It's not 
that I'm confused about what happens as written, or how it would 
have to have been different if Harry hadn't traveled in time. 

Bart:
The basic unaswered question in open time loops is how they started 
in the first place.

Magpie:
That sounds right. That's why I get confused, as I said, when people 
say Harry "can't" go back and save Sirius because it would "change 
time," as if he can only use a Time Turner when he has seen himself 
using the Time Turner...so when did he decide to use it?

Bart:
 Now, for example, in Back to the Future, Marty does not belong in 
his family at first; it is only when he changes the past that his 
family appears to be the kind of family he came from. Therefore, one 
might assume that he didn't change time, but that some, previously 
unknown event had changed it, and he corrected it.

Magpie:
Whoa. Mind-blowing!

Bart:
Now, we can speculate in PoA how the time loop initiated. One way, 
for example,is for, in the pre-loop time, Harry somehow managed to 
create the Patronus on his own. Note that he DOES violate the rule 
of time travel by appearing to himself and visibly acting, albeit 
not clearly. Therefore, that makes it the likely candidate for the 
paradoxical moment.

Magpie:
I guess like Marty McFly watched the Professor get shot and was 
chased in the DeLorean in both versions of his life. (Though there's 
only one of him at a time.)

Steve:
There is no paradox in Harry potentially choosing
not to go back because that choice is unthinkable.

Magpie:
That doesn't much change anything for me, I'm afraid. Anything is 
thinkable imo. It doesn't even have to come down to Harry's choice, 
since other things could have happened.

THE DURSLEYS

Bart:
What I am speculating is that the Dursleys, as they appear in the 
novels, are not as they were originally envisioned, and that the 
difference was removed, possibly at the publisher's request, to 
avoid offending certain groups (and yes, I know that there are some 
who are offended by the Dursleys anyway). The evidence I give is 
that their hatred of magic is unbelievably out of proportion
to the rest of their characters, as depicted.

Magpie:
I think I see what you mean. I just don't see any trace of this, or 
see their reaction to magic being OTT compared to the rest of them. 
I do think we've got secrets coming in DH about them, especially 
Petunia. But I think suggesting that they were ever meant as 
Christian satires in their hatred of magic seems to clash with the 
world entirely. The Dursleys aren't religious, and there's no hint 
of that view of magic in Rowling's universe. It doesn't really seem 
to be an issue for her when she was writing the books, though it was 
forced into an issue when they became popular. 

To me it seems to clash with their characters more to imagine their 
middle class devotion to the status quo, which is so strong in the 
book, as covering up a skewering of religious hypocrites. I honestly 
see no trace of that either in them or the books--it would really 
effect everything about them from the ground up if that was 
informing their view of magic, imo, where as Rowling's gone out of 
her way to push the view they do have. I would imagine them becoming 
uncomfortable at even having to deal with someone who was too 
outspokenly religious. It's another way of being not normal. It also 
actually sounds like a more American concern. Not that English 
Christians, English hypocrites, and English Christian hypocrites 
don't or can't exist, of course, but it still seems like something 
that's more a concern in the US. I know I've read discussions 
elsewhere, for instance, where people will explain exactly how the 
Dursleys go to church in terms of the "type" they are, only to be 
corrected by British readers on the subject. 

-m (agreeing that discussing Time Travel is always maddening and 
never ends in agreement, but can live with that more than people 
thinking she didn't get the plot of PoA!;-)