Time-turning

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 167487

> > Magpie:
> > I suspect Bart is looking at it more like I am. Perhaps it might 
be 
> a good 
> > idea to stop discussing Harry's danger in PoA and instead look 
at 
> another 
> > scene where someone is in danger of dying: Sirius' fall through 
the 
> veil in 
> > OotP (to compare it). Why can't Sirius save himself from 
Bellatrix 
> the way 
> > Harry saved himself from the Dementor?
> 
> zgirnius:
> As I understand Potterverse time-travel, Sirius cannot save 
himself, 
> because the past *only happens once*. As OotP was written, we were 
> told by the narrator that a certain specific event *happened*, 
> namely, Sirius fell behind the Veil. An event that really 
happened, 
> is written in stone. Nothing can change it. It is a fact.
> 
> The situation is different in PoA, because Harry did not die or 
> become a soulless husk. On the contrary, it is a fact we were 
shown 
> that he did *not*. So his survival is what was written in stone.

Magpie:
Yes, but that's a different thing that I was talking about. There's 
two different things here, there's how "time" is working within 
canon, as if canon is real. Then there's the fact that canon is 
actually words on a page.

We know that JKR *writes* the story according to a certain rule. If 
Sirius were to save himself we would have to see it the first time, 
just as we did with Harry (although we didn't realize that was what 
we were seeing when we first read it). JKR does not write her story 
like Back to the Future where we see or hear about one version of 
events, and then we see Marty change them, and then we're told 
there's a different version of events. At the beginning of Back to 
the Future Marty's parents had one history that did not include a 
guy named Marty. Then he went back and changed that. There are 
two "versions" of their courtship.

This is not the case in HP. There are no two versions of what 
happened, just the same version from different perspectives. So we 
know that in the Potterverse JKR will not be changing the narrative. 
She didn't in PoA. But leave aside for the moment that there's any 
author of this universe. Imagine we can't argue it from that angle 
and say "this is the way JKR writes it" or even "this is the way we 
would have experienced it if it were true." 

Just think Sirius is a man confronted by a deadly curtain and his 
cousin, about to fall through it. Just as Harry was a boy confronted 
by a deadly Dementor about to kiss him. For either of them to travel 
from their own future, they need to live into that future to do it. 
Harry did, Sirius didn't. Sirius fell through the veil. 
Harry...well, how did he live to become his future self that did not 
yet exist at that moment? 

> zgirnius:
> If Sirius had grabbed a Time Turner and used it during his duel 
with 
> Bella, his future self could have saved him if it was Rowling's 
> desire to take the story in that direction, yes. 

Magpie:
But he would have had to have been alive to have done so, right? He 
would have to have used it before he got pushed through the curtain, 
and then his future!self could have done something to save his past 
self like push him out of the way of the hex or block it or 
something. Once his past self was through the curtain there would be 
no possibility for a future self to save him. Harry doesn't use his 
Time Turner until after his encounter with the Dementors. He can do 
that because the Dementors didn't kill him--but he was saved by his 
future self. So how did he live to have a future self? That's why 
Sirius would have had to have used his Time Turner before he died in 
order to save himself.

I'm not questioning how the story would have *gone* in that 
scenario. I understand how JKR is writing it and get it from her 
pov. Whatever happens, Time Travel-wise, I know will be present in 
the narrative I am reading. But from the characters pov that doesn't 
work, because JKR herself doesn't exist in their world.

> > Magpie:
> > Or in this case: That's a terrible thing that happened. I wish 
we 
> could have 
> > been there to stop it. Wouldn't it be great if we could turn 
back 
> the clock 
> > three hours and then it would really be three hours ago only 
we'd 
> know what 
> > was going to happen so we could fix it. I guess then there'd be, 
> like, two 
> > of us, cause I was already there once.
> > 
> > It's kind of very logical and very illogical at the same time.
> 
> zgirnius:
> It is my contention that time travel as described in the 
Potterverse 
> is precisely *NOT* this kind of time travel. Harry did not change 
> anything that we were explicitly shown in PoA "the second time 
> around" (to use a phrase that I consider totally misleading). He 
> averted potential disasters that *might* have happened had he not 
> Time Turned, but *nothing* that *really* happened, changed.

Magpie:
But that's still talking about how it's written and now how it 
happens. If there was nothing to be changed, Harry would have no 
reason to go back in time. Had he just realized that Buckbeak wasn't 
really killed etc., and so he had no reason to go back in time and 
therefore not done it, he could not have saved himself. His future 
self is affecting the past, obviously. We know that his future self 
will not be able to affect the *narrative* at all. And anything his 
future self does will already have been experienced by his past self 
and be remembered by him. But he still has to exist into the future 
in order to be in the future to travel back, and that creates an 
endless loop with no beginning that I can see--unless we assume, as 
Dana does, that he was "originally" saved from the Dementors by 
something else. He can't live to save himself unless he lives to 
save himself. 

We know that Sirius didn't save himself because we saw him die and 
whatever happens the narrative won't change, but Sirius doesn't know 
he's in a narrative. As an individual he's just as free as Harry and 
Hermione were to say "Hey, here's a Time Turner I can use!" The 
reason *he* can't use a Time Turner to go back and save himself, 
beside the fact that he can't get his hands on a Time Turner and go 
back to save himself is that he is dead. Likewise, Harry will not, 
in DH, go back in time to save James and Lily being killed at 
Godric's Hollow because they are dead now. But if there was a Time 
Turner that went back years, there would be nothing physically 
keeping him from turning it backwards enough times to go there. He 
won't do that, we know, because of the narrative, but he himself 
can't make decisions based on the way JKR wrote something because 
JKR doesn't exist in his world. James and Lily, otoh, have another 
reason for not being able to, in Deathly Hallows, go back in time to 
save themselves from dying. They can't do anything with a Time 
Turner because they are dead.

There's nothing confusing about Time Travel in terms of 
understanding what happened. We know that Sirius didn't go back in 
time to save himself. We know that no one can in later books decide 
to Time Travel in such a way that will change a single word of 
what's already been written. But nevertheless characters can choose 
to Time Travel.

Dana:
Okay let me get one thing straight first, Harry1 survived because
otherwise he could not go back in time, period.

Magpie:
Yes.

Dana:
The problem is that everybody reads the events of Harry1 as first
time and Harry2 as second time but that is not how it is written. JKR
only writes the end time and shows us events from Harry's
perspective; from both of the Harry's.

Magpie:
Right.

Dana:
Harry1 did not need saving from Harry2, because Harry2 would not have
been there if Harry1 hadn't survived (I think you are with me so far,
right?) but JKR wants it to be Harry2 who saves Harry1, or to be more
clear she wants Prongs to safe Harry and Sirius. The moment Harry2
conjures the patronus, history changed and it was only him who saved
Harry1 because all events and memories of the first time are replaced
by this action.

Magpie:
That's the way you are assuming it happened, and that makes sense to 
me. But you are also assuming that even if Harry had never gone back 
in time Harry1 would have been saved, either by himself or by some 
other unknown thing, because otherwise he would not have been alive 
to become Harry2. 

Dana:
So when Harry2 saves his past self, his memory chances at the same
time because for Harry1 the events have already taken place and this
is why Harry is able to realize, he did not see his dad but 
himself.The moment Harry2 changed history, the first time becomes 
non-existent and therefore irrelevant. 

Magpie:
I think this is what people would describe as "time happening 
twice," however, because it assumes that there was originally some 
other sequence of events that Harry and the reader are just not 
privvy to--events that led to Harry1 being saved in some other way 
in order to become Harry2 and save himself the way Harry ultimately 
remembers being saved when the two times become one. In this version 
there are two times. We just only remember or read about one time 
that's a combination of the two. Time did happen twice, it just 
seemed to happen once. There is something to be erased or changed.

Dana:
So for the storyline it is absolutely irrelevant how Harry1 survived
because at the end of the day it was Harry2 and no one else because
time 1 + time 2 = end time and the only time left standing.

Magpie:
Irrelevent, perhaps, but it still must have happened in some way in 
your version. We don't know about it, but it happened--and the proof 
that it happened is that Harry2 was existing and could go back and 
overwrite history with the version we know.


Dana:
In case of Sirius; Sirius could not safe himself because he falls
through the veil but if someone else would go back in time and chains
Sirius to the bed so he could not go to the DoM, then yes Sirius
would still be alive and no one would have a memory of him ever being
there. That is why JKR destroys the timeturners just before Sirius
falls through the veil. Not because it is not possible to change
events but because it would disrupt the storyline to much and
therefore it is irrelevant and you cannot compare the two events.

Magpie:
Right--because Sirius himself can't go back in time and save himself 
once he is dead. Which is why in your interpretation Harry did not 
die from the Dementor attack due to some unknown reason, then a few 
hours later went back in time and saved himself with the Prongs 
Patronus, overwriting the original version and erasing any memory or 
trace of the original version for Harry and the reader. Time did 
happen twice, but we only experienced it once as a combination of 
two times. But Harry could not have died.

Carol responds:
If he were going to save himself, he'd have to have already
done so, somehow presciently known that Bellatrix was going to kill
him, snatched up a Time-Turner and put it in the pocket of his robes
so that his future self could come back and save him and then, erm,
what? If he'd fallen through the Veil, anyway, he would be dead and
his future self couldn't come back.

Magpie:
You can't have a future self if you're dead, yes. So it would be 
impossible for a future self to save a person who would die if not 
for his future self saving him. I'm not talking about why Sirius 
can't be saved within the narrative. I know that I can only read 
about one, consistent stream of time. I'm not confused about what I 
read or why Sirius, from the pov of a person reading the book, can't 
come back and save himself. I'm saying that a person who dies 
obviously has no future self to send to the past to save himself. 

Carol:
We can think about what might have happened or would have happened 
had Hermione not had a Time Turner and DD not figured out that she 
had one, but it's best not to think about it. That alternate reality 
*did not happen*. If it had, there would be no Harry Potter to save 
the WW.

Magpie:
But isn't it the nature of an alternate reality that it didn't 
happen in one particular reality only? What happened before Harry2 
existed to act? Dana compared it to being in a different time zone, 
but Harry2 doesn't live in a different time zone. He lives in the 
same time zone as Harry1. They are the same person. Harry2 remembers 
things he has not yet done. She has two different things happening, 
but only one thing being remembered, while the other one is erased.

-m