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

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 167504

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:

Magpie:
<snip>
> > In PoA it seems like the only difference is a different gimmick. JKR
> chooses to show the version where Harry #1 sees Harry #2 come back in
> time, only she hides it so he doesn't know that's what he's seeing. If
> there was an alternate universe where Harry #2 didn't go back in time,
> it's lost to Harry's experience. <snip>

> > I always think of that with PoA because so often I've heard it 
> explained that the only reason Harry is able to go back in time is 
> because he already did it, and that this somehow makes the time travel
> in PoA more logical than in another story, and that I don't get.
 
Carol:

<snip>
> 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. And, for
> me, that's what the HP books are about, in large measure, the
> perception of reality as opposed to what really happened. look at
> "Snape" plotting to steal the Sorceror's Stone. Look at Harry
> "attacking" Justin with the snake. Look at Sirius Black "murdering"
> Pettigrew and the Muggles and breaking into Hogwarts to murder
> "Harry." Look at Macnair "executing" Buckbeak and "James" casting the
> Patronus. Look at what happened on the tower. . . .
> 
> Carol, who is not arguing that time travel is in any way involved in
> those other events, only that what the characters interpret as reality
> is not necessarily reality within the books, regardless of whether
> time travel is involved

Geoff:
I've snipped this post massively because I just wanted to pick up on 
some of Carol's comments and direct her attention to previous posts 
on this rather convoluted event.

There was a lot of speculation about the time loops back in pre-HBP 
days and one longish thread which might - might not(!) - help was 
one entitled "That Time Turner" which kicked off at message 122866.
This might help to focus some of our thinking about this topic of how
the two Harrys and two Hermiones interacted.

Geoff
Not for the first time do I quote Miles O'Brien from "Star Trek: DS9" 
who, in one episode meets his future self and, at one point, they sit 
down side by side and say together "I hate temporal mechanics."