Time-turning

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 167515

>> Magpie:
>> I agree that any discussion of Time Travel in the HP-verse is going
>> to include how it is written, and the rules the author sets down.
>> But at the same time the characters aren't consciously following
>> those rules. They don't know their world is neatly arranged by an
>> author. Harry and Hermione think Buckbeak was executed and that
> they
>> are going to change it.

> zgirnius:
> Harry and Hermione are unaware of the rules, yes. This is not 
because
> they do not realize they are fictional characters. It is because 
they
> are residents of the Potterverse who happen not to know (or fully
> understand) all of the natural/magical laws that govern that
> universe.

Magpie:
Yes, that too. But if they had known the rules of the universe and so 
thought they couldn't change anything, and had not gone back in time 
because of that, they would not have been there to save anyone. 
Similarly, on the days Hermione forgets to use the Time Turner to 
attend a class, she has skipped that class for the day. She's got to 
spin it to be in it.:-) However you look at it, at some point you 
have to decide to interfere with the past to use the Time Turner. If 
everyone just said "we can't ever change the past" there would be no 
use for Time Turners. The people who really believe you can't change 
the past are Muggles. Wizards seem to kind of say that, but sometimes 
interfere with the past while calling it not changing the past 
because eventually it will all be remembered as one time stream.

Zara:
 Her opinion that
> Bucky was dead but saveable would then indicate she was not thinking
> clearly at the time, or had an incomplete grasp of the concepts.

Magpie:
Odd, given this was Hermione, though. Especially because she's not 
exactly wrong. I mean, Buckbeak is savable if she uses the Time 
Turner to save him. If she doesn't use the Time Turner to save him, 
there's a good chance to be dead. Buckbeak is saved only when 
Hermione takes action with the Time Turner, which she does with the 
intention of saving Buckbeak, which is also what Dumbledore (who 
surely knows these rules) wants her to do.

Ken:
With all the words that have been written here about this
in the last few days it is obvious that either there is no
way to make time travel consistent, as you say, or else
know one here knows how to explain it. I don't see any
way to resolve all the paradoxes. Fixing one just creates
another or two if you are unlucky.

Magpie:
True dat!!!

Ken:
The only thing that can change this is the text of DH
and all I can say about that is if time travel is a feature
of DH it had better be good. Much better than POA.

Magpie:
This is the funny thing about PoA for me. It's so many peoples' 
favorite book of the series, but it contains some of my least 
favorite things--along with some of my favorite. I think the 
revelation of Scabbers being Peter, and the entire 
Sirius/Lupin/Peter/Snape/Harry storyline is fantastic and 
probably the reason the book is so well-regarded. Harry thinking he 
was saved by his father when he was saved by himself is a nice 
thematic idea with the Patronus.

But a lot of the actual kid storyline in PoA contains some of my 
least favorite things in the series. The Buckbeak storyline being the 
main thing that bothers me for one reason, and the Time Travel being 
the other. It's not that I always dislike Time Travel in stories, but 
Time Travel used to fix things (which it *is* being used for here, 
even if the twist is that the thing was always fixed) is a huge thing 
to drop into a series--it's so powerful it kind of blows everything 
apart. That's probably why it works so well for comedy, because it so 
quickly becomes absurd. If you can change the past once you know 
better, why not do that for something more important than taking an 
extra class and keeping an animal alive? JKR's style of writing it 
gives us a fictional reason it can't be done (we know the narrative 
can't change, so any Time Travel story has to at least on the surface 
look exactly the same) but no reason for the characters not to do it.
They can always roll the dice and figure they just misunderstood the 
first time, as Harry and Hermione did.

-m