Time-turning

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167526

Dana:
> To some level I agree because in the book, JKR actually writes what
I consider the end time and thus where we see Harry1 and Harry2 being
in that part of space at the same time but to say it therefore means
they where always there, to fit time travel into the story is not very
logical to me. <snip>

Carol responds:
First, a quick question for you, Dana. Is "end time" your own term or
is it commonly used in scifi works relating to time travel? To me, it
sounds like the term used by certain cults or Fundamentalists for the
end of the world or Armageddon. (Just curious, not criticizing.)

Also, as long as we're trying to make time travel logical (possibly an
exercise in futility given that logic isn't JKR's forte any more than
it's Harry's), let me ask you and Magpie and anyone else who's
protesting the *logic* (as opposed to the canon, Magpie! <wink>) of
the PoA Time-Turner sequence a question related to Hermione's classes.
But first, let me quote what you've already said on the subject:

Dana:
> If you look at the story of Hermione taking her classes then the
second Hermione did not come out of no where. Hermione0 takes the
first class and then after she is finished, goes back in time to
become Hermione2 and re-live the same hour again and takes a 
different class. When they come back together she has the memory of
both classes. Hermione1 is not actually re-living the hour she is just
there at the same time Hermione2 is re-living the hour. Hermione2 does
change the past because if she didn't Hermione (afterwards) would not
have the knowledge of the class Hermione2 was taking. Hermione2's
actions are still actively changing the present by changing the past.
Just because her time travel does not affect other events around her
does not mean her actions changed nothing. <snip>

Carol:
I agree with what you've said here about Hermione (except that I don't
understand why Hermione0 isn't labeled Hermione1, or how Hermione0
differs from Hermione1).

But why, in your view, doesn't Hermione just use the Time-Turner to
make up the class that she slept through? Couldn't she just go back,
say, four hours and attend Flitwick's class on Cheering Charms since
she forgot to turn back and take it immediately before the class? You
say she's already changing time by going back to take her classes, but
if that's the case, why not change it a little bit more by going back
 four hours instead of one? Is something preventing her from turning
back time once she's already missed the class? Surely, she already
missed it in your "erased" alternate reality, but if that alternate
reality consists of only one hour, it's okay to change it then and
there, but not okay if she waits longer because it's *her*
reality--sleeping through the class--that she'd be changing? Has
McGonagall warned her that she can't go back more than the hour needed
to take a second class (or third) because the unintended consequences
of going back several hours later for a missed class would be too
significant? Or is it because the Time-Turner doesn't go forward and
she would have to relive those six hours, knowing that she was
reliving them? (Notice that that's how she uses the TT all through the
books--she goes forward in time by reliving the hour, or three hours,
in the case of the Shrieking Shack sequence.)

If that last is the case, not only would using a Time Turner to go
back years instead of hours be clumsy and imprecise (how would you get
to the exact time you needed to go to? And you'd have to be in the
right place already), but you'd have to *live* those years as Hermione
lived those hours because there's no going forward in time. And yet
the Baby-Headed Death Eater and the hummingbird suggest that that's
not the case. 

Okay, now I'm a lot more confused than I was when I simply accepted
what was on the page. But, IMO, we're overanalyzing here. The
Time-turning in PoA is just a plot device (like a Pensieve or the
Hogwarts Express or Apparation) that doesn't require a lot of in-depth
analysis, not deliberate misdirection like, say, a conversation Harry
is eavesdropping on and misinterprets. Harry's misperceptions about
Buckbeak's "execution" and "James" saving his life have already been
cleared away, and, IMO, there's nothing more for the reader to
discover, nothing more for JKR to reveal about what "really" happened
in those scenes. JKR's Time-Turning may not make sense for the
logically minded reader, but what we see is all there is (in contrast
to, say, the argument in the forest or the conversations that Harry
eavesdrops on or what happened on the tower, where what he hears or
sees is subject to interpretations other than his own). I fear that
the same thing will be true of Unbreakable Vows: we won't learn the
mechanics of them; we'll just have to accept what's on the page,
logical and consistent or otherwise. They, too, will be just a plot
device.


Dana:
> Your theory is flawed because if the past has not yet occurred then
there is no timeframe to travel back to from a future point. <snip>

Carol:
I don't think it's any poster's theory of time travel that's flawed.
There *is* a timeframe, a particular point at which HH begin their
time travel and to which they return, just as there is when Hermione
goes back to take a second or third class (and whatever alternate
reality would have occurred is "erased" because she was "always"
present in those classes). The problem is not with our theories but
(IMO) with JKR's assumption that she's doing the same thing with Harry
and Hermione that she's done with Hermione all year.

*Of course* it isn't logical for Harry to save himself because he'd
have to have been already saved to do so, and he *is* already saved,
by himself, and, um, erm, we go around in circles. That isn't the
fault of a reader figuring out how Time Travel works in the Shrieking
Shack sequence. It's what we're given. Harry and Hermione aren't
changing what happened; they're making it happen. It's a continuous
loop, like all circles, but it begins when they use the time turner
and ends when they return to regular time. That's what's on the page;
that's what happens in the book. Logical? No. Consistent with what
Hermione does? Not really, if you think about it (as you've obviously
done). But canon, nonetheless.

If we search for logic and consistency in JKR's mechanism for
time-turning, or for Potterverse magic that abides by the laws of
physics, I don't think we're going to find them, any more than we'll
find consistency in the use of "jinx" or "curse" or "hex." (And, no, I
don't accept Pippin's explanation that Ron's knowing about the Hand of
Glory that Lucius Malfoy *did not* buy for Draco is anything more than
a Flint.) JKR has thought out the main plot and the clues she intends
to drop and the development of certain characters and the solutions to
certain mysteries. She's aware of certain genres and traditions and
mythologies (and bends the rules and thwarts the reader's expectations
when it suits her). But certain things--like the number of students in
Hogwarts or Harry's sudden awareness of the existence of Gryffindors
he's shared a common room with for years or the mechanics of
Time-Turning--just don't concern her. It's not like the change of
narrative strategy in "Spinner's End" or the use of red herrings and
other forms of misdirection, which are quite deliberate and carefully
planned. It's more like the workings of a Pensieve--a convenient plot
device that's a means to an end rather than an end in itself. The
reader doesn't need to know how a Time-Turner or a Pensieve works. He
only needs to believe that it does.

So, yes, it would be more logical if Snape had saved Harry first, but
there's no evidence in canon of any such "erased" original reality.
And the mechanics of working out such an uncanonical solution cause
just as many headaches, if not more, than just accepting what's on the
page. Believe me, I've tried.

Trying to make sense of Time-Travel in PoA is like trying to figure
out whether magic is a dominant or a recessive gene when it can't
logically be either one. The best we can come up with is a combination
of recessive genes, or we can accept the canonical but politically
incorrect explanation that it's in the blood. (Or we can give
ourselves a headache trying to figure out when, where, and how the
eighty- or ninety-something wizard Horace Slughorn found out about
genes. :-) ) 

Or look at LOTR: How can a door made by Dwarves be magically concealed
and opened with an Elvish password (or, in "The Hobbit," opened only
during a certain phase of the moon, "when the thrush knocks")? How can
a sword made by the High Elves turn blue because it senses Orcs? How
can a Morgul blade be more evil than other weapons, breaking off and
finding its way to the heart to turn the victim into a wraith? It can
because the author says it can, and we, the readers, can either reject
that possibility and read some other book, or we can exercise the
willing suspension of disbelief that constitutes poetic faith. Science
and logic and reason have nothing to do with the mechanics of those
universes (though Tolkien does at least attempt to make them
consistent). We need to be a bit more like Luna here, believing in
Crumple-Horned Snorkacks if JKR asks us to, and a bit less like
Hermione (who, to be perfectly in character, should probably have
asked the questions we're asking but didn't because, to JKR, they're
not important).

Dana:
> And maybe I missed something but no where is it implied that you 
CAN'T change the past just that you SHOULD not change the past 
because it is dangerous and there is a simple reason; you can't 
control the effects your changes of the past will have on the events
that already occurred; meaning the present. <snip>

Carol:
This part I agree with, which is why I stated earlier that DD might 
conceivably have gone back to *observe* what happened at Godric's
Hollow but would not have saved James and Lily had he done so because
it's dangerous to change the past for whatever reason. The unintended
consequences of both good and bad actions is another important theme
in the HP books, far more important (IMO) than a mere plot device like
a Time Turner (or a Pensieve or a diary with a memory or memories
preserved in it along with a soul bit).

Carol, who thanks Geoff for the links to previous posts on
Time-Turning (all of which she's already read) but who is really more
interested in the perception vs. reality angle, which is
*thematically* important and not just a plot device that allows the
events JKR wants to happen to happen