[HPforGrownups] Re: Time travel/ was:Chapter Discussion: Prisoner of Azkaban Ch 16

[Shelley Gardner]

No: HPFGUIDX 190342


> On 4/29/2011 8:21 PM, zanooda2 wrote:
>> zanooda:
>> Right, DD knowing what was going on and stalling the execution *is* just an assumption
> Shelley again:
> You can keep your theory that neither were ever executed, but then that
> presents to me a much more unbelievable situation, how after the fact of
> no executions, Dumbledore commanded Hermione to use her TimeTurner to
> save those two lives.
I am badly snipping these threads to make another observation. In 
talking to my husband about time travel, he wisely pointed out that this 
discussion is illustrating two popular theories of time travel. I was 
arguing one, Zanooda another. Zanooda is using Novikov self-consistency 
principle, in which it must always have been true that Buckbeak was 
rescued by a time traveller, there would be no "original" history in 
which he was actually killed. Wikipedia has a nice entry on this principle.

My husband also pointed out that Dumbledore, in order to stall at 
Hagrid's "intentionally" to allow Harry and Hermione time to rescue 
Buckbeak, must have been aware of the Time travel, and that is also 
consistent with the Novikovian theory. Extrapolating that thought, it 
occured to me that this would also explain an event later in the books- 
how Dumbledore would know that Ron would leave camping and need a way to 
return, and how his gift of the device that puts out lights would be 
used by Ron to come back at precisely the same time as Harry was 
drowning in a pool of water with the sword at the bottom. (Sorry, I 
don't have my books in front of me to give the chapters and 
correspondingly quote the relevant passages of Book 7.) It would also 
explain, in part, Dumbledore's talk to Harry in his after-death 
conversation with Dumbledore at King's Cross- at having said that "his 
guesses were often correct", and why he would put people in situations 
in which he trusted the outcome, despite everyone else's hesitation. 
Notice Lupin in an earlier discussion with Harry about Snape stated that 
he trusted Dumbledore, as if Dumbledore knew more than the average 
person would, and indeed, if he were aware of the flow of time and it's 
outcomes, it would explain his certainty at picking the correct course 
of action.

If this were true, that Dumbledore was aware of time, then why the death 
of Harry's parents? And then we come right back to either Dumbledore 
knew and let it happen anyway so that all the other events could unfold, 
or, at that time he was not aware and truly thought the precautions they 
took to hide Lilly and James were adequate. It's possible that maybe you 
have to go back in time once to become aware of time, and that happened 
for Dumbledore somewhere between Harry's tragic loss of his parents and 
when we start to see Dumbledore manipulating key events.

Anyway, sorry if the discussion about time makes people's brains hurt. 
It is a rather complex subject!

Shelley