Challenge #1 - Time Travel Paradox.

I came up with this idea after wondering why few, if any, time travel fics have Harry's changes affecting himself in the present. If he were to make changes to his timeline, they would affect him during his adulthood while he is time traveling back to his childhood or beyond.

Summary:

Harry Potter grew up in a world worse than the one we see in canon (pick your setting, doesn't really matter - I keep flashing back to enembee's Skitterleap or the like, it's where I got the idea). After years of research he manages to travel back in time in the hopes of preventing the life he grew up in.

I know. It's the basis for each and every time travel story out there. Bear with me.

Where this gets difficult for the author is that Harry's actions in his own past must set the stage for the books to occur. This means his actions must stop the world he began in from developing, but pave the way for canon. Some good things may be planned, but the bad parts of canon would be accidental. For example, if Harry believes that the Riddles raising Voldemort lead to him becoming evil, he would attempt to negate the problem by placing Tom in an orphanage, which would lead to canon. Or perhaps after being forced to kill a repentant dark wizard, Harry strives to keep himself from having to kill and that philosophy rubs off on Dumbledore. Few, if any, elements from canon should be present in the world that Harry leaves.

That is the major challenge here. The plot would have to be carefully laid out in such a way that the reader would have multiple epiphanies into why a character acted how they did in JKR's books. Obviously, not every plot line would have to be flushed out: Remus will still be a werewolf, nothing is likely to prevent that. It would be up to the author to determine what plot elements to focus on. On the bright side, there really can't be too many comments about people being out of character.

Rules: None. This is already hard enough as it is, but I wouldn't mind seeing an explanation of why Arthur Weasley has a muggle obsession.

Warnings: This would be a major undertaking and continuity errors will be a pain. This isn't something that could be well written in a couple thousand words, but would most likely be 50-60 thousand words or more. This could work as a standalone without canon if done correctly, but wouldn't be half as fun. Also, this idea could make for an interesting prequel to almost any story if done correctly.

I apologize for any typographical errors or grammatical errors and would be happy to answer any questions on the idea or clarify anything.

 

So it'd be a similar Canon story with a sissy Harry? Good luck with that one.

 

Not really. It would be an independent/time traveling Harry who made a few mistakes. I know the Dumbledore thing sounded wimpy, but it was just an example. Hell, make him kill everyone he thinks is bad and have Dumbledore be appalled by it if you want. That was my take on the idea since I don't really know how anyone can write a wimpy time traveller.

His actions would make his future (canon) self wimpy though, that's agreed.

 

I'd like to read this story, only if I didn't actually know what the canon changes are. It would take some seriously good writing to overcome the fact that we all know how it will end(or close enough). Interesting idea, though.

 

More than likely because of the two main theories of time travel. Excluding "Not Possible", of course.

One: If you traveled back in time, it's because you were always meant to. Simply put, you wouldn't see changes because there are no changes.

Two: You're technically traveling to a parallel universe, and not going back in time. So, killing your father or grandmother won't affect you, because you're from a separate universe. There will not be a duplicate of yourself, however, because your lineage was interrupted before your conception.

The only other option is a paradox. You go back and change something which negates your need to go back, which changes you before you go back, meaning you never go back, meaning you never made the change, meaning you went back and changed it, meaning you never go back, meaning you never made the change, meaning you went back and changed it, meaning you never go back, meaning you never made the change, meaning you went back and changed it, meaning you never go back, meaning you never made the change, meaning you went back and changed it, meaning you never go back, meaning you never made the change, meaning you went back and changed it.

Get it? So while your idea might be an interesting musing, its premise is an utterly pointless musing on why characters act the way they do. There are far more effective, less mind-fucky ways to do the same thing.

 

Made sense at the time, but oh well. I even managed to title it a paradox. Subconsciously knocking my own idea, that's a first for me. I had been more focused on how difficult it would be to plan out the plot, where I needed to worry about the logic first. My mistake.

It seems like I need to brush up on my temporal physics or stay well away from the whole time thing for a while. Thanks for the explaination and headache Antivash.

 

The way I read this didn't actually lead to paradox- what you were proposing was to write the story of a more fucked-up Harry traveling back in time (and creating a new timeline as per less-stringent time travel stories) wherein he interferes in such a way as to get canon as the result.

One can only guess just how horrible Harry's other love interests were that he decided Ginny was the best result. It could make quite the cracky romp, trying to find reasons for the results in canon to be the preferred outcomes.

- Remus and Tonks would have been bad parents

- Hermione with anyone but Ron ends up a Dark Lady, successor to Bellatrix or eaten by House-elfs

- a sane Luna results in the next goblin war

- Draco would have been worse than Riddle, only catalyst-Harry introduces him to hair-care products

- Snape would have married Lily, except that was who Harry stole the grooming products from

- Dumbledore really DIDN'T know what was going on, and had to be fed information slowly to prevent him weakening magical society, or worse th old Warlock might have survived the war only to be treated even more like the next Merlin and thus absent-mindedly destroys the Statutes of Secrecy by introducing himself at the UN

 

^^ That is so wrongly right, wordhammer.