logic dictates that it creates a paradox and a contridiction in time. Unless there are overlapping universes, time travel cannot be possible.

you travel back in time - you change things and you create a new path for the universe to follow.... or something. And that cant be possible because there is already a set path in the past to present.

Why is this so popular in fanfictiion?

 

The one thing you have to be able to understand is that in order for any time travel concepts to work is that time is not linear.

First, we described time as flowing in a line from point a to point b.

Once the idea of divergent universes came about time changed to something like a tree where each choice breaks into a new branch, but is still in an ever-flowing line.

Some people like to describe time as a never-ending circle, but this doesn't account for the divergent universes concept. Thus, the more modern "web" concept of time came to be. The idea that any point in time is connected with other points, and thus alterable into a new "flow" or "path", but does not alter the overall "universal time web".

As I'm not an expert in any of the many fields of science that overlap with this I can't help you further in that respect.

However, to answer your primary question... people like the idea of being able to correct their mistakes to make a better life. Time travel has always been a concept that grabs our imaginations and it will continue to do so as our science begins to postulate on more and more interesting ways to accomplish the impossible.

 

Err... not to point out the obvious but because it was featured so heavily in canon? The entire conclusion of PoA depended on how JKR instituted time travel. In canon's case, it's essentially a sort of predestined format, where the course of events (while timelines overlap) is fixed. Buckbeak never died, we were just led to believe that and assume it. Just like Harry's dad never appeared and saved Harry and Sirius, we were just led to believe that. As we go back in time and run through it again, we see everything happening exactly as it did the first time, only now we see just how it all tied in together.

Fanon on the other hand sometimes prescribes to that theory, but other times it takes the infinite choices split off into infinite alternate universes theory, where you are more than welcome to murder your grandfather or sleep with your mom and become your own dad.

Two different ways to handle time travel. Both make for decent plot points, but way too often the reason fanfic authors use time travel is for the weakest of excuses.

 

Well, I actually like how the HP books protray time travel--like, the effects of time travel are already factored into the timeline, before the people travel back in time. It indicates a more linear type of time travel, in that the timeline was already altered by those who travel back in time, to be experienced by everyone else. Quite a unique belief.

 

It causes fewer headaches that's for sure. ...unless you're Harry and get popped by a rock thrown by Hermione.

 

Following Rowling's Method...

I couldn't tell you if this story has been mentioned in the past, but...

Time to Spare: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2538955/1/

...by EmySabath follows JK's set method for time travel. I really like this story because of the way she has characters accomplishing their purpose in the past, rather than changing history, as they were always there. My opinion on time travel is that I don't really have a preference on how they do it, as long as it happens. Of course, the 'Oops, my time turner fell' and 'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...' get a bit annoying, but I just love to read the way they handle being from the future and what events they choose to change.

 

Time is a fractal. I really don't know how else to explain it.

 

I do agree that time travel makes no sense ordinarily but if you factor in how Harry saw himself it makes sense. Think of time as a road. Most people travel in a straight line down the main motorway, but there are also sideroads. As long as you aren't in the exact same place as another car, it is possible, and you can make the journey over and over again.
Plus of course there is one main thing you are overlooking. Magic isn't logical, it makes no sense someone could defy gravity using some mystical force channeled through a stick with a piece of animal inside. We don't justify this, we just work around it, maybe you should treat time travel the same. Just a thought.

 

You would think with the abundance of time-turners, (i mean Hermione has one just for her studies) that they would be used much more often in the series. Many events throughout the series could have been changed (Sirius death, along with Cedric's, etc.) if these devices were used more often. Overall, i tend to ignore the existence of time-turners as they simply create too many plot holes in the books.

 

Well, the thing about time turners is that nothing that actually happened can change. If Cedric got his head cut off in the present then you can't go back and stop that from happening. The good thing is that perception is reality. While you might THINK you saw Cedric's head get cut off that could just have been some sort of magical dummy that replaced him at the last second.

 

You can also argue that Cedric shouldn't have gotten his head chopped off in the first place, as someone in the future should have had come back to the present and saved him with a time-turner.

Besides, you can view this as one big cycle. Say if in the past people had just created time-tuners for the first time, then this discovery could start a cycle. People from the future would come back after using a time-turner and change decisions in the present. The people in the future would also be visited by people from the distant future and so on. Eventually this would just create a "utopian" world free of crime, as it would seem impossible to be able to participate in illegal activities. All this simply because the people from the future would find out; go back in time, and stop these actions from ever happening.

 

...Magic...

 

People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect... but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly.... timey-wimey.... stuff.

Oh, how can I explain the mechanics of the infinite temporal flux to a bunch of primitive apes?

 

Anyone doubting that The Doctor is The Doctor, can have their doubts assuaged now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw

Either that, or he's this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s95Mm0cFqg

Yak.

 

Hey, I wouldn't mind being Andrew Hanson.

And he really is a massive Doctor Who nerd. Most of the props in that vid are his own.

 

How do you even know that. You are a total nerd. A lord of nerds. Nay, The Eternal Lord of Whovian Nerdom.

How is Whovian even a word? Goddamn nerds.

Yak
nerdcore rising

 

Reyhkt, as already shown in PoA a time turner changes nothing. Everything that Harry and Hermione went back to do had already happened, nothing changed. They just had to go back to make sure it actually happened.

 

But that doesn't change anything. That just means the aurors(or unspeakables) had already changed the events in the past. They would later have to go back and change some events from happening, which the ministry would say were illegal. It would be a "utopian" world, but only because of the fact that the events in the present were already changed by the ministry of the future.

 

I watched the Chaser DVD. Funny as hell.

I love you too, Yak.

 

J.K. Rowling's concept of the time-turner just doesn't make sense. Time is infinite, so it goes on forever. However if this was true, then the present day would be pretty much fucked up. If time were indeed infinite, then with the invention of the time turner infinite events would occur in the present day.

For example, if people have the ability to come to the present day, infinite amount of people would do so from the infinite future. People would come from 10 days in the future, or 10 years, or a million years. With these infinite number of people coming from the infinite future, infinite amount of events would occur in the present. It simply would be impossible to imagine all the changes this would bring to the present.

It is possible that time-turners do not allow people to go too far in the past, let's say only a week. This would solve all the problems from the infinite future. Events in the present could only be changed by the people from a week in the future. Yet this still creates many issues.

The invention of time-turners completely destroys the theory that time travel is impossible in the Harry Potter universe. Meaning that somewhere sometime in the infinite future, someone would discover a way to create a time-turner that could go as far in the past as the user requires. You can even argue that there is a infinite chance of someone doing so as time never ends. With this invention sometime in the future, people would go in the past. In time, someone would make it to the present. As time continues going on and on never to stop, we again have the issue of infinite amount of things visiting the present.

In the Harry Potter universe, the world seems relatively unaffected by the invention of time-turners. Unless time was not infinite, or there is some law of the universe that states it is impossible to go back in time more than a week, I cannot see how the present would be so undisturbed. More than likely, Rowling just needed a way to save Sirius and Buckbeak in the third book. So she came up with what she no doubt thought was a brilliant way to solve all these problems. Rowling's introduction of time-turners in the book was poorly constructed at best. She added these devices to the plot with no concern for the consequences.

Unless you guys can come up with an idea to fix the time travel problem, i'll just ignore the whole time-turner thing for now.