Ok, this may strike many of you as a question with an obvious answer, but I can't quite understand why this works. In all the time-travel fics, Harry or whatever is going back in time, but by doing so, they're changing the timeline, therefore they would not end up making the same decisions, so wouldn't need to go back in time, and therefore nothing would have happened. Basically, i'm just wondering if anyone would care to tell me why no-one thought this out before writing a fic like that, or if i'm horribly wrong, and need proper chastisement. If so, CHASTISE AWAY.

 

Most stories don't take JKR's standpoint that time is fixed (aka 'what you change when you go back in time will have already happened in the past) because it's extraordinarily difficult to avoid plotholes and contradictions when you go down this route. Only the truly talented authors can pull it off, because you can't ignore the confusing jumble of plotweaving and Doctor Who-esque shenanigans that logically must ensue. Even then, all of these stories tend to avoid the premise of going back in time to specifically change an event that has already happened, and instead focus around preventing events that will happen. (This is essentially what happened in PoA)

The majority of authors subscribe to the school of thought that the passage of time is in flux, or that changing time creates a parallel universe, because they're damn easy to write.

 

Gotcha. Still, more than a bit of a mind fuck.

 

:facepalm




/10char

 

The dream is real.

 

That's why

 

That's basically one of the standard paradoxes of time travel. Another more well-known one is the grandfather paradox. Basically, if you can go back in time and kill your own grandfather, then it would be impossible for you to exist. If you never existed, then you'd never be able to go back in time and kill your grandfather. But, then your grandfather would have then never died -- and so on.

Rowling cirumvents this using the self-consistency principle. Basically, it's impossible to change time and any attempts by the time traveler to change it or do anything at all make the events come to occur instead.

For example, Harry sees someone cast the Patronus Charm towards the end of the 3rd book. But, when he goes back in time, he ends up being the one to have cast it in the 1st place.

Part of the way author's accomplish this is by shrouding events the time traveler originally sees in ambiguity. For instance, Harry and Hermione in the 3rd book hear an axe hitting something and Hagrid crying out. They interpret this to be Buckbeak's execution.

When they go back in time, they set Buckbeak free and this causes MacNair to use his axe in frustration. Basically, they brought the event into being in the 1st place, but it wasn't the event they expected.

 

Huh, shouldn't this thread be in the trash bin fanfic discussion forum be merged here?

PS: You can't criticize authors for writing their universe the way they want it to write. I mean, if they choose to portray a god in their story, that's their choice - whether you believe in a god or no. Same for time travel.

 

You mis-understand. I am in no way criticizing authors for writing how they want to, merely being confused at their reasoning of how it works.

 

And you aren't confused by the reasoning of how magic works, I suppose?

 

Some how I don't think that's relevant at all to what i'm talking about.

 

Read those articles Oz provided in detail. Then go read Wastelands of Time. If you already have, then do it again. You'll start asking different questions then, like why haven't we seen a Harry/Fleur/Tessa threeway yet. :awesome

 

I actually just finished reading that fully a few days ago. One thing must be said here: The fuck?!

 

Raptor Jesus approves

 

My opinion is rather simple: It branches off into a parallel universe, and nothing you've done has affected the original universe from which you came, except you leaving.

Kill your grandfather and go back to the future? Sure, you're going to the future where you grandfather died, and parallel you doesn't exist. Have fun with that.

Go back in time and kill Hitler in 1922, thus causing Red Alert Universe? Sure, but that's just a parallel universe. In ours, millions of people still died. You didn't really accomplish anything.

 

Right. That makes so much more sense than anything else anyone has told me. Thank you good sir.

 

Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

Also, the Angels have the phonebox.

 

Fuck you! I had that purged from my memory!

/shudder