Okay, I want to comment on the online translator issue thing, because there's a difference between using one and using one well. Considering I don't speak or write Latin fluently enough to pull the words for any spell out of my ass, I need to utilize something to get a decent incantation, but there's still steps to the process to ensure the spell created doesn't suck.

For instance, if I'm going to create a spell, I try to pin down a Latin translation of the spell's basic description. Once I have that Latin phrase, I'm going to immediately translate it back to English to absolutely ensure that the spell's 'meaning', so to speak, remains intact (because most often, it doesn't). If it garbles the translation one way or another, I try again with different wording.

But even if I'm lucky enough to get a good translation, I still take the time to ensure the incantation makes sense and works within the context of the spell. Some fast combat spell isn't going to have a long, drawn-out incantation - it's going to be a few syllables max. A combat spell that deals more damage or produces a flashier affect or might require more concentration to use might have a longer incantation, but not always. For instance, I gave Fiendfyre in my story a relatively short incantation, namely because I wanted to emphasize that it can be summoned reasonably easy (which makes sense, considering Crabbe summoned it in DH, and on a larger, symbolic note, how the relative 'ease' of the Dark Arts is tempting), but controlling Fiendfyre is what is truly difficult.

That being said, there's also the matter of what translator you use. Google Translate is crap, namely because it doesn't well account for noun/verb distinctions or context of the phrase - it's very much a word-by-word translation, which doesn't always work. I prefer InterTran, if only because it does a modestly better job with phrases.

 

I actually don't have a problem with it as presented in canon. What's implied and almost explicitly stated is that despite having a Time-Turner, you cannot change the past. It's really that simple, as whatever you do only results in what happened before, happening "again" - from your perspective - and all that's really accomplished is that the time traveler does a sort of loop-the-loop in the time stream and everything stays the same, continues on, etc.

I picture time-travel sort of like a loop in a Hot Wheels car track; sure, you can go through the loop and all, but at the end of the day or exit of the loop, you're right back where you started. Nothing in canon was changed - AT ALL - by Harry and Hermione going back in time. Everything that happened "before," i.e. "the first time through," happened exactly the same way when they repeated that segment of time. They didn't know that, but when Harry saved himself and Sirius from the Dementors, it was no paradox, just the "natural" order of things happening "again," or as they did "before."

And as for the dire warnings about being seen by your past self, etc... Well. It's obvious that this doesn't happen and is probably more of an overstatement to Hermione so she'll be as careful as possible. Think about it: if you were to see your future self and went nuts, well that future self is nuts as well, and if so it was what happened the first time around. If you go back in time and are seen by your past self, well that's no surprise, since you've already seen future yourself, back when you were your past self.

I guess what I'm saying is that as it's written, there's no way for a paradox to happen. If you go back and kill your past self, that past self cannot go forward to then go back in time, and the "system" would reset itself. As if it never happened. But in my Hot Wheels view, since it never happened in the first place, it can't happen in the second place. I'm sure that made no sense to many of you, as I'm not explaining it well, but in any case it's the way I see it.

Changing The Past = Impossible. End of Story.

Huh. I very rarely re-read even *finished* fics, let alone abandoned ones.

Actually, if I see a fic recced here (which is the only place I ever look for reccs) and it hasn't been updated recently, I don't even bother. Come to think of it, I don't remember the last time I started an unfinished fic, other than those posted here in the WbA.

I just don't have the time or the inclination to read a half-finished story (again, DLP's WbA notwithstanding) when there are other things to do, like original novels or, more often, the five thousand or so things I need to get done every day.

- Work
- Wife ;-)
- Kids
- Kids' commitments
- Shit breaking at my house
- Exercise (actually waayyy farther down the list)
- Remodeling the house one room at a time
- Reading (includes DLP time)
- Other hobbies
- Attempts at writing my own stuff (yeah, that's going great)
- More work >:-/

Wait, you mean that's not how Snape did it? Heh, wouldn't it be ironic if that's how Luna's mother killed herself - using a shitty Latin correspondence course a la Dresden?

 

You've pretty much perfectly written down exactly how I think time travel works in the HPverse, Portus.

 

That's correct, but a time-turner is still extremely powerful. Without it Buckbeak and Sirius would have died.


Imagine someone almost getting killed and at the last minute he's saved by a stranger. Later in the day he comes across a time-turner and goes back in time to save his younger save, therefore making it consistent.
Still, if there was no time-turner for him to find, he would have died, because that's the only way it would make sense then.

So owning one is a pretty big power-up.

 

^ I don't think you understand what I'm saying at all.

The past is set; either they never died, or they died no matter what. The Time Turner is just the plot device, and if your example person was saved by a stranger, it's either himself or not. If it was his future self, then there's no way that he will *not* have the Time Turner later and go back, because it already happened. The part between the saving and the going back is merely the "point A to point B" of it; there's no question about "what" will (and already did) happen, only the minutiae of "how" the person gets to that future point.

EDIT: See Ryuggi Shi's Master of Death in the Dresden WbA for an example of what I mean.

 

Oh god. Please don't talk about time things. It hurts my head thinking about all the paradoxes.

 

I'm confused as fuck but I have to say: time was changed in the HPverse. Buckbeak and Sirius died when they otherwise would not have.Maybe I'm remembering wrong but Buckbeak was killed, which is why they went back as early as they did and Sirius was Kissed even after Future!Harry saved him. But at the same time Harry didn't get Kissed because his future self always stopped it.


So it seems like Terminator-time travel basically.

Also:
This is a canon problem as well but I can't stand it in my fics: Things that do not fit with the magic we've seen in the Verse already. Sure if written well enough I can buy mythril and Atlantis-magic, but something about thaumaturgical magic bugs the fuck out of me. HP magic should be LOS in my opinion.

And on that note things like Felix Felicis and the curse on the DADA job make me twitch. These spells seem to fuck with the universe itself. There doesn't seem to be any defense or counter on them they just are.

 

As sad as it is to say, MoR has the most coherent explanation for how time-travel works in the HPverse. Portus' explanation works, but it's not entirely complete.

 

Seems to me to be perfectly complete. When travelling in time you can't change anything, because everything has already happened. The end.

 

Neither of them died; Buckbeak appeared to have done, but Future!Harry and Hermione had already saved him off-page. Sirius actually doesn't get Kissed at all, either at the lake or later on when he's in the Tower, although the film made it look as if the Dementors had started to suck his soul out.

Edit: ninja'd, but yeah.

Basically, events happen, but then they need to go back in time to make sure that they happen (although technically speaking, there's no way they can't happen, because they already have. It's best not to think too hard about it).

 

How can everything have already happened if you haven't traveled back in time yet (or, for that matter, haven't even gotten your time turner yet)?

The answer is that it can't: the entire timeline must be written simultaneously.

 

Time travel never makes sense, at some point you just have to say "It's magic" and accept it.

The problem is that just about the only magic we see in canon is the stuff they see in school. Just because things don't happen in the books doesn't mean they can't. I have no problem with inventing cool magic systems in fanfics, because there is nothing in canon that says they don't exist

 

The point however is that it has happened/will happen/is happening all at the same time. Sirius survived because Harry and Hermione used the time turner to go back. Harry and Hermione were always going to use the time turner to go back, because Sirius survived.

Possibly the easiest way to think of it, is that in canon everything is pre-determined, time follows a single pathway with no deviations. Certainly this would tie in with the way prophecy seems to work as well.

 

Considering that the time exists only within the Universe, you can assume that from the outside point of view it was created as a whole thing.

 

If this is true then it makes sense. I haven't read POA in ages so I was thinking of the movie scene where Harry and Hermione /see/ Buckbeak get killed. If it is not like that in the book and is more ambiguous then I guess it's internally consistent.

I'll check POA when I'm done studying.

 

While the Felix effect seems almost like a love letter to the Norns, I have an easier time with the DADA curse- one need only recognize that it isn't a death sentence.

The curse is that the person holding the position will be confronted with their worst fear, in a poetic justice sort of way. For Quirrel, it was to end up being nobody important and a vessel of Dark Arts at work. Lockhart's fear was being forgotten and having his own trick used against him. Lupin's fear was for his curse to be made public and for it to threaten those he cared about (in this case Harry). Moody was ambushed by his old enemies and his paranoid habits used against him. Umbridge found herself at the mercy of part-humans bent on chaos (the Centaurs as well as the Weasley twins). Snape was forced to choose a side and kill the only person left who valued him. The Carrows had their own curses used against them and saw the ultimate defeat of their Dark Lord, leading to their conviction and/or death.

Even Harry succumbed to the curse, as his secret organization was revealed and disbanded, and he lost the last father-figure he felt he had (a piss on Lupin, there, but that's his own fault for staying away).

If I have a peeve about this it's the idea that some Uber!Harry could beat/outwit this curse despite better and more learned wizards' attempts to defeat it since Riddle came back from his world tour to invoke it.

 

It's not the death sentence that get me; it's the way it fucks with the universe in some vague, pre-determined way that seems to say "Fuck you" to free will that annoys me.

But it's canon, what can you do?

 

Personally I love that sort of stuff. It is just so magical in its ability to defy all explanation.

 

Now *that* is a good idea! I wouldn't find it so annoying if more authors did that.

 

I generally hate these types of stories anyways (with the exception of Santi) but when Harry has a twin brother who has a name that isn't even remotely english..
"Harry's twin brother, Gary has been mistaken as The Boy Who Lived.."
Come on really?

Also; OC's that are clearly based on the author, stories where Harry and Co. gets a copy of one of JKR's books; any story that involves a "soul bond," any author that says that they don't want negative reviews, and excessive A/N's and A/N's mid-chapter.