This is what I spend my time doing at 11PM

[video=youtube;9Ts5a_5_LU8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ts5a_5_LU8&feature=channel_video_title[/video]

 

You made this? I am impressed.

Favoriting.​

 

Thank you!
I don't know if you're into HP, but what do you think of the theory?

 

I am.

It sounds entirely plausible, though I doubt Rowling thought of it herself. You are treating the work as if actually happened, which it did not, but it worked out well regardless. Rowling would probably be pleased even if this was not her own interpretation.​

 

Holy ****, I never looked at it that way.

Woooooow. Mind blown. Pretty good theories right there. Damn.

 

I like the part about Voldemort' soul being what the dementors actually sucked out. As for your problem with fixed time-loops I don' t share it : if causality rules everything I don' t see why the electric signals of our brains, i.e. our thoughts, would be the only thing in the whole universe that gets a free pass. I think along the lines of the Oracle in The Matrix, free will is an illusion, we' re not making choices per se, we merely try to understand why we made them.

But I digress. I read Azkaban just once, years ago, so Dumbledore' s "time-travel 101" explanations are pretty foggy in my mind (I suspect the man to be jocking about half of them anyway, it wouldn' t be out of character), so are my memories of the book please correct me if I say wacky things.

There' s one thing that bugs me with your theory : you forgot the butterfly effect. For example whether Harry does or doesn' t buy the book changes a shitload of things. It is possible that the plot as a whole was unaffected, but the Potterverse as a whole is undeniably changed. If he didn' t buy the book he didn' t get to the library, and every single object or person he should have interacted with on this trip suddenly wasn' t interacted with by Harry. Who knows, maybe Harry would have died if he hadn' t gone to the library. No one can predict the butterfly effect, not even Hermione, it would be foolish from Dumbledore to presume otherwise.

We have the same kind of problem with the "Harry did or didn' t rescue himself" plot. Besides, even before we get to that point, in what you call the original time-line, future Hermione doesn' t throw a rock to warn present Hermione that Fudge is coming, so present Hermione and Harry get stucked at Hagrid' s, and so then ... ???? In the book or the movie we clearly see that future Hermione does everything she can to make the present (her past) coincide with her memories of it.

Let' s say there was indeed an original time-line in which Fudge met present Hermione and Harry at Hagrid' s (because there was no future Hermione to throw a rock) then why would future Hermione ever decide to throw that damn rock ? To deliberately mess with the time-line ? The only reasonable motivation she could have to throw that rock to begin with is her memory of someone throwing it, but she can' t have that memory if she never "will have" the idea to throw it, therefore the rock is always thrown, the time-line is unique, there' s no way around it.

I don' t remember if that rock throwing plot was in the book or just in the movies, but I think it' s clearly explained in the books that the only reason Harry could cast such a powerful patronus to save himself is that he remembers doing it. If there was a time-line in which present Harry survived without future Harry' s intervention then future Harry would have no logical reason to ever intervene at all, unless he just wants to mess with the time-line for the fun of it.

In a nutshell basically you can' t change anything in the past. That' s why you can' t resurrect the dead (if you could intervene to save someone then he wouldn' t have died in the first place, if you try to use a time-turner to save someone' s life anyway then you will undoubtedly fail to do so, your future self would have failed "before" your present self even has the idea to get back in time)

Following that same reasoning I hypothesized that the reason Dumbledore told Hermione to use the time-turner to save Sirius and err ... Buckbeack was it ? ... Is that he noticed a pair of Hermiones and Harrys a while before that (one Harry lying in a bed while another Harry was saving Sirius for example, or something fishy along those lines). He already knew that Sirius and Buckbeack were saved by means of a time-travel (they were never not saved), and he understood that he was the one supposed to tell present Hermione to use a time-turner later on.

 

I kind of feel like it was her intention, but she didn't want us theorizing about Harry having two souls so early, which is why she created a timeline where we can't see the original course of events.

I'm aware of the butterfly effect, as I say in the video it IS possible to change the course of time as with the book example (You create a timeline in which nobody buys the book), so obviously lots of things change- but that's okay because you secure a perfect time loop in the process.

It was just the movie, so I ignore the rock throwing- that clearly proves that the movie used a closed timeline

Harry was able to cast a Patronus because the realization that he'd done it before had given him the confidence to do it. As I say in the video I believe surviving a Dementor's kiss would give that kind of confidence. And that later, future Harry couldn't stand watching it happen to himself, which is why he intervened.

And this is what I have a problem with. I guess it's just differences of opinion but I really hate closed timelines. The only point I'm trying to make with this video is that there doesn't need to be a closed timeline for the time travel to work- it's basically an excuse for me to think of it as a bendable time line

 

Why the hell would he intervene, he would have nothing to gain and everything to loose. It would deprive him of the one memory allowing him to cast a patronus in the first place. He cannot predict in any way that he will create a stable time-line with a new set of memory that works.

I' m not especially fond of closed time-lines, or time-travel really, but what you' re suggesting implies that Harry and Hermione success relies on sheer insolent random luck, they change things on a whim, not thinking of the consequences and even less able to predict them, and yet somehow all ends well. On one hand it would be even poorer writing to me (but that' s just personal taste so who cares, both are Deus ex-machina in the end), and on the other hand I doubt Dumbledore would have let them try their luck at messing with the time-line under such conditions. A reckless and foolish yet lucky Harry ? That I can wrap my mind around, but a reckless and foolish Dumbledore ? Just ... no. ^^

 

Haha, Lol. I listened through it all. But the thing that stuck the most was the name of the class you had trouble with. So cute xD

/timetravelwentcompletelyoverhead.

 

Maybe it's just the part of me that doesn't really like Harry speaking, but I HIGHLY doubt Harry is even able to comprehend the importance of a perfect time loop in the first place, or has any idea of the impact of what he's doing. I kind of imagine Harry casting the Patronus and Hermione furiously trying to stop him. This is Harry Potter we're talking about- one of the most rash and reckless characters I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

 

I' m not sure he' s that dumb, but why not.
For some reason movie-Harry seems a lot dumber to me than book-Harry. :lolface:

What I meant was that Dumbledore has no way to ensure a butterfly effect won' t come back to bite them in the ass, as careful as Hermione might be. It comes out as a gamble and I don' t picture Dumby as a gambler at all.

Also technically, if your theory is valid then it does leave room for resurrection (Rowling specified more than once it is absolutely impossible no matter what). When the movie writers made a change Rowling wasn' t happy with she always stepped in (for instance she didn' t let them turn Dumbledore into a heterosexual), so I guess she' s fine with the movie explaining the closed time line in a clear way. I' m sure you' re aware of that, but I wonder something : have you read the book after you came up with this theory ? Just to make sure that, gambler Dumbledore and Rowling vision aside, there aren' t any rock-throwing-like elements in the plot that would ruin your theory ?

 

I'm aware of that but you have to remember that the movies are considerably different from the books and are in no way canon.
Yes I suppose Dumbledore did make a bit of a gamble...but then again his entire Horcrux theory (For which he lost his life) was also a gamble until Harry confirmed it.
I haven't re-read the book since I came up with the theory but I did re-read it just a month ago.

 

Indeed. Let us first assume that anything that might create a paradox simply cannot happen, so the result that we see is the result of reality aligning to avoid a paradox. No matter what, if it happened, it was not paradoxical. That is the first step.

Second, is there any real reason to assume that a butterfly effect exists? It seems that time turners and time travel do exist in the Harry Potter universe, which seems to imply that the butterfly effect is not as serious as you and others have theorized (at least in that universe). You should also consider that the time turner uses magic, and it may have some way of containing the butterfly effect built-in.

Given the choice between risking the butterfly effect and letting Sirius and Buckbeak die, which should Dumbledore have chosen? It will neither create a paradox nor cause major waves using the butterfly effect, so what is stopping him?​

 

Well if you assume you can change the past then it automatically leaves room for the butterfly effect, you can' t have one without the other. Unless you wipe it out with a "it' s magic" excuse of course, but wouldn' t that be free will-messing magic ?

As I pointed out being able to change the past leaves room for resurrection and a bunch of other awesome stuff. If time-turners could be used as lightly as you make it sound then why would the Dumby Gang use it just this once ? If I was them I would use it at every tiny problem thrown my way.

 

Because this problem allowed them to create a perfect time loop and save everyone. The thing about a death sentence is that you do not have to know for sure that they have died to save them from it. You do not have to see someone die in order to create a time loop in this case, because the threat of it exists regardless of whether you save them or not.​

 

Because as I explain in the video, it isn't easy to fix a problem while creating a perfect time loop. It would be pretty much impossible to save Fred this way, for example.

 

The Death Eaters hold Sirius hostage but he' s not dead yet => let' s all risk our skin and fly to London instead of using a time-turner to send a simple warning.

I' ve been poisoned by a bloody ring but I' m not dead yet => let' s not send someone back to warn my sorry ass.

No really, if they could indeed change things using time-turners I don' t get why they only used it once.
Oh well, as long as I don' t re-read the book I guess I can' t really set my heart on anything anyway.

 

I guess you didn't get anything from the video...both of those situations create paradoxes!
Someone goes back in time to warn Sirius. Then nothing happens to Sirius, so nobody goes back in time to send the warning. Exact same thing happens with Dumbledore.

 

First scenario: You have warned yourself, therefore Sirius is not taken hostage, therefore you had nothing to warn yourself about. Ergo, you never went back to warn yourself.

Second scenario: Same problem. You averted the problem, therefore you had no reason to warn yourself when you came to the present again.

The only way to change the past and keep a perfect time loop is to make sure that your experiences up to the point of going back in time remain unchanged. Ergo, until you go back in time, it appears that Buckbeak is dead and Sirius is in prison, even after you stop these things from happening. You have to trick your past self into believing that they died so that he will go back to save them. You cannot change how things appear to you prior to travelling through time. Change the facts without changing your personal timeline.​

 

Exactly. Other than Harry saving himself nothing that Harry 2 and Hermione 2 did influenced the sequence of events of Harry 1 and Hermione 1 whatsoever.