And over time, I've realized that J.K. Rowling really dropped the fucking ball with the whole time traveling thing.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry and Hermione find themselves in a precarious situation—they need to somehow get Sirius Black (innocent to them, guilty to the rest of the Wizarding World) out of a tall tower in Hogwarts to escape imminent death-by-Dementor (well, okay, soul-sucked, but what's the difference?). Shit's about to go down in a few seconds, and Harry and Hermione are stuck in hospital wing under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey.
However, with his trademark wit and wisdom, Dumbledore suggests a way to save the day (he often does), and Hermione takes a clueless Harry by the hand, and back in time they go.
What follows is a beautiful piece of plotting, honestly—kudos to Rowling. It's especially clear how cool this shit is if you go back and reread the end of Azkaban a few times, and see how goddamn nicely all the pieces line up. Harry and Hermione have to avoid everyone, including themselves, until Harry doesn't have to avoid himself, because he's... saving himself...
Actually, you should know this already. You've read Prisoner of Azkaban like twelve times, just like me, right? No? You're not such a loser that you would not only read it so many times, but also go on a long-dormant blog just to offer a critical assessment of the climax and its repercussions? ...Okay then.
Here's a simple explanation of the time travel presented in the novel, by our favorite Harry Potter nerds over at Harry Potter Lexicon.
What you may or may not know is that the time travel presented in Harry Potter is one of three types of time travel that exist in fiction. (That I am familiar with, of course. Feel free to quote other, more obscure time travel theories if you'd like. My favorite books are Harry Potter, for christ's sake, so you should know I don't typically wade too deep into the sci-fi weeds.)
THREE TYPES OF TIME TRAVEL, ACCORDING TO JOE'S LIMITED KNOWLEDGE ON THE SUBJECT
1) The "Hitler Is Immortal" Theory of Time Travel
This theory states that time is rigid and cannot be changed, even if you go back in time and try. Say you go back in time to try and kill Hitler. You go up to his crib with a gun, but the gun jams and you can't shoot. You try to throw him out a window, but a random passerby catches him. You try to poison him, but for some reason Hitler is immune to that particular poison!
No matter how hard you try, you cannot change anything about the past to the degree that it would significantly change the future. A butterfly flaps its wings, and everything stays the same.
2) The "Marty McFly's Picture" Theory of Time Travel
Marty goes back in time via the badass(?) DeLorean at 88 M.P.H. and immediately causes harm to the very fabric of the universe by making his (eventual) mother horny and his (eventual) father miss his chance to bang Marty's (eventual) mother. The threat is that, if Marty doesn't rectify this (i.e., get Mother and Father to meet, marry, and reproduce), he and his brother and his sister would cease to exist. This threat is represented to the audience by a picture of Marty and his siblings that slowly starts to fade.
Unlike "Hitler Is Immortal," in the "Marty's Picture" theory, if you go back in time, you can change things, but these changes will have consequences. These consequences can have varying degrees of severity.
If you go back in time three years and piss on your mother's garden, you might kill her tomato plants, and she won't be able to make BLTs tonight, so you have McDonald's instead. If you go back in time fifteen years and tell your brother to invest in Google, you'll probably be immensely rich. You go back sixty years, however, and kill your grandfather, you are making yourself never exist, except then how would you go back in time to kill your grandfather, in which case, wouldn't he still be alive... and then the universe explodes.
This theory usually dictates that any consequences would take place immediately, so as soon as Marty made his mom all wet before daddy could, the universe should have exploded. But since Back to the Future was a summer popcorn flick, Marty and his siblings slowly start disappearing from the picture, giving our hero time to fix this grave concern. So while Back to the Future doesn't necessarily follow the theory to a T, we'll still name this theory "Marty McFly's Picture" because it's the most ubiquitous example of this time travel theory in pop culture (plus, it's a great fucking movie, though perhaps overrated by meme-loving jabronis).
3) The "Hermione's Time-Turner" Theory of Time Travel
This is the time travel theory that I like the best (sure, probably because of Harry Potter). Simply enough: you can go back in time, but you've always gone back in time, and anything you do has always been done.
For example, in Prisoner of Azkaban, when the Trio are walking under the Invisibility Cloak, Harry thinks he hears footsteps and a door slam. This was in fact the other, future Harry and Hermione who had gone back in time and were hiding from themselves in the present.
A bigger example (and the exact moment Harry realizes exactly what type of time travel he is experiencing) is when he (the Harry that went back in time, or Harry 2) is waiting for "his dad" to show up and save Harry (the one who hasn't gone back in time yet, or Harry 1) from the Dementors. Then Harry 2 realizes that it wasn't his dad who had saved Harry 1, it was HARRY 2 who had saved Harry 1 (back when our current Harry 2 was Harry 1). So Harry 2 stepped out and sent the Patronus, thus doing what Harry 2 has always done in the timeline. Harry 1, meanwhile, being unknowingly saved by Harry 2, survives long enough to take the time-turner and become Harry 2. He then goes back, saves Harry 1, who in turn becomes Harry 2, etc. etc., in an infinite loop.
Confusing, sure. Read it again if you need to.
You can start to see, no matter what happens has always happened. Let's say, hypothetically, Harry 1 drops a huge deuce outside of Hagrid's hut. If Harry 2 steps in said deuce, there would be NOTHING Harry 1 could do to avoid stepping in his own deuce when he becomes Harry 2, even if he says to himself while dropping the deuce "I will remember doing this and there's no way I'm going to step in it later." There's nothing he can do. Harry 2 ALWAYS steps in the deuce outside Hagrid's hut. Always, in every permutation of the timeline loop.
Now let's get to some general reasons why, the more you think about it, the more this doesn't quite work with Harry Potter, and then how J.K. Rowling tried to brush it under the rug, and then finally how she further just completely deuced on the entire time traveling theory over on Pottermore.com.
PROBLEMS WITH ROWLING'S HANDLING OF TIME TRAVELING IN THE CONTEXT OF PRISONER OF AZKABAN
The one main problem I have with the whole time travel issue in Harry Potter comes down to the fact that the Wizarding World, as far as we’re shown, isn’t taking full advantage of the true awesome power of time travel, even as it exists here in these books.
I know what you are thinking, as far as what I mean by “take advantage,” and so let’s take a minute to explain why you are wrong.
I am NOT talking about scenarios such as the following:
1) Get a bad grade on your O.W.L. test? Well then how about you just go back in time, bonk your past self in the head, hide in the closet, take the test again, and get a better grade?
2) Snape took 40 points from Gryffindor because Neville melted his cauldron again? Well then why don’t we go back four hours, teach Neville how to mix the potion properly, and do this enough times to eventually win the House Cup?
3) Uh, I dunno, um, you need to go back in time and tell Dumbledore maybe he shouldn’t try to put the Resurrection Stone on his finger because, like, it’s gonna give him a goddamn curse and lead to Snape performing a fantastical wizarding equivalent to euthanasia?!
None of these examples are possible in our universe with Harry and company. It’s not that simple. We’re dealing with a specific type of time travel here. Any of the problems described above have already happened. These solutions are not feasible, because if they were, they would have ALREADY HAPPENED. Harry is not Marty McFly. He can’t just go back in time and change shit.
However…
Marty McFly be damned, there would, theoretically, be a way to affect the course of time using time travel as we know it in Harry Potter. Let's go back to that first example, the one in which you are poised to fail your O.W.L. exams:
Here's what would happen if you did not harness the full power of the Time-Turner. You are Harry, and you fail your Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. At this juncture, time travel or not, you have failed the exam. You can’t go back in time to change it, because if it needed to be changed, it already would’ve happened. You get a "T" in Care of Magical Creatures ("T" for Troll), and you flunk out of Hogwarts.
And now here's what happens when you take full advantage of the Time-Turner's awesome power. In this scenario, you are still Harry, but this time, you know how to actively manipulate time. You know in advanced that you are at risk of failing your Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. It's obvious. You need just a couple more hours to study, and you just don't have it. Then, all of a sudden, you get bonked over the head, and awake an hour later. You see Ron. "Oy! Mate! I missed the exam!" Ron has a puzzled look on his face. "Mate, you were there right next to me, what are you talking about?" Suddenly, you realize. You, FUTURE YOU, spent a few more hours studying, then went back in time, bonked you (PAST YOU) over the head, then took the exam armed with those extra hours of studying. Once you realize this, you start studying some more, and then you yourself go back in time, bonk your past self over the head, take the exam. Your past self wakes up, realizes what happens, starts studying, etc. etc. in a big fat time-traveling loop.
You see, nothing changes from timeline to timeline. In every timeline, there is a Harry getting bonked over the head, realizing the plan, studying, and then going back in time to complete the loop. It happens ad infinitum. There’s no Marty McFly tomfoolery. Everything that happens has already happened.
BUT the main point of this is: Harry still, when you think about it, manipulated time to his own advantage. He didn’t change anything, per se. But by planning on going back in time, he in effect gave himself an advantage anyway. All he had to do was fulfill his part of the loop after the change had already occurred.
I don’t know if I’m doing a good job of explaining this. Let’s try another example. And, I mean, the example could literally be anything, so let’s see how simple we can make it.
You are Harry, and you are sitting in the Gryffindor common room. Your stomach grumbles. You want some treacle tart. You don’t want to wait. You want it NOW. There is a simple solution. All you have to do is say to yourself, "In one hour, I will grab some treacle tart and use my Time-Turner to go back in time." And as soon as you say that to yourself, a future you appears in front of you with a fist full of treacle tart. He gives it to you, you eat it, your stomach stops grumbling. Now all you have to do is, in one hour, actually grab the treacle tart and actually go back in time, at which point, you will assume the role of "future you," giving the treacle tart to the Harry in front of you, and watch as this other ("past") Harry goes back in time himself, etc. etc.
This type of manipulation of time is never touched upon by J.K. Rowling. And here we have my main issue with time travel as it exists in the Harry Potter universe. We have the sharpest minds in the Wizarding World studying time travel. We have the sharpest mind at Hogwarts in possession of a Time-Turner. And yet nobody figures this out, this very simple way to use time travel to get what you want.
A real book example, straight from Prisoner of Azkaban, would be the following. Consider. After Sirius reveals himself to be a hero, not a villain, and the whole jolly crew is leaving the secret passageway at the base of the Whomping Willow, we observe Remus Lupin the human, and we observe the full moon, and we observe Remus Lupin take a hideous werewolf form. But Hermione, who sees this as well, is armed with her trusty Time-Turner. She closes her eyes and thinks to herself, "okay, I’m gonna spend this next hour finding some Wolfsbane potion, and I’m gonna go back in time with it, and I’m gonna run down her from the castle and give it to Remus as soon as he starts to turn." And she opens her eyes, and sure enough, here comes Future Hermione with the potion, saving the day. Crisis averted. Future Hermione takes her spot with the group, while she (Past Hermione) runs up to the castle, finds the Wolfsbane potion, and goes back in time to save Remus, absolve Sirius, and complete the loop.
Christ, okay, so the issue I’m having with the Harry Potter universe is that you should be able to do shit like this all the time with a Time-Turner, but no one does it. That’s not realistic. Wizards and Muggles alike are, at their core, self-serving assholes. If Time-Turners really do exist, and if they are considered harmless enough that even a thirteen year old can get a hold of one, well then, wouldn’t there be a bunch of other wizards and witches running around, manipulating the world to their own advantage?
Yeah, I acknowledge that the book tried to address this by saying that there would be "consequences" if you saw yourself from a different timeline, but really, this seems to be a cop out. There were no notable consequences from Harry seeing himself blow that Patronus out of his wand. And I doubt Hermione would bat an eye if she saw another copy of herself running around the halls, because she HAS a fucking Time-Turner, she KNOWS why there is another Hermione running around. It’d be pretty fucking obvious to her. She’s a time traveler. Why would she be aghast at seeing the time traveling in effect?
And yeah, I understand that, like in Back to the Future, acknowledging this time travel plot hole would ultimately derail the entire book and everything would cease to matter. But that doesn’t make the plot hole any less egregious and harmful. There’s elegance in the final sequences of Azkaban… until you really think about it too hard. Which I have. Unfortunately.
J.K. Rowling could’ve saved herself (and future dipshit bloggers) a lot of trouble by tweaking the final sequences of Azkaban to something like the following. Harry and Hermione are in the hospital wing, and suddenly, Dumbledore enters. “Hey kids, I’ve been working on some pretty crazy fucking magic lately. I’m pretty sure no one knows about this shit, and I’m pretty sure I only have enough magical ability to do this once, so let’s make it count. I’m gonna send y'all back in time. Three hours. Clearly, since no one has ever time traveled before, you probably should be sneaky about it, especially with your past selves, because that would be pretty suspicious. Just do what you gotta do and make it back here in time, capisce?”
If this was what had happened, we wouldn’t have had to nitpick Time-Turners, and we wouldn’t be here, right now, complaining about some stupid Harry Potter bullshit. But as we all know, that’s not how it worked. Hermione and numerous other wizards had time travel at their disposal, and no one ever decided to manipulate the world to their own advantage, and everyone lived in peace and harmony.
Whew.
Let's move on to part two:
HOW J.K. ROWLING TRIED TO LASSO ALL THESE PSYCHOBABBLE TIME TRAVEL RULES BY DOING SOME LAME SHIT
This section is less involved (thank christ).
J.K. Rowling wrote what was possibly her best Harry Potter book in Prisoner of Azkaban, and the ending works like gangbusters when you don't think about it too much (whoops). Even so, she knew that having a time travel element in her novels would raise some questions, and she cheaply and flimsily brushed them under the rug.
First, as was mentioned, she made time traveling a (paraphrasing McGonagall here) "dangerous and mysterious branch of magic," that "not many wizards fully comprehend even now." In other words, Hermione, use this to get some extra studying done, and sometimes attend two classes at once, and that's it! Because who knows? You might cause the universe to explode!
But Hermione would've seen through this, because she's smart, and she's read some Muggle sci-fi ("or at least she's watched some episodes of Big Bang Theory!" my fiancée will say at this point in her reading of my essay, because she loves me and she knows how to realllllllly get under my skin), and she knows that the Time-Turner creates a certain type of time traveling that can be easily and safely manipulated.
So the fact that she didn't know this has well been established as a problem, but the fact that it is explained as vague hocus pocus is what I'm counting as cheap and flimsy on Rowling's part. Because we know better!
"Okay smartass," says Rowling, "I have a way to back myself out of this corner. I'll just smash all the Time-Turners! That'll get rid of time traveling your problems away once and for all!" And that's what she did. Rowling's plot called for Dumbledore's Army and the Death Eaters to meet at the climax of Order of the Phoenix. These two groups fought it out in the Department of Mysteries, and during the melee, the Time-Turner shelf fell over, eliminating the possibility of anyone traveling in time again.
Right?
Because every single Time-Turner ever was on those shelves? And every single one was smashed in the battle? And smart wizards studying these magical objects have no idea how to recreate these Time-Turners? Because no one ever created them, they just appeared one day, and just as mysteriously as they arrived, they all disappeared into pieces?
Nah, don't buy it.
I mean, that's actually what happened, because that's what J.K. Rowling wrote happening. It's canon that time traveling was no longer around by the time Dumbledore went and picked up Harry at the Dursleys the summer before his sixth year. But when I say I don't "buy it," I mean that I'm acknowledging, despite my fandom, that this is another cheap and flimsy backdoor exit-type plotline to rid the Wizarding World of the damn Time-Turners, and all the plot holes they make plain.
Ah, but fourteen years later, J.K. Rowling decides to tackle yet again the issue of time travel in the Potterverse, and the results deeply upset me.
J.K. ROWLING CONTINUES TO MAKE TIME TRAVELING MORE AND MORE OF A HUGE FUCK-UP
Over on Pottermore.com, Rowling is doing something pretty cool. Well, overall I'd say the site is built for fans of the younger persuasion who want to explore the books electronically, which, yeah, is kinda neat. But she's also stuffing the site with new Potter canon. So now we have the story of Sirius's parents, the history of the Chamber of Secrets and how it got connected to a modern bathroom sink, all kinds of shit like that. It's cool.
But then she dropped some unwritten material on Time-Turners, and it made me cringe.
Here is the passage in full, though I'd definitely recommend you head over to Pottermore.com yourself and check it out. Anyways, read that and then come back.
Now, you've made it this far in my essay—do you see what my issue is with this passage? How about how it COMPLETELY REVERSES WHAT TYPE OF TIME TRAVELING WE ARE DEALING WITH!
Rowling writes that Madam Mintumble (clever name, as always) went back in time for more than five hours (which is now the official Do Not Cross line when it comes to Time-Turning, apparently), causing a rift in the universe. She (presumably) couldn't get back (time turner not working?), and aged for 500 years until the present, and whatever she did in the past changed the present so that 25 people ceased to exist.
Whatever she did in the past changed the present.
Changed the present?!
That's some Back to the Future shit right there! That's not Harry Potter time travel as was established in Prisoner of Azkaban! We're completely switching time travel theories here! This is really irresponsible!
Rowling is presenting two different theories on time travel, and trying to smoosh them together, and I just can't fathom a way in which that would work. My mind keeps going back to Harry 2 saving Harry 1 from the Dementors. Harry went back in time to do what was already done. He did not go back in time to change what happened. It had already happened.
What kills me the most about her Pottermore explanation, besides the fact that it reeks of desperation, is the fact that it tarnishes the tight, beautiful climax of Prisoner of Azkaban. Instead of fulfilling their destinies, now they're just changing the past all willy-nilly. The world is unstable. We're all going to be ripped apart at the seems because time is plastic and someone is going to fuck it up by eating the wrong Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean.
But it's cool guys! All the Time-Turners were smashed anyway, right?
Right.
