Episode #23: Going Back in Time
One of the cardinal rules of any story, be it in movie or book form, is that once you introduce time travel, all bets are off. Once you start to “bend-a time and space,” you can do pretty much anything. Of course, if you do it right, this makes for a great story. But beware the paradoxes of time travel, such as the predestination paradox. To whit: how could Harry save himself from the Dementors, if, if not for Harry himself, he would have died? It’s enough to tie your brain in a knot, but there might just be a way out. In this episode, we do our best to outline two different theories of time travel, and discuss which one best fits with the events of Book 3. It gets a bit confusing at times, fortunately, you can always rewind the podcast and listen to it again!
In the news:
- Daniel Radcliffe signs on for last two Potter flicks.
- JK Rowling named one of Scotland’s most influential women.
- Vote for Potter for a Nick Kid’s Choice Award.
You can listen to the podcast using the player below, or download an mp3 directly.
March 8th, 2007 at 3:19 am
Hi, Penny! Were you talking about “The Blue Yonder”, a Disney made for TV movie released in 1985?
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
March 8th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Hi, Penny! Were you referring to “The Blue Yonder”, a Disney made for TV movie released in 1985? =)
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
March 8th, 2007 at 3:23 am
Hi, Penny! Were you referring to “The Blue Yonder”, a 1985 Disney made for TV movie? =) http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
March 8th, 2007 at 3:26 am
Hi, Penny! Were you referring to “The Blue Yonder”, a 1985 Disney made fot TV movie?
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
March 8th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Hi, Penny! I hope this comment finally posts. =( I’ve been trying for the past 10 minutes. =(
Were you referring to “The Blue Yonder”, 1985 Disney made for TV movie?
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
March 8th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Just listened to the podcast, as always it was highly entertaining. Thanks, Greg and Penny. On the topic of time-travel, I’d like to throw my two cents in…as much as I find it hard to believe, I have to agree with Greg’s theory. JKR is setting up a brand of predestination time-travel: i.e. the events affected by Harry and Hermione going back in time could only happen the way they did because it was predetermined that they would use the time turner. Buckbeak never died because by the time we hear the scene the first time, the future is already set up so that Harry and Hermione will save him by going back in time.
Like when the Flash ran so fast that he eventually traveled through time and turned into the lightning bolt that struck him, giving him his powers in the first place - or Desmond on LOST going back in time, being on the Island was the only way he could go back to live his life that would lead him to the Island…
Of course these are all just musings…I could be totally off.
March 8th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Yeah, these predestination paradoxes or self-fulfilling prophecies can be really confusing. I guess the thing to remember is that with time travel is that the effect of an action would seem to precede the cause of that same action. Although, if were to think this through on a linear perspective, perhaps Buckbeak did die in an alternative scenario but it was Harry Hermione’s activation of the time turner that produced a completely new linear scenario with Buckbeak remaining alive and Harry seeing himself conjure the Patronus… okay, im getting cross-eyed here… signing off!!
March 8th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I think I am going to have to sit back and let greg comment on the comments about time travel and the predestination paradox. My mind is spinning. I should just stick to trashy novels.
March 8th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
This is not related at all to Episode 23 (which I loved!) but I have this thought/topic suggestion: What significance (if any) does the shape of Harry’s scar have?
March 8th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
I hope this works for me this time… Was having trouble with posting comments….
Anyways, I emailed Penny with the link to “The Blue Yonder”, a 1985 Disney made for TV movie. Here’s the link, if some of you guys want to check it out:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
=)
Penny: I think I’ve seen this once but that was when I was quite young, so I don’t really remember much. Must find video! =)
March 8th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I emailed Penny with the link to “The Blue Yonder”, a 1985 Disney made for TV movie. Here’s the link, if some of you guys want to check it out:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088831/combined
Penny: I think I’ve seen this once but that was when I was quite young, so I don’t really remember much. Must find video! =)
March 8th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I found a cool site that lets you listen to all of the Potter books
step 1: go to google and type in AltaVista - Audio Search
step 2: at the audio search type in Harry Potter Jim Dale
step 3: click on the second choice, it will take you to the first Potter book. To listen to the others click on Return to book selection. enjoy!
March 8th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
To really understand time travel in PoA it’s best to not think of time as being linear. Think of existence in a loop, all time happens all the time continuously. To borrow from another fandom, “All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.” Since one moment in time is always happening anyone who actually goes backward in time to change something has always gone backward in time to change the aforementioned thing. Basically, Buckbeak never dying is exactly the same as Harry never being kissed by the Dementors. They couldn’t have happened because they didn’t happen, but the only way for them to not happen was for time travel to have happened. I hope that clears everything up.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Poe: that is a good way to look at it. Time happening all at once is really the right way to explain it.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:27 am
The Office featured a really funny Harry Potter reference last night- here is the You Tube link to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3d2H-mnQkM ENJOY!
March 9th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I think the predestination thing works for Harry & Hermione’s time travel adventure. But it doesn’t fit with Hermione saying (and this is just from memory, no book at hand) that wizards have accidentally killed their past selves. That comment seems like it would require a more Back to the Future-esque version of time travel.
It’s confusing is what it is.
March 9th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Thinking of time as linear is an image we created as humans–that’s why it’s so difficult for us to think of it in any other way. According to the way we’ve been trained to think, time passes and adds another little segment onto our line.
It’s much easier to think of time as a lake (not my image. I stole it from an author.) composed of different events that occur simultaneously in different parts of the lake. So then, when characters time travel, they jump into another event bubble.
Buckbeak could not have died because Harry’s character would always lead him to the same action–rushing off to help the hippogriff. If we assume that Buckbeak died the first time the characters witness the events, as Penny suggested, then we would have to reassess everything we know about Harry[’s character].
March 9th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Oof. I agree with Penny on this one. Time travel is waaay too confusing for me. Good episode, though, as much as it gave me a brain freeze!
March 10th, 2007 at 1:23 am
i think that this prognostication really confused me, the only thing that i acctually understood was the sean connery jokes… althought my dad was in debate with greg and penny the whole time, being 13 and having my 50 yr old dad debate the topics in the harry potter books with me is very much as greg and penny with their disccussions. i know that not all of this pertains to the podcast but i agree with paige and penny time travel = >.
March 10th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Just listened to this weeks podcast. Greg’s dead-on with his analysis of the time-travel and what happened to Buckbeak. However, I don’t think that he properly explained the implications. Not only were Harry and Hermoine there the first time we read through the events (which was the only time the events occurred – we just saw them from 2 different points-of-view relative to their own internal chronologies), but they had no choice but to be there. They couldn’t have not gone back in time (please excuse the double-negative, but it makes the point better), because they already had gone back in time. That’s the key to the predestination paradox…there’s no option not to travel in time because you already did it. The obvious counterpoint is that you can change history like in the Back To the Future movies (resulting in the Grandfather Paradox). If Penny is having trouble wrapping her head around the predestination paradox in Harry Potter, might I suggest looking at the other great time travel movie of the 80’s: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Here’s a brief synopsis of the time travel that I stole from Wikipedia:
The movie’s entire plot is a model example of a Predestination paradox, wherein Bill and Ted are entrusted with the means to dramatically improve the entire universe of the future by a citizen (Rufus) of that very future. Near the end of the movie, Ted solves the problem of breaking into the jail by exploiting this paradox, demonstrating an unexpected (probably to himself as well) level of temporal insight. Knowing that time travellers (themselves) in the future world can provide aid to those in their current situation (as Rufus does originally), they resolve to help themselves break into the jail by stealing Ted’s dad’s keys from a couple of days ago and leaving them where they will be found at the exact moment of the resolution. The astute viewer may reflect at this point that Ted’s dad complained about having lost his keys at the beginning of the film, which Ted at that time knows nothing about. This accordance with the Novikov self-consistency principle, suggests that there was never any possibility for Bill and Ted to fail. The same accordance lends validity to the fact that their removing critical figureheads from history does not cause the world of present-day San Dimas to be drastically different (Although, Bill and Ted might have pulled them out of history after they have done what made them famous.) Moreover, and perhaps more relevant, their history project remains impressive insofar as the history produced by the characters has not been modified by their absence. Bill and Ted are paradoxically bound to return them all afterwards, unscathed.
Anyway, hope that helps. Keep up the good work.
(P.S. Maybe it’s just me, but I love to put a face to a voice. Any chance that you could put a picture of yourselves on the website?)
Thanks,
Frank
March 11th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Time Travel - you can’t change what is known - well of course you can’t prove or disprove that - it’s all theoretical. But in the Back to the Future movie - the original…Marty McFly originally meets Doc at Twin Pines mall. He returns to 1985 and LONE Pine Mall. If you can’t change what’s known, why didn’t he return to Twin Pines Mall?
March 11th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Yes, what Frank said, I want to know what you two look like! It’d make it that much better listening to you to be able to have faces to put to the voices (not that your show isn’t great already!).
March 11th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
We’ll work on getting pictures up, in the mean time, check out the HPProgs Myspace page, Penny and I are the first two friends listed, so you can get a glimpse of us over there.
March 11th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Although, I don’t really look so much like that anymore. That picture was taken around 3 years ago. We seriously need to update our pictures, Greg.
March 12th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Ha Ha we left our comments on the my space page guess we should learn to read. Well done podcast I agree with Greg, Dee with Penny. Gotta go drive the choo choo…….. thanks for the fun.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
i have proof that greg’s theory is wrong! although i dont thave the direct quote, i remember the book saying that the “golden trio” as they are so affectionately called must turn away as they see the shadow of buckbeak geting his head chopped off. i will look for my book so that i could prove it moreover.
BWAH!!
sorry, i get (as my friends call it) a tad eccentric or however you spell it
so there, i agree with penny also that time travel confuses me too much
March 18th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
YO!!! Just wanted to say that i really enjoyed the last podcast about time travel as i think its a really important part of the series, if not ehy would we have been so exposed to it in p.o.a and then again in o.o.t.p?? also i think gregs comments about the whole not being able to change something you already know to have happend was fantastic and would explain my personal fave theroy of harry going back to the night of voldies little trip to godrics hollow and that he himself(harry that is) may have had a hand in what happened that night but with no one really knowing(or just not telling) what exacltly did happen that night he would not know that he himself had done something only that it had hapened, thus not changing anything that has transpired. if you get me…. kep up the good work
March 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Tylyn: Bring it on! Penny and I looked it up over the weekend and she agrees with me. I will have to get her to state that on the next podcast!
March 21st, 2007 at 6:53 pm
>.
March 21st, 2007 at 6:55 pm
dard i thought that i was proving you wrong. well. yeah i’ll listen to the next one, i havent had it downloaded yet also, if you’re seeing equious on broadway im soo going with you
March 22nd, 2007 at 7:15 pm
hmm..
Greg Says:
March 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Tylyn: Bring it on! Penny and I looked it up over the weekend and she agrees with me. I will have to get her to state that on the next podcast!
no mention. you scared?
*fake mocking*
wanna get froggy greg? then JumP!
haha just kidding
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Woops, we forgot to mention. Yeah, I re-read PoA last weekend and I have to say, FOR THE MOST PART (not exactly 100%), I agree with Greg. Oh well. Thanks for your support anyway!
April 5th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
fine
(just wait till i find m comy of poa…..)
April 7th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
okay im sorry WHAT was the name of that movie again?? i forgot.. haha just kidding ur computer was probably just acting weird so u had to keep reposting it lol
April 24th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
I’ve recently rediscovered the HP Progs site (I was reading your essays before), and have been slowly catching up, listening to all of your podcasts starting from #1. Great stuff, I’m very glad you’re “back”.
Actually, I think that in the theory Greg is talking about you cannot change anything at all, even if you don’t know things. Like Greg, I also think that this theory makes more sense than the other one that does allow you to change things.
For instance, I’ve recently watched “The Lake House” movie, which deals with some changing of the past, if not actually time-travel, and I absolutely hated how it happened! Basically (and I’ll try not spoiling stuff), there was an event in the past that the heroine wanted to change, so that it didn’t actually happen.
1) It actually already happened, and she knew about it;
2) She sent a letter into the past to ensure that this event does not occur;
3) She changed the past, and she still remembered the old version of the past.
Now there a few problems I see with that: now the event that motivated her to send that letter to prevent it from happening — that event *didn’t occur*. She doesn’t have any reason to send that letter, and technically, she shouldn’t even remember learning about that event, because now it didn’t occur.
This is not my idea of how time works. I like my movies to make sense, even in such complicated situations. (”Back to Future” movie more or less made sense, just used a different model.)
There was actually a good article on Mugglenet about time-travel in Book 3, that showed exactly how Harry and Hermione didn’t change a thing about the past. (Mugglenet is down right now, so I cannot link to it. And actually I saw a better article a few years ago, but since it’s been that long ago, I don’t know exactly where it was.)
And yes, I think there was no escaping; Harry had to go back in time, because that’s how it happened — he did go back. No matter how circular that may seem, that makes sense to me, at least.
May 11th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I’ve been told I am likely overthinking things, that sometimes things happen in books because they have to happen and/or because there are such things as publisher’s deadlines… But I wrote an entry in my journal about:
Why Harry could and had to save himself by going back in time;
At the same time why Voldemort couldn’t just sneak one of those Time-Turners before he was in any danger and just use that every time.
Obviously JK Rowling sets the limits of the magic, but then she has to follow them. If Harry was able to save himself through time-travel, then it becomes possible for anyone to do so, unless Harry is a special case.
http://camomiletea.livejournal.com/163115.html