Time Travel

[Glenn]

So we all saw the time traveling in Harry Potter : The Prisoner of Azkaban. I have two questions regarding it.

1) Shouldn't Hermione now be older physically than the rest of them. She was turning time back several hours a day. Accumulated over a school year that is a lot of time.

2) How was Harry able to go back and save himself? Theoretically, only someone who is initially going to survive the events in the first place will be able to go back in time.

JKR is a genious but did she make a mistake there?

[Casi]

My guess is that yes, Hermione is probably almost a year older than the boys by now. But they could also be operating on the fact that she isn't traveling through time, she's turning time. Kind of like rewinding. But because she has the device itself, it keeps her stationary, rather than just rewinding her physically. Does that make sense? I think, in a way, it just moves time backwards, keeping her with it. You'll notice that rather than holding on to Harry to bring him with her, she had to physically put the chain around his neck to make it work. So I guess I think that it's rewinding everything, just keeping them in place is all.

As for saving himself...well I've always seen that as kind of the eternal mystery of things like Terminator 2. Harry has to save himself if he is going to survive. So, quid pro quo, he is destined to servive so that he can come back and save himself. It's just one of those vicious cycles, but I never thought of it as a mistake.

[Lizzie]

nopowerintheverse said:

JKR is a genious but did she make a mistake there?

Jo doesn't make mistakes! What are you saying!

Here is an interesting essay about this actually! www.fictionalley.org/authors/who_girl/HAA2_01.html

[Allan]

Man, the link no longer works. My opinion on this was the same as Skitty's, in that she was only turning time around her.