First of all, the Harry
Potter books and films are absolutely wonderful. I was lucky enough to
experience all of them while my kids were growing up and it was such a fun
time, with a work of fiction that was so imaginative and well done. I
particularly enjoyed how Rowling used her magical world to overcome writing
obstacles. Have a series of books where the entire world is seen through
Harry’s eyes, yet you need flashbacks? Invent the pensieve. Don’t
want modern phones and computers in use to send messages? Use owls.
Want to throw a little time travel wrinkle in the third book? Use the
time turner.
Normally, the Single String
time travel loops usually drive me nuts. Sometimes, however, they make
for fun drama and I have a tough time critiquing anything in this series.
I will refer to the events in the film, because they were a little more
concise. Harry, Ron and Hermione experience a series of events leading up
to the climax of the film. A meeting at Hagrid’s; chasing Ron’s rat to
the Willow and eventually to the Shrieking Shack to find Sirius Black.
Black’s true identity is revealed, as is the rat’s, and then the full moon
appears causing Lupin to change into a werewolf. The werewolf runs off,
and Harry tries to rescue a downed Sirius from the Dementors, and is saved by a
patronus. (Imagine reading all that and not know anything about Harry
Potter.)
Okay, exciting enough.
What happens next is the time travel twist. Hermione was in possession of
a time turner for the entire school year. She was using it responsibly
and quite nerdily, to double-up on her magical course load. She takes
Harry back to the original meeting at Hagrid’s, now as on-lookers, and through
the course of events already experienced, they interact and sometimes cause the
original events themselves. Harry is the cause of the patronus that saved
himself. Hermione distracted the werewolf to spare Sirius.
You get the picture.
This is a time loop. Loops are used in a lot of time travel films and I
think work really well with comedy. I just don’t buy them as practical
time travel because they interfere with our notions of free will. This is
the time travel of preordained events. It is fate. There is no room
for any changes of mind or hesitation for the time traveler. If you caused
it to happen because of traveling back in time, when you actually make the
journey you will cause it to happen, no matter what. I wrote about this a
few years ago and I still like my example:
Say I travel into the future
a month from now. I see my family and myself from the bushes. I’m spying on
myself to see what was going on. Same old Jim typing on the computer. Lame ass.
I sneak in the house, I check my bank statements. I check my mail. Same life.
I go to the liquor store and
I see the list of lottery numbers from the past few weeks. I make a mental note
of the numbers and the date they won. I may even write them all down on a
slip of paper. With my new found numbers, I travel back to the minute
I left, on month earlier. In time travel terms, pretty simple.
According to Single String
theory, I can’t play those numbers and win. There is NO way. For the full month
that I could buy the ticket that will win the $147 million jackpot, I’ll never
get to the store and I’ll never buy a ticket and win. Loop time travel
says that there is no way I can get to the store in a solid month and change
the future I witnessed.
See? It makes no sense
to me. The future me was not a millionaire, so according to loop time
travel, there’s no way I would be able to play the lottery. But why
not? I have the numbers and I have a full week to go down to the 7-11,
buy some jerky and win 147 million dollars.
So that is a trip to the
future in the Single String world. How about the past? It also
negates free will. I go back in time to try to stop myself from getting
into a car accident. I get there hours before the former me even gets in
the car. Single String theory says there is nothing I can do to stop him,
because not only did I get in an accident, this older version of
me traveled back and did nothing. What? There’s dozens of
things I could do! Lose my keys. Slash a tire or two.
Siphon gas. Make myself intentionally late to miss the oncoming Subaru
Outback…
Back to Hogwarts. The
time turner is magical so I give it a pass as a plot device. (Plus, I
just love these movies.) I wanted to use this as an example of the other theory
of time travel working just fine in a good film. It can truly be anything
a writer decides; as long as it works in the film itself. I think Rowling
took just the right angle, in just the amount of story time, to make a
successful episode in the series.
-jim
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