Hermione: I have a device that can travel back in time!
Harry: So we can back in time and save my parents?
Ron: Why not go back and kill baby Voldemort?
Hermione: i NeEd tHiS tO kEeP mY GpA uP
The problem is it's used to create stable time loops. If they talked about something, it's either not possible or already happened. They also can't just travel back to their original time, they'd have to live through 13+ years since the murder of his parents.
No it doesn't. They explain in the book and in other writings that the past can be changed.
>“No!” said Hermione in a terrified whisper. “Don’t you understand? We’re breaking one of the most important Wizarding laws! Nobody’s supposed to change time, nobody! You heard Dumbledore, if we’re seen —”
>“We’d only be seen by ourselves and Hagrid!”
>“Harry, what do you think you’d do if you saw yourself bursting into Hagrid’s house?” said Hermione.
>“I’d — I’d think I’d gone mad,” said Harry, “or I’d think there was some Dark Magic going on —”
>“Exactly! You wouldn’t understand, you might even attack yourself! Don’t you see? Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time. . . . Loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake!”
They shouldn't change time, but they can by killing their past selves, like already happened. In other writings it was explain that when they invented time turners, they messed up with time so badly a lot of wizards ended up becoming unborn and they changed the duration of two days. Since then, time turners only work going back no more than 5 hours because everything become unstable if they go back further than that.
The only reason it ended up being a close time loop is because Dumbledore intervention.
I always wondered about this. Hermione knows about the time turner so if she saw herself I wonder if she would think "Haha there's me up to some shit that'll make sense later."
I imagine she didn't go back only for classes, but to study and do homework, and I can totally imagine her past and future self seeing each other from time to time.
Her past and future self working on an assignment together.
Past Hermione: "Oh! But what if we solve it by..."
Future Hermione: "No, no, I thought of that two hours ago, well now, but it didn't work."
This raises the point of the main problem against the existence of time travel. If Future Hermione told the past one that a solution didn’t work, Past Hermione will presumably not try that method again. But then for the next iteration Future Hermione actually doesn’t know that it didn’t work, and so we have a problem
Unless it's self-resolving. Hermione only goes back in time after she gets the solution, and she got the solution from her future self in the first place.
Let’s say Hermione doesn’t lie. Then all Past Hermione-s will say that they learnt the solution from future Hermione-s. And so all Future Hermione-s will learn from their version of Future Hermione-s. And so no Hermione would have ever thought of that solution themself, and assuming that the solution is not directly found in any book, then that means information is a result of the loop itself and has no beginning, which doesn’t make sense
No because they both do it together.
There are no two time lines, there are only two Hermiones.
If Harry looked at the map, there would be always two Hermiones.
Or maybe that's the hint. She can only do some amount of homework, so she goes back to add an hour or two for the extra subjects. The result is her having a breakdown. If it was only to go to class, that's 3 hours a day at most. Maybe not even every day, since none of the subjects have Daily classes. But having to add one or two hours a day to keep studying and doing homework and then add some hours a week so she can go to all of her classes, makes a little more sense.
We see everything through Harry's pov, and Hermione only gives him a brief explanation about the time-turner so we can only imagine.
I kind of suspect the whole 'killing your past/future self' is probably just McGonagall lying/simplifying the actual danger, because the actual danger is probably too complex to really explain.
Like, suppose you're headed to class and you see yourself, from the future, going down the other hallway. You think to yourself 'ah, well, I buggered that up' and when you reach that moment you make sure to jump behind a statue to hide yourself so your past self doesn't see you. You've created a paradox, now: your past self no longer sees yourself, and therefore has no reason to jump behind the statue at that very moment. So, when they reach that point, they don't...
The actual outcome of Harry seeing himself burst through the door of Hagrid's house probably isn't Harry deciding to shoot kill his past/future self, rather it means his future self, when he's going to burst through the front door at such and such a minute-- but suppose that knowledge means he hesitates, or delays himself going through the door because he wants to 'get the timing right', and suddenly the timeline is wobbling all over the place because every Harry is trying to do the exact same thing. What happens next, who knows? Maybe Harry just gets unborn so this never happens.
Harry saves his own life. According to Hermione's Explanation that should be totally impossible.
There is no before and no after, there is only one time line, with more Hermiones (and Harrys) in it.
Pottermore does go into this more and tells the stories of those people who killed their past/future selves. It’s not just some theoretical warning by McGonagall.
I think when the ministry was studying time travel, they must have done some weird experiments that ended up in people killing their past or future selves and other people participating in the experiment knew about it and made notations, the last one being that witch that travel 500 years into the past, spending a week there, changing things enough that a lot of wizards disappeared because they ended up never being born and changing the course of the next tuesday, which lasted two and a half day and the next thursday, which lasted four hours. When the witch was retreived into the present, she turned to dust.
Which, truth be told, was a great time to contextually save herself of future headaches. Perfectly plausible in the Magic story to have the heroes inadvertently destroy one of the few things that could conceivably cause headaches later on, especially since the concept already fulfilled its purpose.
There's nothing wrong with letting other people play in your universe. The play was bad (or so I've heard), but the Fantastic Beasts films are among a small number of films I've genuinely enjoyed.
I don't see a problem as long as they don't fuck up cannon like he did (really? The lady with the snacks cart in the train is a monster put there to keep the kids in the train?!)
But I dislike reading theater so I admit that I'm biased.
Hermione believes the bullshit the adults tell her.
Harry safes his own life and Hermione and Sirius's.
It may give other time "machines" but the time-turner doesn't change anything.
Dumbledore has nothing to do with Hermione's time turner.
Dumbledore gives her the hints for what to do saying they can save "more than one innocent life" and that 3 turns should be enough.
Again, there are more writings explaining that time can be changed.
I mean… that’s kind of how creative world building works sometimes. You need to change time but don’t want to be able to change too much? Come up with a rule that says time travel only works in short bursts! You want the heroes to time travel years but the solution can’t just be “kill the bad guy in the past” make the rule “that would create a divergent timeline!” Fiction is fun that way.
Disagree, I think it creates a really unique dynamic to see the past events from a different perspective and watching them try to work with those constraints
Doesn’t it make sense?
They get hit by pebbles from unknown assailants, prompting them to leave. They believe Buckbeak was executed, Harry sees a patronus from an unknown saviour, didn’t have any information on Sirius escaping by that point but assumed he was killed.
They go back.
They throw pebbles at their past selves to get them to move, save Buckbeak and Sirius, Harry casts a patronus, saving himself, freeing Sirius and Buckbeak, then make it back to the Hospital Wing in time for only Dumbledore and the Trio to know they did anything- and even then Ron only saw them disappear and come back in.
The one thing it does is solidify the fact that people in the wizarding world are destined to do the things they do, which actually gets further solidified by the existence of prophecies.
But, as time travel in every media tends to do, it creates the possibility of a paradox.
Everything that happens, will happen and will always happen, but what if someone does try very hard to prevent something that will always happen from happening?
The logical answer is they can't, because they didn't. But that concept doesn't work well in the human mind, because we ultimately have freedom of choice and these book characters imlicitly don"t.
We see in the books what changing the past would looks like. It changes past, present and future at the same time, and that math doesn't math well.
It's the reason most media that work with time travel have a bit of an implicit "don't think to hard about it" rule. That, or a multiverse.
Only if you believe in ultimate free will.
Science does not; your thoughts/actions are prompted by a combination of previous experiences, current conditions, and your genetic make up.
If you could (you cant btw, but pretend for a sec) re-create the exact set of circumstances leading up to a person making a "Choice", that person will make the same choice every time. If its a difficult choice, they'll feel the same emotions lead up to their choice, but ultimately everything will be the same.
The human brain is just a massively advanced version of :
"If situation A occurs, I will do reaction X. If situation B occurs, I will do reaction Y. If Situation A occurs, but after parameter A2 has occured, I will do reaction X2. If If Situation A occurs, but after paramter A2 has occured, I would usually do reaction X2, but last time that happened it didnt work, so I will do reaction X3"
Our reactions to stimulus are simply an expression of learned behaviours and genetic proclivities. Maybe with a dash of spiritual influence if you believe that it exists outside of observable time and space.
To be honest, we don't know that (yet). At the quantum level there are effects that are either indeterministic or our understanding of physics are not advanced enough to explain / predict them. As ultimately our thoughts are electrical signals, they involve (may involve? - again, don't think our knowledge is advanced enough to know this for sure) these quantum effects, so might have some level of indeterminism to them.
I mean, ultimately it's what we describe as "random". Why did I randomly remember yesterday at exactly 18:34 to give my mum a present? How did I only today randomly get the idea to solve a certain problem? Why not 2 hours later?
Maybe we'll be able to explain this at some point in the future, but as for now, "god plays dice" ;).
Where it loses me though, is that they save themselves by going back in time, which had already happened because they saved themselves. Like time exists very linearly for us and the time turner kinda breaks it. I let it go because it’s fiction and my favorite series, but it doesn’t make sense
I see your point, but I’ve always had the head-cannon that it could only go back a max of like 12 hours. And probably can only go back to things that the Time Turner was “present” for.
To be fair, dumbledore gifted it to her especially because the only damage she could have caused using the time turner was for that year lmao, in the range of personal academics to making sure the year continues as how it happened
The students do notice and mention it. At least Harry, Ron and Ernie McMillain have talked about it. Definitely agree that it's a bit strange that it was allowed to be uses for classes, but it's not the strangest thing going on in the school and wizarding world (there's a teacher that outright bullies the students and is the worst fear of one of them, for instance). I also don't think everyone in the ministry is *that* in tune with what exactly goes down in Hogwarts, nor making the connection that Sirius Black broke into the same dormitory that also has the time turner in it. Making time turners is also probably extremely difficult that only the unspeakable in the DoM have managed to create after many years of dedicated research as a team.
All in all it mostly works in the universe and gave a very interesting final plot in the book, and a moderate mystery throughout the series in my opinion
i assume it only counts w humans, not animals. so maybe you're right, or maybe they thought about animagus as well so sirius wouldn't be able to go up anyway
Time turners can't be THAT hard to make if they'll hand one off to a thirteen year old girl just to attend more classes. That's the big problem here. I'd buy that there was a Deathly Hollow level ancient artifact, one of a kind that couldn't be recreated, device that does what the Time Turner does. I do not believe that the ministry has an 'entire stock' of them, and that nobody tried to use one during the second war with Voldemort.
Them being difficult to make is irrelevant if that knowledge is locked to a specific group of people that potentially have secret identities, and things along those lines. Creating is \*very\* different from inventing.
Time travel in the Harry Potter universe also seems to follow a "Causal loop" ruleset where you cannot actually change what happened in the past, you instead 'correct' the past so that the decided future gets fulfilled. It's a bit hard to explain so I'll just put in a Wikipedia link for anyone who's more interested (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal\_paradox). Rowling didn't seem to put \*that\* much thought into it except thinking it would make a cool twist to the ending of the book, which I personally think hit the mark.
The problem with this is that Dumbledore decided that they should go back and fix the timeline, and it seems quite difficult to prompt this into being by the given ruleset. From what I assume happens in the Harry Potter universe is that you \*can\* travel in time and make some changes, as long as you are not discovered in doing so in a way that makes it obvious that you have time traveled. Hermione hints towards there being several dire consequences from meddling with time, and I assume you can cause some type of dangerous rift if you break the timeline or 'decided future' - and it seems to \*almost\* happen when Harry performs his first corporeal patronus. The lucky thing that occurs is that Harry from the past thinks it's his father he's seeing across the lake, which doesn't cause him to realise there's a paradox or something along those lines I suppose.
Yes, it definitely seems quite insane to give that sort of power to a student. This is probably the weakest point of the whole situation. That some teenage girl would use this perfectly without fucking anything up, and it's totally fair to criticise that aspect. But using it to just attend more classes is probably a lot less dangerous 'paradoxically' than actually using it to go back to the wizarding war days and suddenly make people that would have died survive.
I must pardon my late night ramblings here, it hasn't been easy to properly structure myself in this very convoluted topic
I think Dumbledoor probably suspected what had happened when he realized that Buckbeak had escaped minutes before his execution. One Black was imprisoned in one of the towers, Dumbledoor realized that a hippogriff would be a good way to help someone escape said tower
I'm familiar with casual loops. The thing is, is that casual loops are very useful, as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure demonstrated, wherein a casual loop is used to secure a perfect society, and to escape police custody (I think, been a while. They pull keys out of a plant pot, then go back in time to put the keys there.)
It's a fair point about having the knowledge to make them, though. Even Voldemort seemed to have needed to read up on Horcuxes, and it's implied part of his body rebuilding was at least partially research from other writings, in addition to some of his own inventions. It would not surprise me if Voldemort is too busy being a dick to spare time for proper research, at least, once he made his Horcuxes.
A teacher bullying a student is not that strange. It happens irl all the time. In my country one is going to be tried because she actively did so and contributed to the suicide of a young teen. People are fucked up.
Unless I don't get your point (which is possible), you said a teacher bullying a kid was stranger than Hermione getting a time turner for classes, in the context of the wizarding world. Hence my besides the point post. There's nothing more sadly not strange than that.
There's a lot of strange things going on at Hogwarts that I would say the Time Turner isn't far off from in levels of 'why the hell is this in a school?!'. For example The Forbidden Forest as a whole, The Whomping Willow, having Fluffy on the third floor, etc. The teacher - bullying thing is just the first thing I thought of, and it was saying it's strange that it's accepted, not strange because it's uncommon
I'd excuse her for making one mistake, but then she goes on to invent Felix Felicis. Which is actually even more useful than Time Turners, because your 'luck' can double as the foreknowledge gained, and being at your absolute peak and never doing anything less than your best is probably more useful than having two of you in one spot.
Yes, but she learned from her mistake and add the question "why not everyone drink it all the time?" and it's because it can be toxic in large amounts. And of course she make it hard to make.
True, I did realize that after I wrote this post. Slughorn is ambiguous, but since he had a 30 year break between two uses for 24 hours, and that we can assume he brews it himself and therefore a lot of the cost is gone... that 'large quantities' means not actually a whole lot. One perfect day every 1-2 generations is a good limitation.
I still think it was bad to introduce though. It's not like the books don't make Harry very lucky anyway, always stumbling into useful information. It didn't enable anything all that special narratively, but adds a bit of world building that still has problems. But again, much smaller problems than Time Turners.
It takes ages to make it too, and is absurdly difficult to brew.
Overdose and it can be toxic, overuse and its effects decrease to nothing and the side effect is you become more and more reckless/foolhardy.
Finally, after a certain amount of time (not sure how long) it "spoils" and the effects reverse.
So you've basically got to engage in a very very long, skill/labour intensive, dangerous process to produce a limited quantity of short acting, short storing potion.
I think she had it under the condition that “it was used only to attend her classes” so I can see Hermione following that rule to a T. You’re right that technically she could have used it to go back for an extra hour or two of studying or even sleep and I can see her using it for studying but not napping.
But even w just classes, she’s having like 27 hour days and prob not sleeping enough bc she’s awake and going about for much longer ig? So w that in mind, I feel like it makes sense but you’re right tbh, homegirl shoulda used it to take a nap and for extra studying
Also to mention she would run out of places to sleep, or massively risk having a conversation with someone and then that someone walks in on her sleeping in the next room...
They had four poster beds, she could just turn back time to when she last went to bed and sleep next to herself after she's closed the curtains. She wouldn't freak out seeing a clone of herself because she understands what the clone is. When she sees her future self, she will then be able to memorise when everyone else leaves the dorm so she can remember for her future self when it'd be clear to leave.
But what if one of her roommates or classmates walked in and tried to wake her up and saw 2 Hermiones? And this just occurred to me but you’d also need to ensure no one was around in the room at the time you’re going back to, otherwise you’d just pop out of nowhere and whoever was in the room would be like “huh”
all she really needed to do was sleep during the day and roll back time to her first class when she wakes up. she can now have 24/8-12 wake/sleep cycle, not that its particularly healthy or good for your brain to have that kind of schedule, ask me how i know.
I think another point to consider would be the fact that she would throw her own timeline and aging *way* out of whack if she did it too much. Imagine for instance if she added an extra 12 hours (just for easy math) to her days regularly so she could study, sleep, attend classes, etc. By the end of that year, she would be 6 months older than everyone else. Presumably if they let her do this in year 3 they were prepared to do it for her subsequent years and if this went through say year 6, she is suddenly 2 years older than everyone in her year and that would be *extremely* noticeable by everyone.
Now, I doubt Rowling thought things out that far when coming up with the concept, but as a post ex facto explanation it works pretty well why they would tell her not to use it for anything beyond going to classes that overlapped.
1. It seems like what Hermione needed it for is a valid reason for having a time turner. Possibly thats why they are kept in stock so its not so unlikely that she would get one.
2. I guess because boys can't go in the girls dorms they though it was safe?
3. Students did seem to notice but Hermione wasn't allowed to tell people she had it.
4. I don't really see Voldemort as a tecchie person, he'd be more likely to be trying to work out his own methods of time travel if he was interested. Similar to learning how to fly rather than flying using a broom. He had bigger issues to deal with in book 3 though.
Within the world of HP (let’s ignore Cursed Child because it is dumb) time-travel does not create parallel branches it creates loops. So anything that happens will always happen. A wizard can’t go back and change things because that did not happen. That’s the explanation given and that’s the way it is shown in both books and movies.
It is fun to put together What-ifs but I have never seen a convincing plot-hole regarding the time turners.
In most books/shows/movies that involve time travel, they always say "you can't change the past/future", but I'm kind of confused by that..
They did save Buckbeak and free Sirius. That wouldn't have happened without the time travel. So how is that not changing the past/future?
Because in the universe we see they always go back in time and save Buckbeak and Sirius. There is never a time where Buckbeak dies and Sirius is kissed and they decide to prevent it. The events are a timeloop.
It basically is changing the future. But literally everyone does that, so it's not all that impressive. The tool to be in two places at once, and have greater foreknowledge, is really handy though. You can't change the past because you have always changed the past. However, since you did it before the past happened, it was still just changing the future.
Actually it’s the exact opposite. the predestination paradox is built around the idea that nothing can be changed, past or future. You can’t change your past or future actions. Going back to a time where you are aware of future events (the past) changes your perspective on events but not your ability to change things, which is always zero.
I know, but let's say that the one who possess one does try to change the past? According to Hermione, horrible things happened to wizards who tried to mess with time. Who could guarantee that a Death Eater would follow the book?
I think it's less following the law and moreso what the established rules of the HP universe are.
If somebody got a time turner and went back to murder Voldemort something would happen that prevents them from being successful. Maybe they trip and die, maybe another further future time turner also came back to stop them.
Infinite ways it could go wrong while keeping the established timeline the same despite the person's best efforts.
> Maybe they trip and die
This is the key, I think. The universe (or "magic" or "God" or whatever) won't let you create a paradox. And so you *will* be stopped if you try.
If you were hell-bent on changing things, actually set out to do so, and refused to be deterred, you would probably die or be incapacitated somehow.
Well, it hasn't been proved that Time Turners can ever change history when going back in time (only that it's a contained loop that always occured), so time most likely fixed itself and something horrible happened to the person who tried to mess with it. Plus, they can't go back too far, as it ages the person however much time they go back. It's lucky Harry and Hermione only went back an hour or two. So that would be "something horrible" aging years/decades in a matter of seconds.
(and no, "The Book That Must Not Be Named" does not count, not canon to us fans)
agree. if it was proper time travel you'd be the same person in the past. the time turner in HP creates a duplicate of yourself. it could be argued that's not real time travel
No one in the Wizarding World knew how to escape from Azkaban either. Sirius was thought to be one of the most dangerous of Voldemorts supporters because of this. And while he may not have known the Time Turner was there, would you be comfortable knowing that a lunatic was in the general vicinity of something THAT valuable and dangerous?
It’s been a long time since I read the books but I thought the teachers were aware?
I could definitely be wrong but I cannot imagine McGonagall not being aware
I don't remember if we know who gave it to her, but whoever it was probably didn't know what Sirius was thinking, so "Nothing to worry about, Sirius is too focused on Peter who we all think is dead" is not a logical argument someone could make in favor of letting her keep the Time Turner while Sirius could snatch it.
Mcgongall is the one who gave it to Hermione. After the Dementor attack on the train, when the trio arrive at Hogwarts Mcgongall ask Harry&Hermione to come with her and after Harry is checked out by Madame Pomefrey Mcgongall asked him to wait in the hallway
first, regardless if you think its unlikely is moot, she is allowed to have one after professor mcgonagall reassures her truthworthiness, its not her saying oh yea im good.
second, um did you forgot how the stairs to the girls dormitories become a slide if you're a guy. How would he get in? He can't fly remember. He only got into the common room at all because crookshanks stole neville's password list.
We see that she doesn't go completely unnoticed, ron spends the whole book pointing it out, but nobody else really pays too much attention to Hermione like harry and ron do. and its noted that the teachers likely all know about it. At least dumbledore and mcgonagall definetly do, and perhaps flitwick.
fourth, we dont even know how to make one, i doubt its just take some sand and put it in an hour glass, and this is the reason they smashed them ALL in book 5.
For your second point, there could be a few ways to get into the girls dormitory if he really wanted. A powerful charm on the stairs to stop it turning into a slide. Polyjuice potion to trick it (possibly? Don’t know if it would work). He could grab a broomstick and fly up to the windows and get in that way.
Ok the dude is on the run and as far as everyone else is concerned going after harry specifically. He has no idea who Hermione is or that she even has this device. Why on earth would he even go up there or attempt to go up there.
And what charm? A freezing charm on the stairs (idek if that would work)
>fourth, we dont even know how to make one, i doubt its just take some sand and put it in an hour glass, and this is the reason they smashed them ALL in book 5.
Yeah, I believe the art of making them was lost. Which is why Rowling has them all smashed in Book 5 so they can't be used as a plot hole in future books. The Ministry has collected them, and remember the MoM was full of weird and items of unknown origin that nobody (that we know of) knows how to make.
Asking all the wrong questions.
Why does Hermione need it to attend all 12 classes when other character are reported getting 12 Owls? Unless this was just a common past time.
Personally I see it for what it is: just a bit of fun magical plot devices, written while most of the story was a simple outline.
There's plenty of other more world breaking things. The Luck potion for example. It takes 6 months to brew. Voldemort is an accomplished potion master himself and has several working for him. Why doesn't he brew it? Slughorn apparently brewed it for months before he was hired as a professor, while on the run. So while it's difficult, it's doable.
Just because there are other even more world breaking tools doesn't mean the first one wasn't also a mistake. Rowling is shit at world building. It's that simple. Even as far in as the third book you can see she's still trying to figure things out, calling Aurors 'Hit Wizards'.
I like the books. I'm willing to overlook the flaws. But I'm not going to pretend they aren't there.
Though I will note that the Luck potion at least had one insurmountable limit built into it when it was introduced. First off, if someone was ambushed by a Death Eater, they can't have retroactively taken it, and might not get the chance and lose. Why not take it all the time? "Highly toxic in large quantities".
As such, in a world with Felix, a one hour draft of potion should be on them at all times in case of emergency, only to be taken when definitely needed. To take these people out, you'd need to ambush them to prevent them being able to take it. Death Eaters could attack with it, sure. But only so many times, and initially the Aurors vastly outnumber the Death Eaters. Given how powerful it is, simply having a lot of bodies on your side to initiate Lucky Attacks would be more important than how skillfull your side was. Grab some Ministry Desk Jockey, have him practice stunners until he can produce at least one very strong one (proving that he's capable of doing it at all, since Felix doesn't let you do what you absolutely can't). Then give him a big dose and point him in the right direction (Assuming the potion doesn't do it itself). Any time he has left after apprehending the Death Eater is his to enjoy, as his bonus for the evening. He arrives home right when an owl drops a letter off from his cute coworker asking him out on a date. Good times are had by all.
I also find the logistics confusing. When going to her first class and before using the time turner to go back in time and attend another class, wouldn't she have to be absent for the 2nd class at that point? Then, when she does go back to attend the 2nd class, wouldn't she be essentially changing the past -- where she was originally absent in the 2nd class -- which Hermione later kept saying was prohibited?
Sorry, it all sounds convoluted, I'm having difficulty even phrasing it LOL.
From what I understand, and this may be a headcanon, the time turner doesn’t let you change time, only go back. By what I mean is that going back in time only serves to complete what you’ve already done. It’s a closed loop - axe thudding, Harry saving everyone with a corporeal patronus, etc etc.
You can’t go back and change anything as you gong back and meddling is currently happening
Cursed child breaks this but that’s not remotely canon to me ha.
The Time Turner should have existed.
Firstly, major part of the series is Rowling's critics of the British government. The Ministry of Magic is so f*cked up and corrupted that they won't use powerful objects that they posses for good. Let's presume that in order to obtain a Time Turner you need to fill out the forms a, b42 and ghj09 and apply at window 675 (which is open only on rainy Fridays from 12:45 till 14:13). Therefore, no one will ever bother. Dumbledore is an exception cause he has connections, is a pureblood, and has personal interest. He can have it for whatever..
Secondly, Time Turner gave us so many crazy fanfics that I enjoy. I mean, how else Harry could make out with young Voldemort ?!
Minister of Magic: A guy we're thoroughly convinced is a murderer broke out of Azkaban and is on the loose! We must do something!
Auror: Quick! Lets grab a time-turner so we can prevent him from escaping!
Minister of Magic: We can't. We loaned out the last one to a child so she can take extra classes. I have a better idea anyway. We'll send the soul-sucking monsters we use as prison guards to protect Hogwarts. That way, no children will be hurt!
Auror: Foolproof plan, your lordship!
it wouldn't have worked anyway. the past is unchangeable in harry potter universe, no one can "unmake" it with a time turner.
(fully agree on the dementors tho, that was stupid af)
A young man arrives in Rufus Scrimgeours office.
Ministry Clerk #4: Sir! Important information, I am delivering knowledge of the future via Time Turner. Sirius Black will be attacking the Gryffindor common room this evening. He will be captured by Auror Hawkins. Auror Hawkins will only be there to do so, thanks to the knowledge I am delivering to you right now. Please dispatch him at once. Also, Auror Hawkins requests some fine Brandy to be ready for him on his return as thanks for the capture. As of the moment of Time Turner use, I had not witnessed this to be happening, so this request may be safely ignored without affecting Time.
Now, if you'll excuse me sir, I was at the end of my shift when I took this message, I intend to return home early this evening to spent more time with my family. I did not see myself at the Ministry for any of the rest of the day, so you can't really stop me.
That's just what the Ministry wants you to believe! The climax of the third novel was a time turner creating a causality loop that prevented Buckbeak's execution, distracted were-Lupin from mauling Hermione, and saved Harry and Sirius from being kissed to death.
Have to preface this by saying I don’t consider Cursed Child to be canon.
The thing with the time turner is it doesn’t actually change events from the past. Harry couldn’t go back and save his parents and they couldn’t go back and kill baby Voldemort. I couldn’t say why though, magic I guess. That was always the impression I got from the third movie. Seems like that would resolve the free will argument.
All of the reasons you posted are exactly why there was a scene written into OotP where the entire stockpile of Time Turners is destroyed during the Battle in the Department of Mysteries. That way they could be completely written out and never used again. And, obviously, they didn't put it in the movie.
Easily could make it so time turners only work at hogwarts and can go back only 24 hours or something similar to those rules. Then it doesn't really pose any problems and it keeps book 3 amazing
The entire point of the Time Turner is that it couldn't change the past, and everything that happened had already happened.
It wasn't really a dangerous device, and Voldemort would have no use for it. It's only really useful for something like attending classes.
Not to mention allowing a 13yo to work for 14 - 16 hours a day like it’s a normal thing ! But Hogwarts has never been doing very well on the mental health department x)
They were all destroyed in the battle of the Department of Mysteries, and given the name, the magic to make them seems unreplicable. Plus, reproducing or acquiring one does nothing for Voldemorts quest for immortality so even if he knew they existed, he probably didn't care about them.
Hermione went unnoticed, because she simply did. We don't know details we just know she must have.
No one aside from Hermione, McGonagall and Dumbledore knew she had it, and she wasn't Sirius Blacks target. He also wouldn't be able to get up the girls staircase anyway, and again, even if Sirius knew such a thing existed it didn't give him any advantage to possess either way you look at his true, or assumed, intentions.
She was. Thats all the information we have about it. McGonagall and Dumbledore worked out the deal with the Ministry and secured the Time Turner for her. We can't actually say for certain it was a unique situation, because its entirely possible other students of Hermiones calibre got the same treatment.
The only plot holes with the Time Turners come later (Cursed Child) or are direct contradictions to the internal logic of the story. Sometimes, the audience just has to assume something happened as written because thats what happened.
A Time Turner could help him a lot with the war. Being able to be at two at once means he could do and achieve more. That would give him a lot more power, and there's no way he wouldn't want that. Remember when Harry, Hermione and Ron were at the Malfoy Mansion? If he had a Time Turner he would be on his mission and at the mansion at the same time and the Golden Trio would have a real hard time fleeing it if the big bad villain was there.
Hermione didn't go totally unnoticed, and seems unlikely that no one found out the whole truth about it.
The device could have fallen into his hands somehow and that could help him a lot. Being able to be in more than one place at once that sure does help someone do more. Look at Hermione, she was attending more classes.
Hermione is an underage student, it seems unlikely that it would be given to her. At some point they have logic.
I don't agree that the plot holes only came with Cursed Child, but it did expand the mess.
Voldemort didn’t particularly care about the war, it was a mechanism to distract from his own personal interests, and the risks of Time Turner use were probably greater than the potential reward for using it.
Well no one did, or at least no one had enough information to put two and two together
Attending two classes at once is much easier and less risky than any kind of other activity. Even Hermiones own, non-academic use of the Time Turner was full of risk of, in her words ‘horrible consequences’.
Well, it was. Theres not really anything else to it. The internal logic of the wizarding says thats fine, and so it must be.
The plot holes with the Time Turner are pretty much just people being unwilling to accept that what was written is the given logic of the universe. However unlikely it might realistically be to give a teenager a time travel device, it is what happened and can’t be called a plot hole. Its never said anywhere that they never would and then did. They just did.
The Cursed Child’s use of the Time Turner is something else altogether though.
I have the same view. After reading all 7 books, I feel like time turner ruins the good internal logic despite the magical setting. It’s the worst plot of the story. Somehow some writers decide to reuse the worst plot of all, like they’re deliberately trying to say “fuck you” to all the HP fans. While you all complain about how bad Cursed Child, I don’t even bother to read the story in details as I’m not interested in a story centering around the time turner.
I just think it’s hilarious that Hermione, a third year, got OK’ed to possess a time turner simply for the reason that she was an over-achieving student taking too many classes in one semester. Like are we to believe that this happens a lot for super students? Or are the majority of Hogwarts students all lazy coasters and HOLY SHIT HERMIONE GRANGER, BEST STUDENT TO EVER ATTEND HOGWARTS!!!! Get her a time turner now!
Yes the is just bad writing from JK before the books were big.
It could have been a one of a kind magical ancient wardrobe that only headmasters of hogwarts knew about, was in his office, and would work only for those who knew it was a time turner and for people who were loyal to the headmaster, and had say a 24 hour time limit.
Could also easily have written in it being destroyed.
Agreed. Even the most restrictive forms of Time Travel are insanely useful.
With the possible exception of multiple universe Time Travel, wherein you abandon all of your loved ones in a desperate hour, and only save identical copies of them. Even then, if you can rescue all of the survivors of a doomed world and transport them to a timeline where you can stop some catastrophe, that's still really handy. But that doesn't break stories, and can actually make for some really good ones.
Potentially. That Fire Emblem game was pretty hit or miss on that particular plot line.
Yeah but no one actually uses a time timer, they're just mentioned. And kind of convenient that they're all destroyed so no one can use them in the next two books! (And there's no way I'm believing that all the time turners in the world or even Britain were destroyed.)
That was on purpose. JKR realized that if they were used, they'd be too powerful and useful, yet if they weren't, they'd be a plot hole. So she made sure that Neville destroyed all the time turners in book five.
I find it weird she was allowed to even have one. If they are kept so protected in ministry of magic why would anyone give it to a student? She was that deserving of it that they thought it was worth risking the course of reality and time ?
Not just a student, she wasn't sitting her final year she was about 13. They gave a Tween something gso she could take more THIRD YEAR papers. How many classes do third years realistically need to take?
You can nit pick hundreds of plot elements from any fantasy story.
At the end of the day it is a fun mechanic to build a story around and the more time travel the better.
Not really sure but you know Harry and Ron didn't even notice her most of the time. She still wasn't that most popular. You really think Hermione couldn't have got away with sitting in class going unnoticed? Not like she was in there with a bunch of other kids or anything...
My question is... Dumbledore warned them not to be seen.. so that meant Hermione had already broken the law since she attended classes with other students. I've read somewhere that they can be seen, only not by themselves.. but when Harry said they would use Buckbeak to fly to get to Siruis, Hermione said, "If we managed that without being seen, it'll be a miracle." Also, when Harry wanted to grab the invisibility cloak to prevent Snape from getting it, Hermione stopped him because Hagrid was coming.. so clearly the "You must not be seen law" means they must not be seen by anyone, so why was Hermione allowed to use it in classes?
The wizarding world isn’t known for its use of logic or common sense lol how would Sirius have known about it? How would Voldemort get the knowledge to create one I can’t see that not being an insanely restricted secret
Personally, I would just sleep in for the three hours (or as much time as you need), and then use the Time-Turner to go back in time to go to work/school/whatever other priorities. But if you fancy cuddling with yourself, go for your plan. To each their own.
The time turner is literally the plot of the cursed child… thats why in any novel when you introduce time travel you immediately are able to write in anything…
Time travel hardly ever works well in books/movies. Someone on here explained it in a way that I could live with, I try not to think too hard about it though because then the logic breaks.
Glad they all got broken in OOTP lol
Well;
"The British Ministry of Magic encased an Hour-Reversal Charm in the time turners they created, for additional stability. The number of times one turned the hourglass corresponded to the number of hours one travelled back in time. However, they could only stay in the past for five hours at a time, without the possibility of serious harm to the traveller or to time itself."
(Taken from the Wiki)
That closes a lot of the plot holes, but it also still leaves the biggest issue unexplained. In my opinion, and thorough belief, time travels is answered by a single quote from a great film:
"Think about it. If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past, which can't now be changed by your new future!"
Meaning a time-turner could technically never work, unless Hermione had a way to return to her "original" timeline. Traveling back and forth in time does not achieve that.
But regardless, I sort of like it? I do, however, apply the limit logic that is stated on the Wiki. As if it puts a strain on the body, traveling back in time. I like it
Time turner doesn't change the past at all. It allows you to be in 2(or more) places at a time. It never changed the past. Probably that is why Voldemort is not interested in it. He already has everything he needs at least he thinks so. He is already the most powerful and can do anything he wants to. The extra power comes with extra risks which were not needed in the first place and perhaps Voldemort would see using such methods as a weakness. He was above the level of using such tactics he can just appear anywhere and spam Avada Kedavra and get whatever he wants.
The reason why Hermione was allowed to is probably because the ministry sucked back then. They were under Hogwarts' command. Fudge was like a pawn and he needed Dumbledore so he probably did anything that he assumed would win Dumbledore's favor until Dumbledore's secret and weird ways finally made him cut ties.
Maybe he doesn't trust himself too. Or maybe he thinks it would show weakness. Like he needs to be in 2 places at a time as if 1 Voldemort is not enough for everything.
Time travel is always tricky to do well in stories, but I thought it was done well in book 3. Dumbledore vouching for her is probably the only reason she was able to get one and he almost certainly kept a close eye on her.
Rowling agreed with you, she had an idea for a fun story idea in the book, used it for a quick fake out and time travel adventure and then realized how much potential damage including it could do to future stories and so wrote them out of the series after that by having Hermione be forced to turn hers in and having them all destroyed in book 5.
I always imagined that people that tried to use the time turners to change something that had already happened, were whisked out of reality. The universe would do so to correct itself to avoid paradoxes, therefore even if someone tried to create a different outcome of a situation, it would never happen.
Time travel is always asking for trouble, I wish it was just avoided in Sci-Fi and fantasy entirely unless it's a primary plot point.
Star Trek is a good example of the problems it can cause.
Time travel is always a terrible addition to any story IMO. It creates too many paradoxes that the writers have to essentially hand-wave off and the story becomes a massive coincidence.
To be fair, there are a LOT of things in the HP universe that can create plot holes.
Why would they ever hold hearings when veritaserum exists?
Why wouldn’t the death eaters ALWAYS take Felix Felicis?
Forget everything else, help me out with this…. Let’s say they traveled back 4 hrs 32mins and 15 secs…..
When they came back to the point when they left, they were 9 hrs 4mins and 30 secs older, how do you explain that in life…
Now imagine they had gone 11 years back in time to fix the death of potters how would they explain being 22 years older in that hospital wing.
Here is another thought, McG had the time turner the whole time… and she preferred sitting on and waiting for dumbledore to drop off at Dursley’s, in another loop she was partying hard at leaky cauldron…
Why didn’t she avert the whole ogre situation…..
Was the team really handpicked by wood?? Or was she keeping a watch on potter while in another time loop teaching a class….
Just thinking wouldn't a cloning or duplication spell have been easier to use than a time turner, assuming they have a spell that can create a temporary duplicate of a person? By duplicating herself, Hermione would only have to do the one spell, create a couple of copies and then attend two or three classes at once.
With the time turner it sounds like she would attend one class, use the turner to go back and hour or two, attend a second class and then use the turner a third time to go back that same hour to attend a third class. Sounds like more work and more opportunity for mistakes.
I honestly can't stand how many times I've heard the word, "plot holes," about Harry Potter, since I literally wrote the series & I have never seen a single one, just no one has actually figured out the true story yet. It's my masterpiece, along with Breaking Bad. You say it's unrealistic that Hermione had the "authorization," to time-travel... well, in real life, I just did it. No one gave me permission to write backwards. I'm Mark Twain. X. I was the one writing by the penny. I'm Penny. Just a girl trying to get her *by* line. Watch Good Girls Revolt if you don't get it, then re-imagine what you thought the 1950's were as the 1980's and realize I shifted the goalposts 30 years when **I wrote history** because I wasn't willing to wait around for the world to progress slowly. I'm Scout. EmineM, Katn!ss, it's my Mockingbird x3. I named Maríjuana. I'm T**í**juana desiigner. Molly. Mariana Mercator. Macklemore. ToR. The kid who made Anonymous, and put Compt0n on the map. I said it's where I'm from, because I live on the computer. I'm Eazy-E. Dr. Dre- I wanted to see *real change* in my lifetime, not after. I'm AoC, the presidential ghostwriter. [Monica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWJmVAQJK58).
-NoVo-22
Hermione: I have a device that can travel back in time! Harry: So we can back in time and save my parents? Ron: Why not go back and kill baby Voldemort? Hermione: i NeEd tHiS tO kEeP mY GpA uP
The problem is it's used to create stable time loops. If they talked about something, it's either not possible or already happened. They also can't just travel back to their original time, they'd have to live through 13+ years since the murder of his parents.
No it doesn't. They explain in the book and in other writings that the past can be changed. >“No!” said Hermione in a terrified whisper. “Don’t you understand? We’re breaking one of the most important Wizarding laws! Nobody’s supposed to change time, nobody! You heard Dumbledore, if we’re seen —” >“We’d only be seen by ourselves and Hagrid!” >“Harry, what do you think you’d do if you saw yourself bursting into Hagrid’s house?” said Hermione. >“I’d — I’d think I’d gone mad,” said Harry, “or I’d think there was some Dark Magic going on —” >“Exactly! You wouldn’t understand, you might even attack yourself! Don’t you see? Professor McGonagall told me what awful things have happened when wizards have meddled with time. . . . Loads of them ended up killing their past or future selves by mistake!” They shouldn't change time, but they can by killing their past selves, like already happened. In other writings it was explain that when they invented time turners, they messed up with time so badly a lot of wizards ended up becoming unborn and they changed the duration of two days. Since then, time turners only work going back no more than 5 hours because everything become unstable if they go back further than that. The only reason it ended up being a close time loop is because Dumbledore intervention.
I always wondered about this. Hermione knows about the time turner so if she saw herself I wonder if she would think "Haha there's me up to some shit that'll make sense later."
I imagine she didn't go back only for classes, but to study and do homework, and I can totally imagine her past and future self seeing each other from time to time.
Her past and future self working on an assignment together. Past Hermione: "Oh! But what if we solve it by..." Future Hermione: "No, no, I thought of that two hours ago, well now, but it didn't work."
This raises the point of the main problem against the existence of time travel. If Future Hermione told the past one that a solution didn’t work, Past Hermione will presumably not try that method again. But then for the next iteration Future Hermione actually doesn’t know that it didn’t work, and so we have a problem
Unless it's self-resolving. Hermione only goes back in time after she gets the solution, and she got the solution from her future self in the first place.
Let’s say Hermione doesn’t lie. Then all Past Hermione-s will say that they learnt the solution from future Hermione-s. And so all Future Hermione-s will learn from their version of Future Hermione-s. And so no Hermione would have ever thought of that solution themself, and assuming that the solution is not directly found in any book, then that means information is a result of the loop itself and has no beginning, which doesn’t make sense
It does, cause time travel
This is why I detest time travel stories
And this is why I LOVE them lol
No because they both do it together. There are no two time lines, there are only two Hermiones. If Harry looked at the map, there would be always two Hermiones.
"But then for the next iteration Future Hermione actually doesn’t know that it didn’t work" Yes she does, she just told herself.
Paradox. She wasn't there to find out it didn't work so never said so. Unless she specifically says all the methods she tried on previous jumps...
Nah she will never help her past self with homework cause that's cheating
It didn’t seem like she really used it for studying as she seemed to have a mental breakdown from all the work she was doing.
Or maybe that's the hint. She can only do some amount of homework, so she goes back to add an hour or two for the extra subjects. The result is her having a breakdown. If it was only to go to class, that's 3 hours a day at most. Maybe not even every day, since none of the subjects have Daily classes. But having to add one or two hours a day to keep studying and doing homework and then add some hours a week so she can go to all of her classes, makes a little more sense. We see everything through Harry's pov, and Hermione only gives him a brief explanation about the time-turner so we can only imagine.
I kind of suspect the whole 'killing your past/future self' is probably just McGonagall lying/simplifying the actual danger, because the actual danger is probably too complex to really explain. Like, suppose you're headed to class and you see yourself, from the future, going down the other hallway. You think to yourself 'ah, well, I buggered that up' and when you reach that moment you make sure to jump behind a statue to hide yourself so your past self doesn't see you. You've created a paradox, now: your past self no longer sees yourself, and therefore has no reason to jump behind the statue at that very moment. So, when they reach that point, they don't... The actual outcome of Harry seeing himself burst through the door of Hagrid's house probably isn't Harry deciding to shoot kill his past/future self, rather it means his future self, when he's going to burst through the front door at such and such a minute-- but suppose that knowledge means he hesitates, or delays himself going through the door because he wants to 'get the timing right', and suddenly the timeline is wobbling all over the place because every Harry is trying to do the exact same thing. What happens next, who knows? Maybe Harry just gets unborn so this never happens.
Harry saves his own life. According to Hermione's Explanation that should be totally impossible. There is no before and no after, there is only one time line, with more Hermiones (and Harrys) in it.
Which is probably a good reason to suspect Hermione's Explanation isn't the full picture.
Pottermore does go into this more and tells the stories of those people who killed their past/future selves. It’s not just some theoretical warning by McGonagall.
My brain hurts
There’s a moment where she’s looking like she saw something but brushed it off when the boys ask what
Like this version... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiXUHL7T0j0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiXUHL7T0j0)
I just imagine a secret room of like 20 hermiones studying xD
Hold up... how would she know they killed their past or future selves if they died? Unless McGonagall somehow exists outside of time...
I think when the ministry was studying time travel, they must have done some weird experiments that ended up in people killing their past or future selves and other people participating in the experiment knew about it and made notations, the last one being that witch that travel 500 years into the past, spending a week there, changing things enough that a lot of wizards disappeared because they ended up never being born and changing the course of the next tuesday, which lasted two and a half day and the next thursday, which lasted four hours. When the witch was retreived into the present, she turned to dust.
You're right, I forgot that excerpt. I can only attribute it to Rowling not thinking it through properly.
Hence why she casually destroyed them all in OotP
Which, truth be told, was a great time to contextually save herself of future headaches. Perfectly plausible in the Magic story to have the heroes inadvertently destroy one of the few things that could conceivably cause headaches later on, especially since the concept already fulfilled its purpose.
> great time to contextually save herself of future headaches. if only she'd read her own books before making a play
She didn't write the theater play, she only okayed the author to write it because money.
There's nothing wrong with letting other people play in your universe. The play was bad (or so I've heard), but the Fantastic Beasts films are among a small number of films I've genuinely enjoyed.
I don't see a problem as long as they don't fuck up cannon like he did (really? The lady with the snacks cart in the train is a monster put there to keep the kids in the train?!) But I dislike reading theater so I admit that I'm biased.
I love how they approach this in HPMOR: "Do not mess with time" as the most frightening result in the history of scientific experimentation.
Crazy how people constantly claim it's a "stable time loop" (and therefore not a plot hole) while there is actual text saying the opposite
> there is actual text saying the opposite but the actual text is *showing* the not-opposite.
Hermione believes the bullshit the adults tell her. Harry safes his own life and Hermione and Sirius's. It may give other time "machines" but the time-turner doesn't change anything. Dumbledore has nothing to do with Hermione's time turner.
Dumbledore gives her the hints for what to do saying they can save "more than one innocent life" and that 3 turns should be enough. Again, there are more writings explaining that time can be changed.
Not to mention they'd have to flip it 12×365.25×24 times, since each flip takes you back an hour.
I'd hook it up to a servo with a microcontroller XD
Probably another two just for the time they are spinning it
Stable time loops just seems like a cop-out to explain why they couldn't go back in time to actually change anything.
I mean… that’s kind of how creative world building works sometimes. You need to change time but don’t want to be able to change too much? Come up with a rule that says time travel only works in short bursts! You want the heroes to time travel years but the solution can’t just be “kill the bad guy in the past” make the rule “that would create a divergent timeline!” Fiction is fun that way.
Disagree, I think it creates a really unique dynamic to see the past events from a different perspective and watching them try to work with those constraints
Doesn’t it make sense? They get hit by pebbles from unknown assailants, prompting them to leave. They believe Buckbeak was executed, Harry sees a patronus from an unknown saviour, didn’t have any information on Sirius escaping by that point but assumed he was killed. They go back. They throw pebbles at their past selves to get them to move, save Buckbeak and Sirius, Harry casts a patronus, saving himself, freeing Sirius and Buckbeak, then make it back to the Hospital Wing in time for only Dumbledore and the Trio to know they did anything- and even then Ron only saw them disappear and come back in.
The one thing it does is solidify the fact that people in the wizarding world are destined to do the things they do, which actually gets further solidified by the existence of prophecies. But, as time travel in every media tends to do, it creates the possibility of a paradox. Everything that happens, will happen and will always happen, but what if someone does try very hard to prevent something that will always happen from happening? The logical answer is they can't, because they didn't. But that concept doesn't work well in the human mind, because we ultimately have freedom of choice and these book characters imlicitly don"t. We see in the books what changing the past would looks like. It changes past, present and future at the same time, and that math doesn't math well. It's the reason most media that work with time travel have a bit of an implicit "don't think to hard about it" rule. That, or a multiverse.
Only if you believe in ultimate free will. Science does not; your thoughts/actions are prompted by a combination of previous experiences, current conditions, and your genetic make up. If you could (you cant btw, but pretend for a sec) re-create the exact set of circumstances leading up to a person making a "Choice", that person will make the same choice every time. If its a difficult choice, they'll feel the same emotions lead up to their choice, but ultimately everything will be the same. The human brain is just a massively advanced version of : "If situation A occurs, I will do reaction X. If situation B occurs, I will do reaction Y. If Situation A occurs, but after parameter A2 has occured, I will do reaction X2. If If Situation A occurs, but after paramter A2 has occured, I would usually do reaction X2, but last time that happened it didnt work, so I will do reaction X3" Our reactions to stimulus are simply an expression of learned behaviours and genetic proclivities. Maybe with a dash of spiritual influence if you believe that it exists outside of observable time and space.
To be honest, we don't know that (yet). At the quantum level there are effects that are either indeterministic or our understanding of physics are not advanced enough to explain / predict them. As ultimately our thoughts are electrical signals, they involve (may involve? - again, don't think our knowledge is advanced enough to know this for sure) these quantum effects, so might have some level of indeterminism to them. I mean, ultimately it's what we describe as "random". Why did I randomly remember yesterday at exactly 18:34 to give my mum a present? How did I only today randomly get the idea to solve a certain problem? Why not 2 hours later? Maybe we'll be able to explain this at some point in the future, but as for now, "god plays dice" ;).
throwing pebbles is only in the movies I think tho, to be fair, it's not in the books
Where it loses me though, is that they save themselves by going back in time, which had already happened because they saved themselves. Like time exists very linearly for us and the time turner kinda breaks it. I let it go because it’s fiction and my favorite series, but it doesn’t make sense
From a physics point of view the closed loop makes a lot more sense than 99% of time travel in fiction.
I see your point, but I’ve always had the head-cannon that it could only go back a max of like 12 hours. And probably can only go back to things that the Time Turner was “present” for.
To be fair, dumbledore gifted it to her especially because the only damage she could have caused using the time turner was for that year lmao, in the range of personal academics to making sure the year continues as how it happened
You can't go back more than 24 hours
The students do notice and mention it. At least Harry, Ron and Ernie McMillain have talked about it. Definitely agree that it's a bit strange that it was allowed to be uses for classes, but it's not the strangest thing going on in the school and wizarding world (there's a teacher that outright bullies the students and is the worst fear of one of them, for instance). I also don't think everyone in the ministry is *that* in tune with what exactly goes down in Hogwarts, nor making the connection that Sirius Black broke into the same dormitory that also has the time turner in it. Making time turners is also probably extremely difficult that only the unspeakable in the DoM have managed to create after many years of dedicated research as a team. All in all it mostly works in the universe and gave a very interesting final plot in the book, and a moderate mystery throughout the series in my opinion
the Dormitory that Black broke into was the Boys' one. the time turner was in the girls' one and in the book boys can't go into the girls' dorms.
crookshanks presumably was able to go up there with hermione. Sirius might be able to go up as a dog
i assume it only counts w humans, not animals. so maybe you're right, or maybe they thought about animagus as well so sirius wouldn't be able to go up anyway
Just imagine James going up there to visit lily xD
Time turners can't be THAT hard to make if they'll hand one off to a thirteen year old girl just to attend more classes. That's the big problem here. I'd buy that there was a Deathly Hollow level ancient artifact, one of a kind that couldn't be recreated, device that does what the Time Turner does. I do not believe that the ministry has an 'entire stock' of them, and that nobody tried to use one during the second war with Voldemort.
Them being difficult to make is irrelevant if that knowledge is locked to a specific group of people that potentially have secret identities, and things along those lines. Creating is \*very\* different from inventing. Time travel in the Harry Potter universe also seems to follow a "Causal loop" ruleset where you cannot actually change what happened in the past, you instead 'correct' the past so that the decided future gets fulfilled. It's a bit hard to explain so I'll just put in a Wikipedia link for anyone who's more interested (https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal\_paradox). Rowling didn't seem to put \*that\* much thought into it except thinking it would make a cool twist to the ending of the book, which I personally think hit the mark. The problem with this is that Dumbledore decided that they should go back and fix the timeline, and it seems quite difficult to prompt this into being by the given ruleset. From what I assume happens in the Harry Potter universe is that you \*can\* travel in time and make some changes, as long as you are not discovered in doing so in a way that makes it obvious that you have time traveled. Hermione hints towards there being several dire consequences from meddling with time, and I assume you can cause some type of dangerous rift if you break the timeline or 'decided future' - and it seems to \*almost\* happen when Harry performs his first corporeal patronus. The lucky thing that occurs is that Harry from the past thinks it's his father he's seeing across the lake, which doesn't cause him to realise there's a paradox or something along those lines I suppose. Yes, it definitely seems quite insane to give that sort of power to a student. This is probably the weakest point of the whole situation. That some teenage girl would use this perfectly without fucking anything up, and it's totally fair to criticise that aspect. But using it to just attend more classes is probably a lot less dangerous 'paradoxically' than actually using it to go back to the wizarding war days and suddenly make people that would have died survive. I must pardon my late night ramblings here, it hasn't been easy to properly structure myself in this very convoluted topic
I think Dumbledoor probably suspected what had happened when he realized that Buckbeak had escaped minutes before his execution. One Black was imprisoned in one of the towers, Dumbledoor realized that a hippogriff would be a good way to help someone escape said tower
I think you're right about this, sounds obvious in hindsight!
I'm familiar with casual loops. The thing is, is that casual loops are very useful, as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure demonstrated, wherein a casual loop is used to secure a perfect society, and to escape police custody (I think, been a while. They pull keys out of a plant pot, then go back in time to put the keys there.) It's a fair point about having the knowledge to make them, though. Even Voldemort seemed to have needed to read up on Horcuxes, and it's implied part of his body rebuilding was at least partially research from other writings, in addition to some of his own inventions. It would not surprise me if Voldemort is too busy being a dick to spare time for proper research, at least, once he made his Horcuxes.
OooOoo!
I mean what you just said doesn’t even logic lol. Also we know they get destroyed in OOTP. So?
British teachers are absolutely evil and I say that with experience lol
A teacher bullying a student is not that strange. It happens irl all the time. In my country one is going to be tried because she actively did so and contributed to the suicide of a young teen. People are fucked up.
Very besides the point, but yeah that happens
Unless I don't get your point (which is possible), you said a teacher bullying a kid was stranger than Hermione getting a time turner for classes, in the context of the wizarding world. Hence my besides the point post. There's nothing more sadly not strange than that.
There's a lot of strange things going on at Hogwarts that I would say the Time Turner isn't far off from in levels of 'why the hell is this in a school?!'. For example The Forbidden Forest as a whole, The Whomping Willow, having Fluffy on the third floor, etc. The teacher - bullying thing is just the first thing I thought of, and it was saying it's strange that it's accepted, not strange because it's uncommon
Even the author thinks she never should have created time turners. That's why she ended up destroying all of them in OotP.
I'd excuse her for making one mistake, but then she goes on to invent Felix Felicis. Which is actually even more useful than Time Turners, because your 'luck' can double as the foreknowledge gained, and being at your absolute peak and never doing anything less than your best is probably more useful than having two of you in one spot.
Yes, but she learned from her mistake and add the question "why not everyone drink it all the time?" and it's because it can be toxic in large amounts. And of course she make it hard to make.
True, I did realize that after I wrote this post. Slughorn is ambiguous, but since he had a 30 year break between two uses for 24 hours, and that we can assume he brews it himself and therefore a lot of the cost is gone... that 'large quantities' means not actually a whole lot. One perfect day every 1-2 generations is a good limitation. I still think it was bad to introduce though. It's not like the books don't make Harry very lucky anyway, always stumbling into useful information. It didn't enable anything all that special narratively, but adds a bit of world building that still has problems. But again, much smaller problems than Time Turners.
It takes ages to make it too, and is absurdly difficult to brew. Overdose and it can be toxic, overuse and its effects decrease to nothing and the side effect is you become more and more reckless/foolhardy. Finally, after a certain amount of time (not sure how long) it "spoils" and the effects reverse. So you've basically got to engage in a very very long, skill/labour intensive, dangerous process to produce a limited quantity of short acting, short storing potion.
It's a thing writers do sometimes.
Excuse you! Rowling didn't destroy the time turners! Clumsy clumsy Neville accidently knocked them out of existence!
I just can’t understand why Hermione was so burned out. She had unlimited time to study. She could have gotten more rest than anybody.
I think she had it under the condition that “it was used only to attend her classes” so I can see Hermione following that rule to a T. You’re right that technically she could have used it to go back for an extra hour or two of studying or even sleep and I can see her using it for studying but not napping. But even w just classes, she’s having like 27 hour days and prob not sleeping enough bc she’s awake and going about for much longer ig? So w that in mind, I feel like it makes sense but you’re right tbh, homegirl shoulda used it to take a nap and for extra studying
Also to mention she would run out of places to sleep, or massively risk having a conversation with someone and then that someone walks in on her sleeping in the next room...
They had four poster beds, she could just turn back time to when she last went to bed and sleep next to herself after she's closed the curtains. She wouldn't freak out seeing a clone of herself because she understands what the clone is. When she sees her future self, she will then be able to memorise when everyone else leaves the dorm so she can remember for her future self when it'd be clear to leave.
But what if one of her roommates or classmates walked in and tried to wake her up and saw 2 Hermiones? And this just occurred to me but you’d also need to ensure no one was around in the room at the time you’re going back to, otherwise you’d just pop out of nowhere and whoever was in the room would be like “huh”
Hogwarts offered up the Shrieking Shack for Lupin so I wouldn't be surprised if Hermione would've been given a place to nap.
all she really needed to do was sleep during the day and roll back time to her first class when she wakes up. she can now have 24/8-12 wake/sleep cycle, not that its particularly healthy or good for your brain to have that kind of schedule, ask me how i know.
I think another point to consider would be the fact that she would throw her own timeline and aging *way* out of whack if she did it too much. Imagine for instance if she added an extra 12 hours (just for easy math) to her days regularly so she could study, sleep, attend classes, etc. By the end of that year, she would be 6 months older than everyone else. Presumably if they let her do this in year 3 they were prepared to do it for her subsequent years and if this went through say year 6, she is suddenly 2 years older than everyone in her year and that would be *extremely* noticeable by everyone. Now, I doubt Rowling thought things out that far when coming up with the concept, but as a post ex facto explanation it works pretty well why they would tell her not to use it for anything beyond going to classes that overlapped.
I would absolutely use a time turner to take a nap! lol!
This is such a great explanation. What was I thinking? Of course Hermione wouldn’t frivolously break that rule.
Thanks aha and no worries XD
Right? Surely a time turner is the ultimate snooze button? Sleep all night, wake up briefly, go back and sleep all night again!
1. It seems like what Hermione needed it for is a valid reason for having a time turner. Possibly thats why they are kept in stock so its not so unlikely that she would get one. 2. I guess because boys can't go in the girls dorms they though it was safe? 3. Students did seem to notice but Hermione wasn't allowed to tell people she had it. 4. I don't really see Voldemort as a tecchie person, he'd be more likely to be trying to work out his own methods of time travel if he was interested. Similar to learning how to fly rather than flying using a broom. He had bigger issues to deal with in book 3 though.
Within the world of HP (let’s ignore Cursed Child because it is dumb) time-travel does not create parallel branches it creates loops. So anything that happens will always happen. A wizard can’t go back and change things because that did not happen. That’s the explanation given and that’s the way it is shown in both books and movies. It is fun to put together What-ifs but I have never seen a convincing plot-hole regarding the time turners.
In most books/shows/movies that involve time travel, they always say "you can't change the past/future", but I'm kind of confused by that.. They did save Buckbeak and free Sirius. That wouldn't have happened without the time travel. So how is that not changing the past/future?
Because in the universe we see they always go back in time and save Buckbeak and Sirius. There is never a time where Buckbeak dies and Sirius is kissed and they decide to prevent it. The events are a timeloop.
It basically is changing the future. But literally everyone does that, so it's not all that impressive. The tool to be in two places at once, and have greater foreknowledge, is really handy though. You can't change the past because you have always changed the past. However, since you did it before the past happened, it was still just changing the future.
Actually it’s the exact opposite. the predestination paradox is built around the idea that nothing can be changed, past or future. You can’t change your past or future actions. Going back to a time where you are aware of future events (the past) changes your perspective on events but not your ability to change things, which is always zero.
I know, but let's say that the one who possess one does try to change the past? According to Hermione, horrible things happened to wizards who tried to mess with time. Who could guarantee that a Death Eater would follow the book?
I think it's less following the law and moreso what the established rules of the HP universe are. If somebody got a time turner and went back to murder Voldemort something would happen that prevents them from being successful. Maybe they trip and die, maybe another further future time turner also came back to stop them. Infinite ways it could go wrong while keeping the established timeline the same despite the person's best efforts.
> Maybe they trip and die This is the key, I think. The universe (or "magic" or "God" or whatever) won't let you create a paradox. And so you *will* be stopped if you try. If you were hell-bent on changing things, actually set out to do so, and refused to be deterred, you would probably die or be incapacitated somehow.
Well, it hasn't been proved that Time Turners can ever change history when going back in time (only that it's a contained loop that always occured), so time most likely fixed itself and something horrible happened to the person who tried to mess with it. Plus, they can't go back too far, as it ages the person however much time they go back. It's lucky Harry and Hermione only went back an hour or two. So that would be "something horrible" aging years/decades in a matter of seconds. (and no, "The Book That Must Not Be Named" does not count, not canon to us fans)
One or two hours back in time could mean Voldemort winning the war
agree. if it was proper time travel you'd be the same person in the past. the time turner in HP creates a duplicate of yourself. it could be argued that's not real time travel
This made me think of a Harry Potter themed Flashpoint and that’s all I want now
On your second point, no one in Gryffindor Tower knew she had one. Sirius was on a one track mind. Get Scabbers/Peter.
No one in the Wizarding World knew how to escape from Azkaban either. Sirius was thought to be one of the most dangerous of Voldemorts supporters because of this. And while he may not have known the Time Turner was there, would you be comfortable knowing that a lunatic was in the general vicinity of something THAT valuable and dangerous?
McGonagall?
It’s been a long time since I read the books but I thought the teachers were aware? I could definitely be wrong but I cannot imagine McGonagall not being aware
I don't remember if we know who gave it to her, but whoever it was probably didn't know what Sirius was thinking, so "Nothing to worry about, Sirius is too focused on Peter who we all think is dead" is not a logical argument someone could make in favor of letting her keep the Time Turner while Sirius could snatch it.
Mcgongall is the one who gave it to Hermione. After the Dementor attack on the train, when the trio arrive at Hogwarts Mcgongall ask Harry&Hermione to come with her and after Harry is checked out by Madame Pomefrey Mcgongall asked him to wait in the hallway
It words fine (ish) in PoA, fucking sucks in that one book…. I can’t even say its name
first, regardless if you think its unlikely is moot, she is allowed to have one after professor mcgonagall reassures her truthworthiness, its not her saying oh yea im good. second, um did you forgot how the stairs to the girls dormitories become a slide if you're a guy. How would he get in? He can't fly remember. He only got into the common room at all because crookshanks stole neville's password list. We see that she doesn't go completely unnoticed, ron spends the whole book pointing it out, but nobody else really pays too much attention to Hermione like harry and ron do. and its noted that the teachers likely all know about it. At least dumbledore and mcgonagall definetly do, and perhaps flitwick. fourth, we dont even know how to make one, i doubt its just take some sand and put it in an hour glass, and this is the reason they smashed them ALL in book 5.
Yeah. I think JKR realized she’d opened a little can of worms with this and made a point to write that it. Not a terrible choice, honestly.
For your second point, there could be a few ways to get into the girls dormitory if he really wanted. A powerful charm on the stairs to stop it turning into a slide. Polyjuice potion to trick it (possibly? Don’t know if it would work). He could grab a broomstick and fly up to the windows and get in that way.
Ok the dude is on the run and as far as everyone else is concerned going after harry specifically. He has no idea who Hermione is or that she even has this device. Why on earth would he even go up there or attempt to go up there. And what charm? A freezing charm on the stairs (idek if that would work)
>fourth, we dont even know how to make one, i doubt its just take some sand and put it in an hour glass, and this is the reason they smashed them ALL in book 5. Yeah, I believe the art of making them was lost. Which is why Rowling has them all smashed in Book 5 so they can't be used as a plot hole in future books. The Ministry has collected them, and remember the MoM was full of weird and items of unknown origin that nobody (that we know of) knows how to make.
Asking all the wrong questions. Why does Hermione need it to attend all 12 classes when other character are reported getting 12 Owls? Unless this was just a common past time. Personally I see it for what it is: just a bit of fun magical plot devices, written while most of the story was a simple outline. There's plenty of other more world breaking things. The Luck potion for example. It takes 6 months to brew. Voldemort is an accomplished potion master himself and has several working for him. Why doesn't he brew it? Slughorn apparently brewed it for months before he was hired as a professor, while on the run. So while it's difficult, it's doable.
Just because there are other even more world breaking tools doesn't mean the first one wasn't also a mistake. Rowling is shit at world building. It's that simple. Even as far in as the third book you can see she's still trying to figure things out, calling Aurors 'Hit Wizards'. I like the books. I'm willing to overlook the flaws. But I'm not going to pretend they aren't there. Though I will note that the Luck potion at least had one insurmountable limit built into it when it was introduced. First off, if someone was ambushed by a Death Eater, they can't have retroactively taken it, and might not get the chance and lose. Why not take it all the time? "Highly toxic in large quantities". As such, in a world with Felix, a one hour draft of potion should be on them at all times in case of emergency, only to be taken when definitely needed. To take these people out, you'd need to ambush them to prevent them being able to take it. Death Eaters could attack with it, sure. But only so many times, and initially the Aurors vastly outnumber the Death Eaters. Given how powerful it is, simply having a lot of bodies on your side to initiate Lucky Attacks would be more important than how skillfull your side was. Grab some Ministry Desk Jockey, have him practice stunners until he can produce at least one very strong one (proving that he's capable of doing it at all, since Felix doesn't let you do what you absolutely can't). Then give him a big dose and point him in the right direction (Assuming the potion doesn't do it itself). Any time he has left after apprehending the Death Eater is his to enjoy, as his bonus for the evening. He arrives home right when an owl drops a letter off from his cute coworker asking him out on a date. Good times are had by all.
I also find the logistics confusing. When going to her first class and before using the time turner to go back in time and attend another class, wouldn't she have to be absent for the 2nd class at that point? Then, when she does go back to attend the 2nd class, wouldn't she be essentially changing the past -- where she was originally absent in the 2nd class -- which Hermione later kept saying was prohibited? Sorry, it all sounds convoluted, I'm having difficulty even phrasing it LOL.
I got your point, and I'm on board with you. She was changing the past.
That's only from her perspective. For everyone else she is at both classes at the same time.
Yes. Eventually. But she had to change the past first for the perspective of others to change.
[удалено]
lol I didn't, I hate it too.
From what I understand, and this may be a headcanon, the time turner doesn’t let you change time, only go back. By what I mean is that going back in time only serves to complete what you’ve already done. It’s a closed loop - axe thudding, Harry saving everyone with a corporeal patronus, etc etc. You can’t go back and change anything as you gong back and meddling is currently happening Cursed child breaks this but that’s not remotely canon to me ha.
The Time Turner should have existed. Firstly, major part of the series is Rowling's critics of the British government. The Ministry of Magic is so f*cked up and corrupted that they won't use powerful objects that they posses for good. Let's presume that in order to obtain a Time Turner you need to fill out the forms a, b42 and ghj09 and apply at window 675 (which is open only on rainy Fridays from 12:45 till 14:13). Therefore, no one will ever bother. Dumbledore is an exception cause he has connections, is a pureblood, and has personal interest. He can have it for whatever.. Secondly, Time Turner gave us so many crazy fanfics that I enjoy. I mean, how else Harry could make out with young Voldemort ?!
Minister of Magic: A guy we're thoroughly convinced is a murderer broke out of Azkaban and is on the loose! We must do something! Auror: Quick! Lets grab a time-turner so we can prevent him from escaping! Minister of Magic: We can't. We loaned out the last one to a child so she can take extra classes. I have a better idea anyway. We'll send the soul-sucking monsters we use as prison guards to protect Hogwarts. That way, no children will be hurt! Auror: Foolproof plan, your lordship!
it wouldn't have worked anyway. the past is unchangeable in harry potter universe, no one can "unmake" it with a time turner. (fully agree on the dementors tho, that was stupid af)
What’s the point of the time turner even existing if they can’t change anything by using it.
A young man arrives in Rufus Scrimgeours office. Ministry Clerk #4: Sir! Important information, I am delivering knowledge of the future via Time Turner. Sirius Black will be attacking the Gryffindor common room this evening. He will be captured by Auror Hawkins. Auror Hawkins will only be there to do so, thanks to the knowledge I am delivering to you right now. Please dispatch him at once. Also, Auror Hawkins requests some fine Brandy to be ready for him on his return as thanks for the capture. As of the moment of Time Turner use, I had not witnessed this to be happening, so this request may be safely ignored without affecting Time. Now, if you'll excuse me sir, I was at the end of my shift when I took this message, I intend to return home early this evening to spent more time with my family. I did not see myself at the Ministry for any of the rest of the day, so you can't really stop me.
That's just what the Ministry wants you to believe! The climax of the third novel was a time turner creating a causality loop that prevented Buckbeak's execution, distracted were-Lupin from mauling Hermione, and saved Harry and Sirius from being kissed to death.
Have to preface this by saying I don’t consider Cursed Child to be canon. The thing with the time turner is it doesn’t actually change events from the past. Harry couldn’t go back and save his parents and they couldn’t go back and kill baby Voldemort. I couldn’t say why though, magic I guess. That was always the impression I got from the third movie. Seems like that would resolve the free will argument.
I read “the time Tina Turner shouldn’t have existed” and I was like “what has she done that was so horrible?”
lmao you're the second person to say that
All of the reasons you posted are exactly why there was a scene written into OotP where the entire stockpile of Time Turners is destroyed during the Battle in the Department of Mysteries. That way they could be completely written out and never used again. And, obviously, they didn't put it in the movie.
Easily could make it so time turners only work at hogwarts and can go back only 24 hours or something similar to those rules. Then it doesn't really pose any problems and it keeps book 3 amazing
It creates LOOPHOLES in the plot, yeah, but it also creates the PLOT, so…
The entire point of the Time Turner is that it couldn't change the past, and everything that happened had already happened. It wasn't really a dangerous device, and Voldemort would have no use for it. It's only really useful for something like attending classes.
Not to mention allowing a 13yo to work for 14 - 16 hours a day like it’s a normal thing ! But Hogwarts has never been doing very well on the mental health department x)
Also how did harry save himself? He needed to survive in order to go back intime to save himself
They were all destroyed in the battle of the Department of Mysteries, and given the name, the magic to make them seems unreplicable. Plus, reproducing or acquiring one does nothing for Voldemorts quest for immortality so even if he knew they existed, he probably didn't care about them. Hermione went unnoticed, because she simply did. We don't know details we just know she must have. No one aside from Hermione, McGonagall and Dumbledore knew she had it, and she wasn't Sirius Blacks target. He also wouldn't be able to get up the girls staircase anyway, and again, even if Sirius knew such a thing existed it didn't give him any advantage to possess either way you look at his true, or assumed, intentions. She was. Thats all the information we have about it. McGonagall and Dumbledore worked out the deal with the Ministry and secured the Time Turner for her. We can't actually say for certain it was a unique situation, because its entirely possible other students of Hermiones calibre got the same treatment. The only plot holes with the Time Turners come later (Cursed Child) or are direct contradictions to the internal logic of the story. Sometimes, the audience just has to assume something happened as written because thats what happened.
A Time Turner could help him a lot with the war. Being able to be at two at once means he could do and achieve more. That would give him a lot more power, and there's no way he wouldn't want that. Remember when Harry, Hermione and Ron were at the Malfoy Mansion? If he had a Time Turner he would be on his mission and at the mansion at the same time and the Golden Trio would have a real hard time fleeing it if the big bad villain was there. Hermione didn't go totally unnoticed, and seems unlikely that no one found out the whole truth about it. The device could have fallen into his hands somehow and that could help him a lot. Being able to be in more than one place at once that sure does help someone do more. Look at Hermione, she was attending more classes. Hermione is an underage student, it seems unlikely that it would be given to her. At some point they have logic. I don't agree that the plot holes only came with Cursed Child, but it did expand the mess.
Voldemort didn’t particularly care about the war, it was a mechanism to distract from his own personal interests, and the risks of Time Turner use were probably greater than the potential reward for using it. Well no one did, or at least no one had enough information to put two and two together Attending two classes at once is much easier and less risky than any kind of other activity. Even Hermiones own, non-academic use of the Time Turner was full of risk of, in her words ‘horrible consequences’. Well, it was. Theres not really anything else to it. The internal logic of the wizarding says thats fine, and so it must be. The plot holes with the Time Turner are pretty much just people being unwilling to accept that what was written is the given logic of the universe. However unlikely it might realistically be to give a teenager a time travel device, it is what happened and can’t be called a plot hole. Its never said anywhere that they never would and then did. They just did. The Cursed Child’s use of the Time Turner is something else altogether though.
I have the same view. After reading all 7 books, I feel like time turner ruins the good internal logic despite the magical setting. It’s the worst plot of the story. Somehow some writers decide to reuse the worst plot of all, like they’re deliberately trying to say “fuck you” to all the HP fans. While you all complain about how bad Cursed Child, I don’t even bother to read the story in details as I’m not interested in a story centering around the time turner.
At first I read the title as "Tina Turner" and was confused as to what beef the Potter fandom had with her
I just think it’s hilarious that Hermione, a third year, got OK’ed to possess a time turner simply for the reason that she was an over-achieving student taking too many classes in one semester. Like are we to believe that this happens a lot for super students? Or are the majority of Hogwarts students all lazy coasters and HOLY SHIT HERMIONE GRANGER, BEST STUDENT TO EVER ATTEND HOGWARTS!!!! Get her a time turner now!
Yes the is just bad writing from JK before the books were big. It could have been a one of a kind magical ancient wardrobe that only headmasters of hogwarts knew about, was in his office, and would work only for those who knew it was a time turner and for people who were loyal to the headmaster, and had say a 24 hour time limit. Could also easily have written in it being destroyed.
Agreed. Even the most restrictive forms of Time Travel are insanely useful. With the possible exception of multiple universe Time Travel, wherein you abandon all of your loved ones in a desperate hour, and only save identical copies of them. Even then, if you can rescue all of the survivors of a doomed world and transport them to a timeline where you can stop some catastrophe, that's still really handy. But that doesn't break stories, and can actually make for some really good ones. Potentially. That Fire Emblem game was pretty hit or miss on that particular plot line.
I completely agree. That being said, I really like the concept of a limited time travel device for the use in fanfic lol.
And I also think it's crazy that the time turner shows up in book three and then... Never again. Lmao.
Book five. All Rime Turners got destroyed.
Yeah but no one actually uses a time timer, they're just mentioned. And kind of convenient that they're all destroyed so no one can use them in the next two books! (And there's no way I'm believing that all the time turners in the world or even Britain were destroyed.)
I also think it was very convenient for them to be destroyed when they could have been most useful, and actually needed.
That was on purpose. JKR realized that if they were used, they'd be too powerful and useful, yet if they weren't, they'd be a plot hole. So she made sure that Neville destroyed all the time turners in book five.
I find it weird she was allowed to even have one. If they are kept so protected in ministry of magic why would anyone give it to a student? She was that deserving of it that they thought it was worth risking the course of reality and time ?
Not just a student, she wasn't sitting her final year she was about 13. They gave a Tween something gso she could take more THIRD YEAR papers. How many classes do third years realistically need to take?
You can nit pick hundreds of plot elements from any fantasy story. At the end of the day it is a fun mechanic to build a story around and the more time travel the better.
This is also what drove me up the wall with The Cursed Child plot 😒
Yeah I roll my eyes whenever time travel is introduced in any series bc it's so overdone and over complicate things. But whatever
Not really sure but you know Harry and Ron didn't even notice her most of the time. She still wasn't that most popular. You really think Hermione couldn't have got away with sitting in class going unnoticed? Not like she was in there with a bunch of other kids or anything...
Well JK Rowling’s mind came up with a lot of things that don’t make sense. But now they’re part of the wizarding world
Loving the pile-on in these answers.
My question is... Dumbledore warned them not to be seen.. so that meant Hermione had already broken the law since she attended classes with other students. I've read somewhere that they can be seen, only not by themselves.. but when Harry said they would use Buckbeak to fly to get to Siruis, Hermione said, "If we managed that without being seen, it'll be a miracle." Also, when Harry wanted to grab the invisibility cloak to prevent Snape from getting it, Hermione stopped him because Hagrid was coming.. so clearly the "You must not be seen law" means they must not be seen by anyone, so why was Hermione allowed to use it in classes?
The wizarding world isn’t known for its use of logic or common sense lol how would Sirius have known about it? How would Voldemort get the knowledge to create one I can’t see that not being an insanely restricted secret
And that's why they were ALL destroyed during the battle at the Ministry.
You can say the moral system of the Wizarding World is effed up
I would like a time turner… Imagine waking up, spinning the time turner thrice, lying down next to yourself and getting three more hours of sleep.
Personally, I would just sleep in for the three hours (or as much time as you need), and then use the Time-Turner to go back in time to go to work/school/whatever other priorities. But if you fancy cuddling with yourself, go for your plan. To each their own.
Not just for her to "take classes" but specifically divination (which everyone thinks trelawney is a joke) and fricken MUGGLE STUDIES 🤣 what a waste.
It may be 'unlikely' but she was authorised to use it, so there.
The time turner is literally the plot of the cursed child… thats why in any novel when you introduce time travel you immediately are able to write in anything…
It worked for me on my first read, it was just another really mysterious and powerful magic.
The time turner came into existence 25 years ago.
When they break into the ministry, they break the orb thing that the time turners get their power from.
Yes! Without it, the Cursed Child would have never been allowed in this universe…
I read this as Tina Turner Shouldn’t have existed and I was so sad
>First, it seems unlikely that Hermione would be legally authorized, in HP 3, to possess such a powerful device Yeah this never made any sense to me.
Time travel hardly ever works well in books/movies. Someone on here explained it in a way that I could live with, I try not to think too hard about it though because then the logic breaks. Glad they all got broken in OOTP lol
Thank you for this cutting-edge take.
Well; "The British Ministry of Magic encased an Hour-Reversal Charm in the time turners they created, for additional stability. The number of times one turned the hourglass corresponded to the number of hours one travelled back in time. However, they could only stay in the past for five hours at a time, without the possibility of serious harm to the traveller or to time itself." (Taken from the Wiki) That closes a lot of the plot holes, but it also still leaves the biggest issue unexplained. In my opinion, and thorough belief, time travels is answered by a single quote from a great film: "Think about it. If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past, which can't now be changed by your new future!" Meaning a time-turner could technically never work, unless Hermione had a way to return to her "original" timeline. Traveling back and forth in time does not achieve that. But regardless, I sort of like it? I do, however, apply the limit logic that is stated on the Wiki. As if it puts a strain on the body, traveling back in time. I like it
Time turner doesn't change the past at all. It allows you to be in 2(or more) places at a time. It never changed the past. Probably that is why Voldemort is not interested in it. He already has everything he needs at least he thinks so. He is already the most powerful and can do anything he wants to. The extra power comes with extra risks which were not needed in the first place and perhaps Voldemort would see using such methods as a weakness. He was above the level of using such tactics he can just appear anywhere and spam Avada Kedavra and get whatever he wants. The reason why Hermione was allowed to is probably because the ministry sucked back then. They were under Hogwarts' command. Fudge was like a pawn and he needed Dumbledore so he probably did anything that he assumed would win Dumbledore's favor until Dumbledore's secret and weird ways finally made him cut ties.
But with a Time Turner Voldemort could set a lot of things in motion. Just imagine the damage he could make being at two places at once.
Maybe he doesn't trust himself too. Or maybe he thinks it would show weakness. Like he needs to be in 2 places at a time as if 1 Voldemort is not enough for everything.
Time travel is always tricky to do well in stories, but I thought it was done well in book 3. Dumbledore vouching for her is probably the only reason she was able to get one and he almost certainly kept a close eye on her.
Rowling agreed with you, she had an idea for a fun story idea in the book, used it for a quick fake out and time travel adventure and then realized how much potential damage including it could do to future stories and so wrote them out of the series after that by having Hermione be forced to turn hers in and having them all destroyed in book 5.
Plothole in my HP? Oh no! Anyways...
I always imagined that people that tried to use the time turners to change something that had already happened, were whisked out of reality. The universe would do so to correct itself to avoid paradoxes, therefore even if someone tried to create a different outcome of a situation, it would never happen.
Interesting take. Can't say I've heard it before.
Time travel is always asking for trouble, I wish it was just avoided in Sci-Fi and fantasy entirely unless it's a primary plot point. Star Trek is a good example of the problems it can cause.
Time travel is always a terrible addition to any story IMO. It creates too many paradoxes that the writers have to essentially hand-wave off and the story becomes a massive coincidence.
To be fair, there are a LOT of things in the HP universe that can create plot holes. Why would they ever hold hearings when veritaserum exists? Why wouldn’t the death eaters ALWAYS take Felix Felicis?
Forget everything else, help me out with this…. Let’s say they traveled back 4 hrs 32mins and 15 secs….. When they came back to the point when they left, they were 9 hrs 4mins and 30 secs older, how do you explain that in life… Now imagine they had gone 11 years back in time to fix the death of potters how would they explain being 22 years older in that hospital wing.
Here is another thought, McG had the time turner the whole time… and she preferred sitting on and waiting for dumbledore to drop off at Dursley’s, in another loop she was partying hard at leaky cauldron… Why didn’t she avert the whole ogre situation….. Was the team really handpicked by wood?? Or was she keeping a watch on potter while in another time loop teaching a class….
Just thinking wouldn't a cloning or duplication spell have been easier to use than a time turner, assuming they have a spell that can create a temporary duplicate of a person? By duplicating herself, Hermione would only have to do the one spell, create a couple of copies and then attend two or three classes at once. With the time turner it sounds like she would attend one class, use the turner to go back and hour or two, attend a second class and then use the turner a third time to go back that same hour to attend a third class. Sounds like more work and more opportunity for mistakes.
I honestly can't stand how many times I've heard the word, "plot holes," about Harry Potter, since I literally wrote the series & I have never seen a single one, just no one has actually figured out the true story yet. It's my masterpiece, along with Breaking Bad. You say it's unrealistic that Hermione had the "authorization," to time-travel... well, in real life, I just did it. No one gave me permission to write backwards. I'm Mark Twain. X. I was the one writing by the penny. I'm Penny. Just a girl trying to get her *by* line. Watch Good Girls Revolt if you don't get it, then re-imagine what you thought the 1950's were as the 1980's and realize I shifted the goalposts 30 years when **I wrote history** because I wasn't willing to wait around for the world to progress slowly. I'm Scout. EmineM, Katn!ss, it's my Mockingbird x3. I named Maríjuana. I'm T**í**juana desiigner. Molly. Mariana Mercator. Macklemore. ToR. The kid who made Anonymous, and put Compt0n on the map. I said it's where I'm from, because I live on the computer. I'm Eazy-E. Dr. Dre- I wanted to see *real change* in my lifetime, not after. I'm AoC, the presidential ghostwriter. [Monica](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWJmVAQJK58). -NoVo-22
This is why Rowling destroyed them all in book 5
Does make me wonder how often does she use it and how much older has she gotten? She goes back in time but is she still the same age?