Harry potter question (spoilers if you havent read the third book)

[Clintonista2]

You know how in the 3rd book they use that thing to go back in time? Why didn't they just use it to go back in time to do things like:

-Stop Voldemort

[StClone]

1. Don't Known but I have a question too

Are these Potter books great writing or just bubble gum. I can't say I'd take the time to read one but am curious.

[Clintonista2]

3. J.K Rowling is VERY talented

The movies are good, but they don't compare to the books. I don't consider myself to be a "fanatical" Harry Potter fan (the kind who dresses up as a wizard when going to see the movies, etc), but they really are great books, even if you aren't usually interested in the fantasy genre.

[Mythsaje]

5. I agree...

The books are a shining success and she deserves everything she's received for them.

[Mythsaje]

4. I like them.

They're decent fantasies and have done a great service to literature no matter what. They've turned on a whole generation to a love of reading and that's never a bad thing.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. I'm almost 60 and have read books 1-5 each 3 times and 6-7, twice.

I love them.

[Richard Steele]

13. it's both- they're great bubblegum. Some of the best to come along in quite awhile.

Rowling wasn't trying to write Moby Dick, you know-
she's written some fun fantasy/adventure novels.
And she's done one heck of a job of it.

[supernova]

16. JKR is a great storyteller

The plots are well-paced and the characters are mult-dimensional (over the course of the books). The plot develops into larger themes that sound very contemporary: the effects of draconian edicts and conservative thought played out against a background of terrorism. How do you use power responsibly and for the greater good? What is the true nature of evil? Is someone evil because they look evil or is it his/her actions and behaviours? What is morality? What happens when the media is more interested in gossip and tittillation rather than the truth? What are civil rights and equality and why should we have them?

All this in the guise of a coming of age story while keeping to a vocabulary and syntax that a 4th grader can understand. Children's book indeed. ;-)

[unpossibles]

19. opinion, but both

they start off very simple bubblegum - they are for kids, obviously. As the series progresses and the readers and characters grow older, the plots and characters get more complex and the writing gets better.

I liken her to Stephen King. Can tell a really engrossing story, but is not exactly a Faulkner or even a Herbert or Heinlein. Then again, she's outsold all of them, so who am I to judge. Go to the library and read them - it won't cost you anything but a few hours and some fun.

[Mythsaje]

2. Probably a time limit.

It can only go back so far and no farther.

Or something like that.

But even more to the point--it would screw with the plot.

;)

[Clintonista2]

12. BUT

Even if it has a time limit, why not use it DIRECTLY after Sirius' death? Or after Cedrics?

[Richard Steele]

6. TIME is complex, and situations affect other situations exponentially. Butterfly effect.

That device could only be used in a very limited way;
to go back to places that hadn't affected anything
(like Hermione's extra classes).

Harry ended up using it to do something that had already happened;
that's the type of dangerous temporal paradox that the Council
had in mind when they placed restrictions upon such devices
in the first place.

Voldemort had done too many things that changed other things;
going back and erasing him would have been equivalent to erasing
the entire world, at best. The side effects of such a monumental
revision could easily burn the universe itself to the ground.

Plus, there wouldn't have been any book #4, knowhutImean?

[Clintonista2]

11. But there is a problem with the butterfly effect theory

Harry went back in time and ended up saving himself. That ended up affecting things GREATLY.

[Richard Steele]

14. No, what Harry did had already happened, so he actually "changed" nothing in the timeline.

Look, I'm not actually trying to SERIOUSLY come up with
some scientific explanation for a plot point that Rowling
didn't address.

I'm just trying to throw you an excuse to gloss over an
annoying plot hole in a fantasy adventure novel.
There are a -LOT- of little discrepancies in those books;
Whenever Rowling left them unexplained, I just told myself
whatever I needed to in order to keep enjoying the books.

There is no REAL answer to your question, so you're completely
free to imagine any answer that you enjoy. That's just part of
the fun, IMO.

[VWolf]

7. Silly Lirwin ...

If they killed Voldemort there wouldn't have been books 4-7.

Seriously, I agree that there's probably a time limit / butterfly effect to the time-turners.
At any rate, JK Rowling had them all conveniently destroyed in OOTP.

[chemp]

8. the pensieve LOOKS at the past

you don't really visit it.
It plays stored memories for later viewing.

[Clintonista2]

10. I'm not talking about the pensieve

It was the device Harmione used to get to all her classes.

[Tesha]

15. Gadgets like that *ALWAYS* cause plotting problems later.

Gadgets like that *ALWAYS* cause plotting problems later.

Gene Roddenbery spoke about this vis-a-vis the Transporter
in the Star Trek universe.

He'd originally developed the Transporter as a means of
avoiding long, repetitive sequences of shuttling the crew
down to each new planet before the plot could commence.
Instead, the intrepid crew would just "beam down" and
in two shakes of a glitter-filled soda bottle, the plot
could get under way.

But the Transporter created a problem, as well: Whenever
trouble arose, Kirk could just radio up to the ship and
say "Scotty, beam my ass out'a here now!" So they writers
ended up having to figure out all sorts of ways to make
it impossible to use the Transporter: ion storms, miles
of rock, malfunctions, encasing the ship in a plastic
charm pendent, etc., etc.

The time-turners represent the exact same sort of dilemma.

Tesha

[supernova]

17. The Transporter in Star Trek

I once saw Nichelle Nichols being interviewed about the origins of STOS explaining about the Transporter. :-)

She said it was because they didn't have any money in the budget originally for another model for any kind of "shuttle" between the ship and planet surfaces, so they just thought it would be better to just magically sorta "be there." :D Ergo the Transporter.

[unpossibles]

18. Because they didn't

or maybe they did, but on a different time line.

Everything they went back and did, there was evidence for already - like the pebble they threw (and in the past heard). It had "already" happened when they did it, they just did not know they were the ones doing it.

If they went back and killed Voldemort, preventing Harry Potter's parents' death, then they would have changed the events which lead them to go back and change things, and because of that, would not have been around to go back and change it. Did that make sense? Harry would not have had his father's invisibility cloak, and thus could not have gone back and done the things he did.

If you go with the parallel alternate timelines, then perhaps they did go back and stop Voldemort, but that only created a new timeline in which Harry's parents lived and Voldey was dead. In their baseline timeline, Voldemort was already dead and Harry was an orphan at school, so they could not change that.

Also, it would have irrevocably twisted the plot too much.

[recoveringdittohed]

20. Complex plotlines

With this many convoluted plotlines in a related series of stories, there is absolutely no way to avoid questions like this. It is simply required that you 'suspend your disbelief' and accept the stories as told.

The Potter series is plain wonderful story telling. I am VERY far from childhood, and I loved them!

Read to enjoy and remember, they call it fantasy for a reason.

[XemaSab]

21. Rowling recently said that Dumbledore is a very Machiavellian figure

I credit/blame Albus for the time turner paradox.