Harry Potter and the Case of Temporal Paradox

A question many people think that will leave Harry Potter fans speechless is "Why wasn't the Time Turner used to go back in the past and solve all the problems beforehand in stead of all this bloody struggle?"

Well here's why. When someone goes to the past and tries to change it, there's no telling what would actually happen(well duh, no one's managed to try it yet). So all we can do is formulate theories about what will happen. Often logical paradoxes are created because of these theories. For example, consider the very famous question "What will happen if you go to the past and kill your grandpa before your father was born? You wouldn't exist then, and if you didn't exist who'd be the one going back and killing your grandpa? And if no one goes back to kill your grandpa, would you exist? And then what would happen and so on...". First of all, how twisted a mind someone would need to think to themselves "Hey what would happen if I tried to erase myself from existence?" is beyond me. Secondly, why is it always the grandpa? Maybe because killing your grandpa sounds less evil than patricide/matricide? I dunno, maybe.

Now if you indeed lived in this world and were so inexorably stupid, what would happen? Well in this world, it seems that JK Rowling treated all paradoxes with the theory that "you can't change the past". Whoa! What? "I'm going to the past to cause anarchy, didn't you hear? How will that not change anything?" Well yeah I did hear you, loud and clear, and I'm telling you that you couldn't. You could go to the past, but that wouldn't change anything. That is any wreckage you hope of causing, trust me when I say this, that has already happened. You're adding nothing to history. You just didn't have knowledge of that yourself. Your grandfather wouldn't know that the guy trying to kill him was his grandson-to-be, but you would essentially fail. If your grandfather didn't die in 1960, it means you CANNOT go back to 1960 and kill him. You could cause him major inconvenience though but that would not stop him and ol' grandma from giving birth to your father, who in turn would give birth to the douche that you are.

Okay, now let's consider an actual test case from JK Rowling. The first major incident. The one where Harry and Hermione save Buckbeak. Now obviously, they thought that Buckbeak had been killed, but Dumbledore, who was the one to send them in the chase, obviously knew different. He knew that Buckbeak had not been killed and that is exactly why he said "If all goes well, you'd be saving more than one life today". It's like that everywhere in this world. You could never go back and change something that has happened beyond any doubt.

And this is exactly why no one wasted their time trying to change what they know they can't. It's not some huge plot loophole. And no, haters haven't got a major win against the PotterHeads.

An afterthought: I remember Hermione saying in PoA that Professor McG once told her, many wizards have accidentally killed their past or future self. Well to this I say, killing your future self is a perfectly possible case. Killing your past? In JKR's world? Not so much. I'm quite sure McGonagall said that just to scare off Hermione from overusing the thing.

PS I spent time on writing this with an empty stomach and with lots to do. Why? One, I wanted to and two, a meme saying "Why wasn't the time turner used and bla bla..." pissed me off.

PPS And I hope to write all this, again, in Bangla. I hope.

Gomen'nasai

I'm sorry Abbu, I couldn't be there. At the end. No, that was a lie. I could've been there, I just wasn't. I didn't catch the bus home on the day before. I didn't do it until it was far too late.

I'm sorry I rarely listened to your advices at one period. That period of time when I believed in my own intellectual superiority so much, disregarded almost everything you said.

I'm sorry all those times you made the trip to Dhaka just to meet us, I didn't make more time for you.

I'm sorry I put off going home during vacation for as much as I did.

I'm sorry that those times that I did go, I didn't spend more time with you and Ammu. Didn't wake up in time to have breakfast with you. Didn't distract myself from my own little world for enough time to maybe do some of the things you suggested.


I'm sorry Abbu, I haven't changed. I'm still hurting Ammu much in the same way.

দি মাইটি তিন-স্টিক

ছবির এই জায়গাটা বুয়েটের শহীদ মিনারের সামনের চৌরাস্তায়। এই যে বস্তুটা দেখা যাচ্ছে(এবং যার উপর আমি দাঁড়িয়ে আছি) এটার পারপাজ কি কখনোই বুঝে উঠতে পারি নাই। হয়তো ট্রাফিক পুলিশের দাঁড়ানোর জন্য রেডি করা, হয়তো অন্য কিছু। এর অফিশিয়াল ইউজ কখনোই কাউরে করতে দেখি নাই, এইটারে কি বলে তাও জানি না, জানতেও চাই না।
আমাদের কাছে এইটা অনেক বেশি কাছের একটা জায়গা। আমাদের কাছে এইটা বিভিন্ন হলের বন্ধুদের এসে মিলিত হওয়ার জায়গা। আমাদের কাছে এটা আড্ডা দিয়ে রাত কাটিয়ে দেওয়ার জায়গা। আমাদের জন্য এটা অনেক অনেক সুখ-দুঃখ শেয়ার করার জায়গা। কোন আইডিয়া নিয়ে বকরবকর করে রাতকে দিন বানিয়ে ফেলার জায়গা। ফজরের আযান শোনার পরও "রাত আরও বাকি আছে, আরো কিছুক্ষন আড্ডা দিই" বলার জায়গা।
একান্তই আমাদের নিজেদের একটা জায়গা। 
আমাদের তিন-স্টিক।