Kevin's Analysis of Time Travel

Kevin: You see...

Jamie: Yeah.

Kevin: ...the thing is about the Time Turner that I never really liked, was that they were able to see themselves in the past. If you know what I mean?

Jamie: Yeah.

Kevin: Which...

Jamie: No, but that...

Andrew: Why don't you like it?

Jamie: Yeah.

Kevin: It, well...

[Jamie laughs]

Laura: Explain, Kevin.

Jamie: Yeah.

Kevin: The reason why I don't like it is this: If you in the - when you're visualizing time, if you go back in time, right? And kill yourself, right?

Laura: Mhm.

Kevin: You would never have had the opportunity to go back in time in the first place. And, therefore, you...

Jamie: No, Kevin, stop trying to show off, okay?

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Jamie: Anyone can get this from...

[Micah laughs]

Jamie: ...Wikipedia, okay? It has nothing to do with it.

Laura: Well, that's why... That's why you don’t go back in time and kill yourself. [laughs] That's why you don't do that.

Kevin: No, but what I'm saying is...

Laura: You can't.

Jamie: No, no, no, no. The point you're trying to say is, you can't go back in time and kill yourself because you could - because if you went back in time and killed yourself, you couldn't go back in time and kill yourself.

Kevin: Exactly.

[Laura laughs]

Kevin: And then you'd...

Jamie: But that has absolutely nothing to do with Harry Potter.

Kevin: No, no, I make a point. This is my point.

Laura: That's not necessarily true, though. I mean...

Jamie: It is, it is. Of course it is.

Laura: ...it depends on what the limitations on time are. No because, in the books, doesn't it work in a loop? It would just keep going and going and going.

Jamie: No, but if you decided now to go back ten years...

Laura: Like the Energizer Bunny.

Jamie: Huh? [laughs]

Kevin: Okay, how about this?

Jamie: Just like the Energizer Bunny.

Kevin: Instead of saying, kill yourself. If your going back in time results in your death indirectly...

Jamie: Then...

Kevin: ...it becomes a paradox.

Jamie: ...it precludes your existence, yeah.

Kevin: Yeah, exactly. And what I'm saying is, are even the dark wizards willing to go back in time, knowing the risks involved in doing so?

Jamie: But Kevin, Kevin, you can't - if you go back in time, yeah? Then - and then you can't die, because if you died, then you wouldn't be there to go back in time. So, your mission is automatically a success if you go back in time. Do you see what I mean? Well, no it's not automatically a success but you come back, you definitely come back.

Kevin: It depends on your view of time. If it's a linear time...

Jamie: No...

Kevin: ...as opposed to a quantum time where there's...

Jamie: Yeah I definitely... Right, you've lost me absolutely completely already.

[Everyone laughs]

Kevin: What I'm saying is, there's different ways of viewing time. One in a linear fashion or one in, like, the quantum physics fashion, where by going back in time you have just created a new timeline where different things can happen.

Jamie: Oh right. I see.

Kevin: So...

Laura: That what I'm saying, though. I mean, I'm kind of under the impression that time in Harry Potter is circular. Like, for instance...

Kevin: Is like linear? Where...

Laura: Well, okay, let me explain. You know how in the Prisoner of Azkaban movie and I think - I don't often like to cite the movies because I often feel that they're incorrect. But you know how at the end when Harry and Hermione come running back and they open the doors and they see themselves disappear?

Jamie: Yeah.

Laura: I believe that the versions of themselves that just disappeared would come running back again and see themselves disappear again, like it keeps going and going and going.

Jamie: Yeah.

Andrew: Ohhh...

Laura: So, even if you do kill yourself, it just happens over and over and over again.

Kevin: Which is a paradox again.

Jamie: But surely, Kevin. Surely, Kevin, the time in Harry Potter is one where you don't create a new timeline because Dumbledore says that they've got to be back in the hospital wing at a certain time to replace the ones that have just gone. So, surely, when Dumbledore turned after he sent Harry and Hermione off to do the thing, he just turned around and they were there and it had been a success already. Isn't that right?

Kevin: But by different timeline I mean the affected events so, therefore, there is a universe in which they did not go back in time or, in which, Sirius died and then there's a universe...

Laura: That's interesting.

Kevin: ...in which Sirius survived. That's...

Laura: Let's discuss this. Do you think that Harry will visit some sort of alternate universe, where things are different?

Kevin: I think that would be a far stretch for the Harry Potter books.

Andrew: A parallel universe? Tell us abut parallel universes, Kevin.

Kevin: Uh, let's not. [laughs]

Jamie: No, no, no, no, no. He told us about those in Vegas, remember?

Andrew: Yeah, that was a lot of fun hearing about that.

Kevin: I did.

Would Dark Wizards Use Time Travel?

Kevin: But what I'm saying is, my point is...is... Do you think that dark wizards are - would avoid time and time travel because of the implications of making a mistake?

Laura: Well, it depends. I think that Voldemort would avoid it.

Jamie: No. No, Voldemort, yeah.

Laura: But I think he would make people do it for him.

Kevin: Yeah, but even...

Jamie: Yeah, it's too powerful for him to...

Kevin: But even then you have to realize you can, you can catch yourself and you can catch, like, time itself in a loop where nothing...

Laura: Yeah, that's true.

Kevin: ...will move forward.

Laura: I mean, if one of his followers screwed up...

Kevin: Exactly, so do you think that Voldemort would actually be willing to take the risk of...

Laura: Hmmm.

Jamie: I think he - I think he'd trust it to some people.

Who Does Regulate Time?

Laura: I think that kind of brings us back to, who does regulate time? You know?

Andrew: It's got to be the Ministry.

Jamie: You can't regulate it, really.

Laura: That's the thing. You almost wonder if anyone has any sort of view, you know, of what's going on. If Voldemort would be able to know what was going on, if he would be able to somehow direct a person who had gone back in time to do something. You know?

Jamie: Yeah.

Laura: It's difficult.

Jamie: It is difficult.

Laura: You can't exactly send someone a letter telling them what to do if they've gone back in time.

Jamie: Yeah, it's true.

[Jamie and Kevin laugh]

Laura: [laughs] I think we're confusing ourselves.

Kevin: Well, it's a very confusing subject.

Laura: [laughs] Yeah.

Repercussions of Going Back in Time

Kevin: And also, is there a limitation on how far back in time you can go?

Laura: I don't think so. I never got that impression.

Jamie: I have.

Kevin: So, you're saying that Hermione could have taken the Time Turner, flipped the Time Turner a million times...

Jamie: A million times.

Andrew: [laughs] See dinosaurs.

Kevin: ...gone back to right before Harry's parents were killed and saved their lives?

Jamie: Yeah. No. Well, yes, she could have done.

Laura: Well, not necessarily save their lives, but then again she'd have to live through those sixteen, or thirteen, fourteen years. She couldn't just, you know?

Jamie: Yeah, exactly, she couldn't - you can't go forward in time. But I'm under the impression she couldn't do that because if she'd done that Harry's parents would be alive now. I know that you're saying that you have different timelines, but...

Laura: Yeah. It's hypothetical, though.

Jamie: ...I don't think that's the case in Harry Potter.

Laura: I think Kevin's just trying to make a point.

Jamie: Yeah, but...

Kevin: Yeah, my point is, is that the repercussions of changing anything in the past are so great that, you know, the smallest thing...

Jamie: It's smart to not do it.

Kevin: If you push one person out of the way of a moving car, right, that person surviving could change everything.

Jamie: Everything could change. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They could go on a... Yeah. yeah.

Did The Trio's Time Travel Affect The Future?

Laura: Well, do you think that maybe the trio accidentally changed something that seemed so minute in the third book and it's going to come up in the seventh book, and it's going to make everything even more difficult?

Andrew: Like what?

Laura: I'm just... I don't have any specific examples, I'm just saying, Kevin brings up a good...

Andrew: Instead of turning the light off they left it on?

Laura: Yeah, you know, something just...

Andrew: The light bulb bursts, and someone...

Kevin: Someone didn't trip, didn't hit their head...

Andrew: ...has to go out and change the light bulb, which triggered Draco. Oh, come on, I was on a roll, Kevin. But there's no light bulbs at Hogwarts, so that sort of doesn't work out. So...

Laura: [laughs] What?

[Andrew, Kevin, Laura laugh]

More Monitoring Time

Jamie: Should we move on to the next one? Can't they monitor when someone has changed time or have we done that? Perhaps, actually, think about it. Would you think that's, like they can tell where magic has been...

Kevin: Like a resonance that leaves some sort of...

Jamie: ...was being done, but they can't tell who by. Yeah, yeah. Perhaps it's that they can monitor that somebody has gone back but and done something, but they can't tell what. So, when they see Hermione going back in Prisoner of Azkaban, they just think that it's her going back to do her lessons, rather than...

Andrew: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jamie: But wait a minute...

Andrew: But wouldn't they be able to watch or something?

Jamie: Well, I guess so, but...

Laura: That'd be kind of creepy, though.

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: Because that would mean that they would be watching her all the time...

Andrew: Well, that's just one of the...

Laura: ...which is gross.

Andrew: ...one of the rules you have to deal with.

Jamie: You can tune in to channel 415: Hermione. Like cable.

[Andrew and Laura laugh]

Laura: Whenever they feel like it, Jamie?

Jamie: Whenever they feel like it.

[Laura laughs]

Hermione's Time Travel

Jamie: But wouldn't she be going to - wouldn't she be going to one class twice? So, say if at 10:00 AM - no, say if at 9. Actually, no. Yeah, say if at 9:00 AM she's got Muggle Studies, yeah?

Laura: Mhm.

Jamie: And at 9:00 AM she's got Arithmancy. If she went back in time to go to Arithmancy, wouldn't she be void...

Laura: Then she's in Muggle Studies again.

Jamie: No. No, no, no, she wouldn't be in Muggle Studies, though, because she'd be in Arithmancy. So, as Kevin says, there have got to be two, two different things of time, but...

Laura: Oh my god, this is so confusing. [laughs]

[Kevin laughs]

Jamie: They aren't parallel, they've got to...

Kevin: That's what I'm saying, yeah.

Jamie: ...catch up at some point. See what I mean? Because if she goes back in time to go to one at 9:00 AM she can't be in two places at once, so she's got to be missing from one, unless it's two different periods of time. Does that make sense?

Kevin: Yeah, yeah, but remember what, remember what Harry and Ron were saying. They saw they saw her in class. So what she probably did was, she went to class, went back in time and went to another class, so she technically was in two places at once, until the point at which she had used it.

Jamie: At which they coincide. Yeah.

Kevin: Exactly.

Laura: Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure about that because if say she weren't in one class whenever she went to the other, there'd be no point in saying you can't be seen. You know?

Jamie: Well, yeah, I guess, but...

Laura: You're still going to run across yourself. Wasn't there one point in the book where Hermione was walking with them and she suddenly disappeared and was at the bottom...

Jamie: Yeah, yeah.

Laura: ...of the stairs?

Kevin: Yeah. [laughs]

Jamie: You think she'd be a bit more subtle instead of just walking along and disappear, you know?

[Everyone laughs]

Jamie: You'd think she'd go into the toilet like Superman and turn the Time Turner.

[Kevin laughs]

Laura: Yeah, but what if they had just run across one of her past selves? And if she just disappeared?

[Everyone laughs]

Jamie: Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, or...

Kevin: Yeah, it's true.

[Jamie and Laura laugh]

Jamie: ...or if she's - this can't go into the show, really, but if she goes into the toilet and she turns the time back and somebody's in there taking a [bleep].

[Everyone laughs]

Jamie: She just lands on top of them.

[Everyone laughs]

Back to Monitoring Time

Micah: But I don't think they can monitor the changing of time just because they would be able to know exactly what happened that night. They know that Sirius was freed somehow...

Kevin: It's true, yeah.

Micah: ...and if they knew...

Andrew: Well, that's what I was thinking...

Micah: Sorry.

Andrew: No, you can finish.

Laura: Well, clearly the Ministry doesn't know because Fudge had no clue. He was just pointing fingers. So...

Micah: [laughs] Fudge never has a clue.

[Kevin laughs]

Laura: I know, but [sighs] if the Ministry did know, then Fudge would know, you know? They would obviously tell him, hopefully.

Micah: But there was Ministry presence that was there, though, wasn't there that night?

Laura: Ummm...

Micah: Because the Dementors were going to perform the Kiss.

Laura: Well, Fudge was there.

Micah: Right.

Laura: Fudge came.

Micah: So, you would think that if they knew Hermione used the Time Turner at this time during the day to go back in time...

Laura: Exactly.

Micah: ...that they would have connected the two events.

Kevin: Yeah, it's true.

Laura: So, obviously, they can't even monitor when she uses it.

Jamie: No, yeah.

Micah: Maybe that's part of why it's so...

Andrew: Dangerous.

Jamie: Dangerous.

Micah: ...such a problem to entrust it into even a student that is under the watch of professors.

Andrew: I don't know. I just think if they're issued by the Ministry, you would think they would take the responsibility of tracking what people are doing with them.

Jamie: You would hope so, yeah.

Andrew: I doubt when they were trying to figure out how Sirius escaped, I don't think the first thing they checked was Hermione's Time Turner.

Laura: No, but then again...

Andrew: And she wouldn't be as looked at.

Laura: ...this is the same group of people that put Dementors as guards on a prison, you know? Creatures that are known to serve Lord Voldemort, they're putting in charge of his followers. It just doesn't seem like they'd be all that intelligent when it came to how they ran things.

Andrew: Right.

Laura: Especially time.

Jamie: Yeah.

Andrew: Well, I mean, that would explain why they wouldn't check Hermione's Time Turner.

Laura: Yeah. Well, I'm not sure you can check, though. I'm just not sure I believe that it's like you can log into whatever and check to see Hermione changed time at 4:52 PM, you know?

Kevin: Yeah, it's true.

Andrew: Well, maybe not, but, I don't know. You can track magic - well, we'll get into this more later when talk about how...

Laura: Oh my god, my head is spinning. [laughs]

Andrew: I think it's going good. So just...

Can Anyone Change Time?

Jamie: Okay. Number two: Can anyone with the right tools change time, or do you need magic in you, like you need magic when using a wand, because the wand just channels the magic?

Laura: We had an - Andrew and I had an interesting discussion about this the other day.

Andrew: And then I stopped it because I was like, "Save it for the show!"

[Kevin, Laura, and Andrew laugh]

Laura: Yeah. No, basically we were kind of talking about, could a Muggle or a squib use a Time Turner? Because I'm not necessarily sure they could, but my point was that a wand isn't really a source of magic. It channels the magic from its owner. A Time Turner is actually magical itself. So, would...

Jamie: Well, we think it is.

Laura: Well, it's got to be. It's changing time, it's not the wizard that's changing time. Well, I mean the wizard does, but...

Jamie: No, but it could be magic that's put into it.

Andrew: The wizard could be - right, right. The same way a wand is.

Laura: No, but that's not true, though. Because remember in Order of the Phoenix whenever they knocked over the Time Turners, and they kept reappearing and falling back over by themselves? So, it wasn't magic that was put into them.

Jamie: No, that could just be...

Laura: They were fixing themselves and breaking again.

Andrew: There has to be some magic in them, but you might also need the wizard's magic. Which I thought that's what you were telling me the other day.

Laura: No, no, no. I was saying you need a wizard's magic to use a wand.

Andrew: Yeah.

Laura: But I'm not necessarily sure you need a wizard's magic to use a Time Turner.

Micah: When you say, "change time," do you mean specifically with a Time Turner or is there another way that you're talking about?

Laura: Well, we know that - we've seen another method of time in the Department of Mysteries where that one Death Eater fell into the bell jar and it caused his head to become that of a baby's. And was kind of different because it wasn't really changing time, it was...

Micah: Changing bodies.

Kevin: Reverting, yeah.

Laura: Making him younger.

Kevin: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah, it was making him younger and it was also a lot faster. Whereas with the Time Turner you actually have to live back through all of those events over again. With the bell jar he was going back and forth between being a baby and being a Death Eater within seconds.

Jamie: Yeah.

Micah: Well, I think if a Muggle or a squib got a hold of a Time Turner, and they just turned it a little bit, something might happen.

Jamie: This is so tough, this stuff.

Kevin: It really is, yeah.

Laura: I know! Now I know how...

Jamie: I need some infantile humor to take away from the seriousness.

Laura: Do you remember... [laughs] If you'll remember on the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD where Alfonso Cuaron was trying to explain the whole time cycle and he couldn't?

Jamie: Oh, really?

Laura: Now I know how he feels.

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Because it's like...

[Andrew laughs]

Jamie: He's only done Spanish movies, so we've got to give him something.

[Everyone laughs]

Andrew: Yeah. Wasn't Jo sitting with him or was that a separate interview?

Laura: Yeah. Yeah, Jo was sitting with him.

Andrew: Did she try and explain it at all?

Laura: No. She just looked at him and she was like, "Yeah, yeah, it is very hard." [laughs]

[Kevin laughs]

Andrew: "Oh, thanks." [laughs]

Laura: [laughs] She basically gave him that look like, "Um, yeah."

Andrew: I wonder if the bell jar, like...how does it...the baby. How young was the baby? Was it a week old, a month old?

Laura: I don't know, it just said "baby."

Andrew: What determines - yeah. What determines how far back it brings you?

Laura: Well, apparently, I mean, we saw in the bell jar that there was - wasn't there an egg in there and as it floated to the top it turned into a bird or something, and then as it went back down to the bottom it would turn back into an egg. So, I think it probably takes you back to the earliest form of life, I suppose.

Jamie: No, because the earliest form of life for a baby is...

Laura: I knew this was coming! I knew this was coming!

[Jamie and Andrew laugh]

Jamie: Well, it's true!

Laura: I didn't want to bring this up because then it gets into the whole topic of when does life start, and we don't need to go there.

[Andrew laughs]

Jamie: Yeah, true, fair point.

Evolution

Andrew: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Jamie: Andrew, there is an easy answer to this. It's clearly the egg.

Laura: Yeah.

Jamie: Because evolution says that there has to be something before a chicken, before something evolved into a chicken. So, the one stage before a chicken, that thing laid an egg, and then that hatched into a chicken.

[Kevin and Micah laugh]

Andrew: But what laid an egg?

Jamie: That's why we - huh? A chicken minus one.

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Well, that's like saying a mother came along and gave birth to Adam and Eve.

Laura: No, no, no, no, it's not.

Jamie: No, it's not, it's not.

Laura: No, he's right. He's right, Andrew. Whatever came before the chicken, whatever the chicken's ancestor is, laid the egg and the evolution over time brought us to the chicken.

Jamie: Hey, look. Andrew.

Andrew: You guys are such dorks.

Jamie: Andrew.

Andrew: Because anyone else you ask that, they're just like, "Oh, I don't know."

Jamie: Andrew?

Andrew: What?

Jamie: Look at it like this. If you have, "What came first, the snake or the egg?" Okay? The egg came first because a snake with one leg laid an egg and then that hatched into a snake with no legs, which is really a snake. Whereas the snake with one leg isn't really a snake. Do you see?

Andrew: Uhhh... [laughs]

Laura: What we're saying is...

Kevin: It's all based on evolution.

Laura: Yeah, if you think about it, humans are slowly evolving. I mean, it's so minimal that each generation has, you know, some sort of small change to them, but it's so, just, minimal that you can't even notice it. Isn't there some sort of prediction that eventually, humans are going to no longer have their pinky finger? One day? We're just...

Jamie: I hope not.

Laura: [laughs]Humans are only going to have four fingers.

Kevin: Oh, that would stink.

Laura: So it's like, saying, you know, over time, like for instance, the mother who had a centimeter of her pinky finger that gave birth to the child with no pinky finger. You know what I’m saying?

Andrew: Well, that's like people saying about your appendix. People think that that it used to be a second stomach? Ever hear that one?

Laura: Yeah.

Andrew: Yeah.

Kevin: That would have been awesome.

Jamie: You'd get to Subway and then go back.

Laura: Now it's just...

Jamie: Now it's...

Andrew: Ready to cause appendicitis.

Laura: Burst.

Andrew: Yeah, exactly. [laughs] But anyway. What purpose does...

Laura: [laughs] How did we get...

Andrew: From the chicken to the egg.

Kevin: This came from the chicken to the egg floating to the top and then the bird floats up.

Laura: [laughs] Yeah, okay.

Kevin: Yeah, but...

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