In the eight months or so since its release in hardcover, much has been written about Jack Thorne's new Harry Potter story, which he wrote for the stage with the blessing of J.K. Rowling herself. And much of what has been written has been quite negative. By contrast, much of what has been written about the actual London production of the show has been extremely positive, which probably has a lot to do with people sitting in a theatre being immersed in an experience as opposed to people who have never before read a play trying to slog their way through dialogue without the helping hands of Rowling's descriptive prose.
One of the the criticisms I myself had about the play had nothing to do with the tone or the format, but with the central plot of the piece, which involves a super-powerful time turner. (At this point I'll say "last stop before Spoilerville" in order to give those who wish to do so a chance to disembark.) I recently ran across this article which claims that the major plot hole in Cursed Child is that Time Turners (henceforth TT) only work when people go back a few hours. Well, yes. But the TT in Cursed Child is a *special* TT which can send wizards and witches much further back. It's even a plot point. So this didn't really bother me at all. It stands to reason that in the HP universe, where there are plenty of regular invisibility cloaks, but one very special one that works better and lasts longer than all the rest, the same could be true for Time Turners.
However, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling clearly defines the rules of time travel in the HP universe, but Thorne (presumably with Rowling's blessing) rejects these established parameters, choosing instead to use time travel rules that serve his specific story, rather than those canonically established in the 3rd novel of the series.
This seems an appropriate moment to zoom out a bit and discuss time travel as a popular culture touchstone by addressing the ways in which various authors interpret time travel and its effects. There are essentially three camps. In the first, time travel into the past can actually alter the timeline in which the characters who do the time traveling exist. For an example of this, look to the 2004 Ashton Kutcher vehicle "The Buttrrfly Effect." Each time Evan travels in back in time, the changes he makes there affect his actual reality. He returns to his "own" time to find his life (and sometimes even his physical body) altered due to the choices he made during his journey to the past.
The second way one can address time travel and its effects is the "alternate universe" approach. The time traveler makes a change and creates an alternate timeline, which he will now return to when he goes forward again. See the 2009 Star Trek film for an example of this. Spock Prime even explains it for us: that this is an alternate reality created by the event of the Romulan vessel traveling back and altering events. According to his account, the two realities will continue to develop alongside one another. This is clearly done so the Star Trek continuity could be rebooted without throwing out all the previous material. But it's consistent with Star Trek's approach to time travel throughout the series, as evidenced by the Mirror Universe, as well as The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" in which Tasha Yar is still alive in an alternate reality created by time travel. The iimportant thing here is that the original reality still exists; the actions of the time traveler create an alternate universe that exists alongside the original.
The third way an author of fiction may approach time travel is what I tend to think of as the Lost approach. In the 2004 TV series Lost, time travel paradoxes and alternate universes just didn't exists because "Whatever happened, happened." That is to say, if a person goes back in time and takes some sort of action, then the result is whatever has already taken place. A person can't change events in the past because the timeline is set in stone. In the show, Syed can't kill Ben in the past because Ben isn't dead in the present. In fact, the actions that our heroes take in the past are what ultimately turn Ben into a villain because that is simply what happened.
To return to the Potterverse, let us begin with The Prisoner of Azkaban, which clearly adheres to the Lost-style "whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel. By way of example, consider the ordeal of our three young heroes during the latter chapters of the novel. They go to Hagrid's hut and are distracted by pebbles that are thrown at them. As the evening wears on, they are saved from dementors by someone Harry assumes is his father. He sees this person form across the lake. It is eventually revealed, of course, that the pebbles were being thrown by the heroes themselves, who had traveled three hours into the past to prevent what they believed to have been the execution of Buckbeak (though the beheading sound they had head was actually just a pumpkin being crushed).
The person on the other side of the lake, of course, was Harry himself. Three-hour-older Harry went to the other side of the lake precisely because three-hour-younger Harry had already seen him(self?) there. It had already happened. And so it happened. And of course, they were guided into doing the things they would do (had done) by master manipulator Albus Dumbledore, who allowed them to believe that Buckbeak had, indeed, been executed, though he knew that hadn't actually happened.
In The Cursed Child, Thorne takes a completely different approach from the one Rowling herself consistently adhered to in her novels. In Thorne's plays, young Albus Potter uses the aforementioned super powerful Time Turner to alter his existing reality. The comparison to The Butterfly Effect is apt here, as each seemingly tiny change Albus makes results in huge alterations in the world he returns to. These are not presented as alternate realities, but rather as rewritten versions of the base reality in which Albus lives. But whether they're different universes isn't the point. Either of those approaches rejects the canonical approach to time travel as presented on the novels.
I do concede that Harry Potter isn't the only property to bend and/or blend the rules. Back to the Future, for example, has Doc Brown give an explanation of the alternate universes approach, while the story itself seems to adhere much more closely to the theory that a person can alter his own timeline. That is to say, if the multiple universes theory were true in Back to the Future, then Marty at the end is still stuck in an alternate reality where his parents are actually cool and he has a nice pickup truck. And Doctor Who picks and chooses its approach to time travel based on the needs of whichever story they're telling this week.
That said, this particular use (misuse?) of time travel in the HP universe is particularly troubling to me for one important reason; Voldemort. Many people have made the argument, "Well, if they have time travel, why don't they just stop Voldemort in the past before he becomes a threat?" It's like the old saw in our own universe--practically anyone with actual time traveling abilities would try to kill Hitler on their very first trip. Wizards can go back in time. But they go back and don't kill Voldemort because whatever happened, happened. Their universe is set up in such a way that they can't make those changes. Or at least it was, until The Cursed Child.
I will close by se by saying I didn't particularly dislike The Cursed Child as a play. I enjoyed reading it, and I like having an official Harry Potter stage play that I might one day be able to produce with my students. That said, I do not consider these two plays to be canon. The departures in time travel rules are enough, in my opinion, to make the world of The Cursed Child an alternate reality caused by Rowling's decision to let someone else write it.
One of the the criticisms I myself had about the play had nothing to do with the tone or the format, but with the central plot of the piece, which involves a super-powerful time turner. (At this point I'll say "last stop before Spoilerville" in order to give those who wish to do so a chance to disembark.) I recently ran across this article which claims that the major plot hole in Cursed Child is that Time Turners (henceforth TT) only work when people go back a few hours. Well, yes. But the TT in Cursed Child is a *special* TT which can send wizards and witches much further back. It's even a plot point. So this didn't really bother me at all. It stands to reason that in the HP universe, where there are plenty of regular invisibility cloaks, but one very special one that works better and lasts longer than all the rest, the same could be true for Time Turners.
However, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, Rowling clearly defines the rules of time travel in the HP universe, but Thorne (presumably with Rowling's blessing) rejects these established parameters, choosing instead to use time travel rules that serve his specific story, rather than those canonically established in the 3rd novel of the series.
This seems an appropriate moment to zoom out a bit and discuss time travel as a popular culture touchstone by addressing the ways in which various authors interpret time travel and its effects. There are essentially three camps. In the first, time travel into the past can actually alter the timeline in which the characters who do the time traveling exist. For an example of this, look to the 2004 Ashton Kutcher vehicle "The Buttrrfly Effect." Each time Evan travels in back in time, the changes he makes there affect his actual reality. He returns to his "own" time to find his life (and sometimes even his physical body) altered due to the choices he made during his journey to the past.
The second way one can address time travel and its effects is the "alternate universe" approach. The time traveler makes a change and creates an alternate timeline, which he will now return to when he goes forward again. See the 2009 Star Trek film for an example of this. Spock Prime even explains it for us: that this is an alternate reality created by the event of the Romulan vessel traveling back and altering events. According to his account, the two realities will continue to develop alongside one another. This is clearly done so the Star Trek continuity could be rebooted without throwing out all the previous material. But it's consistent with Star Trek's approach to time travel throughout the series, as evidenced by the Mirror Universe, as well as The Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" in which Tasha Yar is still alive in an alternate reality created by time travel. The iimportant thing here is that the original reality still exists; the actions of the time traveler create an alternate universe that exists alongside the original.
The third way an author of fiction may approach time travel is what I tend to think of as the Lost approach. In the 2004 TV series Lost, time travel paradoxes and alternate universes just didn't exists because "Whatever happened, happened." That is to say, if a person goes back in time and takes some sort of action, then the result is whatever has already taken place. A person can't change events in the past because the timeline is set in stone. In the show, Syed can't kill Ben in the past because Ben isn't dead in the present. In fact, the actions that our heroes take in the past are what ultimately turn Ben into a villain because that is simply what happened.
To return to the Potterverse, let us begin with The Prisoner of Azkaban, which clearly adheres to the Lost-style "whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel. By way of example, consider the ordeal of our three young heroes during the latter chapters of the novel. They go to Hagrid's hut and are distracted by pebbles that are thrown at them. As the evening wears on, they are saved from dementors by someone Harry assumes is his father. He sees this person form across the lake. It is eventually revealed, of course, that the pebbles were being thrown by the heroes themselves, who had traveled three hours into the past to prevent what they believed to have been the execution of Buckbeak (though the beheading sound they had head was actually just a pumpkin being crushed).
The person on the other side of the lake, of course, was Harry himself. Three-hour-older Harry went to the other side of the lake precisely because three-hour-younger Harry had already seen him(self?) there. It had already happened. And so it happened. And of course, they were guided into doing the things they would do (had done) by master manipulator Albus Dumbledore, who allowed them to believe that Buckbeak had, indeed, been executed, though he knew that hadn't actually happened.
In The Cursed Child, Thorne takes a completely different approach from the one Rowling herself consistently adhered to in her novels. In Thorne's plays, young Albus Potter uses the aforementioned super powerful Time Turner to alter his existing reality. The comparison to The Butterfly Effect is apt here, as each seemingly tiny change Albus makes results in huge alterations in the world he returns to. These are not presented as alternate realities, but rather as rewritten versions of the base reality in which Albus lives. But whether they're different universes isn't the point. Either of those approaches rejects the canonical approach to time travel as presented on the novels.
I do concede that Harry Potter isn't the only property to bend and/or blend the rules. Back to the Future, for example, has Doc Brown give an explanation of the alternate universes approach, while the story itself seems to adhere much more closely to the theory that a person can alter his own timeline. That is to say, if the multiple universes theory were true in Back to the Future, then Marty at the end is still stuck in an alternate reality where his parents are actually cool and he has a nice pickup truck. And Doctor Who picks and chooses its approach to time travel based on the needs of whichever story they're telling this week.
That said, this particular use (misuse?) of time travel in the HP universe is particularly troubling to me for one important reason; Voldemort. Many people have made the argument, "Well, if they have time travel, why don't they just stop Voldemort in the past before he becomes a threat?" It's like the old saw in our own universe--practically anyone with actual time traveling abilities would try to kill Hitler on their very first trip. Wizards can go back in time. But they go back and don't kill Voldemort because whatever happened, happened. Their universe is set up in such a way that they can't make those changes. Or at least it was, until The Cursed Child.
I will close by se by saying I didn't particularly dislike The Cursed Child as a play. I enjoyed reading it, and I like having an official Harry Potter stage play that I might one day be able to produce with my students. That said, I do not consider these two plays to be canon. The departures in time travel rules are enough, in my opinion, to make the world of The Cursed Child an alternate reality caused by Rowling's decision to let someone else write it.
RSS Feed