Cha. 1- An Analysis of Time
The concept of Time is used in a variety of fiction to create plot or suspense. For example, the writer can adapt the usual chronological sequence, which is the description of plot following the order that events have occurred in.
Another manipulation of time is flashbacks. A writer recalls a previous event in the past, which is used to insert key information.
Or, a story or event can start in medias res, or directly from the middle of its plot. For example, a writer can start writing from the climax of a battle, and then traces steps backwards or forwards.
Perhaps the most common is time skips. The description skips forward, say, three months, and the main character has achieved an accomplishment in training. Or the skip can be by a day, and the protagonists have now reached their destination.
But, these operations with time can all be accepted, because the readers establish a straight line of a sequence of events that are fixed and unalterable.
Then… there are setups for stories in which there is a power strong enough to alter time, like the Time-Turner, or Doctor Who's TARDIS, or simply, unexplained time travel.
Frequently, time travel is much-abused. On the surface, it can create a fun plot to write about, and everyone is happy.
But, if readers think deeply through the plot, then time travel can create paradox that causes trouble.
In this chapter, I offer a basic theory of time that can be used in all plots, whether it has unbalanced gods, insane magic, unchecked power, or realistic fiction. By no means is this a scientific explanation. It is merely a concept that can be used.
I think about time as the result of a movement of reality. Let's use the analogy of how anime is created.
In anime-creation, the basic explanation is that people draw very similar pictures, each with a slight detail that is different than the last. Then, when the pages are quickly flipped through, movement is created.
If the artist wants a plane to fly overhead, then a plane is drawn entering the scene, with each picture after, more of the plane is revealed. Then, flipping the pages would induce the illusion that the plane is flying because our eyes are fooled.
Reality works the same way. There is a book with infinite thickness. Since the creation of the world, the pages had been flipping, and the universe within had been moving. Such movement and illusion is defined as Time.
Now, in stories, the so-called God or some powerful being can be responsible for creating the book, and it can be the ultimate apparatus of power. Or it doesn't have to be tampered with. Everything exists within. It is itself the God. Writers have to freedom to design ideas around that.
For the purpose of this analysis, let's call this book the Book of Reality.
That was the easy setup to be comprehended. The logic becomes twisted when paradox are created.
For instance, Harry goes back in time to kill his grandfather. But that can't happen, because Harry wouldn't be born without his grandfather. Thus, his grandfather still lives, which will cause Harry to exist, and to go back and kill…
To this, I propose the Solution of Infinity- when there is a paradox, then let's create an infinite cases of scenarios for the paradox to loop within so that it can never get out and affect reality:
In other words, let's make it so that there is not one Book of Reality, but rather infinite Books of Reality.
There are infinite books that are being flipped at the same time. However, each book is slightly different from each other in one of the details. Therefore, the infinite collection of books cover all different possibilities of what could happen. Possibilities where:
1) Grandfather is alive. 2) Grandfather is dead. 3) Grandfather has an arm chopped off. 4) Grandfather married another women… 5) Harry never touched magic. 6) Harry dates Hermione…
Consequently, for any effect that a time travel backwards or forwards can cause, it is included in one of these books.
Example 1: Grandfather Paradox- a scenario where time traveling back causes an action that prevents the time traveling itself, thus creating a paradox.
When Harry travels back in time to kill his Grandfather, he left the Book of Reality that the first version of him resides.
Then, he travels to a second Book. The Grandfather he kills is from the second book, which has no relationship to him and his death has no impact on Harry's existence.
Now the "anime" of the second Book literally has the scenario of Grandfather dying to a young man dressed exactly the same and behaves exactly the same as Harry, and the young man happens to also go by the name Harry Potter.
When Harry teleports, he replaces the young man in the second Book and kills the Grandfather, which is what was going to happen anyways. So, the second Book is not messed up.
Then, he returns to his own realm, still alive. Nothing had happened in the First Book, because all has happened in the second parallel universe. No paradox created.
Example 2: A more complicated version
This time, Harry is sent back in time to prevent, say, the world from ending because some monster had also teleported "back in time."
First, the monster had not teleported "back in time," but only to another Book. And, some wizard detected the destruction of "history," which is only the second Book's present, and mistakenly believes it to be "history." The second Book is only running late on its schedule by a few million years…
When Harry is sent back, he is sent to the second Book. Blah, blah, there is a fight, and the monster is killed. Harry teleports back. The world appears to be saved, because his world was not impacted at all anyways.
In the second Book, it is the description of the second "anime" to have a monster suddenly materialize, cause damage, and be killed by Harry, who immediately disappear after the monster's death. It is the axiom that separates this Book from another.
Even if Harry from Book 1 did not time travel, the same thing would still have happened.
In essence, the key to time traveling to save worlds and alter stuff is that people only PERCEIVE that something is change. In reality, nothing changed. What they had changed 'in the past' all belong to a different Book's present.
Example 3: A scenario where the outcome DID 'change'.
Rather than killing the Grandfather, Harry has to travel back to save him from, say, poison by bringing him an antidote that only exists in the "future."
Yep, the exact same thing as the last two examples happen. All time traveling means is to go to another Book. Harry travels to a second Book.
The second Book IS EXACTLY the first Book, but it runs a few decades behind on schedule, in a dimension where infinite Books are flipping.
He goes through the motion of saving the Grandfather in the second Book, which IS the first Book's past.
The setup of the first Book is that in the unchangeable past, there is a young man who suddenly materialize out of the air and brings Grandfather the antidote to cure his poison.
Even without Harry "traveling back in time to bring an antidote," the Grandfather is cured. Harry only replaces the man in a different world and carry through the same motion that will be acted anyways.
Why, you ask, is there a boy who appears out of nowhere and disappears after the delivery? Isn't that a bit far-fetched?
Well, in a story with time travel, the ultimate challenger to logic, it's not much to add a materializing human. And, with this logic, time travel actually makes sense.
Therefore, the claim that the outcome did change is false! There is no change. The Book is already programmed to be exactly the same whether Harry travels back or not!
Well, you ask, what if the Grandfather actually did die to poison? What if there is no materializing boy who fed him the antidote? Good question.
If the Grandfather did die, then Harry wouldn't exist. Period. But, that is another Book. In this storyline, the writer is describing the FIRST BOOK! Not any other book.
Why does gravity exist? Because it does. Why is there a materializing boy? Because there is. It is a built-in principle of the First Book that cannot be altered. Altering it will make it into another Book.
That is basically it. By no means am my writing supposed to dictate any outcomes or limit the imagination. It is up to the writer to decide the outcome of the time travel (i.e. if the monster ravaging the "past" should be killed or not). My solutions are just explanations that can be used to justify logic and rebellious readers.
Also, this explanation does not have to be known by the characters within a plot. They can still believe that time traveling back cause a change, despite it being futile.
After all, you might be writing a realistic fiction. There is not time travel, and all of this doesn't matter. A romance piece about students need no tampering with time.
In conclusion, there are four laws to Time Traveling:
1) Time traveling means going to another book.
2) The past, present, and future of any one Book is not changeable. It is a fixed line.
3) There are infinite Books that cover all possibilities of one period AND all periods of time for any one Book that is flipping at the same time.
4) It is an illusion that time traveling back and changing something is meaningful. The change would've happened anyways.
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