This show is sponsored by Better Health Online Therapy. A lot of us will drop anything to show up for
our friends, but how well do we show up for ourselves? Visit betterhelp.com/SUPER and invest in being the best version of yourself. Hey, brother. My goodness, my gracious you guys. Sometimes I think we have already made a video
covering every single word that was written from the start of the Harry Potter
series to the very end of it. But just this past yesterday we were asked a question
over on our Instagram that was so simple, so elegant, so to the point, and also kind of difficult to answer
it simply how do Time Turners work? Now I will be the first to admit that I am not always
a fan of time travel as a plot device. It always feels to me like a not so specific way
to undo certain doom and to be clear, it's not that I love doom or anything. It's just
I don't like things to be inexplicably un-doomed either. You know what the thing is? Stories, movies are kind of like the opposite
of seeing a magician do a trick. Like, ultimately, knowing how the trick was performed
typically makes it a little bit less exciting. Like, in that case, I'd rather be mystified.
When it comes to stories, on the other hand, I want the explanation.
How did the rabbit get inside the hat? It is simply not enough to say that it was just there. That's where it comes from. Rabbits don't come from hats!
At least, I'm pretty sure. But that being said,
I will say that I have always liked how time travel is specifically used in the book
Prisoner of Azkaban. For me as a young reader, I've really loved the fact
that as I was going through the story, I wasn't picking up on all of the little cues
or being dropped around Ron and Harry, or for that matter, how
and why it was never really addressed how Hermione was supposed to be taking multiple classes
at the same time. - Where did you come from?
-Me? I've been here all this time. So in the end, it was a really fun and exciting mind blowing moment
for eight year old me to have it all explained. You watch it unravel, and then for all future reads,
I get that like "I'm in the know" feeling where it's like, "Ooh, I caught that. I spotted that." Probably
also get a little superior somewhere along the way. Like "Oh, Ron and Harry, could you be more clueless?" Actually, to be fair to Ron's specifically,
he did seem appropriately concerned, but didn't have the power of persuasion
to get anybody else to give it another glance. Beyond all of that, though, Prisoner of Azkaban
also plays by my favorite set of rules when it comes to time travel,
which is the idea that anything that happens as a result of time
travel always happened in the first place anyway. Meaning once you go back in time, anything you that do
back in time happened the first time anyway. Harry gets hit in the back of the head
with a rock because Time-Travel-Harry is also there at the same time. What ultimately makes this form of time
travel fun is really just getting to see it from multiple vantage points,
which I have to tell you for me It's just so much better than the like crazy butterfly effect ramifications
that can happen in other forms of time travel. If, for example, Ron goes back in time and gets everybody
to actually pay attention to the fact that Hermione is doing a bunch of classes at the same time then everybody is like,
"Wow, Ron, you're a genius." And it completely changes his entire career at school - Only I'm Head Boy That would be so lame. But either way, whenever time travel is involved, it also introduces a variety
of really interesting questions. Like, for example,
how do Time Turners work in the first place? And does Hermione Actually age a little bit every time she travels
back in time, like does she ultimately become older? Today, we attempt to explain how do Time Turners? [Theme music in reverse] Hey brother! Guys before we dive on images give a huge
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promo code super link description down below. Okay guys time turners I bring all of this up because
of what is known in the fantasy genre as magic systems. There are two obvious systems,
one being hard magic versus soft magic and the way that these are implemented
in different stories varies drastically. Hard magic is usually magic
that can be explained within the context of the story. There are rules
as to how it works within the wizarding world. The most obvious example of
this is going to be all of the wand lore Any of the spells cast with wands
in order to cast any spell you first need, you acquire a physical magic wand. You need to know the incantation and the associated
one movement in order to get the desired results. -EXPELLIARMUS! [screams] if you were to compare this kind of magic
to other fantasy stories, it might be considered kind of soft. Like there's
no in-universe sciencey explanation as to how any of it is working, what energy is actually
going into making the spell work, and what type of physical toll is it taking on the Wizard
to cast a spell in the first place? Or, and barring a few exceptions
within the Harry Potter series, what are the limitations of these spells? Because they kind of seem like they'll all work
under most circumstances. Gamps law, though, people - can't make food.
Can summon fish from the river but can't make it. But within the confines of the Harry Potter series,
this is going to be our hard magic. We are at least given some guidelines
as to how the magic works. On the other end of the spectrum, though,
there is what is called soft magic, which at no point in time
is anybody even attempting to explain how it works. It just simply does, because magic. Take, for example, the Mirror of Erised, or Harry's
invisibility cloak, or even the sword of Gryffindor These artifacts are special because they are.
They are one of a kind, entirely unique. And with that comes unique abilities that nothing else can do. And no one ever really even attempts to explain it. Like Harry's cloak is very different
from everybody else's invisibility cloak. His cloak isn't made with Demiguise hair
or has a disillusionment charm placed over it that could potentially wear out. It is a cloak that renders the wearer invisible
completely. Always. The best explanation we ever get is that death himself
made the cloak, which feels at least somewhat unlikely. Which ultimately brings us back to the time turners,
because I think we can take this same kind of logic and apply it to them
and see if it helps us answer any questions. Do they fall more into the soft magic category? Meaning they are just incredibly unique,
magical artifacts that can do what they do? Or are they more hard magic
and how they work can actually be explained? And then, of course, also answering the other question,
which is simply is Hermione actually older at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban because she spent so much time going back
and living back to the present? Magic system question, though, first: the first thing we need to determine is whether or not time travel within
Harry Potter is soft or hard. And my answer to that is it's a little bit of both. Let me attempt to explain. The author herself At one point in time has actually said that she feels like she played a little bit
too fast and loose with the inclusion of Time Turners. So, of course, made for a fantastic plot
device inside of the book Prisoner of Azkaban. But then they also kind of posed problems
into the future of the series. Because any powerful, magical object
that can accomplish anything usually comes with some other drawbacks,
at least from a writing standpoint. Basically, in this case, if we can go back in time,
why do we ever let anything bad happen? We can always drop back and fix it. Like after Harry returns from the chamber
with Quirrell and Voldemort in his first year, Dumbledore could have just pulled out a Time Turner, gone back in time and been in the chamber
with Harry when this happened to make sure nothing bad actually happened to him. But if he eventually decides to go back in time
to be there for Harry, then he always decided to go back in time
and be there for Harry, which means that Dumbledore was always there
in every version of this story. You see how it kind of like takes the stakes out of everything. In any case, the problem of Time Turners as a plot
device in the series is ultimately resolved in Order of the Phoenix,
specifically in the Department of Mysteries. It's not explicitly stated that all the Time
Turners are destroyed inside of the battle, but at the beginning of Half-Blood
Prince, Hermione does confirm this Ah, I always knew you'd find it hard to squeeze me into your timetables,
even if you applied for Tom Turner's. We couldn't have. We smash the entire stock of ministry time turners
when we were there last summer, it was in the daily profit. What's kind of interesting about the fact that
this is where that happened to be destroyed is that it means this is where they exist when they haven't
been lent out to students for use at school. But in addition to that,
I believe the reason why they are stored here specifically is
because this is where they were created. We actually do know from an article about Time Turners on
Pottermore how they came to be in the first place. According to Professor Saul Krueger,
"As our investigations currently stand, the longest period that may be relived
without the possibility of serious harm to the traveler or to time itself is around 5 hours.
We have been able to encase single hour reversal charms, which are unstable and benefit from containment
in small enchanted hour glasses that may be worn around a witch or wizard's
neck and revolved according to the number of hours the user wishes to relive."
This is where I think we can start to get an answer to the question
of whether or not this is soft or hard magic. Because basically what this article is suggesting
is that the power of time travel is able to be diluted or taken from its source of raw power and placed inside
of these necklaces that we know as Time Turners. This is what leads me to believe that time travelers
fall under the category of hard magic. The time turners themselves
do not create their own magic. They are not individually unique
or specifically extremely powerful on their own. Really, what they are in the simplest form are
containers. This would make them much more similar to the other invisibility cloaks
that we've seen within the series, which rely on either a specific material
or spell in order to render the wearer invisible. If the cloak is made entirely of demiguise hair
then yes, we can't see you. But we can also explain why that happens. Even if the explanation is a made up creature,
it's still an explanation. So what it really does is beg the question as to
what is the Demiguise in this example what are the workers in the Department of Mystery tapping into in order to gain the power that they are
then placing inside of the Time Turners? And interestingly, the answer to this question I think
both explains how Time Turners work and also gives us some insight into whether or not Hermione actually aged
when using the time to lose herself. I find it extreme interesting that the time prisoners are held within the Department of Mysteries,
because if there is anywhere within the entire series that is chock full of objects
that fall into the soft magic category, it's there. And if anything, I think
even within this particular universe where magic just freely exists, this department
exists. Wizards know there is magic. This stuff shouldn't be mysterious to them. And if it is, then how come? And the simple answer is
they can't. Wizards can't explain how this magic works. And as a refresher of other really bizarre items
we find in the Department of Mysteries, there are the tentacular brains that attack Ron, a room
that is just full of solar system. And of course, the veil that serious falls into
that is just quite literally a portal to death. It also contains every single prophecy
that has ever been made, which also means that the ability
to see the future is truly unique, making fortune telling both completely real
and also not teachable at all. To that end, Trelawny: terrible teacher. Also correct. 100% of the time. If you'd like to find out more,
check the video by clicking the card. But back to the Department of Mysteries,
where we also get to enter the time room, where I'm sure it comes as no surprise
where we can probably start to get some answers. The time room is covered floor to ceiling
in every direction of clocks of all different types. It contains a glass shelf full of all the Time Turners
and at the very end of the room is a glass bell jar where a hummingbird is quite literally going through the processes of life
just over and over and over again on repeat. And it's that bell jar that I think holds the answers
that we're looking for. In the ensuing battle, Hermione stuns
a death eater who crashes into this very bell jar, at which point his head starts to age down to a baby
and then back to adulthood and back again, over and over again. So I think that this bell jar must be the soft magic
that is worked with to create the hard magic time turners. How does it work? We don't know. But we have time travel in a jar that we are
then able to siphon off into these tiny devices. But the devices we do understand and they have rules. Every time you turn the hourglass over,
you could travel one hour back in time. As we move ourselves back to the Hermione question,
my first instinct here was to believe that whenever Hermione
was using the time Turner to go back in time, she was also aging herself backwards
by an hour or 2 hours, however far back she went, meaning that like for every hour
that she went back in time, whenever she brought back to the present,
her net age would remain the same. But Hermione's situation is quite a bit different
than what we're seeing happen to the Death Eater The Death Eater in this example has effectively poured
time travel all over himself and is feeling the effects of time travel
without ever actually leaving the present. It's exactly what we see in Avengers Endgame,
where they try to send Scott Lang back in time. He also ends up turning into a baby,
and it's because what they're doing is pushing time through him instead of him through time. Hermione, on the other hand, travels
with time away from the present, meaning in her case. I do think that every hour she goes back in
time is an additional hour she has existed. She ages up by that hour, meaning at the end of the school year,
she is actually aged more than she should have. The question is by how much? Well, we actually have a fairly comprehensive breakdown
of what Hermione's schedule looked like in her third year. And what we concluded
is that she needed to use the Time Turner five times per week, twice on Mondays
and three times on Thursday. Also apparently they have Saturday classes.
Did you guys know this? Because this was literally the first time we ever
learned this bit of information, while in the meantime they're just not going to class at all on Tuesday,
and Wednesday. What's up with that? What is this madness? Also, if I'm reading this correctly,
it means that she had Arithmancy twice on Thursday. I don't know about you guys
but seems like a rough Thursday. Anyway on that note time for the fun part: math. Assuming she has the typical 36 week school year
and she's using it five times per week That means she used it a total of 180 times
plus I guess an additional like 3 hours for the whole Sirius Black thing. So that is 183 hours divided by a 24 hours in a day,
which gives us 7.625 days she aged. She is basically one full week of her life older
at the end of the school year. Honestly, no wonder
she's so much more mature than Ron and Harry [laughs]. It all makes sense now.
-Yeah but I was talking to you there and now you're there! And we actually have to take this idea one step further
because what are the other characters that we know took all 12 OWLs
which means he almost certainly also had a time turner is one Percy Weasley. That's right hope you're
ready for math again just like Hermione on Thursday. Also who was even remotely surprised
that Percy is older than everybody else even more. It's like he was older than everybody else
to begin with. But because he did pass all 12 OWLs we're going to assume that he's stuck with the schedule
from year three all the way through year seven. With that being the case, it would mean that
he would have aged up five additional weeks, which is shockingly low to us,
who can't really comprehend why he acts like he's 30. -I happen to be a school prefect.
-Honestly,I'm 32 and he's still he seems older than that. So... ...something else. Anyway, guys, that is how we believe Time
Turner's work. Let us know what you think
in the towel section down below. But guys, as always, thank you so much for watching. Be sure to like this video abd subscribe to the channel
if you haven't already. If you'd like to hear more information
about how Percy almost certainly had a Time Turner, you can check out this video right
here. Otherwise, until next time: Bye.
