Files

3.7 KiB

[WIP][RT][RST] Horry Patter and the Philologer's Stone - Chapter 21

Post:

Link to content

Comments:

u/infomaton [+6] (11 hours later)

Not pluralizing Vampire was more disconcerting than I'd have thought.

u/tokol [+5] The Greater Good (14 hours later)

"Yur wand? Oh. Ohhhhhhhh." Horbid leans against his hut, nodding his head, "Ah," he says finally.

"Alvin's wand," He says, finally, with a knowing grin.

Unless you're trying to mess with readers, Horbid shouldn't be saying two things finally right in a row.

u/abcd_z [+4] (a day later)

teacher gives Horry a not!time-turner that's already been through the loop once

This was a mistake on her part, and I'm glad it got confiscated by F&G. If the not!time-turner was stuck in the same time loop, over and over, eventually it would break down and end the loop. It might take a thousand loops or a million, but eventually it would happen, causing all manner of problems for whichever Horry it broke on.

Of course, since she was explicitly stated as refusing to teach chronomancy, perhaps it was an understandable oversight on her part.

u/Mqrius [+6] (a day later)

I think she's aware of this. I believe "another one" refers to the not!time-turner in this phrase:

"The first day. First day of class, and we lose another one to a loop," she takes it out of her pocket and hands it back to Horry.

u/696e6372656469626c65 [+3] I think, therefore I am pretentious. (a day later)

If the not!time-turner was stuck in the same time loop, over and over, eventually it would break down and end the loop. It might take a thousand loops or a million, but eventually it would happen, causing all manner of problems for whichever Horry it broke on.

This is not how the Novikov self-consistency principle (or, as it's called in-universe, the "Deutsch criterion") works.

u/abcd_z [+4] (a day later)

Right, so that principle says "it's impossible to change the past". The problem is, between the time the first iteration started and the time the first iteration ended, the timetwistor will have lost a few atoms here and there to the effects of entropy, which means that the timetwistor which starts the second iteration is minutely different from the one that started the first iteration, which would be in violation of the Novikov principle.

Unless, of course, the timetwistors were charmed to be absolutely immune to the effects of entropy.

Actually it's probably that, now that I think about it.

u/AurelianoTampa [+3] (a day later)

"So it's the Eldar wand?"

"I dunno if ye could say that..."

"Why not?"

"Why what?"

"Why can't I say it's the Eldar wand?"

"Say what's the Eldar wand?"

"Alvin's wand!"

"What about it?"

Just to confirm, this is basically what happens when someone talks about a CLASSIFIED topic, right? They can't remember the contents of the discussion from moment to moment? Then what changed so that Horry can keep it straight but Horbid cannot? Or is it that Horry doesn't know, so he's just guessing/asking, and Horbid does know so he can't remember? And if that's the case, is there no way for Horry to ever get stuck under the CLASSIFIED magick himself, since no one will ever be able to "confirm" the truth?

I think it's pretty obvious that this is the case, but I was wondering if I misunderstood...