Not My Canon!

WTF: The Butterfly Effect

In 2004, Ashton Kutcher was in a movie with the tagline: You cannot change who people are without destroying who they were. That movie was called Butterfly Effect.

The film borrowed its title from the scope of time travel the studio was attempting to present to the audience. In the briefest sense, the "butterfly effect" can be defined as a small cause creating large effects.

Again...Cause and Effect.

Causality.

The butterfly effect is actually a mathematical concept that started out as a form of weather prediction. Or, as Ian Malcolm eloquently puts it in Jurrasic Park, "A butterfly flaps its wings in Beijing and the weather changes in New York." Sci-Fi storytellers have adopted this concept of forecasting future weather patterns to explain the causality in Dynamic Timeline time travel.

Allow me to break it down:

Fixed Timeline (presented in Prisoner of Azkaban): You cannot change history because the past always included you and your attempts to alter it, with the likelihood of creating time loops.

Dynamic Timeline (presented in Cursed Child): You can change history, leading to vastly unexpected results and potential paradoxes, like nullifying the birth of your best friend by unintentionally killing his father. Or causing Ron's hair to part differently. Some would say, "super-aggressively" .

(*wonders if he should even describe the finer levels of exasperated face twitching going on at the moment*)

Why their attempt doesn't make sense:

1. Delphi wants to go back with them. Albus and Scorpius say no (because they're boys and we all know that boys are in control - sarcasmmmm). Delphi wants to know how they will be able to work the Time-Turner without her. They respond by saying that she already taught them. Mmm... How does she know how to use it? It's been in their possession since it was taken from the Ministry. Pretty sure there weren't any other Time-Turners chilling out in the world when Delphi grew up, where she could've attained some sort of proficiency with them. So... what makes her the expert?

2. Delphi gives the boys Durmstrang robes so they can go undetected. Uhm... where did the Durmstrang robes just... come from? Did they sprout from her arms? Why aren't Albus and Scorpius like, "Hey... that's weird. Where'd you snag those bad boys?"Also, there should've been three robes, if my math is correct. Because she had only just decided, right then, not to go along for the ride. Like, I get that the robes are a minor detail, but it shows an absurd level of negligence. And for what? For the purpose of filling in a tiny plot hole that they probably noticed right before the book went to print?

Ooh, guys... Uh... wouldn't Hermione pick up on the fact that they weren't Hogwarts students when they sat next to her? Same year in school, and all. What should we do?

Oh, no need to worry. Jack will sort it out. He's the best writer on the planet. Didn't you know?

So dummm. You want us to believe that Delphi just... had those school uniforms ready? In their sizes? Circe 1994 / 1995? Mm. Eh-heh.

3. They plan to disarm Cedric during the task so he loses and has a worse chance at winning the tournament. Thus saving his life. Okay then, answer me this: If they are going into the past with the specific purpose of saving Cedric, why... exactly... would their first idea be to yank his wand away? Like... when he's facing a dragon alone? I guess it's better to have him die by the scalding hell of dragon fire... than by... Voldemort...? That makes sense. Yep.

*obligatory eye roll*

4. During the Triwizard Tournament, Bagman announces that Cedric was disarmed. How was that allowed to just happen? I mean, such a comment would indicate that someone else had done the disarming. Everyone in attendance would be alerted. Then what? Cause and Effect. This would have been an outrageous controversy and would likely derail the entire tournament. Didn't think of that little gem, Jack?