For the Sake of the Plot

[Prof. Sky Alton 260]

I've been re-reading Chamber of Secrets this week and it struck me (not for the first time) how unlikely it is that any school would let it's students be petrified for months. Couldn't they have brought in mature mandrakes from somewhere else*?

 

  The answer is, of course, that it was what the plot needed. People needed to be out of action so that the mystery of what was attacking them wasn't solved too early. There are a few of these in the HP series and a few more inconsistencies or unanswered questions that crop up simply because the world expands over the 7 books and something that made sense in the 1st now doesn't fit. And I get that, I really do. Plots are notoriously slippery and you often discover events or facts that don't quite ring true that the author has had to rely on to get them to go the way they want.

 

  Still, when you notice one of these sticky points it kind of jumps out at you even when you try to make a conscious decision not to notice it. So my question for you is, are there any unlikely, plot-driving events or all too convenient facts that particularly bother you in the HP books? Do you have an in-universe way of explaining it away?

 

(Someone on the internet suggests telling yourself that mandrakes have to be absolutely fresh so transporting some, even magically wouldn't work. I'll go with that)

 

[Iverian Gnash 76]

Okay, my big pet peeve with the books is the use of time turners. There's no way that time turners are so forbidden in The Cursed Child but they just hand them out to students like Hermione when they can't handle all their classes. 

 

Furthermore, when something terrible happens, why don't they simply use ones to change those events? These questions are sort of answered in The Cursed Child - you don't want to alter the past because it will change the future and some time turners don't care back very far for all that long - but there are still several problems with these explanations.

 

When Cedric Diggory was killed, why didn't they use a time turner to go back and warn everybody? Dumbledore had no problem giving one to Harry and Hermione in PoA to help Harry with the dementors and to save Buckbeak, but he wouldn't allow anyone to save Cedric? I'm sure there's a logical explanation, but the subject of time turners just always bothered me.