Although it takes Kate a little longer, she and Alex now have concluded that they are communicating across time. This begins their serious correspondence as they try to get to know each other. Over the next several weeks she sends him a letter, he receives it and replies, and she receives his answer. Each such exchange rewrites two years' worth of history, because before she can answer her history of those two years must expand. Thus each time he answers the newest addition to the string of letters, he never hears from her again.
The connection at the birthday party gradually morphs during this time, because he knows more and more about her and is coming to like what he learns. He does not yet know of the book, though, which is his key to unlocking her attention that night, so it does not play quite as seen.
The other event that gradually morphs is the Daley Plaza accident. In the original history, Alex happened to be at Daley Plaza crossing the street. By the second revision they have met at her birthday party, and eventually he knows who she is when he meets her. Thus it becomes plausible that being at Daley Plaza and seeing her lunching with her mother, he might be crossing the street to meet her. Something of the confusion over the break in communications might be a factor, because the more letters she answers the more surprising it will be when an answer inevitably does not come, and so he has an extra motivation to be crossing that street in time to be hit by the bus.
The one oddity in this period of their initial interaction is the passing of the name of the dog. Alex suggests that they have the same dog, and Kate says she calls hers "Jackie" or "Jack" but she doesn't know why. Alex calls the dog "Jack" and it immediately reacts.
So maybe the dog's name is Jackie, and somehow it let Kate know this (it is, after all, a magic dog). On the other hand, Alex does change his voice when he tries the name, and ordinary dogs don't really know their names--they know the sound which their humans use in addressing them, and thus a significant change in tone of voice is likely to get a dog to react as if it were responding to its name. So it happens that Kate named the dog Jackie and then told Alex the name, and Alex named the dog Jack because it was the name Kate used, confirming the name in the dog's mind.
This is all rather straightforward until we get to the summer walking tour, at which point their interaction by letter becomes a bit fuzzy. That will be our next discussion.
Comments
I may be new here but it seems to me that someone already explained that it DOESN'T take two years for each letter. Of course, you may have written your blog before you were corrected and therefor, couldn't correct it in time. For a self-proclaimed expert in time travel, you seem to think everything has to fit with what you expect, rather than the way the writer has put things in motion. I like that you are kind to even the most annoying comments but your efforts here seem to try to get a square peg into a round hole and vice-versa. Your theory of time replacement seems to disagree with everyone else. Could be time to update your theory.
What do you think happens to the timeline where Alex dies? First in the film itself. Second, what would you have happen according to your time replacement theory? Is there any story that demonstrates your pet theory?
Thanks for the comment and the encouragement, New Guy.
Replacement is one of three primary theories of time travel; it is a minority view, but still widely held. Many movies work under it; some movies do not work under any theory--including, I expect, this one. You seem persuaded that the writers had a working theory that allowed Kate to change her own past (thus not fixed time nor multiple dimension theory) which is not a consistent replacement theory. I'd love to know what it is and how it works.
You can find analyses of movies some of which do work at www.mjyoung.net/time/ and discussion of theory there and in other articles here. My aim here is to determine whether a film works under any theory, and particularly what happens under replacement theory, which is the theory I find must functional.
As mentioned, I will be addressing the issue of the time taken for each letter in an article at the conclusion of the series.
Thanks again.
--M. J. Young
Why should we worry if God loves us?
Last Sunday a young man tried to convince me of an idea that Jesus was a time traveller. I will tell you that I dismissed this as poppycock.
Are there many biblically bible references to time travel in the bible?
If it was possibly possible today in our modern times to time travel, what would God think of it? Would he think it was a trick to get around His divine plan or would he see it as a second chance to possibly fix bad sins to things right?
Thank you, Grace. There are some events in the Bible that might be considered temporal oddities. Moses and Elijah met with Jesus on what we call the Mount of Transfiguration, but whether they crossed time to be there or simply lived in heaven to that point is a guess. When Joshua fought the Amorites, the sun stopped moving to remain longer in the sky so he could finish the battle. Isaiah claims that God caused the shadow on the stairs to reverse by twenty minutes on one occasion.
As to what God would think of time travel, if it proves possible it must be included in His plan; it is not going to surprise Him. What we do with it is going to be what matters. Quantum Leap hinted that God used time travel to correct little problems, but that begs the question of how those little problems happened initially. I don't think we can know at this point whether time travel is going to be possible or not.
--M. J. Young
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