Animals souls

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 45121

Kara wrote:
> Then you have the case of "Moody" transfiguring Draco into a ferret.
> Now.. a ferret is alive just as a human, so it's not quite the same.
> But was Draco reduced to the simple mind of a ferret while he was
> one?
> 
> ~ Kara

He probably was, yes. Canon points out in QTTA that "the witch or 
wizard who finds him- or herself transformed into a bat may take to air 
but, having a bat's brain, they are sure to forget where they want to 
go the moment they take flight" (not to be confused with the previous 
mention of flying animagi, who do keep their brain), so it seems like 
anyone who gets himself transformed into an animal looses his human 
brain along with his body. Maybe is this fact that makes animagi 
transformations so rare -and difficult: that when you transform, you 
have to change only your body, but not the intelligence that goes with 
it (although part of the mind changes as well: from Sirius we know that 
a transformed animagus's feelings are animalistic in nature).

Veronica wrote:
> Finally, we have a few occassions where animals are retreated rather 
> coldly--as though they have no soul. This is basically concerning 
> animals used in relation to transfiguration:
> * Cedric turned the rock into a dog for the sake of distracting the 
> dragon during the first task, but was anyone concerned for this dog 
> being offered up as a sacrifice to the dragon?

This was not a dog, anymore than if I used technology to put toghether 
a robot that, while looking like a dog and moving like a dog, was 
simply a piece of machinery. When transforming the rock, Cedric had to 
visualize the sort of dog he wanted, and in that image was included 
things like his expected actions and the sound of his bark (after all, 
the dog sticks around to distract the dragon, while any real dog would 
have probably run away as soon as he saw the several metres high, 
fire-breathing, talon-armed, scale-armoured dragon). It's still a rock, 
even if it looks like a dog.
 
> Here are the two things I am specifically wondering:
> 
> 1. Why do some animals have *more* soul than others?

For the same reason some characters have more dimension than others: 
Harry knows some of them better, and some worse. If what you're 
refering to is to the level of consciousness the animals exhibit (the 
capability of understanding what is required of them and reading the 
mood of other creatures), well, that happens in real life as well: 
different animals have different amount of consciousness. Right after 
humans come dolphins and most of the apes, for example, while on the 
other side of the list you'd probably find many insects and most birds. 
Cats I'd probably place someplace in the middle: they seem to know, but 
don't give a damn, about the other creature's feelings.
 
> 2. (And this is a little weird I suppose) What happens with animals' 
> souls during transformations? 
> 
> * Animals are created from inanimate objects--do they get a soul in 
> the process? If the previously mentioned dog was not killed by the 
> dragon (we don't know what happened to it), would it have had a soul?

As I mentioned before, I don't think that inanimate objects get a soul 
in the process. In my view of magic, they are robots -automats- created 
by a form of technology (magic), but so far, you cannot give life 
through magic, which is what creating a soul would do: give it a 
life-force of its own.

> * And what about animals that are transformed INTO inanimate objects? 
> What happens to the souls of turtles turned into teapots or hedgehog 
> (was it hedgehogs?) turned into pincushions?
>
> Veronica

As for animals turned into objects, the soul is still there, even if 
the object doesn't seem to have one. If you transform an animal into a 
wooden plank and you snap the plank in two, you kill the animal. Canon 
point: the hedgehogs that had been incorrectly transformed still rolled 
into a ball when you tried to stick a pin in them, which means they 
were still partially "alive". This seems to indicate that 
Animal!objects are still alive, but that they cannot move or feel 
(since the object is inanimate).
 
Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf