Evaporating soul pieces ( was Re: Why 4 Horcruxes left, and not 3?? )

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 142274

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at y...> wrote:

expectopatronnie: 
> > I don't understand it that way: IMO when you kill you're ripping 
> > your soul, and not merely damaging it. The ripped pieces  
> > evaporate into thin air, unless you encase them with a horcrux. I 
> > really don't think the actual making of the Horcrux increases the 
> > damage to your soul

bboyminn: 
> To imply that the soul-pieces 'evaporate into thin air' implies that
> they are gone relatively quickly. It's difficult to say how much 
> time it took Tom to create each individual Horcruxes (re: time 
> between murder and creation), but it seems clear that it took him a
> significant amount time to create the original Diary Horcrux.
 
> Also, we must to some extent blend real-life with fictional life. 
> If a person commits murder and that tears his soul, and that soul  
> piece is lost, then from a religious sense, can that murderer never 
> be redeemed? From a Christian perspective, even the worst of us is
> capable of achieving salvation, but how is salvation possible if you
> have lost part of your soul? Again, I know that's not proof, but it 
> is a least an indicator. 
> 
> So far in JKR's Wizard World, we have only one thing that /seems/ to
> destroy the soul, and that is the Dementors. Of course, I can't 
> really say that with absolute certainty. In general though, the  
> soul is eternal.

> While I know I can't offer definitive proof and am equally sure that
> without proof I will never sway your opinion, I am convinced that
> Killing tears the soul, but that torn damaged soul stays with the
> murderer. I do, personally, believe that given substantial amounts 
> of time the soul is capable of repairing itself. While given 
> decades of time and a substantial change of heart, the soul may, to 
> some extent, heal itself, it will always be scarred and damaged by 
> the action of murder. 

Geoff:
I lean towards Steve's position but go further to say that I do not 
buy into the hypothesis that a ripped piece of soul just evaporates 
into thin air.

My view is that it is analogous to the situation in the real world 
with physical injuries. If a person has an accident and, say, breaks 
their back and becomes paralysed, their back is still there. It is 
not able to function properly but is still a part of them. If, on the 
other hand, as a result of an accident, they have a leg amputated, 
the leg is no longer part of them.

The parallel with the wizarding world soul if that, if a soul is 
ripped because its "owner" has committed murder, then the soul piece 
is no longer functioning as an integral part of the person's soul but 
is still there. If the person then goes so far as to encase the soul 
piece in a Horcrux, it is the parallel of amputation. The soul piece 
is no longer part of them; no longer available to them.

One problem is how we visualise the soul in the Horcrux situation. A 
soul in the real world is not a tangible thing; a surgeon cannot take 
an X-ray of a person and put a finger on the print and say "There is 
the soul". I find that this gives me problems in imagining soul 
pieces. I said weeks ago that I had a mental picture of a sheet of A4 
paper being torn and torn again but, when some contributors try to 
rationalise the situation by using concrete fraction values, I don't 
entirely agree (and I speak as a retired Maths teacher). To me,I am 
now beginning to think that it seems a bit like releasing some of the 
air out of a balloon; The remaining air redistributes itself 
throughout the balloon but at a lower pressure.

Like Steve, looking from a Christian perspective I believe that no 
one is beyond redemption until they put themselves there as a choice. 
Ah, say some of you, he's banging on about Draco again! Yes, 
possibly, but in real life, the opportunity of salvation remains 
there so I cannot see the soul evaporating away; I can see it 
hardening - look back at the dwarves at the end of C.S.Lewis' "Last 
Battle" which I have often cited. But God never gives up on us. We 
close doors ourselves sometimes by choice, sometimes by irreversible 
actions.