[HPforGrownups] Killing tears the soul apart redux. WAS: Re: Snape's penance?

[Kemper]

No: HPFGUIDX 139833

 > Carol wrote:
> For her, the soul seems to be sufficiently tangible to be sucked
> > out of a body by a Dementor--through the mouth--which suggests a
> > concept something like that of the ancient Greek word "psyche" 
> (can't
> > do Greek letters, sorry), meaning "breath," ... 
> > What I'm trying to say is I don't think that the soul in the
> > Potterverse is a solid object that can be divided into halves and
> > quarters and so forth like a pie, with each succeeding "half" being
> > smaller until the portion of soul remaining in Voldie is so small 
> that
> > it is hardly worth dividing. 
> 
> Saraquel:
> I wish i'd seen your post before I posted my last one, 
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/139828 as we are 
> thinking along the same lines I think. I took it one little step 
> further and suggested that the soul is in fact the personality. But 
> your post has sparked off more thoughts on the topic.
> 
> If this is accurate, and I did find quite a lot of canon that fits 
> the model, then splitting your soul is not a physical thing, more 
> like fragmenting your personality. So because personality is not a 
> physical thing, size is not an issue. It doesn't get smaller or 
> larger (as you suggest) IMO, it changes from being whole - meaning 
> consistent and in touch with itself (more akin to holistic) - to 
> split - meaning inconsistent, contradictory and at war with itself. 
> 
> In making a horcrux you could possibly choose which personality 
> traits to syphon off into the horcrux. In fact, if that is the 
> case, I can imagine that the early horcruxes are less deadly than 
> the later ones, as they are likely to contain the softer sides of 
> Voldemort's personality, the parts he despises the most. Tom Riddle 
> in CoS, was much less foul than the later Voldemort - still foul 
> though!

 Kemper now:
I agree and disagree. I think a Horcrux is composed of two separate parts of 
a human: the Psyche and the Soul. I don't think they're interchangeable. 
 What I propose is that the Psyche is a clone/duplicate of the Psyche of the 
original thereby implementing Carol's 'Multiplying by Dividing', like cell 
mitosis. The Soul is then 'Decreased by Dividing', like almost everything 
else. The Body remains constant (unable to divide or multiply).
 The Psyche has the same experiences as the Original at the time of the 
Horcrux: as with 15 year old Tom and the Diary.
 Spiritually, I don't like the idea of the soul dividing and becoming two 
equal souls... it decreases the soul's importance, uniqueness, beauty. The 
Soul, IMO, is a Gift from God, the Universe, a Higher Power, the Source, or 
Whatever. The Psyche is evil by choice/circumstance.
 So when the Diary and Ring horcruxes are destroyed, it is the Psyche in 
each that is Destroyed and the Soul from both is Released, returning if not 
to the Source then as far away from Voldemort as possible. 
 For what it's worth...
 Kemper


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]