Splitting the Soul (was: Voldemort killed personally)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157402

Ken wrote:
> <snip> All Slughorn says is that you split your soul by committing
murder. He did not qualify how you commit the murder. It seems to me
that in the Potterverse anyone who commits murder by any means splits
(or rips for those who prefer that) their soul into two pieces. I
assume that this is true of Muggles as well as witches and wizards. It
is only the latter who may be aware that this happens and can
potentially make use of it. 

Carol responds:
I agree. As I've argued elsewhere I think that Myrtle's death
qualifies as murder and was used for the first Horcrux. I would add
that a murder can apparently be committed years before the Horcrux is
created, so the soul split apparently remains unhealed (unless
possibly it can be healed by repentance, and Tom/Voldemort never
repents his evil deeds. He doesn't even consider them to be evil. In
Quirrell's words, he (Voldemort) believes that "there is only power,
and those too weak to use it" (quoted from memory from SS/PS). 

Another point, related not to what Ken and Betsy said but to Mike's
belief that the soul is only split when a wizard intent on creating a
Horcrux commits murder: Even if you discount Myrtle (and I don't--
there's nothing in canon to indicate that the murderer must use an
AK), Tom must surely have used the most important murder that we know
he committed, that of his father, to make a Horcrux (probably the
ring). He *obtained* the ring either just before or just after he
committed the murder (when he Stunned Morfin and later modified his
memory), but he didn't know how to encase his split soul in the object
at that point. (He was wearing the ring when he asked slughorn about
Horcruxes.) He ws intent upon committing revenge at that point, by his
own admission in GoF, not "intent upon making a Horcrux." Horrible as
it may be (is), he had already committed four murders (counting
Myrtle) when he asked Slughorn that question. So he only needed to
commit two more to have enough murders for his intended six Horcruxes.
And he would not have placed any preliminary spell on the Horcrux
objects since he didn't have any of them yet except the diary and the
ring. The cup and the locket were obtained some two or three years
after he left Hogwarts when he killed Hepzibah Smith. Yes, he was
"intent upon making a Horcrux" at that point--actually, two more--but
he was also intent upon stealing the objects, one that he lusted for
as belonging to a founder of Hogwarts and one that he viewed as
rightfully his as well as belonging to a founder. As far as we can
tell from canon, it was the murder that split his soul, not the
intention of creating a Horcrux, and Hepzibah's murder would have
created only one new soul piece. He'd have had to use another murder
(a grandparent's) for the locket, assuming that he used Hepzibah's for
the cup. (I won't get into the unanswerable question of how a multiple
murderer chooses which soul piece goes into which object. Maybe
there's a complex incantation like "Bone of the father, you will
restore your son!")

Betsy Hp:
> > (Honestly, I think the really dark part of the horcrux is that it
 prevents healing.  Just as Crucio encourages sadism and Dementors 
trap you in depression.)
> >  
> 
> Ken:
> I agree again. The horcrux reference that Hermione finds describes
them as extremely wicked. I think it would be fair to say that to
create a horcrux is essentially to curse your own soul. My sense is
that the split caused by a murder will eventually heal but the
creation of a horcrux makes the split permanent. Rowling has not yet
discussed the afterlife and maybe she never will but I wonder if the
split in your soul isn't eternal when you create a horcrux. Slughorn>
makes a point that the soul is supposed to remain whole for some
reason.  <big snip>

Carol responds:
And yet we do know some things about the afterlife as JKR conceives it
in the HP books. First, it exists, as indicated by the voices beyond
the Veil, it does exist. Dumbledore calls death "the next great
adventure." It isn't the end of everything, so Voldemort's fear of
death is irrational. The worst fate is not to die, even to die
horribly, but to have your soul sucked by a Dementor and irrecovably
lost. (Which leads me to wonder what the now soulless Barty Jr. is
like now--not a zombie since he isn't dead or a vegetable since his
brain still works, but missing all memories, all sense of self, all
humanity, all hope? Voldemort has, it appears, either one sevenths or
two sevenths of a soul, setting aside the headache-inducing mechanics
of soul-splitting, and he seems to have lost all human emotions except
anger, hatred, sadistic pleasure, and a fierce, selfish sort of joy
when he scores a triumph. Would someone who had lost his entire soul
would be even less human, devoid of joy and pleasure altogether,
hungry for what had can't experience himself, like the Dementors? Is
there a special ward for the Dementors' victims in St. Mungo'?)

To return to the point, and to Ken's question, I think that a person
who has created a Horcrux, like the victims of the Dementors, is
denied access to the afterlife. The difference is that he's anchoring
his own soul to the earth, permanently, he hopes, so that he can
continue to live on earth forever (more of a cursed half-life, really,
which is why most wizards, even murderers, don't try to create
Horcruxes). Nearly Headless Nick says of Sirius Black, "He will have
gone on" (OoP, quoted from memory)--on to what, Nick doesn't know, but
whatever is beyond the Veil.

JKR as a Christian would view the soul as immortal. The soul can be
sucked by a Dementor and be lost, falling into eternal darkness and
isolation, apparently, but it is not destroyed by death, nor would a
soul bit be destroyed when the object encasing it is destroyed. It
would, IMO, be released to return to its eternal home beyond the Veil.
Two bits of Voldie's soul are already there. (I any soul bits were
floating loose at Godric's Hollow, they would be there as well. In my
view, they can't be encased in an object, including a person or his
scar, without an encantation.)

Why is creating a Horcrux wicked, aside from requiring a preliminary
act of murder? Because it's unnatural. It violates the natural order,
which says that when a person dies, his soul goes on to eternal life
(whatever is beyond the Veil). Splitting your soul through murder is
bad enough, but separating the pieces, placing them in an object or
objects to hold them on earth so that you can't die, is evil. Look
what Voldemort becomes as he creates his Horcruxes, becoming less
human in both appearance and emotions with each one. No act is too
evil for him to contemplate. All he lacks at the moment is power
(allies and minions to do his dirty work). Look what he becomes when
he's hit by the rebounding AK, "less than the meanest ghost" as he
says in GoF--evil but powerless to do anything except possess small
creatures like rats and snakes, sucking out their life force to
sustain his own, a parasite. Later, he does the same thing to
Quirrell, turning him evil in the process. Perhaps Quirrell is whole
now, his soul restored to its original purity beyond the Veil, but
Voldemort is denying himself that healing, that restoration, with the
division of his soul into seven parts to hold himself on earth. (Two
parts are now, in his view, lost, but perhaps their loss is a step
toward healing. If there's a God in the Potterverse, surely He would
believe in mercy, and even an Unforgiveable Curse wouldn't be
unforgiveable. It's the wizards who hold that view.)

What Voldemort has done is unnatural, IMO. and if he succeeded in
killing Harry and retaining even one Horcrux hidden and protected,
perhaps he'd discover the heinousness of what he'd done through the
deterioration of his body. Like Tithonus in the Greek myth, his body
would age while his fraction of a soul lived on. If anything happened
to that body, he'd be vaporized again. He'd have to spend his "life"
seeking immunity to old age and disease rather than seeking power.
Earthly immortality, unlike eternal life beyond the Veil, isn't a
blessing. It's a curse.

Carol, not claiming that this interpretation is correct, just
presenting it for discussion