Splitting the Soul (was: Voldemort killed personally)

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 157440

> 
> Carol wrote:
> 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.) 

Ken:

I don't think that we know for sure that Tom had not created a horcrux
at the time he asked Slughorn about them. My sense is that the point
of that line of questioning was not to learn about horcruxes but to
sound Slughorn out on the notion of multiple horcruxes. I think it is
fairly obvious that Tom already knew what they were and Slughorn gave
him no information on how to create one (Tom would certainly already
know that a spell was involved!) yet he was very happy at the end of
the interview to the point of looking non-human. I think the thing
that made him happy was that he heard nothing to dissuade him from
making multiple horcruxes other than it was too evil to contemplate.
Tom never seems to have had any difficulty contemplating evil. DD
agrees that the multiple horcrux question was his real purpose behind
the interview.

My impression is that Tom had already made one horcrux when he
questioned Slughorn and was on the verge of making a second. At the
beginning of the memory Slughorn says of Tom "What with your uncanny
ability to know things you shouldn't,...". The sentance is about his
possible rise to Minister of Magic but I think it is no accident that
Slughorn points out Tom's knowledge of things that are beyond his
years. Another, tenuous I admit, indication of this is that less human 
happiness at the end of the memory. True, much the same language is
used way back in the orphanage scene but it seems slightly stronger
here to me. Perhaps the first horcrux does not change you all that
much and changes in a teenager are be expected anyway.

In the end I suppose it may not matter if he had or hadn't already
made a horcrux at this point. He is clearly on the verge of making
either another, or his first two, horcrux(es). We would probably agree
that he would use Myrtle's death to make the diary horcrux and his
father's to make the ring horcrux assuming that the means to sort out
the soul bits from one another exists. At the very least I suppose
this indicates that a split soul can remain split for some time. I
think that you could be right, repentance or something akin to it on
the part of the murderer might be required to heal the split.

> Carol again:

> 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.

Ken:

We have a different view of how the horcrux spell could work. I would
just point out that if it works the way I envision it you don't *have*
to cast the spell before the murder but you *can*. Your picture of how
it works is a subset of mine. Your's denys that Harry/horcrux is
possible, mine allows it and that is the chief difference between them.


> 
> Carol again:
> And yet we do know some things about the afterlife as JKR conceives it
> in the HP books. 

Ken:

I agree. My statement about the afterlife was only in regard to how a
horcrux would affect the eternal fate of its creator. I should have
been more clear about that. I don't think we have any canon to support
an opinion on the manner but since I support those who are willing to
speculate on the new canon that will appear in book 7 I can hardly
fault you for indulging in the practice!

> Carol again:

> 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). 

Ken:

First, I have to disagree with you about the fate of the "demented",
subject to the following condition. IFF Rowling intends that the
Potterverse be compatible with Christian theology we have some Canon
on which to base an opinion about the fate of those who suffer a
demontor's kiss. From John 10:27-28 (NASV) we have:

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no
one will snatch them out of My hand." 

And from Romans 8:38-39 (NASV) we have:

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Dementors attack the innocent and the guilty alike, often with MoM
blessing and aid in both cases. They cannot snatch the souls of the
former out of God's hands. I don't really know what they are able to
do with the latter. As a Christian I personally believe that our
souls' fates are determined by our own choices and cannot be affected
by outside forces. Of course we have no firm basis on which to say how
Christian Rowling intends the Potterverse to be.

We all believe that Harry will succeed in sending LV's soul piecemeal
into the afterlife whether Harry survives the experience or not. I
call that killing the soul bits, you and several others seem to prefer
to call it sending them through/beyond the veil. It is the same thing
to me, the soul is eternal, when I speak of killing it I mean
detaching it from its Earthly abode and sending into the next life. I
don't have the image of souls and soul bits literally flying through
that veil in the DoM as many of you seem to have. I view that as
simply an artifact created to study death, not the one and only portal
to the next life. But that matters little, the result is the same.

My question was about the eternal fate of the horcruxed once all their
separate soul bits are finally separated from the Earth and reside in
the afterlife. I suspect that it is different from those who make the
journey with whole souls or in the case of common murderers with all
the soul bits passing beyond at the same time. Beyond that I suppose
your speculation is as good as anyone's. I would guess that book 7
will say something about the matter.

Ken