Splitting the Soul (was: Voldemort killed personally)

[Ken Hutchinson]

No: HPFGUIDX 157445

> 
> > Julie:
> > The thing that confuses me is, if the soul bits that have already
been  
> > released
> > from the Diary and the Ring horcruxes are floating around beyond
the  Veil,
> > then why didn't the part of Voldemort's soul that didn't die with
his body  at
> > Godric's Hollow end up beyond the Veil too? Why did it remain
earthbound,  but
> > the other released pieces didn't? Is it because it is the
"primary" soul  
> > piece
> > only that will remain earthbound? (Though how does the primary
soul  piece
> > *know* it is the primary one?)
> >  
> > Or could both the now released soul bits also be earthbound?  Or
caught 
> > somewhere "in limbo"......
> >snip
> 
> Karen F here---
> 
> Could it be that when bits of soul are released from their
encasement they aren't actually 
> destroyed at all but return back to their original source? Could it
be that once all the bits 
> are back where they came from, the original owner of the soul bits
can then be truly 
> mortal again?  Will we maybe start to see Voldemort start to return
to an aged Tom Riddle 
> in appearance?
> 


Ken:

There is a tradition that humans are three-part (we are created in
God's image) as is the God of Abraham. People often speak of "body,
soul, and spirit". The body is the obvious physical container of the
other two. The soul is our eternal essence. The spirit? To me it is
our conscious self. Voldemort and Slughorn seem to confirm this view
in the Horcruxes chapter of HBP (p 497, US HB):

******************************************

"Well, you split your soul, you see," said Slughorn, "and hide part of
it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked
or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound
and undamaged. But of course existence in such a form..."

Slughorn's face crumpled and Harry found himself remembering words he
had heard nearly two years before: "I was ripped from my body, I was
less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost...but still, I was alive."

"...few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable."

*****************************

Notice that body, soul, and spirit are all mentioned above. Later on
DD says "Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged
beyond repair, his brain and his magical powers remain intact" (p
509). DD can't mean his physical brain since that is long gone, he
must mean his intellect which along with his magical powers must be
part of LV's spirit. I take this all to mean that while his physical
body may be destroyed (and regenerated) LV's spirit remains active in
the world as long as part of his soul remains in the world.

Notice something else that I only noticed today: Slughorn says that if
the body is destroyed *part* of the soul remains undamaged and
Earthbound. I think the implication is that the part encased in the
horcrux(es) remains, the part that was in the body is sent on. This is
enough to keep the bodiless and apparently weakened spirit Earthbound
too. This suggests that unless one of his soul fragments is embedded
in Harry's scar all of the fragments in LV's body that night at GH
have been sent through the veil. It kind of implies that LV's
regenerated body has no soul inside it, doesn't it? He appears to be
running on the soul bits in his scattered (or not) horcruxes. 

That leads to another question. How could LV's soulless body have
created any horcruxes at the Riddle place in Harry's 5th year or at
any time since then? The answer appears to be that he could not, he
would seem to have no soul in either his babyMort or regenerated body
from which to create them. I don't know if Carol will buy the
reasoning that leads to this conclusion but it seals the deal on her
Nagini/horcrux belief. IF Nagini is a horcrux, she must have been a
horcrux before GH.

It seems to me that there is a huge mistake here. Either Slughorn is
wrong when he says only the horcruxed part(s) of the soul remains
behind, DD is wrong about LV being able to make a horcrux from Frank
Bryce's death, or JKR did not see the implication of the words she put
into Slughorn's mouth. If Slughorn is wrong then you must have to kill
all of the soul bits at once to kill LV or Karen's theory above is
correct, which gets us to pretty much the same result. I rather like
Karen's theory, I think it has a nice symmetry to it. But if it were
true with two, possibly three, horcruxes destroyed LV should be
starting to look less reptilian by now and he is not. It would also
contradict DD's statement above that LV's soul is damaged beyond repair.

I can believe that JKR missed this implication and if she did it will
spoil her conclusion somewhat for me, I expect. That is, it will
unless one of you can explain how LV's new body can have a resident
soul fragment. I suppose he could have pulled one from a horcrux, that
would make Harry's job easier except he would not know that one more
was accounted for. Perhaps Hermione will figure that out for him.

However we know that DD made one mistake in his Frank/Nagini/horcrux
theory: It was LV not Nagini that killed Frank. Here we have a second
possible mistake. It is looking more and more like DD was trying to
plant some inconsistencies in Harry's mind to give him the clues to
figure out that he is a horcrux too. Having partially regained Carol's
respect by finding a way to confirm her Nagini theory I now put myself
beyond the Pale again.

Ken







Julie:
The thing that confuses me is, if the soul bits that have already been
released
from the Diary and the Ring horcruxes are floating around beyond the Veil,
then why didn't the part of Voldemort's soul that didn't die with his
body at
Godric's Hollow end up beyond the Veil too? Why did it remain
earthbound, but
the other released pieces didn't? Is it because it is the "primary" soul
piece
only that will remain earthbound? (Though how does the primary soul piece
*know* it is the primary one?)

Or could both the now released soul bits also be earthbound? Or caught
somewhere "in limbo"--not earthbound where Voldemort could access
them and re-encase them, but not able to go beyond the Veil until all
the soul bits are released and can be rejoined, only then going beyond the
Veil? Then again, can those soul pieces *be* rejoined into a whole (albeit
damaged) soul, or would they just stick to each other as if magnetized
but not able to actually reform into a single entity?

Julie, making herself more confused, which is not difficult when it comes
to this very vaguely explained (so far) subject!