Tom Riddle and the Diary!Horcrux

[snow15145]

No: HPFGUIDX 161305






Mike now:
> Two things come out of this Lupin quote. First, memories reside in 
> the soul and, second, your sense of *self* comes from your soul. 
> Both of theses are important to the Diary Horcrux. <snip>

Carol responds (snipped):
If memories reside in the soul, how is it that Snape and Dumbledore
take them out of their minds (brains), with no soul piece involved?

Snow:

I would say that it is a 'mere' memory in comparison to the Diary 
memory that was a complete copy of Tom's sixteen-year-old self when 
he entered into the Diary. 

Carol:

More canon evidence that memories are in the mind and not in the soul:
Legilimency and Occlumency--the "reading" and blocking of thoughts and
memories--both include the Latin root "mens," meaning "mind." Snape
expels memories from Harry's mind, not from his soul, with the
Legili*mens* spell, just as we see DD and Snape removing thoughts from
their minds (brains).

Snow:

Snape states that Legilimency is not mind reading, it is much more:

"The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at 
leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to perused 
by any invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, [
] It 
is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, 
under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims 
and to interpret their findings correctly." OOP pg. 530-531

Thoughts, memories are part of the mind but the mind cannot function 
without a soul. One singular, mere memory, can be copied and placed 
for viewing in the pencieve but not a host of memories like that of a 
sixteen-year-old boy who was capable of retaining all the knowledge 
he knew previous to the memory placement. 

Carol:

The Unspeakables study the mysteries of mind and thought by studying
the pickled brains in the DoM. (Those who are interested in the *soul*
no doubt study what's beyond the Veil in the Death Chamber.) We see
tentacles of thought or memory trailing from the brain that attacks
Ron: "[I]t soared toward Ron, spinning as it came, and what looked
like ribbons of moving images flew from it, unravelling like rolls of
film." A few sentences later, the narrator refers to these "ribbons"
as "tentacles of thought" (OoP Am. ed. 798).

Snow:

That's just it. Memories are separate tentacles of thought; they are 
not collective. Each memory can be placed in a pencieve or Diary but 
a collection of memories would come from the brain, which cannot 
survive separate from the soul. 

Carol snipped:

Altogether, I'd say it's pretty clear that thoughts and memories
reside in the brain, not the soul, and the diary could have contained
Pensieve-style memories of Tom's fifth year (at least one of them
specifically dated) before it ever became a Horcrux. That the memories
date from 1943 in no way proves that the diary became a Horcrux at
that early date.

Snow:

They may indeed reside in the brain but the soul controls the brain 
and the soul is the one that ultimately makes the choices. Your brain 
can tell which path to choose or not but only the soul can make the 
choice. 

Does the brain decide who you really are or not, or does the soul of 
the person? The brain gives you options, like a pencieve, but the 
soul is what makes you who you are. You are the one who decides, and 
makes the choices from your own variety of memories, what to finally 
decide will be your final choice that you tell your brain.  

Memories can leave scars, like Ron has from the tentacles of the 
brain that attacked, but they cannot touch his soul. 

Snow