Tom Riddle and the Diary!Horcrux

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 161307

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
> > Mike previously:
> > Two things come out of this Lupin quote. First, memories reside  
> > in the soul <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> 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?
> You don't have to split your soul (by commiting murder) to remove a
> memory, but you do have to split your soul to detach a piece of 
> soul to encase in a Horcrux. <snip>

Mike:
Where does the soul reside within the body? I would suppose anywhere 
and everywhere. And when Dumbledore draws a memory out of his head 
it's magic! Did the memory transition through the soul before it's 
removal? Does the brain store the memories in the soul and access 
them at will? Does the soul contain all the knowledge and memory and 
feed them to the brain for processing? All I can do is guess as to 
how JKR envisioning this working, that's if she envisioned anything 
about the process at all.

But JKR certainly gave us the soul, in her world, that contains both 
memories and knowledge. "The seventh part of his soul, however 
maimed, resides inside his regenerated body. That was the part of 
him that lived a spectral existence for so many years during his 
exile; without that, he has no self at all." (DD in HBP p.503, US)

I repeat "that was the part of him that lived..." Voldemort's *self* 
survived because his *soul* survived. Voldemort retained his 
knowledge and memories within that soul, had to, that was the only 
thing that survived. He has no brain but he still has his memories, 
can still think and plot and do all the things that we normally 
associate with a brain, without a brain. This is the world JKR has 
constructed, with only his soul surviving Voldemort can do 
everything that we would think he needs a brain to do. The soul 
piece in the diary does all the same things, all the functions that 
normally require a brain. Can we agree that in the Potterverse a 
soul, or soul piece, functions as well and with the same capacity as 
a brain? Meaning the soul piece provides the memories.

The soul piece that was Vaportmort was what possessed other living 
things. Voldemort told us so and we witnessed it with Quirrell. The 
soul piece that was in the diary was what possessed Ginny, 
Dumbledore told us so. And possession was a requirement to open the 
Chamber of Secrets, the key being the need to speak Parseltongue to 
do the openning. So, in order for the diary to be used as a weapon 
(DD's term) it required a soul piece. Memories don't possess. But 
soul pieces contain memories and they possess.

The diary needed a soul piece which obviated any need to download 
memories. Why would Tom download memories into the diary? He has to 
put a soul piece into it for it to work and the soul piece contains 
*all* his memories. He doesn't have to guess which memories are 
needed, which would be ridiculously hard to discern given that he 
wouldn't know who his intended victim would be and what would be 
needed to affect the possession. Accordingly, the soul piece 
memories did not extend past what a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle 
knew. Therefore, the soul piece was encased in the diary when Tom 
Riddle was still sixteen.

The question left, IMO, is when Tom Riddle created the Horcrux. 
There are many opinions as to the mechanics of creating a Horcrux, 
and frankly, I don't see JKR bothering to explain the mechanics. So 
everything is speculation that will most likely never be confirmed 
or even hinted. But given that we know Tom murders his father when 
he's sixteen and his father was defenseless to prevent it, doesn't 
it seem logical that Tom took advantage of this murder to create the 
Horcrux? Whatever the mechanics, it surely seems that creating a 
Horcrux at the time of the murder is the easiest process to accept 
as plausible. IOW, I can't envision a Horcrux creating process 
whereby committing a murder and making a Horcrux at the same time 
would not be workable. 

And if not then, when would he do it while he's still sixteen? 
Making the Horcrux at any other time puts an additional capability 
requirement on Horcrux creation that isn't required for simultaneous 
murder with creation. And since Tom is already planning to get away 
with triple murder, what's a little Horcrux creation on the side. 
Beats trying to do it in the orphanage or back at school.


> Carol again:
> It's altogether a different sort of thing. Tom Riddle could 
> have placed a memory or memories of himself at sixteen in
> the diary for 1943, months or even years before he made it into a
> Horcrux encasing a soul bit. (The diary was already, as Dumbledore
> said, valuable to Tom because it proved that he was the Heir of
> Slytherin. and that proof was in his memories, not in the soul bit
> that anchored his core soul to the earth.) <snip>

Mike:
The problem with your scenario is that there isn't simply memories 
in the diary of Tom at sixteen. The diary!revenant has a long 
conversation with Harry that displays knowledge, learning, 
intelligent thought and memories. All of these qualities are 
displayed from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old Tom that has 
learned new things from Ginny. Memories aren't knowledge, they can't 
think for themselves. But the diary!revenant does think for itself 
and does have knowledge and skills of a sixteen-year-old Tom.

In my scenario, Tom's memories of openning the Chamber and 
everything else are in the diary because they come with the soul 
piece. And the ability to open the Chamber with the diary exists 
with the soul piece. So my scenario keeps the diary just as valuable 
to Tom, if not more, it really can open the Chamber from the 
beginning.

Your scenario requires Tom to select which sixteen-year-old memories 
he thinks will be useful, how he could determine this you haven't 
explained. And still the diary is useless as a tool to open the 
Chamber until it got the soul piece. We only saw one memory from 
Tom's fifth year, his framing of Hagrid. But we did see an 
intelligent being, sixteen years of age. How does the it make sense 
that the diary!revenant is sixteen if it generates from an older 
soul piece?


> Carol concludes:
> 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.

Mike:
I'd say that it is more clear that memories and knowledge and at 
least one power reside within the soul. In fact, I'd say that it's 
canon, displayed on more than one occasion. And the fact that a 
sixteen-year-old Tom emerges from the diary and that this diary!
revenant must be generating from the soul piece within, pretty much 
proves that the soul piece came from a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle.