[HPforGrownups] Dementors and Horcruxes

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 170805


Amy:
> It just came to me the relation of dementors sucking out the souls of
> people and horcruxes being a piece of someone's soul. Will that mean
> that the persons who have had their soul sucked out like Barty Crouch
> Jr. will never die?

Dave:
Maybe I'm wrong, but my interpretation of being kissed by a Dementor
resulting in being "Worse Than Dead" has been that the Dementor's
"ingestion" of the soul completely annihilates it, so that
the existence of that sentient entity totally ceases, and
absolutely nothing comes after -- No journeys beyond the Veil.
No Next Great Adventure.  Just nothing.  Worse Than Dead.

Of course my conception of what Dementors do has admittedly been
influenced by other Worse-Than-the-Death-Penalty issuers of justice,
mainly in science fiction.  For example, when I first read PoA,
pre-Goblet of Fire, when I thought they were inherently law-enforcers,
rather than LV's "natural allies", I mentally compared them to the
robot Gort in _The Day the Earth Stood Still_:

      KLAATU:
          For our policemen, we created a race of
          robots -- Their function is to patrol the
          planets ... and preserve the peace...
          At the first sign of violence they
          act automatically against the
          aggressor.  And the penalty for
          provoking their action is too terrible
          to risk.

Also brought to my mind was the "Total Perspective Vortex" from
_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_:

   "Beeblebrox," he said, ..., "have you any idea what's going to happen
   to you on the Frogstar?"

   "They're going to feed me?" hazarded Zaphod hopefully.

   "They're going to feed you," said Roosta, "into the Total
   Perspective Vortex ... the most savage psychic torture a sentient
   being can undergo."

   "So, no food, huh?"

   "Listen!" said Roosta urgently, "you can kill a man, destroy his body,
   break his spirit, but only the Total Perspective Vortex can annihilate
   a man's soul!"


So my natural conclusion was that Dementors are not anything remotely
resembling Horcruxes, but instead similar soul-oblivionizers to both
Gort and the TPV...  But maybe this perception is based too much on
other writers' Canons and not Jo's...

Any thoughts...?


Dave