CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter

[willsonteam]

No: HPFGUIDX 189936



 ⸘Ŭalabio‽ <Walabio at ...> wrote:
> 
> 	This is interesting because we know from Deathly Hallows that physical actions cannot damage souls.  We know from the Half-Blood Prince that souls can be damaged nonphysically.  I noticed an hierarchy in the the Potterverse:
> 
> 	0	Living people
> 	1	Souls.
> 	2	Horcruxes
> 	3	Ghosts
> 	4	Portraits
> 	5	Magical photographs
> 
> 	If dementors can digest souls, perhaps a permanent afterlife does not exist in the wizarding world.  

Potioncat:
Lupin was alive when he said the soul was sucked out of a person. but it's not clear what happens to the soul. Is it destroyed or does it go on to the Hereafter--and does it go intact, or damaged? I mention that Lupin was alive because I doubt if any living wizard would know the answer.

JKR was thinking of depression when she wrote the Dementors. She may have been thinking of those conditions in the real world that leave a person just a shell with all person-hood and awareness gone. That's what the Dementor's Kiss reminded me of. We know there is an afterlife in the WW, and that some souls do not arrive intact (the wimpering baby-like creature that was LV's soul.)

Your hierarchy is very interesting--personally, I'd switch the position of living people and souls. Snape seemed to think his soul was worth protecting more than his life was.