[HPforGrownups] Re: CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 189938

Potioncat:
> 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.)

     Hmmmmm.... here are the possibilities as I see them:

     1) The Dementor's Kiss sends your soul to the afterlife, but leaves 
your body still alive. Not exactly a fate worse than death.

     2) The Dementor's Kiss entraps your soul inside the Dementor, so it 
can' t move on (at least while the Dementor is alive).

     3) The Dementor's Kiss takes away whatever allows your brain and 
your soul to communicate with each other. This would actually fit in 
well, and would, at least to most, appear that it is the actual soul 
they suck out, and would, indeed, be a fate worse than death. A 
variation on this is that it sends the soul to that area that Harry was 
in when he had his final conversation with DD, unable to move on until 
the body has died.

     In any case, it is reasonable to assume, especially from the 
conversations about Horcruxes and DD's statements, that even Wizards 
aren't entirely sure exactly what a soul is, although they have a better 
practical knowledge of what a soul DOES.

     Now, there is an esoteric belief related to reincarnation that the 
soul, while you are alive, has a permanent and an ephemeral part, the 
latter being what you think of as "you"; the more you connect the 
halves, the more of "you" goes on after you die (note that this make 
heaven and hell the same place).

     This also brings up the fact that even those who are merely 
suspected of crimes (like Hagrid in COS) may find themselves with a 
death sentence in the WW.

     Bart