[the_old_crowd] Re: Death and magic

[Monika Huebner]

Eva Thienpont <severelysigune at ...> wrote:

>Question: does the Dementor's Kiss really kill? I understood it removed the soul but left the body alive, the result being 'worse than death'. I am ready to accept that my restricted command of the English language may be responsible for this, but for me something 'worse than death' means it is not the same as death. Or else it depends upon how you define 'death': is it purely physical, or rather spiritual?

I think "worse than death" means that there is nothing left but an
empty shell. In Rowling's world people who die can leave an imprint of
themselves behind by becoming a ghost, or else they "go on" like
Sirius did (at least Nearly Headless Nick said so), so there is some
kind of soul involved that lives on. Dementor's feed on the soul, I
always thought they "ate" it when they sucked it out of a person, so
this really must be worse than death for a wizard.

Monika
who is hopelessly behind with reading the posts...