About those Hor-thingies

[annemehr]

I type away; I want to post;
But what I'm thinking of the most
Is how to shield unspoilt eyes
Of those of you who compromise
By reading here when, glory be!
You haven't finished H-BP!

If you exist, I have a query:
Why prize the book less than mere theory?
...............................

I was having a problem with the "tearing the soul" thing -- what the
implications are, and why LV is so changed and his DEs are not. Help
me see if I am making sense, or if what I'm saying sounds plausible.

I am trying to get at what exactly is uniquely evil in making
Horcruxes, beyond the fact of the murders themselves. I thought there
must be something, because presumably LV has murdered more times than
he's made Horcruxes, and plenty of his DEs must have murdered at least
as many as he has. Yet LV is the one who's made a white, snaky,
red-eyed skull-face of himself.

Sluggy said that the making of a Horcrux just *takes advantage* of the
fact that murder tears the soul in two. I accept that Jo means that
murder really does tear off a piece. You can do magic to store the
torn-off piece outside yourself. This magic is considered so horrible
that a Restricted Section book on Dark Magic won't even talk about it.
Yet, murder itself is not hard to do and everyone knows it's possible,
so Horcrux-magic must be so secret for another reason.

As I said, I do believe that murder doesn't just injure, but actually
fragments the soul. However, it may make a huge difference whether you
leave the pieces of soul together within yourself or extract them to
make Horcruxes. Perhaps there is some chance of healing the soul
(albeit, most likely with scars) if you merely do murder. Deliberately
separating yourself into Horcruxes may make that impossible; it may
mean you've made yourself absolutely and deliberately irredeemable as
long as any of them exist.

Do you think this can be what Jo means LV to have done to himself?

~Anne