This is the second post in a series on one of John Granger's articles. See the first post, The Cave: Was Dumbledore Set Up?
Granger, author of Looking for God in Harry Potter and numerous articles on the series, asks 20 crucial questions left answered as of Book 6 of the Harry Potter series in Why Half-Blood Prince is the Best Harry Potter Novel: Stoppered Death, EVIL Slughorn, and What Really Happened. J.K. Rowling may choose to answer all or some of the questions in the final book, but no Harry Potter theory-obsession would be complete without reading this article.
Let's begin with question #1:
1. How do you make a Horcrux, that is, what is the spellwork procedure, and what are the four remaining Horcruxes? We learn a lot about what a Horcrux is in Half-Blood Prince but not about how one is made or what the four Horcruxes remaining are. Until we know this, it is impossible to speculate meaningfully about what can and cannot be a Horcrux…
Is Harry a horcrux, what are the other four, where are the other four, when did Voldemort make them, and how does one make a horcrux? We don't need to ask why because we already know. Voldemort seeks physical immortality, so he split his soul in several parts (seven?) by committing murder.
I don't believe that Voldemort made an "accidental" horcrux when he tried to kill Harry, and I was hoping I could find canonical proof that horcrux spells are complicated. I defer to Granger, who says Book 6 contains no details about how a horcrux is created. If he doesn't know, JKR probably didn't make it explicit in the books.
I'll speculate. I imagine killing someone is not as easy psychically as it seems, let alone murdering them in cold blood. For Voldemort to have murdered because of hate and to cheat death indicates a selfishly depraved mind, wouldn't you agree? Such a mind would have the mind (pardon the pun) to learn and memorize the most difficult of spells when the reward is "eternal life." We know that splitting your soul is no walk down Park Avenue since it diminishes the life you have left. Wouldn't it follow that horcrux creation necessarily involves some convoluted and out-of-the ordinary dark magic? How can one inadvertently create a soul bearer?
Based on my own impressions and not anything nothing explicit in the canon, Harry Potter (including his scar) can't be a horcrux. Although Voldemort satisfied the murder requirement (James and Lily Potter) just minutes before he advanced on Harry, he didn't have time to perform any complicated spells, and JKR wouldn't spring a "lost minutes" scenario on us in Book 7 whereby Voldy uttered some dark incantation before he struck the boy wizard; that is, if she's playing by the rules of the mystery genre.
In the next post, I'll add more thoughts about question #1 before moving on to question #2: What is the nature of Harrys scar?
February 17th, 2006 at 12:42 am
1. There may not be missing minutes — but there is certainly an entire missing DAY between when the spell rebounded on Voldemort, and when baby Harry shows up on Privet Drive. What was going on during that day? Where was the baby?
February 17th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Another thought: Are there really 4 horcruxes left to find? Was a horcrux used to bring Voldemort back from the dead — in that elaborate potion we only saw part of?
February 17th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Oh! I'm rereading book 2 for my report. And the vanishing cabinet is not the only thing from Borgin and Burke's to come from this book. "Draco paused to examine a long coil of hangman's rope and to read, smirking, the card propped on a magnificent necklace of opals, 'Caution: Do Not Touch. Cursed– Has Claimed the Lives of Nineteen Muggle Owners to Date'"
I wonder if we will see that Hand of Glory again? (Or maybe we DID, with Draco holding it in that magical darkness…)
February 17th, 2006 at 9:46 am
If I recall, JKR said somewhere that most of the secrets are hidden in books 2 and 6. I'm listening to Book 2 on tape now.
A quick response to the idea that if a horcrux spell is complicated, Harry couldn't have become a horcrux accidentally:
Those of us who hold that theory don't imagine that some horcrux spell floated into the AK curse out of nowhere accidentally. I agree that there has to be some degree of both complexity and deliberate intentionality in creating a horcrux. Instead, Voldemort was either (a) in the process of creating one when he fired away at Harry, or (b) had just completed one, and something in the backfiring AK curse caused things to go haywire.
Note Voldemort's statement after his rebirthing that all the spells that could have helped him "required the use of a wand." This is a hint that there is such thing as a wand-less spell, and if the horcrux spell is one such spell, the concept is plausible.
Good stuff, LaShawn. I'm looking forward to the rest of this series.
February 17th, 2006 at 9:59 am
LaShawn Barber is writing an excellent series interacting with John Granger's work. It should be excellent discussion. The second post is up today: Horcrux Theories: Who, What, When, Where, and How?
February 18th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Really good. I like to come up with theories, or guesses really, but am equally satisfied if someone shoots them down. I don't like to stack theory on top of theory because when people so that they make this great fantasy story into more of a living room puzzle which gets boring after a while.
For example, here’s my latest view on “accidental horcrux”. Voldemort did leave something of himself on Harry or with Harry or within Harry which is related to his scar, that's the big book 2 clue. Obviously it's not a horcrux in the way the diary is. But I like the general idea that Voldemort has caused his own undoing at every step of the way in securing his materialistic immortality. Dumbledore is particularly pleased, I think the word in the book is "triumphant", that Voldemort uses Harry's blood to resurrect and I think that is another of Voldemort's many mistakes, things he does "accidentally". Dumbledore explains time and time again that Voldemort doesn't understand the deepest forms of magic that have to do with family, blood, love - things which connect Wizards to Muggles. (Voldemort hates to be connected to anyone and wants to be unique, even if it means leaving the human race.) To me, the "accidental horcrux theory" is mostly just a way to show the precarious position that a human being puts himself when he starts down a road of selling his own immortal soul for the promise of power.
On the horcrux spell: I don't think that it follows from anything we've learned that the "horcrux spell" needs to be very complicated. It seems like Wizards and other magical creatures have more access to certain aspects of their being and that of others than Muggles do. Examples include memories - storing them in the pensieve, destiny - deciding to become ghosts or not, souls - dementors stealing them OR wizards taking them via the killing curse, wills - using the imperious curse to control others. We speculated that a self-directed "sectum sempra" might be a way to split your soul the way memories are detached from the mind for the pensieve. I like this idea because this would be another great instance of the author leaving something "hiding in the open", just like she did with "Lupin/werewolf" in book 3 or "disembodied voices/serpent monster" in book 2 and any number of other places within the series.
February 20th, 2006 at 12:13 am
Thanks for your theories and posts!
We don't really know if Voldemort used the AK curse on Harry or not. We have Harry's memory of a green light -the AK used on his parents, and Voldemort saying that the curse he directed at Harry backfired because of Lily's sacrifice. There's nothing concrete that confirms that it was Voldmort's intention to slay Harry at all. If this is so, then Voldemort had some other purpose for getting at Harry ie. to possibly create a horcrux (or something like it). Dumbledore definately says that Voldemort put something of himself into Harry on the night he was blasted.
Matt
April 19th, 2006 at 1:17 am
Here's the thing: if harry is a horcrux, then he'll have to destroy himself BEFORE anyone takes out the physical form of Voldemort. So says Dumbledore, and as we all know, everything Dumbledore says is gospel. Because, if I recall, if you destroy the part of the soul residing in his body before destroying all the horcruxes, then he just floats around, living a "spectral existance." So, if he were to do away with voldemort, and then voldemort's like "hahahah you're a horcrux- i live!!" and harry has to shoot himself in the head or get ron or malfoy or someone to do it, well, that's just not the way children's books go. Not everything works out the way you want it to, but the main character doesn't die in such a…twisted…fashion (having to be murdered by his friends? naaah). Also, let's not forget Priori Incantatem. I don't remember Harry and/or any indication of a Horcrux spell coming out of voldemort's wand at the end of the goblet of fire. there were representations for everything else that we knew had happened: dead people, screams for all the cruciactuses- but there were no mysterious flashes of green light or red light or whatever. Of course, if it's a wandless spell then that would dispell that theory. Which would actually make sense, because dumbledore says that he likely used the killing of the old muggle man to horcruxize nagini, and if he did, that also didn't come out of his wand. Of course if nagini's the last horcrux, then it can't be harry. unless voldemort never found anything of ravenclaw's! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! point being i don't think harry's a horcrux. it would be too…easy. Also if she resurrects dumbledore, man, that would be so tacky. unless she only lets him return as an inferus. which would be awesome. just thought i'd throw that out there, off-topic thought it may be (unless you're considering the Dumbledore-has-a-horcrux theory! …fawkes, anyone?)
April 19th, 2006 at 7:28 am
We speculated that horcruxes might be a case of "wandless magic", but others suggested that other wands might have been used in some of the spells (Lily's, Wormtail's, etc.) I don't think Dumbledore returning as an inferius would be "awesome" - personality doesn't seem to be a part of a reanimated corpse. As for being "tacky", there's precedent for it in both literature and mythology (e.g., Gandalf, Odin), so I would have to disagree with that characterization as well.
June 27th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
there is no way that Harry could be a Horcrux, cause LV went to KILL
Harry because of the prophecy, not to make a horcrux, and I don't
think that wizards can make a horcrux by accident otherwise the death
eaters would have horcruxes, wouldn't they?
October 4th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Voldemort would not have put a Horcrux on Harry because harry would eventualy die like all do so if harry was to die wouldnt Voldemort loose a part of his soul because his goal was imortality and if he lost a bit of his soul he would be very disastified plus his curse on harry was the AK curse because his targeted goal was to kill harry because of the last peice of the prophecy snape overheard when trealawny predicted it so when he preformed the AK curse on harry and he realized it back fired he would not put a horcrux in harry unless he was really mad but hes smarter than that