My wildly-speculative theory: Harry is no longer a horcrux, though he was at some point. This would make some sense, since Harry has seemed for quite a while to have some Voldy in him (the parselmouthedness, the scar pain, the having of visions). However, I think that the ritual Voldy performed in GOF to resurrect himself (using Harry’s blood, you’ll recall), removed the chunk of Voldy-soul that was in Harry, transferring it to Voldy’s new body. I have a feeling that Quirrell was a horcrux as well, and that his death is an uncounted loss from the “Voldy soulbits” column. Quirrell burned when he touched Harry (perhaps horcruxes aren’t supposed to come into contact), but after his resurrection in GOF, Voldy could touch Harry with no problem, and Harry’s scar hasn’t hurt since that time.
I’m wondering if there aren’t many mistakes with the horcrux count.
First of all, let’s stop referring to the Prime Minister in Ch. 1 as Tony Blair. John Major held the office until May, 1997, and this narrative opens in early July, 1996 (only a fortnight in Privet Drive, and before Harry’s birthday, remember?).
Now, I made an assertion in post #130, and I’d like to add to it.
Some have speculated that Voldemort had intended to use Lily’s wedding ring as the Horcrux on 10/31/91. I disagree. He had not intended necessarily to kill Lily*, ergo, he had an object prepared that would not involve taking the ring from her corpse.
Now, I don’t know how a Horcrux is made, but I suspect the procedure is something like this:
1.) Prepare a significant object, using an appropriate Dark incantation, to house the portion of your soul.
2.) Prepare your own soul for the division/implantation, perhaps by projecting a portion of it beyond its normal boundaries, like a pseudopod.
3.) Perform Avada Kedavra on your chosen victim.
As the victim’s soul departs his body, it intersects with the portion of your soul that you have projected beyond your own flesh (the origin of the -crux portion of the word Horcrux, perhaps?). This causes that portion of your soul to be split off, at which point you cast a spell upon it to direct it into your previously-prepared object.
Things went rather wrong with this process in Godric’s Hollow, with the result that Harry’s soul did not depart the infant’s body. The spell rebounded upon Voldemort, killing the body**, leaving only the projected portion of the soul intact. This partial soul of Voldemort’s is what he dragged to Albania.
“So, what’s your point, kd99?” I hear you cry. The object did get a part of a soul put into it. When somebody retrieves it, it will prove to be Harry’s Horcrux.
*I don’t much care for the idea of Snape loving Lily Evans, but as a nod to those who do, we might speculate that Voldemort’s initial intention for her disposal would have been to Imperius her into submission, then present her as a reward to Snape.
All together, now: EEEWWWWW!
**Vaporizing it, more likely; hence the destruction of the house.
About the book…loved it. Burned through it sunday. I’m planning on getting the audio version to go with my collection…the audio tapes of this series is perhaps the best I’ve ever listened too.
On some of the questions/theories raised in this thread:
Is Harry a Horcrux? No, I don’t think so. However, I DO think that the last piece of LV’s soul (the part he had with him) partly moved to Harry when V tried to kill him off and failed. Unintentional transfer, not a formal Horcrux. I think it will play into the final battle scene.
Snape was following D’s orders and killed him as part of a plan to make sure Snapes cover wasn’t blown. I think eventually Snape and Harry will have a confrontation and it will come out.
D is definitely dead…but his picture(s) will prove significant in the last book. After all, the other old headmasters seem to be pretty interactive…why shouldn’t D’s picture be the same. And where all does he HAVE a picture? Well, if nothing else he has then on his cards. I’m guessing he has plenty of other pictures too…as he is one of the most prominent wizards of his time.
I think Malfoy will also be redeemed. I think he is going to be so shocked and hurt by seeing D wacked by Snape that he will turn against V and the DE’s. I think even his father is going to feel the burn from V and switch sides.
Harry is definitely not going to die. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if JKR doesn’t start a new series about HP as a young adult (with his trusty friend Ron). Not that I expect this any time soon, but as I’ve seen authors in the past who say that their story is done then bring it back 5 or 10 years later I just wouldn’t be surprised…
I just finished it ( started Monday afternoon, finished at 730p Tuesday.)
What.A.Ride. Awesome. Rowling’s best one yet.
I thoroughly enjoyed this one alot more that OotP. More fluid, though there were a few scenes that had the repeating ‘what happened’ several times that drove me bonkers.
I haven’t read through this entire thread yet, as everything is dancing before my eyes still.
Thoughts:
Dumbledore seemed particularly boastful of his talents in this book. True, he has boasted before, and we have never had so much exposure to him, but he seemed almost arrogant. The way he treated the Dursley’s seemed out of character, almost mean. For a bit I kept on expecting to find out he was under the Imperius Curse by Voldemort.
Snape whooooo boy…that was one hellova surprise. Awesome scene. I wonder if Snape was acting as a Death Eater posessed or if it was prearranged by Dumbledore to kill him if it were ever necessary to future the hunt for Voldemort.
[ b]Kreacher** cracks me up and Dobby didn’t annoy me at all this book.
I especially liked the opening in this book with the two Ministers. That was a nice change of pace.
math is not my best subject. i’m a bit muddled on the number of tom horcruxes.
through the pensive ad figures that tom wants to split into 7 bits. now is this 7 bits plus tom or 7 bits including tom?
previously ad figured there were horcruxes but wasn’t sure how many until the true slug memory was revealed. he reckoned on the diary after chamber of secrets. he then found and killed the ring. so we def. have 2 down.
it is decided that tom was going to use harry’s death as a horcruxes. this backfired and the horcruxe thingy was not completed. (ad mentions that a living being does not make a good horcruxe and that the living being would have to stay close to you or under your control.) tom def. wanted harry dead at that time and any other time he can get to him.
it did seem from what memories harry has of the night, tom killed james right off. with james only getting off a warning shout. lily went to grab harry and try to get away. when she couldn’t, she put herself between tom and harry. tom did give lily a chance to leave, perhaps did not need or want to kill her. (this may be what turns snape, that lily was not to be harmed.)
'kay, he kills lily and turns to harry. he attempts to kill harry and the spell backfires and tom is killed instead.
here is the crux of the problem. tom is killed. he did not create the horcrux that he wanted to from harry’s death.
does this mean that instead of 7 we are only dealing with 6?? as 7’s attempt failed? and if we reckon on horcruxes as extra lives… tom lost one that night… did he in reality lose 2? the bit of soul in him that he wanted to split in 2 was never split and lost?
did tom then use up one of the ones in reserve? to recreate himself in goblet?
then losing the 2 in reserve… ad killing the ring, and harry killing the diary. that would only leave 3.
ad and harry track down the locket. but don’t know if the locket has been killed or not.
in conclusion… we know the snake is a reserve, and tom has a soul bit in him. that only leaves one to search for. either the locket or something else.
is this right?
if we are thinking 7 external 1 internal, then after the night at the potter’s then 6 externals existed at the time tom went to kill harry. which would leave the locket and 2 something elses.
Quidditch simply does not work as a sport. It’s probably my biggest irritation with the series, the one thing that I find really kills the suspension of my disbelief; no human would play that sport for three seconds before saying “Ummm, we need to change the rules here.” It’s not even logical.
It’s akin to having a version of football where a field goal counts for 150 points and you’re only allowed to kick one and it ends the game.
I don’t have much problem with Quidditch. I think the scoring is slightly unbalanced–I’d prefer the snitch were worth a hundred points, or even fifty. But the snitch keeps it from being arial rugby with hazards.
Of course it’s not logical. It’s a bloody wizards’ game, innit?
See, THIS is just the kind of thing that takes me right out of the story.
Clearly, the PM at the beginning of the book has been in office for several years (since at least 1993, when Black escaped, and we can’t rule out 1990). Clearly, the first book has Harry’s matriculation occurring in 1991. It can NOT be Tony Blair. I prefer to think of Rowling forgetting the gender of Major’s predecessor (although I also can’t rule out the narrative occurring n a parallel universe, where all of my arguments are moot).
As for this one:
Could you give me chapter and verse on that, please?
Wow. I think you’re thinking about this Prime Minister thing a little too hard. It’s a fictional account of a school of wizards, not alt-history. Let it go…
Voldemort intended to split himself into 7 parts, ie 6 horcruxes and his real self.
The attempt to kill Harrym failed, so there were only 5 horcruxes to begin with.
One of these was the diary, now destroyed.
One was Slytherin’s ring, now destroyed,
One was the locket, which R.A.B intended to destroy as soon as he could. Maybe destroyed already, maybe not.
One is speculated as Hufflepuff’s cup, location unknown.
As near as I can figure, there are 2 or 3 horcruxes to hunt down and destroy, then Voldemort himself.
Rowling’s wizard world is LOGICAL, though. It’s fantastic and magical, but there’s a certain underpinning of logic to it, as far as she’s personally capable and smart enough to construct it. Wizards act as logically as normal people do; they just do so under a different set of rules of nature.
Just wanted to pop in and say that SNAPE IS NOT EVIL. If he is, I will be furious with JKR because it’s just too simple to make him have been evil all this time. In fact, it’s practically a cop-out.
I believe that there is FAR more to the Snape is really a death eater than meets the eye. Just from the way JKR writes, I can say that there will be new and far more satisfying revelations about Snape and Dumbledore in the 7th book. Mark my words.
No, rather than say that he had several lives, I think it is more accurate to say that he had one life, and several charms to protect it.
So, when he went to the Potters’ house, he had 5 charms to protect him. When the spell backfired he didn’t die because of his protection. But he didn’t lose any of the protective charms. He still had 5 charms keeping him alive.
Well, that’s my point. Quidditch, while being perfectly understandable under wizarding logic and tradition, is not going to be logical to muggles. But it works for them.
I simply cannot see Q as being any sillier a game than quoits, American football, or cricket. It’s a game informed by centuries of tradition, and I just don’t see how “illogical” applies.
I don’t think you understand my objection. Quidditch is illogical, period. It doesn’t matter if you’re a wizard or not. Wizards and Muggles in the Harry Potter world both operate under the same laws of logic; there is no reason at all to believe they don’t. Nothing in the books suggests to me that wizard brains are less or differently logical than ours; they just work in a world with different forces of nature.
I don’t even understand half of cricket but it looks logical to me. So is American football. There’s nothing illogical about the way the game’s structured and scored.
Virtually all sports have an inherent logic to the scoring system whereby accomplishing goals in the game is tied to the SCORE in a way that is proportional to the level of success. So in basketball, most baskets are 2 points, but a particularly long basket is 3, and a free throw is just 1. In cricket, the better you are at striking the ball into play and avoiding wickets, the more runs you score. Baseball, same thing, except you’ve avoiding outs and they make it harder to hit, but same principle. In soccer, everyone’s dedicated to scoring goals one at a time and preventing them from being scored. In football you are rewarded for advancing the ball; six to eight points if you get it all the way into the end zone, and a shot at three points if you just get it most of the way.
Quidditch essentially renders six of seven players meaningless in 99% of all games. The efforts of much of the team just don’t matter, unless one team is utterly annihilating the other by a score so lopsided they shouldn’t even be in the same league. (And in one major case, the World Cup game, Rowling blew it by having the Seeker, Viktor Krum, lose on purpose.) In other words, the game is entirely about the Seekers, except in any game where there is a complete mismatch of talent.
Imagine if you took soccer (football, whatever) as it’s currently played, and then had each team add a 12th player on the sidelines playing badminton. Once one player defeats the other in the badminton match, the entire soccer match ends and the team with the winning badminton player is awarded fifteen goals. That’s Quidditch.
