# The end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588 "2011-07-19T15:28:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mac\_bolan00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@mac\_bolan00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mac_bolan00)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/41 "2011-07-22T00:49:28Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Because Nicholas Flamel spent years making it; because the stone is in a different class than the Horcruxes: the stone is more of an alchemical project, so would be undertaken most likely by someone like Snape (Half-blood Prince) who’s interested in potions and just wants to see what’s possible and loves to experiment; the horcruxes are related to spells, which is what Voldemort’s path and his talents were. Showing his strength to the Wizard community by mastering spells fits his psyche, not mucking about with potions. before anything, good on you mate! do you do this for a living? i suppose it’s because we insist at thinking like muggles do. if i were voldie with his talents, i would employ a pentagon-method of ensuring my immortality: lots of unknonws to outsiders and full redundancy in systems. i’d use horcruxes, sorcerer’s stones, portraits, doppelgangers, etc. > [@](#): > > Transactions in the wizard world work different, because magic works different. We see both intentful, purposeful magic, but also wild, uncontrolled magic. nice one, not to mention goblins’ notion of trade and ownership. > [@](#): > > And again, Dobby is an extreme case because he deliberatly wants to be free, both other wizards like Hagrid and other elves say they don’t want to be freed. So “tricking into release” only works in this exception. Because the rules were written with the assumption “Elves don’t want to be freed, Wizards don’t want to free elves” they were written loosly and not strongly. this sounds like a department of mysteries issue. magical laws and how they come about. > [@](#): > > I don’t know what you mean “against their potential”. We see a whole world through the eyes of a teenager - obviously many things pass him by. The best illustration of how difficult it is to think of everything that’s possible is for me in PS, when HRH fall through the trapdoor onto the plants. Hermione realizes she needs light … and wonders about where to find matches, until Ron yells at her that she’s a witch, she can use a spell. > > To me, that’s a wonderful realistic portrayal of somebody who’d grown up in a muggle household and is very logic- and science-oriented would react in such a situation (we get a different reaction from Ron being astonished at muggle things working without magic). i was referring to my old thead concerning wizard portraits. my stand was that portraits are virtual horcruxes where consciousness could survive indefinitely. i conjectured that a voldemort portait advising death eaters would have had the same effects from book 5 to 7. but i was talked down by dopers saying a portrait may be conscious of the present (unlike photographs wherein subjects are trapped at time context of the shot) but it’s only an essence of the person that’s preserved in the portrait. and death eaters are not likely to follow what a portrait says when voldemort’s main control tool was fear and threat of death. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/42 "2011-07-22T01:22:35Z")
Really, Voldemort’s whole undoing was hubris and OCD. If he were smart he wouldn’t have made his horcruxes significant objects, or if he did, discreetly made them objects significant only to SOMEONE ELSE. If he had made a horcrux out of a pebble on a random beach somewhere he would have been nearly invincible, considering the odds of that pebble getting destroyed and the unusual durability horcuxes seem to get compared to their default state. This, of course, is assuming that there’s some reason large, composite objects such as “Mount Fuji” and “The Earth itself” or even “Hogwarts Castle” aren’t valid targets (though I suppose Hogwarts would’ve been dumb considering he may have had to siege it at some point). Hell, if he could somehow do it, infusing say, Dumbledore’s favorite pair of socks or your worst enemy’s favorite stuffed animal as a horcrux would have been smart since, 1. It’s not connected to Riddle (hard to trace), 2. You can be reasonably sure it’ll be taken care of. Hell, ol’ Voldie could’ve infused some random Muggle’s tire iron with it and the Ministry would probably have trouble finding out, but given the racism against muggles that almost all Wizards have to some degree. I can understand that one. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/43 "2011-07-22T02:30:50Z")
> [@](#): > > This, of course, is assuming that there’s some reason large, composite objects such as … “The Earth itself” … aren’t valid targets An object can only be one person’s horcrux, and Morgoth beat him to that one. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/44 "2011-07-22T17:44:29Z")
This reminds me of one of the cleverest things about the brilliant Fanfic **Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality** , which is that (spoiling a minor clever detail, not a major plot point) that gold plate attached to Voyager I that recently left the solar system would make a damn good horcrux ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/45 "2011-07-22T20:09:08Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Mostly it just lets the victim know how disappointed you are with him. The missing wand tip is balanced by the huge matzo balls though . . . ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588/46 "2011-07-22T20:14:24Z")
Re: the choice of horcruxes - keep in mind that Voldemort didn’t know how to reconstitute his body at the time he made them. He may have thought he would need to find them and fit one into a cauldron in order to do it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-end-of-harry-potter-and-the-chamber-of-secrets/589588.md?page=2)