What are some non-Rowling horcrux like devices in fiction?

Cafe Society
#1

I just re-read Picture of Dorian Gray and it occurred that the portrait was similar in many ways to one of Voldemort’s horcruxes: it held a part (or the total) of his soul, its destruction was necessary for his own and thus conveys some degree of immortality to him, and it’s created by essentially dividing his soul and later cemented by murder (first and second degree) as well as riotous dissipation.

Davy Jones’ heart in Pirates of the Caribbean is similar as well; he cannot be destroyed- at least not easily- so long as his heart is intact.

What are some other horcrux like devices in fiction?

#2

Forgive me if I’m wrong, I’m not a LOTR expert. Isn’t Frodo’s ring one?

#3

Order of the Stick - Xykon and his phylactery

#4

Morda’s finger-bone in Taran Wanderer.

I’d allow the One Ring as a Horcrux-like device.

#5

Destroying the ring is the only way to stop Sauron, plus Sauron poured much of his power into the ring, so the ring is definitely Horcrux-like.

#6

There has to be a better and older term. Simulacrum? Avatar? Dorian’s picture is definitely a simulacrum, as it is a picture of him, but other object matching the description aren’t necessarily images.

Zurg’s battery in Toy Stoy 2 qualifies.

#7

Phylacterys are an old D&D thing - though I’m pretty sure they weren’t the first to come up with the idea. I’m almost positive I’ve read folktales and the like (though I’m afraid I can’t recall any specifically right now) wherein someone hid a ‘part of themselves’ to achieve immortality. It’s a pretty old idea.

#8

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman’s ruby.

#9

Except destroying that didn’t make him more vulnerable, it made him more powerful.

#10

The Giant Who Had No Heart In His Body.

(Here’s George MacDonald’s version.)

#11

The term used over at TV Tropes is Soul Jar. Naturally there’s a bunch of them listed.

For that matter, Sauron’s old master Melkor aka Morgoth did something similar with the whole world of Arda, which has been referred to as “Morgoth’s Ring”. He was banished, not destroyed for he could not be destroyed without unmaking Arda, just as destroying Sauron required destroying the Ring.

Another classic version is Koschei the Deathlessfrom Russia.

#12

Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics seem to have “horcrux like devices” called hearts.

From http://dyve.net/sandman/annotations/dhcl01.html :

#13

Bart Simpson signed away his soul on a piece of church stationary.
Scrooge McDuck seems to have his entire being endowed in his lucky dime.
The Matchstick girl of Hans Christian Anderson fame lived and died by her matchstick.

as you can see, i can only make allusions to works of fiction accessible to a 7 year old.

#14

The heart of the Duke of Chin in Hughart’s Bridge of Birds

#15

Whenever you’re looking for info on a cliche, the best resource is tvtropes.org.

There’s an entire list here under Soul Jar.

#16

Emperor Palpatine had a bunch of clones sitting around in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I haven’t read any of the books in which they appear, but the Wookieepedia article suggests that once one was killed, Palpatine was skilled enough in the Force to move his spirit to a spare. So to really kill him, all his clones would have to be destroyed as well. Similar enough to me.

#17

Kinda the opposite actually, he was making spare bodies, instead of splitting his soul.

Perhaps someone should have sent Voldy a few of these book with the note, “hey a lot easier then splitting your soul”.

#18

Billy Mays?

#19

The crow in The Crow. Draven’s health is directly effected by the crow’s.

#20

The familiars in The Golden Compass.