Skip to main content

harry potter - If the Diary Tom Riddle Had Succeeded, Would He Have Been a Horcrux?


If Tom Riddle had succeeded at returning as a living person from the diary, would he have been a Horcrux?


In thinking about it, it seems pretty black and white. Either diary Tom Riddle -- a manifestation of the diary which was a Horcrux -- would have been a Horcrux himself when free from the diary, or while, yes, a product of a Horcrux, he would not have been a Horcrux once he was free of the diary.


But, which would it have been and why?


For example, if one were to rip a page from the Horcrux diary, would that page on its own be a Horcrux? Or is a Horcrux always a sum of its parts? The diary is the only Horcrux, I believe, that can be examined like this. The remaining Horcruxes were all inanimate objects, aside from Nagini.


★ An answer from canon, any of J.K. Rowling's interviews, or Pottermore would be great. An answer given within the spirit of canon is perfectly fine.



Answer




Either diary Tom Riddle -- a manifestation of the diary which was a Horcrux -- would have been a Horcrux himself when free from the diary, or while, yes, a product of a Horcrux, he would not have been a Horcrux once he was free of the diary.



But, which would it have been and why?



He would still have been a Horcrux. The diary would, most likely, be emptied and have become a normal diary - I say this because, so far, we have never seen evidence of souls being cloned, only divided. So:



  • The soul could not divide (complexity of spells and requiring murder to perform the division)

  • The soul could not clone itself (no evidence it is possible at all)

  • Therefore, the soul could only move.


Move where? To a brand new body and leave the old diary behind. Thus, the Tom Riddle that is seen would still be the horcrux itself and the diary becomes useless.


To have a body means nothing: this Tom Riddle would have still been a horcrux. Perhaps, he would have become more powerful than the normal Voldemort (if only he had as much experience as the original): this "body" would share the properties of a normal horcrux, meaning it would be nearly indestructible.




For example, if one were to rip a page from the Horcrux diary, would that page on its own be a Horcrux? Or is a Horcrux always a sum of its parts? The diary is the only Horcrux, I believe, that can be examined like this. The remaining Horcruxes were all inanimate objects, aside from Nagini.



This scenario is not possible. A property of the horcruxes is that they are extremely hard to damage - if they are indeed damaged, then they "break" and are "destroyed" and no longer are horcruxes.


You should not be able to rip a page of the diary with your bare hands. If you did it with, say, Gryffindor's sword, you would be able to do it - and the horcrux would be no more since you managed to damage it.



To reinforce this, I'd like to say that it was unlikely that we could have ended up with two horcruxes:


Murder is not the only requirement. It also needs a complex spell. Clearly, Tom already knew the spell, but I doubt he would have tried to do it, because:



  • It was risky - he simply did not know the result of splitting himself (an actual horcrux) again.


  • It was imprudent - the situation was crazy, he was merely coming back to life - why rush things into making yet another horcrux? He can do it later, preferably once he gets out of Hogwarts.

  • Up to this Tom's knowledge, doing so would break his "seven-horcruxes-lucky-charm". I'd hate to have 8 instead of 7 :)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more