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

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

harry potter - How could Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra?

I want to be very careful about how I ask this question – I am not asking How did Voldemort die? [CLOSED] Below the text is the relevant passages from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows if anyone wants to review them (I'm sorry for the amount of text). How did Expelliarmus beat Avada Kedavra and kill Voldemort? I feel the reason Harry's Expelliarmus overpowered Voldemort's Avada Kedavra curse has to do with who was master of the Elder Wand and how the Elder Wand works. I've always had trouble understanding fully how the Elder Wand works, though. How much did the fact that Voldemort never truly won or mastered the Elder Wand factor into how Expelliarmus reacted to Avada Kedavra and caused Avada Kedavra to rebound and kill Voldemort? An answer based in book canon would be especially welcome, but any canon source really is fine. Harry heard the high voice shriek as he, too, yelled his best hope to the heavens, pointing Draco’s wand: ‘ Avada Kedavra !’ ‘ Expelliarmus !...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there good canon evidence for the "Nightmare Matrix"?

On the Matrix wiki, there's an article about the Nightmare Matrix which says: The Nightmare Matrix was the second prototype Matrix, designed by The Architect after the massive failure of the Paradise Matrix in the hope that human minds would more readily accept an imperfect world with suffering. Unlike the first version, this Matrix instituted a basic cause-and-effect programming and forcibly made those connected to it accept the program. Vamp Prime, a possible remnant of the Nightmare Matrix. It also featured programs that resembled mythical evil creatures in various human mythologies such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, etc. It also failed, but many of the programs who were designed for it survived deletion in exile. The Merovingian and his wife, Persephone may have had their roots in this version of the Matrix. Upon its failure, the Merovingian started a smuggling ring of programs and information to provide a haven for exiles that would last for 6 cycles in the final ...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Anime with a boy hiring a creature from a stone, meets a man named Dante and starts a journey to collect crystals

I am from India, this anime or animated series (I can't remember this was made by the Japan or other countries) was aired between 2009 and 2012 probably in Jetix/Disney XD (but I'm not sure). This anime starts with a boy (the main character, I forgot his name) who find a stone (or crystal like thing) in his dad's property, his dad was missing that time. Some day he accidentally hire a creature/monster from that stone. Other day some creature attack him and he was saved by his creature and the story begins. In his journey to solve the mystery he meets a middle aged man 'Dante' (probably that was the name; this is the only character name I can remember). He had also some stone. After that they meet with one girl and a women (one of the girls is same age with the main boy character and probably will become his partner as the story goes on). Another women probably Dante's partner. Four of them started their journey to collect all the stone/crystal. They are collecti...
Post a Comment
Read more