I have a question: where had the idea behind Horcruxes come from? I mean, aside from that ludicrous idea that Rowling was playing Diablo and was struck suddenly with an idea for her sixth book? Are there any references in British folklore to Horcruxes?

We in Russia are especially curious because everyone here thinks he can recognize them from the old fairy-tales about the evil Kos`c`ej The Immortal (rough translation would be, like, forgive me, 'Scrankie', portmanteau for scrawny and lanky).

It's like this Koshchey person took his heart, and hid it into the point of a pin, which he had placed inside of an egg, which then was conveniently placed in a mallard eaten by a rabbit swallowed by a hawk stuffed into a box hanged on the top of a very old high oak-tree, which was constantly guarded by a bear.

Anyway, everytime this Koshchey got his head chopped off, it grew up again right away, before he could even drop the sword in surprise. So your average Ivan, to defeat Koshchey, need to travel to the very heart of the Grim forest to find the bear guarding the oak-tree, hiding... well you've got the picture.

Oh, and the secret of Koshchey's defeat was usually held by an old Hag who developed this morbid taste for toasted Ivans: she was an old buddy of this Koshchey, but got rejected when he set his eyes upon Ivan's beautiful bride.

People here, in Russian side of HP-community, were thinking that it was even possible for Rowling, given her education, to hear of such a story. But, are there similar folk-tales in UK? I mean, seeing how her books are practically entangled in folklore.

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Beside that little question, I wanted to rant about Slughorn, by your leave. Where had people got the idea that Slughorn, in fandom, is some kind of specialist for Horcruxes?

I think that, if the subject is such a taboo, it shouldn't mean that noone ever heard about Horcruxes. Quite the contrary.

There was an old custom in England: in the cold winter evenings people from the neighbourhood would gather before a fireplace to listen to some fairy-tales, horror stories and what not. That tradition had died out with the coming of television and with general bustle coming from technological revolution. Magical society, with its out-of-date way of life have every reason to retain the tradition of story-telling. If the stories about Boghasts, Kelpies, Will-o'-the-wisps and other abnormalities existed in Muggle world, then what better horror-stories are there in the magical one if not about Horcruxes? Imagine students at Hogwarts sitting before the fireplaces, trading stories they've heard from their parents in their early childhood.

The fact that Ron hadn't heard about them means shit-all. He never heard about the Triwizard tournament, either: Mr. Weasley is law-abiding to the fault, and, to an extent, he have to be, being a Ministry official.

Hermione's ignorance is easily explained with the fact that she came from the Muggle family, and also with the fact that every book that mentioned Horcruxes (if there are books mentioning them at all) should be in the Restricted Section; reading from which is, of course, against the rules.

That the trio had never heard about the Horcruxes through their years at Hogwarts could be explained away by the fact that their circle is extremelly reclusive. And the twins, as the most obvious sources of such information, cannot bear the presence of Hermione without puking, even for the shortest time necessarily to successfully scare the hell out of Ronniekins with the story about wicked Horcruxes.

I know this explanation is rather strained, but it is still well in concordance with Rowling's usual plotholes.

Which means that Tom Riddle, having heard about the Horcruxes in the Slitherin common-room, found the idea appealing. He raided the library to find every piece of information about them. What he found there (or what he didn't find) wasn't enough to satisfy his morbid curiosity and thus he sought for Slughorn's advice.

So this raised a question: how could Slughorn be a renown specialist of the unknow art? The idea is ridiculous. It looks like he collects the trinkets for amusement purposes! Yes, he could have even told the story to the students himself during one of his sluggish parties, but that doesn't make him a specialist.

Then why had Riddle come to him? That's easy: we know only of two teachers from Riddle's time: Dumbledore and Slughorn. When the former was suspicious and distrustful towards Riddle, the latter was an extreme opposite and favoured Riddle above all. Now, what a surprise, given the fact that the two teachers from Riddle's time we know were both partial to him. That nicely fit Rowling's logic though, and logic of fiction on the whole: reader doesn't need to know of other teachers, they're just unimportant to the storyline.

Anyway, Riddle made an obvious choice and came to Slughorn, who was the most lenient towards him, and confirmed that there were, indeed, no fundamental flaws in the assumption of possibility of making more than one Horcrux. And viola: he chopped his soul into seven pieces!

So, if Harry need to know how to make a Horcrux, or how to chase one, he doesn't need to be some kind of genius, a bookworm, or a dark wizard. He just need to conveniently-accidentally overhear one of the fireside stories in his commom-room. Or, he can just go to Mr. Weasley and ask him, or maybe ask for his old book of folk-tales: information could be waiting for him everywhere (with a little bit of imagination), but why, oh why, in every fiction, we're learning that Slughorn possesses a treasure trove of information about Horcruxes?

 

Ugh, the whole HBP subplot with Slughorn was too idiotic to discuss inteligently. There's a war going on and these two assholes take a whole fucking year to wrestle ONE little piece of information from the fat bastard's head.

And it wasn't even that important; I mean, for all we know, Riddle could have changed his mind afterwards or hinted about 7 pieces merely as a distraction. It's not like Slughorn explained to him how to actually make a horcrux; why would then he be so opposed to sharing that one bit of info?

The whole thing was ridiculous.

As for the idea that many people know about Horcruxes, that's entirely possible, but irrelevant.

 

Ah, the plot of the 7 horcruxes...
Wouldn't it make a lot better of a book if the 7th was a pebble that he threw in the sea?

Could prove to be an interesting childrens story, all the muggles, halfbloods and bloodtraitors would die and Voldemort would reign supreme... I can imagine the wails of little children from all over the world, it's bliss ^^

 

There are only 6 horcruxes, if there were 7 then his soul would be in 8 parts. Everyone seems to forget the fact that one of the parts of the souls stays in his body.

And if the 7th was a pebble thrown into the sea, it would be dissolved fairly quickly, so there would be no point in it. And all you would have to do is cast "Accio Voldemorts Horcrux" and you're laughing.

And to the OP, I don't think that there is any major folklore mention of splitting the soul, or enchanting an object to give immortality, but I could be wrong.

 

The only place I could see JKR getting the soul-splitting idea was if she bastardized the phylactery used by Liches to become immortal. It's pretty much the same thing; seal your soul in an object and poof! Immortality. JKR just took it one step further.

In regards to the usage of said items in HPB, is there any evidence at all, aside from his conversation with Sluggy, that Voldemort wanted to split his soul into seven pieces? I mean, really, if you're gonna split if seven you might as well do it a hundred times. Overkill I know, but then immortality is pretty much secure. If you are going to be immortal, then the boost given by having 7 chunks of soul is pretty much redundant.

 

Urgh, the discussion about how many pieces goes in differebt thread.

But thoes Liches, they're from the game, right? How could she possibly learn about them???

 

Liches are part of mythology. It is quite possible she just took that idea a bit further for horcruxes.

As for why 7 pieces, because 7 is a number of magical significance. What that means in terms of horcruxes is anyones guess, but it obviously has some sort of significance because of the power of the number.

 

Regarding the Russian story: One of the "Thief of Baghdad" movies (I think the 70s version) featured this exact plotline, so it's not really obscure. One might even claim that Riddle, having grown up with Muggles, had heard of or read such stories and figured that there must have been some truth in them, which prompted him to research it further or subtly ask his fellow Slytherins about it.

I don't think he would have found anything in the Restricted Section. Slughorn did say "you'd be hard-pushed to find a book at Hogwarts that'll give you details on Horcruxes, Tom". He wouldn't want to ask any obvious questions in the common room, so that left professors. Slughorn liked him and was a coward. He had been a Slytherin and perhaps from a dark family (we don't know that but Tom probably would). I can see how Tom would choose to talk to him about this. What I can't see is how JKR could possibly think that spending a whole book trying to extract that ridiculous memory (and ending up doing it by using a convenient "device" as usual) would make good fiction...

 

Though I was venting my ire on FF post-HBP, but, yeah, I can't agree more: how could possibly extracting this memory make a plot... an addle-brained idea if there was one. Duh.

 

It isn't seven Horcruxes, its seven fragments of his soul. If there were seven Horcruxes there would be eight fragments, which means that Voldemort should have become more powerful after the diary was broken as there would now be seven pieces of his soul remaining.

 

Is there a limit to Horcrux creation? Voldemort has seven so far, but what if he catches wind of Harry's scavenger hunt? Does he just go, "Okay, then. Avada Kedavra. Eight. Avada Kedavra. Nine..."

 

I imagin there is only so much you can to to your sould before it implodes or something. Before Voldemort the most someone ever made was one. If you could make un unlimited amount why did no one else try before him. Voldemort is extreamly powerful and smart I think he used all his skill to make seven and can't make any more. I think the number 7 is special to it kind of binds it all together so he is able to have more than one.

 

I'm personally going with the 'ludicrous idea that Rowling was playing Diablo and was struck suddenly with an idea for her sixth book' Theory.

If he did make seven horcrux's, then it strikes me as pretty stupid to have the most cunning and powerful Dark Lord in a century(or something around those lines, i'm not altogether sure) put all of them in 'trophies' in the form of Hogwarts Founders artifacts. Why not various 'trophies' from around the globe? Hell, why not kill some muggle family and make some kids little league trophy a horcrux?

I think, also, if seven is 'The Most Powerful Magical Number', and theoretically it makes the whole horcrux thing all the more powerful(as JKR has hinted at with the subtlety of a brick to the face), i think that doing a spell and eating 7 candy bars in conjunction should make you t3h 1337 pWnz0r. That's all i'm saying about that.

The concept of a horcrux had potential, but JKR took that potential, ripped it to little pieces, burned it, pissed on the ashes, and scattered it to the four winds.

 

I can see how seven could be the most powerful magical number ever: for Harry to "vanquish" Voldemort he would need to sacrifice seven his closest friends. With Sirius and Dumbledore being the first and the second, the Ministry Five will come next. Eye to eye: Sirius for the diary, Dumbledore for the ring, some other for the locket, and the last (conveniently, his "true love") in exchange for Voldemort himself. Personally, I'll be rooting for Hermione to die first. Kek kek. Joking, of course.

Seriously though, I think this dispute will not see its conclusion. Some people like the idea of seven being a really powerful number granting Voldemort incredible abilities, while others want Voldemort to create as many Horcruxes as he could and throw the trinkets into the sea. Others will reason that Voldemort won't do that because he's a stuck-up fetishist who likes to collect the trinkets, not to throw them away. And then, there's the matter of terrible fate that awaits somebody with a little too much Horcruxes; the matter, which others will defend with the fact that Voldemort wants to be immortal and cares little about his soul's well-being.

I propose we kill J.K. for the DLP forum's very first Horcrux-creating ritual. :cackles evilly: