Chapter 23 - Horcruxes

[cheeringcharm]

After a throw-away scene with the Fat Lady and Nearly Headless Nick, Harry runs up to Dumblegod's office to give him Slughorn's memory. They journey into the pensieve and see the same memory as before, this time with substance instead of mist. Turns out Slughorn did tell Riddle about horcruxes and how they are created. Riddle is most interested in

Comments

[madderbrad]

Like everyone else here so far, I bemoan the complete waste of the prophecy, that which was the climax of OotP, as annearchy and others have said. What a shocking, horrible, terrible *waste* of what I thought at the end of OotP was a brilliant mechanism to really pull out the stops and generate some excellent passion and drama out of the last two books. Instead the revelation of the prophecy to his best friends way back (as I commented here then) was just a damp squib, all this 'Chosen One' nonsense belittles and dilutes the whole impact/power of the prophecy anyway, and this pontification by 'Dumblegod' (heh!) puts the nail in the coffin. The sound you heard back around the 16th July was that of millions of jaws gaping open in stunned belief as we read this chapter and thought "what the hell was the point of the prophecy in the first place and Voldemort's desperate attempts to know it if it can be ignored anyway

[cadesama]

It's seven because Tom pressed the point that seven is a particularly magical number in the memory. You could argue that it's the whole reason that Harry had to get the memory, but I think that's it's unlikely that Dumbledore didn't already suspect that Riddle fixated on the number seven if it's considered a powerful number. The memory was confirmation only, not revelation.

Nothing would stop Voldemort except for his weird fixation, unless the soul is actually finite. Which, uh, I guess it could be, since the number of Horcruxes made seems to correlate positively with the change in Voldemort's feature -- but that could easily be a specious correlation. But, if it is finite, then Voldemort shouldn't be able to replace the lost ones, and ought to be freaking out about losing his Horcruxes. Which he doens't seem to be doing. So, yeah, that's weird.

[woman_ironing]

I don't think the prophecy hasn't been discounted. It's just complicated.

It's the whole fate/free will thing in one: Whatever the details or constraints of any situation I may find myself in, what I do is my choice and my responsibility. Terrifyingly, this is so even if my situation is hopeless and my choices limited.

With or without the prophecy, there is Voldemort and there is Harry, and whether they come up against each other or not is up to them. But as it is, the prophecy is vital because Voldemort's reaction to the bit he heard of it created the situation Harry finds himself in. The whole prophecy describes the situation Harry finds himself in, but it's up to Harry to decide what to do about it - about the situation, that is, not the prophecy.

[cheeringcharm]

It's the whole fate/free will thing in one:

But, she discounts Harry's free will when she says that Voldemort is going to hunt Harry down no matter what he does. Harry's going to have to do it (Kill Voldemort) whether he wants to or not. Harry is deciding to go on the Offensive against Voldemort instead of being on the Defensive. There's no free will here. Harry lost his choice when Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow.

[house_elf_44]

Maybe there will be a reason we were told the Bloody Baron hangs out on the Astronomy tower. I assume Harry would have seen him if he was there to see Dumbledore's death