Question regarding Horcruxes · 12:47am Jul 27th, 2023
JK Rowling imagined a vile concept for Voldemort, the main antagonist of her series, Harry Potter, as a means for him to achieve what he believed to be immortality due to his pathological fear of death - The Horcrux.
This object of evil contains a piece of one's soul, anchoring them to life so long as it is intact, even if the person's body is destroyed. It requires the person to commit murder (as murder damages the soul of the murderer) and use the damage to split the soul (which is not meant to be split in the first place) and place the removed piece into a subject, which becomes the Horcrux.
The Horcrux can repair itself if damaged, meaning the only way to destroy it is to use something that would render the Horcrux beyond even magical repair. Creating even a single a Horcrux renders the person and their soul unstable, and yet Voldemort went as far as to create seven, which is regarded as the strongest magical number.
From a certain point of view, his bid worked, keeping him from dying when he attempted to kill Harry Potter as an infant, but in the end Voldemort was undone and doomed to a fate even worse than death. Ironic, because be believed nothing could be worse than death and yet he was doomed to limbo for all eternity.
Could a similar concept work without the murder and soul-tearing stuff?
I had this thought that a person could use magical anchors on their soul in order to avoid death, by linking themselves to a magical object, like a gem. In the event this person were to die the gem would shatter and they would be spared from whatever would have killed them.
I like the idea, but I'm just not entirely certain of it, and it's easier to brainstorm with other people.
What do you think?
Hmmm…
Damaging a soul is sin, but what if you could bind a soul without harming it?
Something like a magical tether. A metaphysical string or chain connecting your soul to that object.
Your crystal idea is smart, except any magical connections that break from either end cause pain to the caster, for example when a shield spell is shattered from getting hit too much, the caster of that spell gets magical feedback in the form of pain.
Having a crystal that breaks when you die would be counterintuitive as such a spell would kill you from magical backlash anyway.
Edit: but thats just my idea of how magic works, you do whatever you wish.
Well it probably could but it’d be more limited. You still would die but the piece of your soul you sacrificed would survive. Like say you put part of your soul in a book. The book would retain all knowledge up to that point in your life but no further. As well as there would be no coming back to full form. I imagine it would be difficult as it’d require a lot of magical knowledge and skill. It’d be like the difference between a force ghost for a Jedi and a Sith. One would let your knowledge survive with no ill consequences and the other would have consequences.
I guess you could watch Fairy Tail? They had something like that in the final season.
5739510
Well, the idea here is, the crystal (or gem, as I stated) is destroyed in place of yourself in the event you would have experienced death.
The Horcrux has obvious prices and cons that would, to a sane person, outweigh the pros. The Horcrux is an abomination that demands murder of someone and self-mutilation of one's own soul, and what I would envision doesn't harm the user's own soul, simply save them from a phenomena that would have killed them.
My idea however is more of a safeguard, or "get out of jail free" card (or 'get out of death' technically), but there has to be a limit or even a price of sorts. Otherwise anyone and everyone would use them.
Like... imagine if you were about to be killed by something, like a guillotine, a car about to crash into you, or even falling off a cliff; the gem, which is linked to you, would react and magically intervene, saving your life (somehow) and as a result the gem would shatter, meaning it can't save you again.
So what sort of limit or price could such a magic have?
5739514
You misunderstand - My idea isn't to divide the soul as the Horcrux does, but rather your soul is linked to this prepared gem that reacts when your life is about to come to an end, and so it magically intervenes to save your life (somehow) and then the gem itself is destroyed so it can't be used again.
So, what sort of price or limit could this life-saving gem have?
5739542
hmm, Perhaps it’s a one use only item? Since using it more than once could risk actual damage? Like you have a max use of only one crystal per pony or creature.
5739561
I think that could work; it's not meant to be an object of dark magic, after all. Just a means to save one's self.
5739541
Limitation?
How about the spell has to be constantly recast every 20 hours or it will fail.
That way, its very inconvenient to recast and only the military types would get any real use out of it.
5739621
What about something like that Phoenix Gem and spell from "Onward"?
5739953
That one is an interesting concept.
A person ceases to exist but can be brought back to life for a limited/indefinite amount of time via a very powerful magic artifact…
Maybe… some kind of Phoenix related ritual? A willingly given phoenix feather, the heart of a dragon and the blood of an alicorn all rolled into one Blood-Magic ritual that can permanently revive someone with no afteraffects.
That way, the spell is powerful, does what its needed to do, and the ingredients are difficult/nearly impossible to get.
5740030
Heart of dragon and blood of alicorn? Overkill, literally. The Feather of a Phoenix... most definitely, and the user's blood being involved could be forging a link between the user and the magic