I was thinking about how we're all saying, "a seventh of his soul is within [insert Horcrux here]." Technically... we don't really know that. For the sake of writing a message I don't think it's important (and thus will likely say it again in another thread)... but... maybe it matters how much soul is in a Horcrux.

All we know is that when you murder somone, your soul is divided, but we don't know by how much. It seems easy to say that 7 pieces of soul would all be sevenths of a soul, but I'm not so sure the witch/wizard can control how much they put into a Horcrux. Maybe each time you commit murder, your soul is split in half. If this is right, by the time Voldemort was finished, he would only have 1/64 of his soul left (which certainly would explain his inability to love). Perhaps this would weaken him allowing Harry to beat him even though he is a much younger, inexperienced wizard.

Even if souls aren't precisely halved when they are split, they still would likely be in uneven fragments (I'm thinking alone the lines of shattered glass here where each piece is different and you can't control which piece is going to be the biggest). Either way, this would put significance on the order in which the Horcruxes were made. I would assume that a Horcrux with twice as much soul in it would be twice as powerful.

I don't know... it's all speculation but I think it would add suspence if Harry progressively had more trouble destroying each Horcrux.


So... what do you think?


Note To Mods: Sorry if you would prefer this to be under the "Thoughts On Horcruxes," thread because technically these thoughts are about them... but it's very different to what is being discussed in that enormous thread so I wanted to give this a new space.

I have a feeling that the size of the piece of soul put into a Horcrux would be a ratio involving the intensity of the murder and the murderer's pleasure or rage divided by the amount of soul left in the witch/wizard. Voldemort's first murder, when he killed his father and made the diary, would have been a tremendous event in his life, and I'm sure would have made a very powerful Horcrux compared to killing someone like Hepzibah Smith or someone that he did not have a real connection to in any way. When he killed her, he did not have as much soul left to contribute to a Horcrux, and the murder wasn't as important to him, so that Horcrux would not be as powerful. In the case of the ring that Dumbledore destroys, this was another powerful one because it was again a member of Riddle's own family, and it was still early in his killing career. It may not have been as powerful as the diary, which could assume solid form if given a food supply of another soul, but it could still put up a fight and be dangerous to Dumbledore. But I don't think this theory means that Harry will necessarily have more trouble with the Horcruxes he encounters, he really can't be worn out when he meets Voldemort in the final battle.

I didn't really think of a soul as something that has a volume, or anything. If your soul is ripped apart, maybe it matters less whether it's parted in the middle and more that it isn't a whole thing anmore.
Otherwise, I agree with Ali-Bashir that it depends on who you killed and how much power/resolution you put into it.

I agree that the important thing is that his soul isn't whole anymore... but I still think the amount of soul in a Horcrux will matter. I also think Ali-Bashir's idea that it depends on the murder is an interesting one.

Anywho... I don't think we have to worry too much about Harry getting worn out by Horcruxes no matter how powerful they are. For one thing, it wouldn't make a very great story to have him snuff it before getting to the final battle... and for another, he's already proven that he's made of tough stuff. Anyone who can fight Voldemort after having his leg bitten by a giant spider and then manage to drag a dead body back to the port key with him while dodging curses is someone who can handle some difficulties with the Horcruxes.

I don't know... I just have a feeling that JKR will do something with the Horcruxes in terms of making them more or less powerful than others in order to increase the mystery and excitement within the story. I also think the way in which a soul is divided (ie. more or less soul... or more or less important murders) will come into play somehow.

I agree, I think that Harry is going to have a fairly easy time with most of the Horcruxes, because they weren't necessarily murders that were very important to Tom Riddle. The diary and the ring were probably the most powerful in terms of their own powers, the locket, which was made with a murder that was not important to Tom at all, needed extra defense set up by Voldemort, because it was not powerful enough on its own. So unless Voldemort killed some other people that were extremely important to him, I think the Horcruxes will be a breeze for Harry, especially since there are so many more for him to deal with, they can't take him forever. I think it'll be more like an obstacle course or a gauntlet of trials than real hard and heavy tasks. It'll be more difficult for Harry to figure out what he has to do and where he has to do it than to really destroy the soul pieces.

The idea of it splitting in half each time makes sense to me, but then the order to which they are found would be important. I have an idea floating around in my head that I just can't shake. Voldemort has killed more than seven people, he possibly killed more than seven before he started making Horcruxes. Slughorn did not explain how to make them but he still found out how to do it. Voldemort was very intent on seven Horcruxes, maybe he found a way to prepare his soul in the beginning, thus creating seven equal parts.

Patricia

Yeah, that's completely possible, we really don't know enough about Horcruxes to tell what the actual process is. I'm sure JK will enlighten us further in Book 7, but possibly not. She has a huge task to undertake, with alot of expectations and alot that people want covered in the finale of the series, so we might get a very glossed over version of how the Horcruxes are made. The soul is not a concrete object, so it's really hard to determine "how much" of the soul would be put into each Horcrux, so I think a better gauge would be the strength of the Horcrux, which can only be measured by using the inensity of the murder, as I and several others have proposed. Also, it's important to note that Voldemort becomes less and less like himself, like Tom Riddle, with each Horcrux, so each Horcrux is really less Tom Riddle than the previous ones, too. I would imagine that this would weaken them. It's not that his soul is any smaller, specifcally, but it's less recognizable as a soul. His features are blurred, so his soul might become a little fuzzy, too. This lessens their natural defenses, forcing them to rely on outside defenses, as was already proposed.

There could be three main theories .
1. Voldemort splits his soul into seven equal parts

2. Every time you create a horcrux, half of your soul goes into the horcrux, which means the following division:
1. 1/2
2. 1/4
3. 1/8
4. 1/16
5. 1/32
6. 1/64
7. 1/128

3. The splitting is according to the killing - a really vicious killing would strip of a greater piece of your soul...

The second would mean that Voldemort only has 1/128th soul left - which would explain his completely inability to feel compassion. But I'd go for the first one - seven equal parts.

By your split, RedCat, that would also mean that the first Horcrux would have the biggest chunk of soul. I think most of us would assume that the diary was probably the first one. That would mean that 1/2 of LV's soul has already been destroyed.

Could that be true? Could it be that easy for Harry to destroy LV ?

It must be split evenly between all the Horcruxes.

At first I imagined that the soul would split in half each time. But would this account for the small changes in Tom's appearance to start with, and more extreme changes later on like when he visited DD to ask for a job.

Tom was only planning to make 7 horcruxes, so how many had he made at the time of the interview to make him almost unrecognisable. If this theory is correct I would have thought that the first halving would have made the most recognisable change in appearance and subsequent changes would have been more gradual as the halvings would have been smaller.

Ok, not sure if I'm making sense but I know what I mean!

I had never thought of the idea of it depending on the importance of each murder, but I do like that theory.
It certainly makes more sense than my rambling!

Red Cat, that's exactly what I said (for theory #2)... except that (as I said) there would be 1/64 of his soul left in him because there are only 6 Horcruxes made.

If you add up the pieces, you have half, quarter, eigth, sixteenth, thirty second(th?), and a sixty forth in Horcruxes... so to make that all equal 1 you need another 64th. It's a lot easier to just use an equation where the exponent is the number of Horcruxes: (2^-6 = 1/64)

I'm kind of on the same page with Ali-Bashir about soul splitting... I just couldn't find the right words. But I think you nailed when you said that it isn't so much quantity of soul so much as how much it is like Tom Riddle. I still think that each successive Horcrux will contain a soul that is half as much like Tom Riddle. I don't see a soul as being a volume to be cut either... but ratios can be used to describe many things without units.

And um... I think that's enough math for me today!

~Loops

Math teachers should TOTALLY use Harry Potter for questions!

Just to throw in my thoughts - I'd originally gone for the soul splitting in two each time, with progressively less and less soul left in LV as he created each Horcrux. I also love the idea that this might make it progressively more difficult for Harry to destroy the horcruxes, although as Loops said before, this is where the 'quantity of soul' in each Horcrux might not be the deciding factor.

Horcruxes made later on might contain less of Tom Riddle's soul, but then relatively more 'essence of Voldemort' (for want of a better term)? I don't know if I'm making much sense here but I got the feeling most of you were thinking along the same lines.

I also soooo hope JK explains it all to us in Book 7!

We may need to anylyze Voldemort's intention in creating his horcruxes. He began making them, intending on having six. (The piece in his physical body being the 7th piece of soul.) If there is any way to control how much soul is ripped, Voldemort would have found out how to do so. He would have likely followed RedCat's theory 1-- and divided his soul into equal pieces. Although if he could control it, he may have put more or less soul into horcruxes he valued differently. (By the way, thanks RedCat, for summarizing the main theories so nicely.) I don't think Voldemort would have been so casual about the diary if it held half of his soul. Hmmm... I think I need to re-read the whole thread again. (This one and the main one) There are so many interesting thoughts. No time now though. ~Sexy~

Been thinking about this issue for a while and have come up with something interesting (I hope). I've been imagining that as is explained, when you kill someone your soul is split. What if it's more like shattered into many pieces? Surely then the amount of soul stored in each horcrux would be completely variable (would LV have much control over this aspect? Possibly). My thinking then led me to believe that although he'd lost several pieces of soul to the Horcruxes, the majority of soul was still residing in LV the night his Avada Kedavra curse rebounded off Harry.
We know the reason it didn't kill him was because of his Horcruxes, but does that mean that the reconstituted (for want of a better word) LV who came back at the end of GoF has less total soul, having lost some when the rebounded curse hit? I'd think this would make him more evil than ever!!

Hmm, more questions posed than answers I'm afraid. I seem to do this quite a lot.

I always thought of the damage to the soul to be like bites out of an apple - each murder is like a bite into the soul and making a Horcrux involves taking a chunk completely out. I don't think Voldemort could choose to divide his soul into seven equal parts and he's committed more than six murders so there would be more than six rips.


We know that all that survived of Voldemort when his AK curse backfired was the piece of soul that remained in his body. That's what his spectral form was, so that part of his soul wasn't destroyed.