On Horcrux-making and losing one’s looks
Jun. 19th, 2020 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockWe know that Tom’s appearance deteriorated during the same time period he was making Horcruxes. Dumbledore and Harry seem to believe this is cause and effect: you split your soul, and your face gets melty-looking.
Are they correct, though?
In the graveyard, Voldemort brags that his followers knew some of the measures he’d taken to make himself deathless. Bellatrix and Lucius may have some idea about the objects their master gave them to guard, but not necessarily. Regulus had to discover the secret, after all—and did say he discovered it, not learned it from Voldemort and used it against him. So Voldemort didn’t tell him that the locket was a Horcrux. If even the Horcrux guardians don’t know about them, the rest of the Death Eaters must not know either. (Regulus almost certainly had no idea there was more than one, or he wouldn’t have taunted Voldemort about being “mortal once more” once the locket was destroyed.)
So. What were these other measures Voldemort took to preserve his life, which he told his followers about?
And, more pertinently, what did they do to Tom’s complexion?
It’s hard to see why ripping out a piece of one’s soul would affect one’s skin or facial structure. How would that work? When you rip off a piece of soul, it might be your soul-nose, the loss of which is then reflected in your face? Or is it more of a leeching out of some of your soul-stuff, so that your soul looks a bit runny, which then makes your flesh, blood, and bones a bit runny as well? Does making Horcruxes put you at risk for osteoporosis? (And does having an extra soul-bit shoved into you, as Harry did, also change one’s appearance, besides the scar entry wound? Did Harry’s nose grow after the Voldiebit died?) And a big gaping soul-wound also… turns your eyes glowing red?
It’s rather hard to credit. Though admittedly not inconceivable in the Potterverse. But Dumbledore and his Muggle-raised mother grew up in an era where Muggle doctors and scientists thought that personality traits were reflected in the shape of one’s skull and other such physical characteristics. Not to mention, wizarding society may retain ideas derived from the 17th century, when ideas like character traits being passed through breast milk and “like cures like” (e.g., red stones help with blood diseases because they share redness) were taken seriously by major figures such as Boyle. The idea that the state of the soul would be reflected in the state of the body wouldn’t be out there for wizards. Add that to the generally sketchy information about Horcruxes, and the lack of recorded instances of anyone making more than one, and maybe the conclusion seemed like a natural leap to Dumbledore.
But he might have been wrong. I don’t recall Hermione reading that Horcrux-making caused disfigurement in her purloined handbooks. Nor did Slughorn warn Tom about it. We’ve never seen any other cases to compare Tom’s progression to. Well, maybe it’s only really noticeable after you make more than one, which allegedly no one else has ever done…
But it seems just as likely, or more so, that those unspecified other measures were what really ruined Tom’s looks. He was only looking pale and gaunt at Hephzibah’s – nothing there that can’t be attributed to living on wizard Top Ramen due to a low salary at the shop or simply not taking the time to eat properly. The red eyes and melted-wax look only appeared after he’d been associating with “the worst of our kind” and doing something that his followers might reasonably believe would make him unkillable. (Dermus adamantius? No, seriously, what were those other measures? Yes, yes, probably Rowling forgot she’d ever mentioned any other measures, or originally intended the DEs to know about the Horcruxes and changed her mind. Let’s pretend there’s a coherent backstory for old times’ sake.)
For that matter, maybe only the melted wax stage was due to whatever special measures he took and after that, most changes were deliberate cosmetic alterations to suit his sense of drama.
Maybe he just liked having a much smaller nose.
Or literally cut it off to spite his face.
Stranger things have happened in the Potterverse.
Are they correct, though?
In the graveyard, Voldemort brags that his followers knew some of the measures he’d taken to make himself deathless. Bellatrix and Lucius may have some idea about the objects their master gave them to guard, but not necessarily. Regulus had to discover the secret, after all—and did say he discovered it, not learned it from Voldemort and used it against him. So Voldemort didn’t tell him that the locket was a Horcrux. If even the Horcrux guardians don’t know about them, the rest of the Death Eaters must not know either. (Regulus almost certainly had no idea there was more than one, or he wouldn’t have taunted Voldemort about being “mortal once more” once the locket was destroyed.)
So. What were these other measures Voldemort took to preserve his life, which he told his followers about?
And, more pertinently, what did they do to Tom’s complexion?
It’s hard to see why ripping out a piece of one’s soul would affect one’s skin or facial structure. How would that work? When you rip off a piece of soul, it might be your soul-nose, the loss of which is then reflected in your face? Or is it more of a leeching out of some of your soul-stuff, so that your soul looks a bit runny, which then makes your flesh, blood, and bones a bit runny as well? Does making Horcruxes put you at risk for osteoporosis? (And does having an extra soul-bit shoved into you, as Harry did, also change one’s appearance, besides the scar entry wound? Did Harry’s nose grow after the Voldiebit died?) And a big gaping soul-wound also… turns your eyes glowing red?
It’s rather hard to credit. Though admittedly not inconceivable in the Potterverse. But Dumbledore and his Muggle-raised mother grew up in an era where Muggle doctors and scientists thought that personality traits were reflected in the shape of one’s skull and other such physical characteristics. Not to mention, wizarding society may retain ideas derived from the 17th century, when ideas like character traits being passed through breast milk and “like cures like” (e.g., red stones help with blood diseases because they share redness) were taken seriously by major figures such as Boyle. The idea that the state of the soul would be reflected in the state of the body wouldn’t be out there for wizards. Add that to the generally sketchy information about Horcruxes, and the lack of recorded instances of anyone making more than one, and maybe the conclusion seemed like a natural leap to Dumbledore.
But he might have been wrong. I don’t recall Hermione reading that Horcrux-making caused disfigurement in her purloined handbooks. Nor did Slughorn warn Tom about it. We’ve never seen any other cases to compare Tom’s progression to. Well, maybe it’s only really noticeable after you make more than one, which allegedly no one else has ever done…
But it seems just as likely, or more so, that those unspecified other measures were what really ruined Tom’s looks. He was only looking pale and gaunt at Hephzibah’s – nothing there that can’t be attributed to living on wizard Top Ramen due to a low salary at the shop or simply not taking the time to eat properly. The red eyes and melted-wax look only appeared after he’d been associating with “the worst of our kind” and doing something that his followers might reasonably believe would make him unkillable. (Dermus adamantius? No, seriously, what were those other measures? Yes, yes, probably Rowling forgot she’d ever mentioned any other measures, or originally intended the DEs to know about the Horcruxes and changed her mind. Let’s pretend there’s a coherent backstory for old times’ sake.)
For that matter, maybe only the melted wax stage was due to whatever special measures he took and after that, most changes were deliberate cosmetic alterations to suit his sense of drama.
Maybe he just liked having a much smaller nose.
Or literally cut it off to spite his face.
Stranger things have happened in the Potterverse.
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no subject
Date: 2020-06-20 10:57 am (UTC)Following that hypothesis the zombie/revenant could control the decay of the body by magic; but what happens to magic after one has ripped off pieces of the self? Keeping the corpse functional enough to look odd but normalish would take, not power as such I don't think, but focus; the more time passes, the harder is to keep all the details correct.
This would ensure the complete disintegration of the body after the clearly described explosion caused by the collision between furnace-burning mother love and cold green. Green! The colour of absolute eeeevil! Destroy all green things! Death to vegetables!
Ooops, sorry, got carried away.
This would also explain how this supposedly puissant wizard who could terrify everyone is so appalingly incapable of coherent thought and is reduced to using only two spells at the end (right, let's pretend that the protagonist of this epic is capable of many more). Revenants are only for pain, death and destruction, not for brains firing on all neurons after all. :D
no subject
Date: 2020-06-21 12:43 am (UTC)He also mentioned having to mentally hold himself together while in Vapormort form. Hm...
no subject
Date: 2020-06-22 02:24 pm (UTC)But... Hey! See? I wasn't so far off, then. :D
I forgot to tell you how much I admire your brilliant efforts to make sense of the senseless. I'm not much good at Watsonian reading, being by nature and nurture a Doylist to the core, but I enjoy Watsonian comments so so much! Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-22 04:52 pm (UTC)Don't worry about timing! I spend my workdays at a computer and sometimes end up with headaches or too much wrist and arm pain to then spend more time on the computer for non-work reasons, so I'm never going to pressure to get online and start typing. I know how many good reasons there are people might need to not do that!