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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Date: 2020-06-30 03:18 am (UTC)Robin: My face is the index to my mind, / All venom and spleen and gall! / Or, properly speaking, it soon will be reeking / With venom and spleen and gall.
Old Adam: My name from Adam Goodheart, you'll find, / I've changed to Gideon Crawle, / For a bad bart's steward whose heart is too hard / Is always Gideon Crawle.
Both: How providential when you find / The face an index to the mind, / And evil men compelled to call / Themselves by names like Gideon Crawle.
We all should have known from the start that Harry Potter was never going to become friends with a schoolboy rival named Dragon Bad-Faith, no matter how many dangerous monsters they faced together.
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Date: 2020-07-01 06:23 pm (UTC)Some poking around revealed something that makes sense within the Potterverse but also sounds like Rowling looking for a way to defend some of the too-on-the-nose names: Naming Seers. They only appear on Pottermore/Wizarding World/whatever she's calling it these days. Traditionally, wizarding parents might go to a Naming Seer, who predicted the child's future and suggested a fitting name. It's falling out of fashion, possibly because a lot of parents were unhappy with the predictions and now want to let kids "find their own ways."
So that could explain a few names, like Libatius Borage and Pomona Sprout, especially if Naming Seers also helped pick family names once upon a time. (One wonders what the first Malfoy thought upon being told that his family was doomed to be minor villains for the next thousand-odd years and here's the name to match. And why he would agree to use it. Maybe no Seers were involved, and it was originally an in-joke that unfortunately went public and stuck?)
But it does raise questions. Like, did the Lupins consult a Naming Seer and learn their son was doomed to become a werewolf? If so, why on earth would they name him something so revealing instead of trying to give him the least wolfy name possible? Did Lyall preemptively hate werewolves because he knew one was probably going to bite his son, and that's why he said they were evil, thus inspiring Greyback to bite little Remus in the first place? (Oops.)
It's a valiant attempt to make the Potterverse operating by the Laws of Melodrama make sense retroactively. I guess. But it only barely papers over a few cracks and leaves other gaping chasms.