If you want to extend your life without doing incredibly evil shit, “Adopt long-lived animagus form, shift into it when old, never shift out again” is a fairly straightforward application of magic we know wizarding kind has access to.
One obvious problem is that I doubt Salazar would murder students on request, but heck, Voldemort could have set Myrtle up without his consent.
My original thought was simply that killing the basilisk was just too obvious a problem with the lore deposit, and that for this reason there would be backups. As in “more than one snake, and don’t let on to the heirs”. That also increases the durability of the chamber against time—it is a line of snakes instead of just one creature, time alone will not slay it.
One obvious problem is that I doubt Salazar would murder students on request, but heck, Voldemort could have set Myrtle up without his consent.
In canon, at least, the Basilisk is all into murdering students, suggesting victims and egging on the Heir. Indeed, it is the Basilisk’s murderous mutterings in Parseltongue that make Harry aware of it.
.. My personal guess about Canon parsel-tongue is that it creates a mind in the snake you talk to based loosely on your own—Hence the python in the zoo just wanting to escape it’s cramped living situation, and thus the Basilisk in hogwarts being all murdery—it’s nothing more than a funhouse mirror of Voldemort.
This was never tested, because Canon Harry has brain damage from starvation and various other psychological trauma inhibiting his thinking, and never even tried asking the basilisk to back off.
The HPMOR basillisk cannot possibly bear any resemblance whatsoever to the canon one anyway, Because that thing couldn’t teach anyone anything.
My personal guess about it is that it is that most people attribute to animals a lot more agency than they really have, and the story is written with an authorial worldview that assumes that most people’s views on this matter are actually true. Given that worldview, no explanation is needed at all. Of course, that worldview is itself inconsistent, but the inconsistencies have relatively little relevance to talking to snakes.
I believe canon says Animagus forms are not chosen; Salazar would have to be lucky to get the basilisk as his spirit animal rather than a rattlesnake or cobra or something.
Wait, are you suggesting that Slytherin’s Basilisk is Salazar Slytherin, in Animagus form? (Edit: spelling.)
...I am now!
If you want to extend your life without doing incredibly evil shit, “Adopt long-lived animagus form, shift into it when old, never shift out again” is a fairly straightforward application of magic we know wizarding kind has access to.
One obvious problem is that I doubt Salazar would murder students on request, but heck, Voldemort could have set Myrtle up without his consent.
My original thought was simply that killing the basilisk was just too obvious a problem with the lore deposit, and that for this reason there would be backups. As in “more than one snake, and don’t let on to the heirs”. That also increases the durability of the chamber against time—it is a line of snakes instead of just one creature, time alone will not slay it.
In canon, at least, the Basilisk is all into murdering students, suggesting victims and egging on the Heir. Indeed, it is the Basilisk’s murderous mutterings in Parseltongue that make Harry aware of it.
.. My personal guess about Canon parsel-tongue is that it creates a mind in the snake you talk to based loosely on your own—Hence the python in the zoo just wanting to escape it’s cramped living situation, and thus the Basilisk in hogwarts being all murdery—it’s nothing more than a funhouse mirror of Voldemort.
This was never tested, because Canon Harry has brain damage from starvation and various other psychological trauma inhibiting his thinking, and never even tried asking the basilisk to back off.
The HPMOR basillisk cannot possibly bear any resemblance whatsoever to the canon one anyway, Because that thing couldn’t teach anyone anything.
My personal guess about it is that it is that most people attribute to animals a lot more agency than they really have, and the story is written with an authorial worldview that assumes that most people’s views on this matter are actually true. Given that worldview, no explanation is needed at all. Of course, that worldview is itself inconsistent, but the inconsistencies have relatively little relevance to talking to snakes.
I believe canon says Animagus forms are not chosen; Salazar would have to be lucky to get the basilisk as his spirit animal rather than a rattlesnake or cobra or something.