Far better to settle for obscurity. Horcrux a non-precious stone and dump it in a random desert. Anything that you yourself couldn’t guess at (specifically) if your clone was your enemy.
Why a stone? Wouldn’t a grain of sand work? You can cover air, sea, desert, and with magic even space. I wonder if you could horcrux a molecule...
I’m not sure what the size constraints are. All else being equal smaller does seem better. I’m also not sure what difference horcruxing something makes to the physical objects. They become near impossible to destroy, right? You might end up with the most seriously baddass helium molecule out there.
I’m also not sure what difference horcruxing something makes to the physical objects. They become near impossible to destroy, right?
MoR seems to imply that, but I’m not so sure about canon. From what I can tell, canon says that the horcrux itself (i.e., the attached piece of soul, not the “host” object) cannot be destroyed except by damage to the host that cannot be repaired magically. This would suggest that you can damage the horcruxed objects with even mundane methods, and they simply remain horcruxed as long as they could be repaired by magic.
The objects are not simply immutable (Ginny could write in the journal). On the other hand, the locket refused to open itself until the end—although that may have been a property of the (presumably magical) locket before being horcruxed.
Physical indestructibility would have potential, though. You could make a space-elevator out of ordinary string. (Though perhaps simpler protective magic would suffice for that.) Or stabilize stuff like unstable molecules, particles and micro-blackholes.
There’s nothing explicit saying you can’t do that in either canon or MoR, but as far as we know one needs to intentionally split one’s soul (the only given way is killing someone), and also perform some (unspecified) terrible ritual. It also seems to require a wizard of some ability. Seems like a hard thing to compel.
I like most of the ideas but this one strikes me as only a small step up from horcruxing the most famous artifacts:
That sounds like the plot for a Nicholas Cage movie or a Matthew Reilly book.
Far better to settle for obscurity. Horcrux a non-precious stone and dump it in a random desert. Anything that you yourself couldn’t guess at (specifically) if your clone was your enemy.
Why a stone? Wouldn’t a grain of sand work? You can cover air, sea, desert, and with magic even space. I wonder if you could horcrux a molecule...
I’m not sure what the size constraints are. All else being equal smaller does seem better. I’m also not sure what difference horcruxing something makes to the physical objects. They become near impossible to destroy, right? You might end up with the most seriously baddass helium molecule out there.
MoR seems to imply that, but I’m not so sure about canon. From what I can tell, canon says that the horcrux itself (i.e., the attached piece of soul, not the “host” object) cannot be destroyed except by damage to the host that cannot be repaired magically. This would suggest that you can damage the horcruxed objects with even mundane methods, and they simply remain horcruxed as long as they could be repaired by magic.
The objects are not simply immutable (Ginny could write in the journal). On the other hand, the locket refused to open itself until the end—although that may have been a property of the (presumably magical) locket before being horcruxed.
Physical indestructibility would have potential, though. You could make a space-elevator out of ordinary string. (Though perhaps simpler protective magic would suffice for that.) Or stabilize stuff like unstable molecules, particles and micro-blackholes.
I guess that’s one use to make of your soul!
“Associated Contractors for Magic Enterprises: We put soul in our public works!”
Nah, you’d do it with someone else’s soul. There are plenty of random enemies with souls you can literally tear apart and use as building materials.
I would seem to be left with a bunch of enemies that I can never fully kill.
Perhaps use willing servants (who get the benefit of a horcrux). Use the POW/enemies as targets for the servants to split their souls on.
There’s nothing explicit saying you can’t do that in either canon or MoR, but as far as we know one needs to intentionally split one’s soul (the only given way is killing someone), and also perform some (unspecified) terrible ritual. It also seems to require a wizard of some ability. Seems like a hard thing to compel.