Someone complained elsewhere (I think it was in the other thread) about Harry being the Boy-who-Lived and having a prophecy and having a cold dark side and being super-rational.
From MoR itself:
It’s too much coincidence for one girl to be the strongest magically and academically unless there’s a single cause.
It’s plausible that one of the Muggle-raised students at Hogwarts could be a science nerd. It’s not plausible that that student would also be the Boy-who-Lived. There must be a single cause.
I think it’s most likely that Harry’s dark side is somehow an effect of being AKed. Perhaps he’s a horcrux, like in canon. The hat said no, but it’s possible that Harry was killed and the only soul left in him is Voldemort’s fragment. Or, without positing souls, maybe horcruxing a person overwrites the victim with a copy of yourself.
Harrymort has a warm side because he was raised in a loving household; he doesn’t remember being Voldemort because he was stuck in a child’s brain, with the plasticity and pruning that entails (or maybe V. wiped Harrymort’s memory for some reason?); he didn’t survive the attack, but rather his fresh corpse was appropriated as a horcrux.
This also explains his prodigious intellect and indignation at being treated as a child: he’s really an adult mind, overwritten onto a child’s brain. This is also why the Remembrall reacted the way it did: he’s forgotten decades of his former life as Voldemort.
“Ghosts,” Harry said, his voice flat. “You mean those things like portraits, stored memories and behaviors with no awareness or life, accidentally impressed into the surrounding material by the burst of magic that accompanies the violent death of a wizard—”
“Why,” I said to myself, “would you have to die to make a ghost? It seems completely arbitrary.” But then I thought that perhaps death releases a huge amount of magic that can’t normally be drawn upon safely.
But then I had this wicked awesome idea.
What if a Horcrux is the same effect, harnessed deliberately? That’s why it requires human sacrifice—the violent death of a wizard. A controlled ghost-making, operated by a wizard who remains conscious and alive through the whole process, can bind the mind into an object, arrange for contingent regrowth of the caster from the record… Yes. Horcruxes are ghosts created under controlled conditions.
Which in turn suggests that you might be able to make a dying person into a superghost (or maybe even an immortal living person). Kill them to make a horcrux, but make the sacrifice immortal instead of the caster.
That’s a cool idea! Also, it nicely has an analogue property to cryonics: you need to do something squicky (kill the guy) to save his life, in a fashion. Since the results would be closer in time and less speculative, it should overcome part of the revulsion of cryonics but allow the rest of it be overcome consciously.
ZOMG! That makes sense! So much sense that J.K. Rowling really missed a chance to have a great Revan Moment in canon. Imagine the shock ending if, as Voldemort staggers from a mortal wound in the last pages of Deathly Hallows, he explains this to Harry, then: “I...am only a shell...and have never been anything more. (cough) My purpose has only been to prepare you...Make you strong...make you gather the Hallows and become invincible… You. Are. Voldemort! BWA! HA! HAAAAAA!”
This would make sense of canon scenes like, for e.g., Voldy’s re-animation ceremony in Goblet of Fire only using a little of Harry’s blood, instead of having Ratface cut his throat, and how he calls his Death Eaters off and fights Harry solo instead of having them Just Shoot Him.
Back to MoR, yeah, I think “Harrymort” is a fiendishly cool idea!
(up-voted)
I agree that it’s a very cool idea, though it may be because I still have fond memories of KotOR myself (on a side note, it was the first instance where I realised that interactive games have certain artistic potentials unmatched by other media—that moment would not have been nearly as effective had I not walked in Revan’s shoes for dozens of hours).
It does, however, sound like the kind of idea other fanfiction works might have explored before. Does anyone remember something like that?
it was the first instance where I realised that interactive games have certain artistic potentials unmatched by other media—that moment would not have been nearly as effective had I not walked in Revan’s shoes for dozens of hours
Yes, that is one of the fairly unique properties of video games. If you’ve read anything by Heidegger about how Greek tragedy was the highest form of art due to the participatory nature of the autidence, his comments make a lot more sense if he was talking about video games instead.
I can’t believe I didn’t realize this before.
Someone complained elsewhere (I think it was in the other thread) about Harry being the Boy-who-Lived and having a prophecy and having a cold dark side and being super-rational.
From MoR itself:
It’s plausible that one of the Muggle-raised students at Hogwarts could be a science nerd. It’s not plausible that that student would also be the Boy-who-Lived. There must be a single cause.
I think it’s most likely that Harry’s dark side is somehow an effect of being AKed. Perhaps he’s a horcrux, like in canon. The hat said no, but it’s possible that Harry was killed and the only soul left in him is Voldemort’s fragment. Or, without positing souls, maybe horcruxing a person overwrites the victim with a copy of yourself.
Harrymort has a warm side because he was raised in a loving household; he doesn’t remember being Voldemort because he was stuck in a child’s brain, with the plasticity and pruning that entails (or maybe V. wiped Harrymort’s memory for some reason?); he didn’t survive the attack, but rather his fresh corpse was appropriated as a horcrux.
This also explains his prodigious intellect and indignation at being treated as a child: he’s really an adult mind, overwritten onto a child’s brain. This is also why the Remembrall reacted the way it did: he’s forgotten decades of his former life as Voldemort.
“Why,” I said to myself, “would you have to die to make a ghost? It seems completely arbitrary.” But then I thought that perhaps death releases a huge amount of magic that can’t normally be drawn upon safely.
But then I had this wicked awesome idea.
What if a Horcrux is the same effect, harnessed deliberately? That’s why it requires human sacrifice—the violent death of a wizard. A controlled ghost-making, operated by a wizard who remains conscious and alive through the whole process, can bind the mind into an object, arrange for contingent regrowth of the caster from the record… Yes. Horcruxes are ghosts created under controlled conditions.
Which in turn suggests that you might be able to make a dying person into a superghost (or maybe even an immortal living person). Kill them to make a horcrux, but make the sacrifice immortal instead of the caster.
That’s a cool idea! Also, it nicely has an analogue property to cryonics: you need to do something squicky (kill the guy) to save his life, in a fashion. Since the results would be closer in time and less speculative, it should overcome part of the revulsion of cryonics but allow the rest of it be overcome consciously.
ZOMG! That makes sense! So much sense that J.K. Rowling really missed a chance to have a great Revan Moment in canon. Imagine the shock ending if, as Voldemort staggers from a mortal wound in the last pages of Deathly Hallows, he explains this to Harry, then: “I...am only a shell...and have never been anything more. (cough) My purpose has only been to prepare you...Make you strong...make you gather the Hallows and become invincible… You. Are. Voldemort! BWA! HA! HAAAAAA!”
This would make sense of canon scenes like, for e.g., Voldy’s re-animation ceremony in Goblet of Fire only using a little of Harry’s blood, instead of having Ratface cut his throat, and how he calls his Death Eaters off and fights Harry solo instead of having them Just Shoot Him.
Back to MoR, yeah, I think “Harrymort” is a fiendishly cool idea! (up-voted)
I agree that it’s a very cool idea, though it may be because I still have fond memories of KotOR myself (on a side note, it was the first instance where I realised that interactive games have certain artistic potentials unmatched by other media—that moment would not have been nearly as effective had I not walked in Revan’s shoes for dozens of hours).
It does, however, sound like the kind of idea other fanfiction works might have explored before. Does anyone remember something like that?
Yes, that is one of the fairly unique properties of video games. If you’ve read anything by Heidegger about how Greek tragedy was the highest form of art due to the participatory nature of the autidence, his comments make a lot more sense if he was talking about video games instead.