= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
KevinC comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 3 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (560)
The Wizards can create dimensionally orthogonal pockets of spacetime (for their bags of holding, mokeskin pouches, and TARDIS trunks). If a Horcrux simply has to be hidden where no one can get at it, and doesn't have to maintain a signaling link to the "rest" of the maker's "soul," perhaps Voldy could have made some dimensionally transcendent space (like a BoH or the Mirror of Erised), put a Horcrux in, then destroyed the connecting interface with our reality. Basically, a magical corollary of multiverse cosmology, where the Horcrux is placed in a new "pocket universe" that is then separated from ours so that it cannot be reached even in principle.
I would guess from MoR canon that relativity-compliant signaling is not necessary for a Horcrux to work, since light-lag between Earth and the Pioneer Horcrux would already be significant.
Horcruces: the ultimate "spooky action at a distance"!
I can easily imagine that, if the Pioneer Horcrux is the last undestroyed Horcrux and Voldemort is killed, there will be a significant delay until Voldemort gets a ghostly form, while the signal of his death travels to Pioneer and back.
On the other hand, the Pioneer Horcrux may be constantly sending out signals reminding magical reality to give Voldemort a ghostly form if he is ever killed, in which case there will be no delay (unless Pioneer falls into a Black Hole).
Of course, the other possibility is that Voldemort's ghostly form will appear on Pioneer itself, but presumably he thought of that and ruled it out before making the Horcrux.
Chapter 20:
You're right!
Voldemort should be destroying all of his other Horcruxes (made in weaker moments), then committing suicide. When he discovers, after his suicide is irreversible but before he actually dies in this form, that Harry is an accidental Horcrux who must (or so it seems) also be killed before Voldemort's ghostly form can appear on Pioneer, drama ensues.
I fail to see how life in deep space + life on earth < life in deep space, especially considering that V. is super against dying.
It depends on how things work, of course, but the danger is that he will be stuck in an incorporeal form on Earth forever. When canon!Voldemort is flitting about in Books 1–4, possessing Quirrel's head, drinking unicorn blood, a little baby cuddled in Wormtail's arms, it's not clear that he's in a form that can be killed at all, but it's not a form that he appreciates either. So it may be that the only way to sail the stars on Pioneer is to get a body to be killed in (and I don't know whether MoR!Quirrel's will do or he needs to be resurrected as at the end of canon Book 4) AND have no closer Horcruxes to reappear near.
But if he has things under good control, then you are right. He can have fun on Earth, using his terrestrial Horcruxes at need, then only go to Pioneer at the end, when life on Earth loses its charm (or when his plans on Earth are complete). As long as he knows that he can create the conditions for resurrection on Pioneer when he wants them, then you are right.
Or he thought of that and eagerly anticipates it as the end of his struggle.
Or he thought of that and reluctantly accepts it as a second-worst scenario that is better than a final, mortal death. In JKR-canon, Horcruxes don't just send a signal to regenerate soul bits, they are fractions of a soul...if I were an evil Dark Lord in MoR-canon-world, I might accept a fractured existence in deep space, but I would not accept a fractured exsistence in a pocket universe that contained nothing else and was a priori inaccessible to my familiar world(s), even given that I hate and fear death, anticipate a triumphant galactic civilization, etc. Being alone and mostly dead in an empty vacuum for eternity really sucks.
Well, given enough time you might be able to make new pocket universes and give them life or the like. And if things get bad you can always destroy the Horcrux yourself.
Oh, c'mon, that's just reckless. In JKR-canon, Voldemort emerges from his first pseudo-death as a fragment of his former self, dependent on familiar landscapes and pre-existing allies/victims as he tries to regain enough life force just to remember who he is.
Conjecturing that (a) creating life-filled pocket universes is possible, (b) you will have the tools/resources with which to do so in a hard vacuum, (c) the part of you that survives your body's death will have enough of the right kind of magical power to do so, AND (d) the capacity to spontaneously re-generate your psychological infrastructure without external stimuli after suffering a death of unknown type and origin is just begging for Occam to come up and slit your throat. Remember that if you're wrong about any of these conjectures, you are moderately likely to spend eternity in semi-conscious isolation from literally everything.
Claiming that you could destroy the Horcrux yourself doesn't buy you a whole lot of leverage; the whole plot of Books 6 and 7 in JKR-canon is that destroying a Horcrux generally takes an epic-level artifact, a character with a pure heart and a focused mind, AND a whole lot of effort. These are not tools that you have access to when you're a pseudo-murdered villain floating around in an empty pocket universe.
Points in paragraphs 1 and 2 are valid. Three is wrong. I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that psychological properties were not fully functioning. Moreover,according to book 7, regret and remorse of the creator of a Horcrux will destroy it. If you are stuck in that state for a few hundred years in that state, likely the Horcrux will be destroyed by you simply being terribly regretful about the situation.
I suppose the regret is a decent way out, although I would guess that you would need to experience true contrition over the murder or over the atrociousness of splitting your soul, rather than the mere attrition of noticing that you didn't like the consequences. At least, if you wanted to destroy the Horcrux using merely the touchy-feely power of love. There might be a way to magically enhance the power of attrition, but, again, it probably requires raw materials or living things or a wand or focused discipline, none of which are especially likely to be available.
There is a scene somewhere in Book 1 where Voldemort complains about his loss of psychological identity as he lusts after the unicorn blood or the Sorcerer's Stone or something like that. I forget if he was manipulating Quirrell or just boasting about how far he had risen or how desperate he was not to return to that state. Unfortunately, I can't find the exact quote because JKR has totally blocked GoogleBooks search, my book is elsewhere, and there are limits to my Potter-nerddom.
Also,
Agree with most of your analysis although confused about what your point about the book 2. Since the diary wasn't the primary consciousness it doesn't seem relevant.
At this point I am far enough out of my depth that I will have to wait until I can get my hands on the books again. I suddenly regret donating books 2-7 to the library. This is almost certainly irrational. :-(