I’m not 100% convinced myself, it just seems likely. I won’t argue about the sword (nobody ever tried without it), canon is too fuzzy about the details and Eliezer explicitly said that he makes them up as he goes along.
About Voldie, if Horcruxes worked that way at the very least he would have thought to make himself the Horcrux of someone else, like Bella, just to gain the benefits as a back-up (even though he had horcruxes, reviving is a chore, and at least in MoR he’d be prepared against accidental defeat). And if I was him, I’d have at least my top followers horcrux a small object that I can easily destroy and that I can keep on me at all times (he had easy access to basilisk venom and magic pouches), and Obliviate them about the process to keep the secret. Of course, we have no indication he didn’t do that, except that a lot of his followers were killed and Fiendfyre is still considered rare.
But I still think such an effect would be too powerful for MoR, it’d basically remove anything but Fiendfyre and Basilisk-venom from the offensive options. (And it seems that Salazar’s basilisk might no longer available, though characteristically cannon seems to suggest that breeding a basilisk is ridiculously easy, just forbidden.) Also, if living Horcruxes are not killable by normal means, that would suggest that mean they don’t die of old age, either, which again would not quite fit.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 81, which should be published later today. The previous thread passed 400 comments as of the time of this writing, so it will pass 500 comments soon after the next chapter is posted, if not before. I suggest refraining from commenting here until chapter 81 is posted; comment in the 12th thread until you read chapter 81. After chapter 81 is posted, I suggest all discussion of previous guesses be kept here, with links to comments in the previous thread.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.) When posted, chapter 81 should appear here.
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: