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Alsadius comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 16, chapter 85 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I actually consider that to be a very likely case.
This would explain why Dumbledore is so worried about becoming a Dark Lord. It's also less improbable than it initially seems because Harry already established that Dumbledore hasn't thought through his views about death, etc, very well, and that Dumbledore has some nearly contradictory beliefs.
The rationale that I imagine him using is: "I would sacrifice my immortal soul to save my friends mortal lives". Which is incredibly generous and would make him into a praiseworthy hero.
The most probable way I see EY working in a "Dumbledore has a Horcrux" thing is through a plot where Dumbledore is not a Dark Lord, but thinks he is, and Harry thinks Dumbledore is evil, and Quirrell is manipulating both of them. Even then, I still don't think this is very probable.
Of note - the canon version is that murder rends the soul, and a horcrux merely preserves one part of it in a separate object than your body. Dumbledore did not need to create a horcrux to have sacrificed the contiguousness of his soul, assuming canonical soulphysics at least.
Of course, I see no reason not to create a horcrux if you're doing murder anyways(unless there are significant additional costs associated), but then Dumbledore has a very different view of death than I do.
This might put something of a different slant on the events surrounding the death of Narcissa Malfoy, if true.
Could you explain? I don't see how "Dumbledore killed her" is a 'different slant'.
I think he's getting at the horcrux theory?
I keep getting confused by people reading "murder" as "created a Horcrux", I really should have learned that lesson by now.
I hadn't previously seen any clear motive for Dumbledore to kill Narcissa. That he might have done so to help keep himself ready to defend Magical Britain at least provides a possible explanation.
Assuming that he did, in fact, do broadly what Draco said, anyhow.
Pedanterrific, I'm not conflating the two acts, merely observing that one may illuminate the other.
Evidence in favor: Dumbledore thinks it's plausible that he's the Dark Lord from the prophecy, which would require it possible to destroy all but a remnant of him.
The standard theory is that he killed her to show the death eaters that attacking families of Order of the Phoenix members will now be repaid in kind.
You mean standard? Or is this jargon I'm unfamiliar with?
Thanks, fixed.
You said "this" as though it were a reference to "deemed his soul's contiguousness dispensable to the war effort", which just means "he was willing to commit murder". It's the murder that splits the soul, not the Horcruxing.
You're correct, but I was responding to the whole statement:
If our dear Headmaster murdered Narcissa because he thought his continued availability to Magical Britain was more important than avoiding that kind of atrocity, or keeping his soul whole then that means that he used the murder to protect himself from death, and in this context that means that he made a Horcrux.
This is, of course, all conjecture. We don't know for certain that Dumbledore himself did the deed, or that it went down the way that the surviving Malfoys believe it did. We do know that Dumbledore finds it useful for them to believe it, and we do know that he has studied how horcruxes are made as part of his Anti-Voldemort campaign, and we can be fairly sure that Madame Bones knows the truth of the matter of Narcissa's death
What evidence do we have that Bones knows the truth of the matter? She knows that Dumbledore might be tempted to confess to Lucius in the trial scene, and after that the best link I've ever seen anyone draw between her and Narcissa is the "Somebody would burn for this!" from TSPE. The latter implies nothing, and the former doesn't require any special level of knowledge.
I was only thinking of the trial scene, I'm afraid.
I do wonder whether the Source of Magic, or whatever it is that determines whether a Horcrux can be made, draws a distinction between deaths in combat, deaths accidentally caused and deaths deliberately and avoidably caused.