What do you mean Harry Potter should be more damaged? Isn’t he fucked up enough?
I mean… he is…but he isn’t. Don’t beat me up. Sometimes my mind gets a little busy nitpicking at plots. It has a way of finding loopholes and carefully (and possibly conveniently) stepping in to make a story go the way it feels it ought to. Must be the writer’s brain, my reasoning is that all of the other Horcruxes were totally wrecked, except the world’s most unfriendly snake, who was dead dead dead after receiving her final blow from the courageous Neville Longbottom wielding the sword of Gryffindor (but I guess it’d be hard not to be dead after being
more or less decapitated). Tom Riddle’s diary ended up with a giant hole in it from the basilisk’s fang so…it won’t be keeping anymore of his dirty, blood-stained secrets or luring innocent girls into dark, skeleton-infested chambers to do bad things to other innocent people. Rowena Ravenclaw’s tiny tiara definitely tried to murder Hermione and Ron during its destruction, finally prompting them to have their first, semi-passionate kiss (let’s be honest, there should’ve been a much better camera angle and maybe some tongue. We’d only been waiting for this for half a century!)
So why does Harry Potter Get to Be The Boy Who Lived?
When our favorite, love-to-hate, greasy-haired, hook-nosed professor or potions found out the rest of the plan to destroy Voldemort once and for all, we get a crash-course in dark magic. Of course, Dumbledore explains to the very upset Severus Snape that Voldemort’s soul latched onto the only living thing in the room, also known as, Harry James Potter, the boy who lived.
We also know that Harry sacrificed himself to destroy the Horcrux within his quest to defeat the sinister and nostril-less dark lord. But if he died, how could he just decide to go back to earth to continue his life? Is this because Voldemort’s soul was attached to Harry’s body and not to his soul?
To clarify, it could be possible that a body is able to have two souls, but a soul cannot share itself with another (in the world of witches and wizards). Or perhaps the difference lies in the fact that Harry was unwilling, while Professor Quirrell volunteered himself to host Voldemort. We’ve seen Voldemort latch onto other living creatures before, from the rats he was leeching from as he searched for a new host body to Professor Quirrell in Sorceror’s Stone, who, unfortunately for Professor Quirrell didn’t quite make it to the end of the book. What have we been holding accountable for Quirrell’s death?
Harry Potter Must Be Incredibly Powerful? But Why? He Isn’t the “Best” Wizard.
We’ve seen Hermione Granger completely destroy and outdo Harry Potter in nearly every subject until Harry’s talent for Defense Against the Dark Arts became incredibly necessary to keep himself (and his friends, at times) alive. Perhaps here in lies his true power. He is not much for things like perfect technique, endless facts, or history, but has a very innate power for difficult spells that just needed honing. Due to the emotionally and physically taxing nature of spells like the Patronus charm, we get a better understanding of where Harry’s strengths truly lie. He took to his Defense Against the Dark Arts training with the same gusto that he learned how to fly a broom, although not with the same excitement. But who can blame him? Having someone try to murder you twice a year tends to take the fun out of a lot of things.
What truly makes Harry Potter strong enough to withstand the Killing Curse?
Dumbledore tells us that our Quirrell/Voldy cross-breed couldn’t touch Harry because of the very powerful love-magic Harry’s mother granted him when she died, but towards the end of the series, we find out that very same night is when Harry becomes a living horcrux, also known as a container for part of a person’s soul, in this case, Voldemort’s. We also see at the end of The Goblet of Fire, that Voldemort has found a solution to this little problem by including Harry’s blood in a spell of his own creation. Now, how exactly could Harry Potter have been both a horcrux, and untouchable by the actual person he was a horcrux for? A sticky conundrum.
Like, I’m seriously trying to figure out what exactly ended Quirrell’s life. Was Harry’s love-magic so strong that it indeed destroyed the living shell of part of Voldemort’s soul, aka, Quirrell’s body, which turns into magic dust, by the way. Or was there some sort of conflict with two horcruxes coming in contact with each other and so the stronger horcrux survived? You know, if you plant a big tree next to a small tree, the big tree chokes out the smaller one and keeps living. Leading me back to my point…
The very unavoidable killing curse hit its target, aka Harry, thereby destroying the horcrux inside of him, and, apparently, taking not only one-eighth of Voldemort’s soul, but sending Harry’s soul (also) to something like magical world limbo. Why does Harry even have a body to come back to? Given the fact that all of the other horcruxes suffered severe physical damage while being destroyed, he should’ve been at the very least, a little more…damaged…after taking an Avada Kedavra curse to the chest.
Did Voldemort also unintentionally become a horcrux for Harry himself? This would definitely explain why Harry had the choice to come back to the living world. I repeat, all the other horcruxes were totally destroyed in Harry Potter and team’s efforts to rid the world of the Dark Lord. And we all know that Voldy had to have plenty of extra space for another soul in that scary frame of his.
Despite all of this, the Harry Potter series was remarkably well-done. It has introduced so many complex ideas and situations that have inspired many more ideas and questions than can probably ever be explained to everyone’s satisfaction. For some, this could pose a problem, but I think that the world that Rowling has built is filled with so much magic that she has alr
eady given so many rules for, that there has to be some wiggle room for magic that even she cannot explain.
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