Horcrux

• Horcrux

  • Originally from Person/Joanne Rowling/Book/Series/Harry Potter, a Horcrux

    • was an object in which a dark wizard or witch had hidden a detached fragment of his or her soul in order to become immortal. As long as the receptacle remained intact, so too did the soul fragment inside it, keeping the maker anchored to the world of the living, even if their body suffered fatal damage.
      

  • In Harry Potter, Horcruxes are very evil; they were considered terrible dark magic and could only be created through an act of murder.
  • My Note
    • Have you ever known someone who placed so much importance on a particular object that if it were to be damaged or lost, it be as though that person had become damaged or lost? I have. The first time I read about Horcruxes in Harry Potter, it struck me as eerily familiar of the relationship between these people and their objects of power.
    • People imbue particular objects with their essence and map their identities onto them. Whether it's a wedding ring, a key to a chest, or a memento from a relative or a time in one's life or from one's ancestors, people create objects that mean more to them than the material they are made of. Not all of these are examples of what I would call Horcruxes, though.
    • I personally use the term Horcrux to refer to a thing that has an order of magnitude more significance to one person than to most other people because that person has done something to make that object a projection to them of their own identity. This is an uncommon interpretation of the word Horcrux.
    • For example, while the symbol of The Cross is highly related to Jesus Christ, I wouldn't call the cross a Horcrux. Christ didn't crucify himself to put his essence into the cross for immortality.
    • In another example, I wouldn't call an Olmec figurine a Horcrux. In the way I think about Horcruxes, they are related to the identity of a particular individual. They are like Person/Philip Pullman/Book/Series/His Dark Materials/Concept/Daemon.