Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (novel)/Headscratchers: Difference between revisions
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (novel)/Headscratchers (view source)
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Please check [https://web.archive.org/web/20120204062438/http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq.cfm?ref=aboutthebooks JK's FAQs] before asking a question that may have already been answered.
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**** So can the Stone be destroyed. So can he carry a Horcrux with him, but he can also hide it in the most out-of-reach place ever, which he cannot do with the Stone. Besides, V clearly considered the possibility of loosing the Horcuxes all but non-existant (Hey, if others can use this shitty excuse, then so can I!)
**** Yes, the stone can be destroyed but like I said that's why you have back ups in the form of horcruxes for your immortality. We don't know how often you have to take the elixir of life so perhaps he could hide it in an out of reach spot and only visit it every month or so. I believe Tom thought that the idea of loosing his horcruxes to be non-existent because he thought no one knew about them. People know about the philosopher's stone so he can use his horcruxes as a back up for the stone in case someone intentionally sets out to destroy it. Besides if he boasts that he's immortal ''only'' because of the stone and it's destroyed people won't automatically assume he has a back-up source of immortality until it's too late.
**** Why. What's the point. Why bother with the stone that he needs to visit every month or so to expand his life-span, when it is already infinite thanks to the Horcruxes that DO NOT require visiting them every month or at all, that he already has several of, and that nobody is supposed to know about? It's just pointlessly redundant! Seriously, calling the Horcruxes back up to the Stone is like [https://web.archive.org/web/20120310075551/http://thxforthe.info/2008/04/30/drive-me-closer-i-want-to-hit-them-with-my-sword/ calling your battle tank a back up to your sword]. "If he boasts...people won't automatically presume..." - yes, because the fact that he survived the destruction of his body even WITHOUT the stone will certainly not clue them, right? Not to mention, what the hell should he care? He's the (second) most powerful sorceror in the world, defeating him in a duel is all but impossible and even then the Stone wouldn't save him anyway, like the Horcruxes did. In all possible ways the Stone seems just inferior to what he already has. So why risk entering the domain of his arch-nemesis and risk loosing his only servant to obtain it, when he could use Quirrel to return into flesh quietly and inconspicouosly and maybe THEN send him after the Stone, if he still wanted it so badly.
**** Because it's quite clear that horcruxes do nothing to protect his '''body'''. He was stuck possessing rats and snakes and crappy DADA teachers for ten years. The horcruxes anchor his soul to the land of the living, but a philosopher's stone would give him an eternally-healthy, young, powerful body to, you know, actually ''do'' stuff. And if he had that stone hidden in a safe location, he'd presumably be able to make himself a new body as soon as he was killed again.
**** Neither would the Stone protect his body in such occasion<ref>And let's not forget that he was hit by a blast of some ancient and divinely powerful magic, point-blanc and completely off-guard. The way other characters spoke about him, killing him with convential means was apparently very problematic, if possible at all</ref>. So it all boils down to the prospect of ressurection, which (surprise!) brings us back to my original point, i.e. ''he didn't need the Stone for that either''. He had the much more convinient "Bone&Flesh&Blood" method available that didn't require him to break into high-security institutions, cross his arch-nemesis<ref>DD, of course, not the scarhead</ref> and risk being exposed and loosing his only servant. Sure, ''maybe'' the Stone could be used repeatedly<ref>or maybe to rebuild a body from scratch you need to grind it and pour the powder into the potion</ref>, and ''mabye'' the BFB could only be used once, so ''maybe'' procuring the Stone in general was a good idea<ref>Again, he could have Quirrel safely revive him through BFB and then send him after the Stone</ref>, but in the immediate circumstances of PS it doesn't make any sense.
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**** It is generally not a good idea to advertise to your enemies that you have immortality jars, so the "mortal life/chasing immortality" bit might have been deliberate misdirection <ref>Gasp, the evil man LIES!?</ref> Also, the BFB ritual may not have existed before Harry's 4th year. Voldy might have had to come up with it on his own, or adapt another ritual that served a similar-but-different purpose, because how often do you think shades come back to life? Horcruxes are supposed to be super-rare.
***** Enemies, sure, but he's sputtering that gibberish in front of his cronies, who all ''know'' that he'd existed as the "meanest of ghosts" before Pettegrew revived him, so there was really no sense in "misdirection" at that point. As for the second part, V calls BFB "an old piece of Dark Magic" and doesn't say anything about adapting or changing it, so no.
* Maybe the [[Bone Flesh Blood]] ritual only gives you a half functioning body; maybe Voldy would have remained in the form of a weird foetus, or a slightly improved but still Gollum-like version, had he not used Harry's blood. It's probably not that easy to come back from the afterlife. And maybe it took Voldemort that long to realize he needed the blood of that particular enemy, and the lily-power-of-love living inside, because he wasn't ready to acknowledge the importance of such a preposterous power. Word of God [https://web.archive.org/web/20120214193440/http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=122 does imply] that Lily's love played a great role in Voldemort's second lifeform and resurrection. So, the Stone would have been his only reasonable option in 1991.
** If that was the case then Pettegrew wouldn't even bother suggesting it, because obviously V wouldn't go for it, if there was an altrenative. But from their argument in "Goblet" it incurs, that they ''could'' use a random enemy, and V only went after Harry, because (he thought) he needed to kill him, the [[Idiot Ball]] demanded that he does it personally and with AK, and therefore he needed a way to bypass the protection. But before the events of "Stone" he didn't know that the protection lingered and had no reason to use the kid.
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