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Reader Comments: (Page 12)

Funnily enough, I read that chapter literally yesterday, and i can't remember seeing it at all. And i remembered Dave Haber mentioning that, so I was looking for it too! Strange how that happens innit?
Kevin--
What does Fudge know about dementors? Hes the one that kept them at Azkaban when Dumbledore had said not to. If someone like Dumbledore had come up to me with news that the most evil sorcerer ever to exsist had suddenly risen to power again, Id be keen to take his advice! Fudge is a blustering idiot..
And Patty-- I never said breeding required a soul. I simply said it was not something that struck me as "dementor-like." You are confusing the two. Growing like fungus seems to me like someting a dementor would do, and it fits because there is probably no place on earth more decayed than Azkaban.

Posted by Ashley from Missouri on February 28, 2007 1:57 PM

The new paintings in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom for Snape's sojurn as its instructor included a person who had suffered the Dementor's kiss. The person was wide eyed, vacant, blank.... There was no indication that then, or shortly thereafter they would become a dementor. Arguably, this would simply make it more horrible (not yet Shakespear's oh Horrible, horrible, Most horrible!) but certainly worthy of teaching to the students.. specially as Lupin covered Dementors with great detail to Harry given Harry's background.

If the unseasonable mists mean that they are 'breeding' I suspect that some other horrific process leads to the creation of new Dementors. Perhaps Uncle Vernon could even be right... little dementors being only 'dementoids'?

Posted by Charlie Tarbox from Gettysburg, Pa on March 2, 2007 1:57 PM

Ashley, I think of them breeding more like single celled organisms.
Where they get into the optimum environment and they just divide. Or it could be more like a virus where they invade a healthy host and multiply until the host explodes and tiny little dementors scatter everywhere.

Posted by Kevin from Wisconsin on March 5, 2007 09:21 AM

I personally just dont see dementors breeding. Growing like a fungus seems to be more their realm: hideous and grotesque, just like the dementors themselves.
Charlie-
I had never thought much of Snivellus's classroom: Id go into grander detail but you all know that i despise Snivellus on VERY deep levels. So dont act surprised that I didn't notice the paintings: you are right. The man who had been kissed did NOT turn into a dementor: I cave. they dont make new dementors by kissing the victim. But when Lupin had said "They turn you into similar creatures like themselves" I had taken that to mean you became a soul-less predator who lived to make people miserable, like a dementor.
And if dementors did "breed" which is pretty freaky just thinking about, would the little dementors, or "dementoids" as you so punnily put it, exsist only to suck peoples souls like the beings that created them? Would they be under-developed for that, or could the dementoids wreak such havoc so early on?

Posted by Ashley from Missouri on March 8, 2007 6:55 PM

maybe they breed when they suck the soul out of someone creating another dementor and giving life to it. maybe it works like that. i mean we are never told it was possible to destroy them only to stop them attackng. please rely i want to see if this makes sense.

Posted by mikedagr8 from melrourne,victoria on March 15, 2007 9:26 PM

The idea of demonic creatures feeding on human souls was also used by C.S Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. Advice from an experienced devil to a younger one on how best to lure a human to damnation. Rowling's concept is quite different though, in that the victims of the Dementors do not have to consent in any way to their own spiritual destruction. In that I think they have more in common perhaps with vampires than Lewis's more traditionally Christian devils.

I suggested a while back that it might perhaps be possible to destroy a horcrux by feeding it to a dementor. Sort of like an hors-d'oeuvre. As for how they breed... well, I'm not sure any of the ideas I could come up with would pass Dave's scrutiny. And quite right too! But it would be a fascinating question to put to JKR. It just goes to show the depth of the world she has created that we can find so much to wonder about and discuss.

Posted by Elizabeth from Australia on March 16, 2007 06:19 AM

Mikedagr8--
I had the same idea as you, that when you were Kissed by a dementor that you would turn into a dementor. That is what started this whole chain; me thinking that.
However, as Charlie points out, there is obvious evidence that this it NOT the case. Turn in your Half-Blood Prince book to the chapter of Harry's first DADA lesson with Snape. During the description of Snapes classroom, they went into detail about the pictures hanging on the walls, one of which was a man who had suffered the dementor's Kiss. His eyes were white and rolling, his mouth was sagged open; he showed no signs that then OR soon after that point, that he would turn into a dementor. He had simply lost his soul.
Patty looked this up on JKR's site and reported back that "Dementors grow like a fungus wherever there is decay" so... there is your answer.
Thank you, Charlie and Patty!

Posted by Ashley from Missouri on March 16, 2007 4:10 PM

yeah, i reckon dementors have no soul and that if you lose your soul to a dementor they get your soul and you become a dementor until you earn a soul off someone.

Posted by a student of a harry potter fan/morton from sydney,NSW on March 16, 2007 9:24 PM

Lord Voldemort attempted to use a ing Curse on Harry Potter which backfired upon himself! Doesn't this count as a horcrux?

Posted by Doug Evans from Victoria, Texas on March 18, 2007 2:43 PM

A Horcrux is a thing, not an action, created by a witch or wizard to protect a piece of thier soul and there by keep the whole of thier soul earth bound in the event thier body is destroyed. I'd be very interested to know if a dementor could destroy a Horcrux, or if the Horcrux would protect the soul even against a dementor.

Posted by Kevin from Wisconsin on March 19, 2007 09:31 AM

Anyone wishing to Voldemort must destroy all of his Horcruxes, before attempting to eliminate the remainder of his soul that resides in his BODY. As everyone knows, Voldemorts body was destroyed while trying to the infant Harry, so doesn't that leave the four unknown horcruxes?

Posted by Doug from Texas on March 19, 2007 7:43 PM

Doug,
The physical body was destroyed, but the soul did not . Voldemort was only a soul. This is the purpose of the Horcruxes. If the body s, a wizard "merely" needs a new one to put his undamaged soul into.
If the Horcruxes are destroyed and only the piece of soul within the wizard's body is left, then the of the physical body would cause the soul to move on to the next state -- ghost, or true . The Horcruxes act as tethers holding the soul from passing on.

Posted by Patty from Quincy,Massachusetts on March 20, 2007 07:23 AM

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