As the movie Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald came out, Mrs. Rowling revealed that Nagini was “a Maledictus, which means she carries a blood curse that will doom her to transform permanently into a beast.”1 Mrs. Rowling claims that explains Nagini, and was foreshadowed by statements in the original books. To me it offers a contradiction.
[Dumbledore] believes that [Riddle] communicates with and controls Nagini so well because she is a horcrux. However, if she in fact retains a human mind at all, then it is this relationship and not the soul he has embedded in her, that allows [Riddle] to communicate so effectively with her. Unfortunately the information she has chosen to release on the nature of this curse, and the resulting state of the being she calls a Maledictus, is woefully incomplete. It seems reasonable that she intends that this transformation, unlike the Animagus transformation, retains little or none of the original human intelligence and awareness.
I disbelieve in a magic that could utterly remove one’s humanity, as this would be a transformation of the immortal human soul into the mortal animal soul and not just a physical change. I can accept that there is an aspect of dementia involved in the curse, such that the person is unaware of their humanity. Perhaps even to the point of being essentially equivalent to being without free will due to the (magical) disease having reduced their attention span and executive function to levels well below normal for an adult human. It would not so much be that the person’s choices are not free, as that they are not culpable however, as they would be making free choices, but the way a child below the age of reason does.
I get that in a fictional world anything goes per the author’s imagination, but somethings stress the suspension of disbelief far more than others. This goes too far for the world that Mrs. Rowling has otherwise created - one where choices matter.
On the other hand, it may be that this is why he is willing to make a snake, which would normally have a lifespan of 20 to 30 years in “perfect conditions”2, to be a horcrux. It is certainly odd that he would attempt to ensure his immortality by entrusting his soul to something that will ultimately self-destruct due to its limited lifespan.
[Dumbledore]: </Harrypedia/people/Dumbledore/Albus Percival Wulfric Brian/>/ [Riddle]: </Harrypedia/people/Riddle/Tom Marvolo/>/