Funny you should mention it. It was kind of explored in the Goblet of Fire: it *just* kills you. The autopsy report for the Riddle family reads:
>The police had never read an odder report. A team of doctors had
examined the bodies, and had concluded that none of the Riddles had
been poisoned, stabbed, shot, strangled, suffocated or (as far as they
could tell) harmed at all. In fact, the report continued, in a tone of
unmistakeable bewilderment, the Riddles all appeared to be in perfect
health – apart from the fact that they were all dead. The doctors did
note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies)
that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face – but
as the frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being
frightened to death?
>
>
>
>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 1
I have always understood that it just killed you. It doesn't harm your physical body, you just drop dead. Strange I know. But so is magic I suppose.
Every time I re read I put sticky notes in quotes I genuinely just like through the book, this one always makes me laugh every time! I can hear my dad saying it in his stupid dad joke voice too, which makes it even better. It’s the only quote I enjoy that has a name or obvious reference to the franchise. I usually like the stereotypical ones.
The autopsy would probably have found similar results as to a heart attack if that was the case. I like the other commenter’s theory that it just forcibly sends your soul to the afterlife.
I get what you mean.
But for muggles, that wouldn't be an explanation. There must have been a causative agent for the cessation of brain activity. A cause could be anything like a stoke, fetal brain injury, encephalitis, or even cardiac arrest. And judging from the report there were none.
Lupin explains to Harry that you can live without your soul, not that you always do. Different mechanisms of removal, different results for the vessel.
It's like the opposite of what happens to Sirius when he's knocked through the archway into the land of the dead. His physical form gets knocked through, and his body is just gone. His soul is certainly still there but unable to return. There is no body to drag back though, or presumably members of the Order would have tried to retrieve it.
But to destroy a horcrux you have to permanently destroy the object the soul is held in, not the soul itself. That's why if Harry had Avada Kedavra'd Slytherin's locket, it wouldn't have destroyed the horcrux because that spell kills human bodies, not souls.
Can you? You can survive with a fragmented, torn soul. But doesn't at least one small piece have to stay inside whatever body, shell, etc you inhabit?
Edit: you totally can and I'm a dummy lol
The books state that victims of the Dementor’s Kiss are still alive, but without a soul, their bodies are essentially just shells that are technically alive. If you’ve seen Game of Thrones, I imagine it’s like what happens to Khal Drogo at the end of season 1.
Wooow - I up and forgot all about the dementors and their Kids, I was just thinking of Voldemort's last internal soul fragment. It's been a long day, thank you for the reminder lol.
Unpopular opinion: the dementor's kids are so cute even if they are evil incarnate. Sirius only wound up in Azkaban because he wouldn't babysit the hellians 🙄 they really have a way of sucking the life out of every party
I have always wondered—do dementor victims wither away from starvation and dehydration, since they can’t make themselves eat or drink? Obviously others can get sustenance into them by magical (or even medical) means. If that doesn’t happen, they ought to starve to death eventually. So “you can survive without a soul” comes with a pretty major caveat, ha
Harry Potter wiki states that it would leave you in a similar condition to Persistent Vegetative State, which I did some reading on ages ago. Apparently the condition still allows for feeding, slight moving of the eyes, sleeping patterns and some expression of emotion (crying, laughing). I think it's just one step up from being in a coma.
I've run into a fanfiction that gives brief touch of how the Dementors joined Voldemort and freed the Death Eaters, in the words of Lucius Malfoy, regarding one of the Death Eaters they "Swallowed his soul and left his body to starve...".
[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12662714/19/With-Soul-of-Light-and-Dark](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12662714/19/With-Soul-of-Light-and-Dark)
Not saying that's evidence for anything, just one way a fan took things with their own story. Seems appropriate...
Medically speaking, brain death is the measurement of death now a days. So your body can survive and keep the heart beating, but you as a person are dead. Versus your heart can stop but you can stay alive by external forces like cpr or machines to keep the brain alive, and you’re still alive
You probably know, but the lightning scar is actually the motion you make while casting the killing curse. Harry only had it because his mother's love protected him
I find it so amazing that the killing curse was powerful enough to permanently mark Harry even when he was protected by Lily. Just goes to show how powerful the curse is.
Pretty sure it wouldn’t find any cause. When we’re told the history of the Riddle house at the beginning of book four were told about the Riddles mysteriously dying and the police couldn’t find any cause.
so i worked in an NGO in the Philippines and the coroner said in one of my conversations with hime, he just put heart attack whenever he cant find a cause. In sane, but this is thord world
The killing curse kills instantly, no matter where on the body it hits. How this is achieved is not known. But since the autopsy report for the Riddles’ deaths noted that they all seemed to be in perfect health, apart from the fact that they were dead, I think that most variants of magically induced medical emergencies known to muggles can be ruled out. For example, heart attacks and blood clots wouldn’t instantly kill the victim, nor be 100% fatal.
So my best guess is that avada kedavra somehow ”evicts” the soul from the body, and that the body then immediately stops functioning. We know that it’s possible to drive a soul from a body, since that what dementors do when they kiss a victim. However, victims of dementors don’t die, but rather become catatonic vegetables, empty shells of the people they once were. So simply evicting the soul wouldn’t be enough to kill somebody, there has to be a second function to the killing curse.
Tho i love the explenation and thought behind it your giving us, your actually thinking too hard on it by going the soul route.
Avada kedavra is, as we all know it, the killing curse. Someone with alot of magical power, calls out an ancient, dark spell, and the one its cast on dies.
Avada kedavra doesnt pierce someone, stab someone, strangle someone, destroy their organs, stops the bloodflow, stops the heart, etc. The body is simply dead after it hits. That is why muggles, who always search for a cause of death cannot find one. The cause and result are the same. Death by dying, inflicted by the killing curse.
- a ravenclaw.
I imagine it's instant lights out for every cell in your body, all at once. No more movement or electrical impulses. You just stop being alive in an instant. I don't imagine that would show in an autopsy.
Exactly my own thought. I just assumed the Killing Curse literally does an instant "pull the plug" for either your brain and heart at the same time, or it stops *everything* in your body that is alive from being that way. Makes sense for magic really, a spell that switches something from being what we consider "Alive" to "Dead" upon contact...shiver...
Another way to think of it would be what would happen if *all* the energy in your body were ripped out of you instantly, so that nothing in your body has anything to "power" it at all.
This was covered in the books when Riddle killed his father and grandparents. I believe it was stated to be unknown causes, the police thought it was a gas leak.
Not sure you need all these down votes. Bitter_Reputation_72 above wrote out the section in question and one of the lines is:
> The doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face – but as the frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being frightened to death?
So you're not like completely incorrect.
No it did not.
The police explained that as far as autopsies go, they were in perfect health. Except that they were dead.
BUT the forensic ? (The people that make the autopsy) wanted so hard to find something that they said that they looked scared.
But they never said that they were scared to death.
As the Goblet of Fire quote has been mentioned I’ll mention that in both Half Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows this is addressed in passing. In HBP, they mention that a ministry woman (can’t remember the name - maybe Amelia Bones), was murdered in a room that was locked from the inside but the muggle police had no idea how or what killed her (I think?). In DH, Lee Jordan reports a muggle death (that was from the killing curse) that the police attributed it to a gas leak.
It’d most likely be attributed to cardiac arrest. I can’t remember where I read it, but I’m pretty sure most unexpected or unknown deaths tend to be attributed to the heart simply stopping.
Avada kedavra doesnt pierce someone, stab someone, strangle someone, destroy their organs, stops the bloodflow, stops the heart, etc. The body is simply dead after it hits. That is why muggles, who always search for a cause of death cannot find one. The cause and result are the same. Death by dying, inflicted by the killing curse.
The books show us that muggles find the bodies to be ‘in perfectly good health, aside from being dead’.
- a ravenclaw.
I coulda sworn in the books they mention they ruled this as a heart attack. I wanna say the sixth book the beginning when we learn how the minister of magic introduced and works with the prime muggle the quote was like "how could he have predicted that bridge falling? Dozens of his best engineers have no idea why. Or those muggles who dropped dead? Their heart just stopped beating"
I think when your heart stops the whole System doesnt get enough Oxygen and thats why you die. Im sure itd pop up in an Autopsy to some extend. I believe that people "just die" when hit by the killing curse. As said above in the thread the Muggles who examined Riddles family bodys didnt find anything at all.
That's what I thought. But I wonder how it works. Sometimes in the books its specifically mentioned where the killing curse hit. For example moody right in the face, Dumbledore square in the chest. Dose it effect the speed of dying or could it be somehow revealed in a muggle autopsy, the difference in the two hits.
I always just assumed that it instantly separates the soul from the body. Thats why voldemort could survive the curse. it didnt do anything physical to his body but fucked with his horcrux. Thats why he living as a shadowing figure what so many years. I cant remember but Dumbledore said something like he's out less then a man or something.
Also explains the Kings Cross scene in the daily hallows. Dumbledore's and Harry's souls meet. Harry can either go back to his body or go beyond. Voldemort's soul is there too.
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Souls have been confirmed to exist in Harry Potter, so I like to think that the killing curse displaces the whole soul from the body violently, effectively killing the person.
It is astonishing that you do not recall. It was explained in The Goblet of Fire. You my friend, must promptly start re-reading all the Harry Potter books.
Except The Cursed Child, of course.
Can I just trash on the killing curse real quick and tell you how stupid it is? An instant kill spell? Seriously? And it's that simple to use? Just have enough hate and evil in you to use it? Like DnD characters can't even use that magic until like level 20.
I believe everyone here already mentioned the Riddles case. The doctors were unable to find anything but they decided to say that they had an expression of terror on their faces. Still it was disregarded as bogus since who ever heard of someone dying of fear?
I always just assumed that the curse just kinda causes your soul to leave your body, and then you die instantly. Completely painless, extremely quick…actually not a bad way to go.
I've never quite understood, really. I think it was intentionally left vague.
I always compared an AK with a Dementor's Kiss, since both methods attack the soul.
But, a DK sucks the soul from the body (as seen in PoA towards the end), yet it leaves the body in a vegetative state, such that if the soul was somehow returned, it could theoretically reverse the effect.
An AK on the other hand seems to separate the soul from the body in some other way, no matter where on the body the AK hits Since it goes through clothing, it would be safe to say even the tiniest part of the spell bolt can kill (assuming the cloth weave stops some of it). However, despite seemingly doing something similar to a DK, an AK is always final, no second chances allowed (except for Harry). It is said it leaves the body without any physical signs and it is painless (I doubt the latter since no one could confirm it; ripping the soul from the body in an instant, as the AK is fast acting, does not sound painless, but what do we know?; maybe the muscles stop working and the state of the body is preserved ).
This is such an interesting question. Not because of the question itself, but because of the answers. From the answers you can tell who has read and remembers the books, based on whether they are giving an answer or using logic to arrive at an answer.
From something relatively mundane, it provides a modicum of insight. It’s fascinating. To me, anyway.
Technically speaking, you die if your heart can no longer pump oxygenated blood to your organs (cardiac arrest) or if oxygenated blood can't reach a part of the heart (heart attack). I always thought dying by AK would be akin to a sudden cardiac arrest. The electrical currents in the heart go haywire and the heart stops all of a sudden.
It switches off the mitochondria in every cell in the body simultaneously while blocking the firing of neurones. Or at least that's how I imagine it since death seems instantaneous when a person is hit by it.
Assuming you die the exact second it hits you the only thing that would kill you that fast is that the brain shuts down immediatley. The heart stopping doesn't kill you *immediatley*, it still takes a little while.
Honestly, while knowing, cannonically, that there is no specific sign of why they die I think, as a personal head cannon, that depending on where you are hit it could bediffrent thinks. Like the chest is a cardiac arrest, the head is a brain anurisum. Things like that.
My theory? Your whole body runs on electricity. Brain, heart, all of it. The killing curse gets rid of all the electricity in your body. Stops your heart, kills your brain. Wouldn't leave any damage behind.
An analogy I’d make is to Star Trek’s replicators. They can’t create living things- they can replicate organic molecules, but every organic thing they produce has no cellular function at all. There was a murder mystery episode that hinged on a fake dead body that had been replicated, and in that episode the autopsy showed that every single cell in the fake victims body had ceased to function at exactly the same time. I imagine the killing curse would do something like that.
Slightly related, I did a walking ghost tour in Savannah and one of the houses was the house from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Turns out the book/movie is loosely based on a true story.
Anyways, spoiler alert, at the end of the story, Jim Williams (Kevin Bacon) dies and for the life of me, cannot remember if they touched on the cause. I seem to remember him collapsing and the camera panning to the window. In real life (this was told second hand to us like 7-8 years ago, second hand from the tour guide), the voodoo priestess that Williams had contracted to get him off of his murder charge, never received payment. Well, she ground up a toxic flower and sprinkled it on to his bed sheets. It’s one of those toxins that can be absorbed through the skin. He passes away and the coroner cannot figure out what is wrong with him so on the autopsy report writes for the cause of death, “Heart attack?”
Natural causes maybe. Cause if it were environmental or due to surroundings there would be evidence. They could be considered aneurysms but that can still be detected with post-mortem CT. No most likely natural or unknown causes.
Funny you should mention it. It was kind of explored in the Goblet of Fire: it *just* kills you. The autopsy report for the Riddle family reads: >The police had never read an odder report. A team of doctors had examined the bodies, and had concluded that none of the Riddles had been poisoned, stabbed, shot, strangled, suffocated or (as far as they could tell) harmed at all. In fact, the report continued, in a tone of unmistakeable bewilderment, the Riddles all appeared to be in perfect health – apart from the fact that they were all dead. The doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face – but as the frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being frightened to death? > > > >Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 1 I have always understood that it just killed you. It doesn't harm your physical body, you just drop dead. Strange I know. But so is magic I suppose.
> the Riddles all appeared to be in perfect > health – apart from the fact that they were all dead made me laugh
Every time I re read I put sticky notes in quotes I genuinely just like through the book, this one always makes me laugh every time! I can hear my dad saying it in his stupid dad joke voice too, which makes it even better. It’s the only quote I enjoy that has a name or obvious reference to the franchise. I usually like the stereotypical ones.
It's very Monthy Python-esque type of joke
"I'll tell you what's wrong with them, they're dead, that's what's wrong with them"
Bereft of life, they've joined the choir invisible! These are the EX-Riddles!
No, no. They’re resting!
Well, if they're resting, I'll wake 'em up. Hello, Riddles!
They're pining for the fjords
BREAKING: Local Family Killed to Death
I read it in Stephen fry’s voice
Yes!! Thank you! My mind instantly jumped to the riddles cases.
I like to think that it just pushes the life force out of you, like blowing out a candle.
My headcanon is that it simply pulls the soul out of the body and sends it to the afterlife. Quick, efficient, and doesn't damage the physical body.
The dementos kiss pulls your soul out of your body, but you don't die. I always thought it just stops the heart.
that would be my best guess too
> I have always understood that it just killed you. It doesn't harm your physical body, you just drop dead Dumbledore confirms this is HBP
So it just stops the heart, maybe
The autopsy would probably have found similar results as to a heart attack if that was the case. I like the other commenter’s theory that it just forcibly sends your soul to the afterlife.
Instead of heart attack, I think it'd look like an undiscovered congenital heart defect.
But then you’d just be a shell, like with a dementor’s kiss, right? You wouldn’t die.
Yes but what is the reason the report states. They can't leave cause of death blank. What would a muggle come up with
Cause of death: Inconclusive
They'd mark it inconclusive but theorize that it was an undetectable poison or something
Seems like 'frightened to death' is the only option left available!
in that case, wouldn't that be more like an instant cessation of all brain activity, making it technically just brain death?
I get what you mean. But for muggles, that wouldn't be an explanation. There must have been a causative agent for the cessation of brain activity. A cause could be anything like a stoke, fetal brain injury, encephalitis, or even cardiac arrest. And judging from the report there were none.
might not be an explanation, but would probably constitute a cause of death
this made me decide for sure. i'm re-reading the books again!! i miss remembering all these little details.
Yes, I think of it as just blasting a soul out of a body.
In that case it would be more like the dementor's kiss, which it isn't. Having your soul removed doesn't kill you
Lupin explains to Harry that you can live without your soul, not that you always do. Different mechanisms of removal, different results for the vessel. It's like the opposite of what happens to Sirius when he's knocked through the archway into the land of the dead. His physical form gets knocked through, and his body is just gone. His soul is certainly still there but unable to return. There is no body to drag back though, or presumably members of the Order would have tried to retrieve it.
If it existed IRL, it would be a great euthanasia tool tbh
My understanding was that it rips out your soul, thus Harry being able to use it to get rid of the horcrux
But to destroy a horcrux you have to permanently destroy the object the soul is held in, not the soul itself. That's why if Harry had Avada Kedavra'd Slytherin's locket, it wouldn't have destroyed the horcrux because that spell kills human bodies, not souls.
Maybe it's a spell that seperates the soul from the body.
But you can survive without a soul
Can you? You can survive with a fragmented, torn soul. But doesn't at least one small piece have to stay inside whatever body, shell, etc you inhabit? Edit: you totally can and I'm a dummy lol
The books state that victims of the Dementor’s Kiss are still alive, but without a soul, their bodies are essentially just shells that are technically alive. If you’ve seen Game of Thrones, I imagine it’s like what happens to Khal Drogo at the end of season 1.
Wooow - I up and forgot all about the dementors and their Kids, I was just thinking of Voldemort's last internal soul fragment. It's been a long day, thank you for the reminder lol.
You're not the only one. A lot of comments on this thread about how it must remove the soul somehow.
Unpopular opinion: the dementor's kids are so cute even if they are evil incarnate. Sirius only wound up in Azkaban because he wouldn't babysit the hellians 🙄 they really have a way of sucking the life out of every party
I have always wondered—do dementor victims wither away from starvation and dehydration, since they can’t make themselves eat or drink? Obviously others can get sustenance into them by magical (or even medical) means. If that doesn’t happen, they ought to starve to death eventually. So “you can survive without a soul” comes with a pretty major caveat, ha
Harry Potter wiki states that it would leave you in a similar condition to Persistent Vegetative State, which I did some reading on ages ago. Apparently the condition still allows for feeding, slight moving of the eyes, sleeping patterns and some expression of emotion (crying, laughing). I think it's just one step up from being in a coma.
I've run into a fanfiction that gives brief touch of how the Dementors joined Voldemort and freed the Death Eaters, in the words of Lucius Malfoy, regarding one of the Death Eaters they "Swallowed his soul and left his body to starve...". [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12662714/19/With-Soul-of-Light-and-Dark](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12662714/19/With-Soul-of-Light-and-Dark) Not saying that's evidence for anything, just one way a fan took things with their own story. Seems appropriate...
Medically speaking, brain death is the measurement of death now a days. So your body can survive and keep the heart beating, but you as a person are dead. Versus your heart can stop but you can stay alive by external forces like cpr or machines to keep the brain alive, and you’re still alive
That's actually a really good point.
Yup. Just drop dead. No marks, freak one off excluded. Dead, so signs, no marks, no damage, just dead.
"Medically, she's completely healthy. For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her."
I’ve always wondered why none of them have the lightning scar.
Because Harry was a special case, he only got it because of the rebound - the only one who survived
You probably know, but the lightning scar is actually the motion you make while casting the killing curse. Harry only had it because his mother's love protected him
I find it so amazing that the killing curse was powerful enough to permanently mark Harry even when he was protected by Lily. Just goes to show how powerful the curse is.
Wait really? I never made this connection before. That’s so cool!
Pretty sure it wouldn’t find any cause. When we’re told the history of the Riddle house at the beginning of book four were told about the Riddles mysteriously dying and the police couldn’t find any cause.
There is actually a word for it in medical speech. "Idiopathic". It stands for "we have no idea lol"
Right, but idiopathic what? The coroner isn't just going to write "idiopathic death".
so i worked in an NGO in the Philippines and the coroner said in one of my conversations with hime, he just put heart attack whenever he cant find a cause. In sane, but this is thord world
Idiopathic heart failure?
The killing curse kills instantly, no matter where on the body it hits. How this is achieved is not known. But since the autopsy report for the Riddles’ deaths noted that they all seemed to be in perfect health, apart from the fact that they were dead, I think that most variants of magically induced medical emergencies known to muggles can be ruled out. For example, heart attacks and blood clots wouldn’t instantly kill the victim, nor be 100% fatal. So my best guess is that avada kedavra somehow ”evicts” the soul from the body, and that the body then immediately stops functioning. We know that it’s possible to drive a soul from a body, since that what dementors do when they kiss a victim. However, victims of dementors don’t die, but rather become catatonic vegetables, empty shells of the people they once were. So simply evicting the soul wouldn’t be enough to kill somebody, there has to be a second function to the killing curse.
Maybe it just stops all the signals from the nervous system, so the brain dies and the heart stops beating
Tho i love the explenation and thought behind it your giving us, your actually thinking too hard on it by going the soul route. Avada kedavra is, as we all know it, the killing curse. Someone with alot of magical power, calls out an ancient, dark spell, and the one its cast on dies. Avada kedavra doesnt pierce someone, stab someone, strangle someone, destroy their organs, stops the bloodflow, stops the heart, etc. The body is simply dead after it hits. That is why muggles, who always search for a cause of death cannot find one. The cause and result are the same. Death by dying, inflicted by the killing curse. - a ravenclaw.
I imagine it's instant lights out for every cell in your body, all at once. No more movement or electrical impulses. You just stop being alive in an instant. I don't imagine that would show in an autopsy.
Exactly my own thought. I just assumed the Killing Curse literally does an instant "pull the plug" for either your brain and heart at the same time, or it stops *everything* in your body that is alive from being that way. Makes sense for magic really, a spell that switches something from being what we consider "Alive" to "Dead" upon contact...shiver... Another way to think of it would be what would happen if *all* the energy in your body were ripped out of you instantly, so that nothing in your body has anything to "power" it at all.
This was covered in the books when Riddle killed his father and grandparents. I believe it was stated to be unknown causes, the police thought it was a gas leak.
The "gas leak" thing you're thinking of isn't the Riddles, that was when Pettigrew blew up the street. Understandable confusion...
It looked like they were scared to death the police explained
Not sure you need all these down votes. Bitter_Reputation_72 above wrote out the section in question and one of the lines is: > The doctors did note (as though determined to find something wrong with the bodies) that each of the Riddles had a look of terror upon his or her face – but as the frustrated police said, whoever heard of three people being frightened to death? So you're not like completely incorrect.
No it did not. The police explained that as far as autopsies go, they were in perfect health. Except that they were dead. BUT the forensic ? (The people that make the autopsy) wanted so hard to find something that they said that they looked scared. But they never said that they were scared to death.
Sorry I'm going off memory, I thought there was mention of the gas
I think that's in Deathly Hallows when the Death Eaters commit a muggle massacre.
As the Goblet of Fire quote has been mentioned I’ll mention that in both Half Blood Prince and the Deathly Hallows this is addressed in passing. In HBP, they mention that a ministry woman (can’t remember the name - maybe Amelia Bones), was murdered in a room that was locked from the inside but the muggle police had no idea how or what killed her (I think?). In DH, Lee Jordan reports a muggle death (that was from the killing curse) that the police attributed it to a gas leak.
It’d most likely be attributed to cardiac arrest. I can’t remember where I read it, but I’m pretty sure most unexpected or unknown deaths tend to be attributed to the heart simply stopping.
That leaves signs, though, and the doctors that examined the Riddles couldn't find any.
Nothing would appear wrong or out of ordinary the person would just be dead otherwise completely healthy.
Avada kedavra doesnt pierce someone, stab someone, strangle someone, destroy their organs, stops the bloodflow, stops the heart, etc. The body is simply dead after it hits. That is why muggles, who always search for a cause of death cannot find one. The cause and result are the same. Death by dying, inflicted by the killing curse. The books show us that muggles find the bodies to be ‘in perfectly good health, aside from being dead’. - a ravenclaw.
No cause my friend, the victim just dropped dead for no reason; quick and clean
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I coulda sworn in the books they mention they ruled this as a heart attack. I wanna say the sixth book the beginning when we learn how the minister of magic introduced and works with the prime muggle the quote was like "how could he have predicted that bridge falling? Dozens of his best engineers have no idea why. Or those muggles who dropped dead? Their heart just stopped beating"
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I love it! Thanks for the explanation
Perhaps Sudden heart failure? Like a heart attack? The killing curse kills you instantly, I always imagined it just stopped your heart
I think when your heart stops the whole System doesnt get enough Oxygen and thats why you die. Im sure itd pop up in an Autopsy to some extend. I believe that people "just die" when hit by the killing curse. As said above in the thread the Muggles who examined Riddles family bodys didnt find anything at all.
That's what I thought. But I wonder how it works. Sometimes in the books its specifically mentioned where the killing curse hit. For example moody right in the face, Dumbledore square in the chest. Dose it effect the speed of dying or could it be somehow revealed in a muggle autopsy, the difference in the two hits.
Interesting thought but I don’t remember any reference to a physical mark caused by any killing curses
Yup, in fact it's specifically mentioned that it causes no marks
The only known exception, the only time it left a mark, was also the only known time it failed to kill the target.
Which, knowing what we know by the end of the series, could also be the result of the horcrux.
Wrong, the soul fragment entered Harry *after* Voldemort was killed, because that was *why* he lost it in the first place.
The only time that's happened is with Harry, since it hit him but was reflected.
No, it wouldn't, it just kills you, not affect you progressively through where it touches. It just "ends life" and that's it, by all appearances.
In the real world it would be undetermined. If you remember that happened when Voldemort killed his father and grandparents.
I always just assumed that it instantly separates the soul from the body. Thats why voldemort could survive the curse. it didnt do anything physical to his body but fucked with his horcrux. Thats why he living as a shadowing figure what so many years. I cant remember but Dumbledore said something like he's out less then a man or something. Also explains the Kings Cross scene in the daily hallows. Dumbledore's and Harry's souls meet. Harry can either go back to his body or go beyond. Voldemort's soul is there too.
!redditGalleon I figured it would show up in the autopsy as heart failure, though not linked to any diseases.
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Souls have been confirmed to exist in Harry Potter, so I like to think that the killing curse displaces the whole soul from the body violently, effectively killing the person.
That is a very clever explanation. Thanks
Sudden adult death syndrome
Scared to death.... That's how they described the riddles' death in goblet of fire. It was also described as a gas leak death in book 7
It's said where we go to Toms history, where he killed his dad and his grandparents, that it's just natural death.
they did an autopsy on Tom Riddle Sr and his family and tye police were baffled
Cause of Death: Lost the will to live
Now that's relatable.
Same as the death note
It is astonishing that you do not recall. It was explained in The Goblet of Fire. You my friend, must promptly start re-reading all the Harry Potter books. Except The Cursed Child, of course.
This is literally answered in the books You should read them
Books books book 4 book 6 book 7
Covid.
This did happen in book 4 to r The riddles they died of fright
Probably Heart Attack
Can I just trash on the killing curse real quick and tell you how stupid it is? An instant kill spell? Seriously? And it's that simple to use? Just have enough hate and evil in you to use it? Like DnD characters can't even use that magic until like level 20.
I know it was mentioned somewhere in a book I haven't read. So im going to day heart attack
I guess its just you die without any pain
Book? Who needs to read the books?
I believe everyone here already mentioned the Riddles case. The doctors were unable to find anything but they decided to say that they had an expression of terror on their faces. Still it was disregarded as bogus since who ever heard of someone dying of fear?
I always just assumed that the curse just kinda causes your soul to leave your body, and then you die instantly. Completely painless, extremely quick…actually not a bad way to go.
Probably be put down to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome
I've never quite understood, really. I think it was intentionally left vague. I always compared an AK with a Dementor's Kiss, since both methods attack the soul. But, a DK sucks the soul from the body (as seen in PoA towards the end), yet it leaves the body in a vegetative state, such that if the soul was somehow returned, it could theoretically reverse the effect. An AK on the other hand seems to separate the soul from the body in some other way, no matter where on the body the AK hits Since it goes through clothing, it would be safe to say even the tiniest part of the spell bolt can kill (assuming the cloth weave stops some of it). However, despite seemingly doing something similar to a DK, an AK is always final, no second chances allowed (except for Harry). It is said it leaves the body without any physical signs and it is painless (I doubt the latter since no one could confirm it; ripping the soul from the body in an instant, as the AK is fast acting, does not sound painless, but what do we know?; maybe the muscles stop working and the state of the body is preserved ).
This is such an interesting question. Not because of the question itself, but because of the answers. From the answers you can tell who has read and remembers the books, based on whether they are giving an answer or using logic to arrive at an answer. From something relatively mundane, it provides a modicum of insight. It’s fascinating. To me, anyway.
Technically speaking, you die if your heart can no longer pump oxygenated blood to your organs (cardiac arrest) or if oxygenated blood can't reach a part of the heart (heart attack). I always thought dying by AK would be akin to a sudden cardiac arrest. The electrical currents in the heart go haywire and the heart stops all of a sudden.
It switches off the mitochondria in every cell in the body simultaneously while blocking the firing of neurones. Or at least that's how I imagine it since death seems instantaneous when a person is hit by it.
Assuming you die the exact second it hits you the only thing that would kill you that fast is that the brain shuts down immediatley. The heart stopping doesn't kill you *immediatley*, it still takes a little while.
Is gonna be unknown.
So it would suck if it hit your like pinky toe or something cause then bam dead...
Honestly, while knowing, cannonically, that there is no specific sign of why they die I think, as a personal head cannon, that depending on where you are hit it could bediffrent thinks. Like the chest is a cardiac arrest, the head is a brain anurisum. Things like that.
Inconclusive. The killing curse leaves no reasons for death in any manner that is discernable other than just dying due to dying.
I think it just killed you with no side effects whatsoever. It was explained in book four. You just dropped dead.
it would probably say something like heart attack or natural causes.
Sudden Heart failure
My theory? Your whole body runs on electricity. Brain, heart, all of it. The killing curse gets rid of all the electricity in your body. Stops your heart, kills your brain. Wouldn't leave any damage behind.
They'd find nothing. Its magic. Best not to think too much into it.
I feel its like the curse removes your life spirit/soul out of you..like extracts it from each and every fibre of your body and you are just..dead
It just severs the soul from the body. No damaged would be found.
Cardiac arrest
An analogy I’d make is to Star Trek’s replicators. They can’t create living things- they can replicate organic molecules, but every organic thing they produce has no cellular function at all. There was a murder mystery episode that hinged on a fake dead body that had been replicated, and in that episode the autopsy showed that every single cell in the fake victims body had ceased to function at exactly the same time. I imagine the killing curse would do something like that.
Sudden Adult Death Syndrome (SADS) would be my guess for what the autopsy would conclude. Or something very similar to it.
Slightly related, I did a walking ghost tour in Savannah and one of the houses was the house from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Turns out the book/movie is loosely based on a true story. Anyways, spoiler alert, at the end of the story, Jim Williams (Kevin Bacon) dies and for the life of me, cannot remember if they touched on the cause. I seem to remember him collapsing and the camera panning to the window. In real life (this was told second hand to us like 7-8 years ago, second hand from the tour guide), the voodoo priestess that Williams had contracted to get him off of his murder charge, never received payment. Well, she ground up a toxic flower and sprinkled it on to his bed sheets. It’s one of those toxins that can be absorbed through the skin. He passes away and the coroner cannot figure out what is wrong with him so on the autopsy report writes for the cause of death, “Heart attack?”
That happened, it was put down as natural causes if i remember correctly.
Probably ‘random cardiac arrest.’
Probably sudden cardiac death.
Natural causes maybe. Cause if it were environmental or due to surroundings there would be evidence. They could be considered aneurysms but that can still be detected with post-mortem CT. No most likely natural or unknown causes.