How ?alive? are paintings?

[kiricat2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 69764

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, marilyn at g... wrote:
> Colin (ravenclawblack) wrote:
> > I am curious as to everyone's thoughts on the paintings in the
> > potterverse.  Until book five, I thought of the paintings a bit 
like
> > automatons.  The fat lady was like a computer program that 
checked who
> > could be let in the door, and the other paintings didn't do 
much.  But
> > now, in book five, the paintings seem very lifelike.  Phineas
> > particularly comes to mind.  Are the paintings like ghosts?  Can
> > wizards choose to leave themselves behind in that form, or are 
they
> > copies of the wizard's personality?  Can a painting be done while 
the
> > person is alive, or postmortem?  (I'm thinking about Sirius here)
> 
> I agree with what others have said in the past that JK wouldn't 
bring
> back Sirius, even in the form of a painting, because she has been 
rather
> adamant in her portrayal of death as so irreversable. 

AARRGH! This is starting to drive me crazy! There have been entire 
bus-loads of people who are dead, bodily dead, not coming back from 
the grave, but who keep popping up! Ghosts, poltergeists, portraits, 
shades emerging from wands...These people are dead, but they don't 
stay quietly in their graves. They keep showing up! 

Yes, JKR has been adamant in her interviews about how the person who 
dies in OoP is dead. Really dead.  Not coming back dead.  Pushing up 
the daisies.  (Pining for the fjords?)  But, she's also written a 
slew of other dead people who conveniently pop up at opportune 
moments. So, yes, they may be dead in the sense of they will not come 
back as living, mortal beings. But, they are not dead in the sense 
that we never hear from them again.  So, yes, in one sense, death is 
irreversible in JKR's world. But, the dead tend not to remain 
silently mouldering in their graves.


 It is interesting
> to me as well, though, the fact that Phineas and the other 
headmasters
> especially are such fully-developed characters as mere portraits; 
people
> that Dumbledore spends evenings with, and presumably he gets advice 
from
> and discusses important matters with them.

So, again, dead doesn't necessarily mean dead, does it?

Marianne