photos, oil paintings, ghosts, mortality, consciousness, etc.

[madeyemood]

No: HPFGUIDX 71671

Does anyone care to flesh out these various levels consciousness?

Harry's parents smile and wave to him from the photo album Hagrid gave him 
at the end of book one---Harry's family seems to communicate from the Mirror 
of Erised---mom and dad provide direction in the cemetery where they are 
"pictures"? of themselves:
Do these instances depict different levels of consciousness that the reader is 
supposed to be able to flesh out?

With all the pictures of Gilderoy in his engaged in various sorts of self-care 
rituals---does each picture have its own individual consciousness?
If thirteen people are holding a chocolate frog card of Albus Dumbledore, will 
they all be seeing the same thing?
What about any other photograph...how constrained would the photographic 
subject be by a)what s/he was doing at the time of the picture v. b) the activity 
in which s/he's currently engaged? What if Albus wants to go pee? Does he 
have to do something to "turn off the reception"?

How do the past headmasters live on in their oil paintings? how many 
paintings can they be conscious in simultaneously? How vulnerable are they 
to attack?
What about the oil paintings at Hogwarts? Are these subjects more or less 
alive than ghosts?
Could Sirius have killed the Fat Lady by slicing her to ribbons if she hadn't 
fleed the picture?

"madeyemood"