One Dore closes another Dore opens

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167574

Barry wrote:
> We don't get consistency in post-life with the portraits, ghosts and
Peeves who appears to be a ghost but is mistakenly called a
poltergeist. <snip>
> 
Barry again, in a different thread:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/167555 

> Since I've recently reread Phoenix, I turned to the bit I remember.
In Chapter 30, page 597: "Cackling madly, he soared through the
school,..., bursting out of blackboards... floating along after
Umbridge..." 

> Soaring, bursting out of and floating all suggest ghost to me.
> 
> Page 598: Peeves, who was determinedly loosening a crystal
chandelier and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist ...
"It screws the other way."
> 
> Now a poltergeist is usually a person, often a teenager if you count
a teenager as a person, who has psychic powers that are disruptive.
Peeves happens to be a ghost who has the powers of a poltergeist. <snip>

JW responded to the first comment:
> 
> First, what makes you believe Peeves is **mistakenly** called a
poltergeist?  It appears to most readers - not to mention the author
herself - that Peeves is INDEED a poltergeist. <snip> we have evidence
to support this differentiation. Peeves commonly physically interacts
with material objects in ways that ghosts never do.  Further, we are
told that ghosts are a pale imprint left by those who were living and
died.  Peeves can not be a ghost because he never lived.

Carol responds to both:

JW is right. The "bursting through the blackboard" may be a Flint, but
Peeves is *not* a ghost, as we've been told since book 1 (by NHN, who
should know, being a ghost himself), and by JKR in interviews and on
her website. Here are her words from the text-only version of her
website's FAQ in answer to a question on this very topic:

[Question:] Peeves chews gum, how can he when he is a ghost? (Nearly
Headless Nick can't eat).

[JKR:] Peeves isn't a ghost; he was never a living person. He is an
indestructible spirit of chaos, and solid enough to unscrew
chandeliers, throw walking sticks and, yes, chew gum.

Here's a link to the Lexicon's entry on Peeves, which may also prove
useful:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/peeves.html

Just as JKR has adapted her hippogriffs and ghosts and other creatures
and spirits to fit the needs of her story, she has adapted the one and
only poltergeist into a spirit of mischief who is not a ghost because
he has never been a wizard and has never died. Consequently, although
he can become invisible, he is not transparent like a ghost. Perhaps,
being a spirit, he can change his properties and cease to be solid
long enough to burst through a blackboard (rather like Harry when he
enters a Pensieve memory, but under his own powers). Or that
particular incident could be a Flint, which does happen in these
books. (Ron knowing about the Hand of Glory that Lucius *didn't* buy
for Draco! I'm as annoyed as Betsy HP by that one, and have been since
I first read it. Digression. Sorry.)

More on Peeves from a JKR interview with Melissa Anelli and Emerson
Spartz, 16 July 2005:

ES: Why does Dumbledore allow Peeves to stay in the castle?

JKR: Can't get him out.

ES: He's Dumbledore, he can do anything!

JKR: No, no no no no. Peeves is like dry rot. You can try and
eradicate it. It comes with the building. You're stuck. If you've got
Peeves you're stuck.

ES: But Peeves answers to Dumbledore--

JKR: Allegedly.

MA: Allegedly?

JKR: Yeah. I see Peeves as like a severe plumbing problem in a very
old building, and Dumbledore is slightly better with the spanner than
most people, so he can maybe make it function better for a few weeks.
Then it's going to start leaking again. . . .

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2005/0705-tlc_mugglenet-anelli-2.htm
 
Fleur says in GoF that if there were a poltergeist at Beauxbatons, he
would be banished "like zat!" (Given what JKR says above, Fleur is
probably wrong, but, oh, well.) She makes no such comment about the
ghosts, which suggests that Beauxbatons also has its ghosts.

At any rate, ghosts and poltergeists are not the same sort of being or
spirit, any more than Ghouls are Lethifolds. I'm not sure where you
got the teenage ghost idea, but Peeves is definitely a poltergeist as
JKR envisions a poltergeist, not a wizard who died but was afraid to
"go on" and consequently left "a pale imprint of himself" on earth, as
she envisions a ghost as being. Peeves, it appears, is as old as
Hogwarts and will remain there, causing mischief for the inhabitants,
as long as Hogwarts stands. (If you've acquired the scrapbook items on
JKR's website, you can see her drawing of Peeves--definitely solid and
not a ghost, in contrast to NHN and the others.)

JW responding to Barry:
<snip>
> Second, it is quite possible that it is not the portrait of DD that
causes JKR's problem.  There are several other ways in which the dead
DD could communicate.  Of course, they would all arise from actions
taken when DD was alive - examples might include DD time-traveling
into the future to speak with other characters, or otherwise impact
the plot of DH; memory threads that could be used in the pensieve; or
even good old, mundane letters written by DD that would not be read
until after his death.  Honestly, my view is that having serious
problems over portraits rates a low probability.

Carol:
Again, I agree with JW here. We don't know that JKR was talking to Dan
Radcliffe about Portrait!Dumbledore when she (ostensibly) said that DD
was giving her trouble. Given her interview remarks about the
limitations of portraits, I think it's probably some other
manifestation of DD that was giving her trouble.

Which leads me to suspect that possibly, when DD sent Harry to fetch
the Invisibility Cloak that Harry was supposed to have with him at all
times, he wasn't just giving *Harry* a chance to make last-minute
preparations: he was making some preparations himself. And possibly,
just possibly, those preparations included time travel to find out
what would happen that night. If so, DD knew that he was going to die.
His urgent need to send Harry to find "Severus" may have been a failed
attempt to alter that future, to save Snape from having to keep his
vow and cast that AK. And, if he time-traveled to the future, he may
well have visited Harry, too, getting himself back to his office just
in time for Harry to go with him to find what he didn't know was a
fake Horcrux. *If* that's what happened (and if a wizard can visit a
future that hasn't happened yet and may not happen), TT!DD can
persuade Harry that Snape is indeed DDM. (And maybe he can provide
Snape with some much-needed comfort, as well.) Just a thought, but I
rather like the possibility. In fact, I like it very much and hope it
happens. :-)
> 
JW:
> Do you mean that portraits do not act the same as ghosts, and both
are different from poltergeists?  Quite simply, they act differently
because they ARE different.  Each of the three types of characters
have unique characteristics that set them apart from the other two.
<snip>

Carol:
Exactly. Steve (bboyminn) and I have already discussed the ghost vs.
portrait question rather exhaustively (quotes and all) though we don't
 quite agree on what portraits as "imprints" means. But regardless of
the differences between portraits and ghosts (and there's no reason
why a headmaster afraid of death wouldn't have both), *poltergeists*
don't fit in with the question of how DD will return to cause problems
for JKR in DH. I very much doubt that he'll come back as a spirit of
mischief who plagues the Hogwarts staff and students and dumps ink on
the heads of ickle firsties. One Peeves is sufficient, and even if a
wizard could come back as a poltergeist (which isn't how it works,
according to JKR), DD would never do so. His character is as different
from Peeves's as it's possible to be. 

Nor is it likely that someone for whom death is "the next great
adventure" will come back as a ghost. Harry may well encounter the
spirit of DD beyond the Veil (where I'm almost certain he'll encounter
Sirius Black, as well), but I'll bet real money (say, two dollars and
fifty cents <wink>) that DD won't come back as a ghost.

So, the possibilities appear to be Portrait!DD, possible letters or
bottled memories willed to Harry along with the Pensieve, Time-Turned
DD, DD beyond the Veil--and no doubt other possibilities that haven't
occurred to us yet. (The chocolat frog cards don't speak, AFAWK, so
they won't be much use except to make Harry miss DD even more.) No
Ghost!DD, though, and certainly no Poltergeist!DD. (I also doubt very
much that we'll find DD's memories preserved in a diary, convenient
though that would be, or come across his notes scribbled in an old
textbook.)

Carol, who takes JKR at her word that Peeves is a poltergeist, not a
ghost, but wonders what Barry means (upthread) by "DE Sibyl"