Thoughts on Portraits

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164926

bboyminn wrote:
> 
> Well, first and foremost, the Fat Lady isn't NUTS. She is not as
nutty as Mrs. Black or Sir Cadagon, so, not being nuts, she is able to
act more rationally. But she is far from realized. She is far from
being able to engage in clear rational thinking and analysis.
> 
> Yes, she is able to monitor the Passwords to Gryffindor. She is able
to affect certain moods; anger, annoyed, pleasant, etc.... But what
about letting Sirius Black into the Gryffindor Tower simply because he
knew the password? It seems the whole castle knew about Black and what
his assumed intentions were. What rational person would let a murderer
in simply because he knew the correct password? That more than
anything shows the limits of the Fat Lady. <snip>

Carol responds:
But don't you have it backwards? The Fat Lady refused to admit Sirius
Black because he *didn't* have the password, which is why he furiously
slashed up her painting. Sir Cadogan let Black into Gryffindor Tower
because he had the whole list (Crookshanks had stolen the list of
passwords that Neville had written down because of Sir Cadogan's habit
of frequently changing the password and given it to Black). That's the
reason that Sir Cadogan was "fired" and the Fat Lady reinstated (on
condition that she be protected by Security Trolls, who aren't
mentioned again). So whether or not the Fat Lady is capable of
rational thinking, she's not the one who let Sirius Black into
Gryffindor Tower. I certainly agree that Sir Cadogan isn't a "rational
person," but we can't judge the Fat Lady's capacities by his.

Dov wrote:

> > The concept of "leaving an imprint" is from the conversation about
ghosts, ...

bboyminn responded:
> 
> http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/news_view.cfm?id=80
> 
> Q: All the paintings we have seen at Hogwarts are of dead people.
They seem to be living through their portraits. How is this so? If
there was a painting of Harry's parents, would he be able to obtain
advice from them?
> 
> JKR-A: "...they are not as fully realised as ghosts, as you have
probably noticed. The place where you see them really talk is in
Dumbledore's office, primarily; the idea is that the previous
headmasters and headmistresses leave behind a faint imprint of
themselves. They leave their aura, almost, in the office and they can
give some counsel to the present occupant...."
> 
> 
> So, ghost are mention, but the question and answer are clearly not
about ghosts.
> 
>Carol:
Thanks for providing that quote. But Dov is also right. Snape uses the
word "imprint" to describe ghosts in HBP: "A ghost, as I trust that
you are all aware by now, is the imprint of a departed soul left upon
the earth" (HBP Am. ed. 460). So both the portraits in DD's office
(and perhaps the other Hogwarts portraits) and the Hogwarts ghosts are
"imprints" of a dead witch or wizard or of that person's soul).

While the dictionary definition of "imprint" doesn't give us much help
with regard to JKR's use of the word (so little help, in fact, that
I'm not going to take the trouble to quote it), maybe we can get some
idea of her intended meaning by comparing her description of portraits
with Snape's definition of ghosts and what we know of both.

Both are "imprints," but portraits are "faint[er]," less fully
realized than ghosts, but the same sort of thing. Ghosts, Snape
reminds us, are transparent, but (as he does not say) they are also
three-dimensional, able to move through walls and float through the
air--to speak, to see and hear, but not to eat. (I'd rather not know
whether they can still smell, given NHN's birthday celebration.)
Portraits can move only from one portrait to another, either any
portrait within Hogwarts (the Fat Lady, her friend Violet, and Sir
Cadogan all move into other paintings at some point) or, in the case
of the headmasters and headmistresses, to portraits of themselves
elsewhere in the WW. They, too, can see and hear (they report events
such as someone's arrival or pending arrival to Dumbledore), and if
the Fat Lady's binge at Christmas is any evidence, can also smell,
taste, eat, drink, and overindulge. 

Whereas Mrs. Black is nothing but a caricature, Portrait!Phineas seems
to be just as fully realized a personality as Nearly Headless Nick.
NHN misses the feasts he could once taste and tries to tell Harry what
little he knows about death ("He [Sirius Black] will have gone on");
Phineas mourns the great-great-grandson he so snarkily derided when he
was alive, rushing to 12 GP to search for him in what, to me, was a
very touching moment. Phineas also twice defends Professor Snape, or
at least complains about Harry's disrespectful attitude toward him, in
HBP, making me wonder exactly what he has overheard between snape and
DD in that office.

So is a portrait a kind of two-dimensional, fully colored pseudo-ghost
with limited mobility but all five senses intact? (If the Fat Lady
couldn't feel that knife, why was she so terrified?) Of course, a
witch or wizard can have only one ghost (if he or she so chooses) but
multiple portraits, even, conceivably, both a ghost and a portrait
though we haven't seen any character with both. (I very much doubt
that Dumbledore will be the first to do so since he's not afraid of
death and has no reason to stay. But the fact that he's peacefully
sleeping when Harry sees him seems significant.)

Imprint. I'm still not exactly sure what it means. "Echo" might be
closer, but she uses that term for the solid-seeming smoky forms that
come out of Voldemort's wand as the result of the Priori Incantem
effect, forms which, like ghosts, can interact with Harry and which
remember their own deaths ("He killed me, that one," says the echo of
Frank Bryce) and which, as you point out, can anticipate a future
event. Exactly what they are is unclear; they seem like the shades or
spirits of the dead, like the spirits Harry is likely to encounter if
he goes beyond the Veil in DH--not ghosts, not confined to this world
or clinging to it because they're afraid (NHN) or unwilling (Myrtle)
to move on.

Ghosts and portraits, whatever they are, are not the spirit or the
soul of the dead person. Nor are they animated by fragments of soul,
or they would be Horcruxes, and only a murderer can create a Horcrux.
The portraits in some ways resemble the Sorting Hat, which can also
interact, having some of the Four Founders' "brains" in it, but it
seems to have a Legilimency spell on it as well which the portraits
(and, of course, the ghosts) don't have. Still, maybe the portraits
also have a bit of their subjects' "brains" in them. They seem as much
like magical objects that can think for themselves as like
two-dimensional ghosts. They are clearly wizard-made products, unlike
a ghost, which is the result of a choice made by a witch or wizard as
he dies, the choice to remain rather than go on to the next great
adventure. And yet both ghosts (or at least NHN) and portraits (as JKR
says) are capable of "giving counsel" (as is the Sorting Hat in its
most recent songs). . . .

Carol, who feels that JKR's choice of the word "imprint" for both
ghosts and portraits must be significant but still can't put her
finger on JKR's intended meaning for that word