Thoughts on Portraits

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 164932

bboyminn wrote:
> 
> I think you are placing way too much emaphasis on JKR's use of a
common word and concept - imprint. Just because Snape used the word
and then JKR used the word doesn't not mean they are using them in the
same way and in the same context.
> 
> JKR clarified her statement. The Headmasters leave behind a faint
imprint of themselves, an AURA, in the office of the Head, that gives
them the added intelligence to 'give some counsel to the present
occupant'.
> 
> This AURA or faint residue that they leave behind clearly allows the
existance of a level of 'realization' that allows them to be of some
value to the new Head. <snip>

Carol again:
But an imprint is not an aura. She has merely substituted one metaphor
for another without clarifying. And neither an imprint nor an aura is
"a faint residue" (your definition). I think the use of "imprint" for
both ghosts and portraits *is* significance. You're sweeping away my
argument, not answering it. 
>



Carol earlier:
 
> > 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.
> 
> bboyminn:
> 
> Sorry, I'm confused. I agree that portraits are not the
> spirit or soul of a dead person, but how can ghost not be
> EXACTLY that. They are souls who have clung to earthly 
> life and identity rather than moving on. Maybe you are
> making a point, and I am completely missing it, but
> ghost are indeed the soul and spirit of a person. <snip>

Carol:
Look again at Snape's words: "A ghost . . . is *the imprint of a
departed soul* left upon the earth" (HBP Am. ed. 460). 

The ghost is *not* the wizard's soul (which may or may not be the same
thing as a spirit). He or she is the *imprint* of a *departed* soul.
The soul itself has left the earth. It has gone where all souls go
when someone dies, presumably beyond the Veil. Only its *imprint*
(something akin to a shadow or footprint???) is left behind on earth.
What Harry will encounter if he goes beyond the Veil will not be
ghosts. Ghosts linger on earth, unwilling to leave the places where
they spent their lives. The spirits or souls of the dead have left the
earth behind. To use Snape's word, they have "departed." They will be,
I think, something more substantial than ghosts, something like the
"echoes" that came out of the wand, the Self without a mortal body
subject to age and disease. Or maybe they will be wholly insubstantial
but able to perceive and be perceived as they looked in life. Of
course, I'm only guessing, but the "imprint of a departed soul"
*cannot* be the same thing as the departed soul itself.

Carol, hoping that her point is clearer now and sure that the double
use of "imprint" is no coincidence