CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 12: The Pat

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189950


> Potioncat:
> I found Snape's explanation confusing when comparted to Nick's explanation. If the ghost is an imprint, then it is similar to a portrait. I had thought the ghost was the soul that had not gone on. So, is it an imprint, with a sort of memory and a false sense of self? or is it real? I feel better thinking that the real Myrtle exists in an afterlife, perhaps joined by her parents, than to think the poor child will haunt Hogwarts forever.
>

Pippin:
I find it a comforting thought as well.  But I don't think Nick and Myrtle would.  I can imagine Nick saying frostily that he's heard of this theory and finds it rather tactless, to say the least. Ghostly feelings seem real enough to ghosts, and whose to say they don't feel them as their flesh and blood selves did? I doubt that Myrtle would feel better to know that her "real" self is enjoying a happier afterlife than she is. 

The thing is, if you are writing about a world where children have choices and  choices matter, then  some of them have to turn out badly and things are not always set right in the end, or what difference does it make? 

Pippin