Portraits & Photographs - A Theory.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 190379



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Happy Smiley <happyjoeysmiley at ...> wrote:
...
> 
> Hello,
> 
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> Portraits:
> 
> 
> Fat Lady, ... and all other Hogwarts headmasters are quite 
> aware of what's happening around and live just via
> portraits.
> 
> 
> So, why didn't Harry ever consider getting a portrait of his
> parents or even Sirius? ...
> 

Steve:

Obviously I can't answer with any authority, but I do have some theories. 

First, portraits don't just randomly happen. When Dumdledore's portrait, upon his death, appeared in the Headmaster's office, it is because the portrait was prepared in advance WHILE Dumbledore was still alive. So aspects of his living self has been transferred to the portrait. 

I believe there was some vague assertion in the past that part of the enchantment to give life to a portrait required some of the living tissue of the portrait subject. Say...a drop of blood, as an example.

The central point being, that you can't make a living portrait for a person long dead, or for that matter, even relatively recently dead person. I speculate that a person immediately dead could potentially be cast into a living portrait, but I see that as an extremely slim possibility. 

 
> Happy Smile continues:
> 
> Photographs:
> 
> 
> CoS: Harry is trying to move out of the frame in Lockhart's photograph
> 
> OoTP: Percy walks out of Mr Weasley's family photograph at 
> his office
> 
> DH: DD looks dolefully at Harry and Hemione from his photograph
> in the Life and Lies of DD book
> 
> 
> Flitting in and out of a photograph is one but reflecting current
> emotions of the real-life counter part is another. Does this mean
> that photographs capture more than the picture and are "connected"
> to the real-life counterparts?
> 
> 


Steve:

Here is my theory on this, stated long ago in a similar discussion.

Photograph characters have all the depth of a person in a TV commercial; highly characterized but extremely shallow. We see characters express exaggerated emotions, the stupid husband, for example, is supremely stupid, the airhead housewife is an airhead in the extreme, the cool kids are cool in the extreme. Again, they do give a good impression and do get the meaning of the TV commercial across, but they really have no depth. They are all surface affectations.

However, characters in the Living Portrait have roughly the depth of a character in a movie. If you see a movie about the life of, say, Mark Twain, the movie can portray an extremely convincing sense of the real person. But once again, that doesn't run very deep. The actor only knows history and the script, and perhaps the life's work of the character, but if you probe beyond the script, the actor really has nothing.

So, while the portrayal in a movie can be very extremely convincing, it simply can't hold up to the test of true knowledge. It is not the character, but a portrayal of the character, at times running to a mere caricature of the person. 

The living portrait characters play their roll extremely well, but in the end, they are after all only playing a roll. 

Enchanted Photograph characters are like characters in the TV commercial, they start boarding on being almost cartoonish.

Living Portrait characters are more sophisticated, they are like actors in a play or movie, they create the illusion of the character very well, but they are limited. They can only know and do what is in the "script". 

Beyond the superficial and obvious, JKR has said you can't probe a portrait at depth. You can't really get deep meaningful information or advice from them. If you go too deep, the illusion breaks down.

But, as always, that is merely one man's opinion.

Steve/bboyminn