Talking Photos!

[wilfen07]

Hi people! I would like to ask for a clarification. If ,according to J.K.Rowling, wizards have a choice to move on then Dumbledore would surely have done so. However, it does confuse me pretty much as Harry can still talk to him through his portrait. Also, Snape is instructed throughout Book 7 by Dumbledore's portrait. Of course, the same applies for all the other dead headmasters/headmistresses of Hogwarts and to the innumerous portraits in the wizarding world in general. So my question is even if a person has gone on, how does his/her's portrait continue to converse with people?

[Josh]

I think the portraits are just normal portraits yet are enchanted to have the personality and some knowledge of the person they are. We know this is a tradition at the school, so perhaps Dumbledore wished to continue this. We don't know much about it (e.g. why couldn't Herminone just have made a stick figure of Dumbledore and enchanted it in DH?) so you can make up quite a bit I guess. You could make something like that if you don't have a horcrux your soul is transferred into a portrait etc.


Hope I helped,

Josh

[leahsm2]

I think it's not the actual person, but like, an impression of them that is left behind. It would be like a Muggle portrait, except that it holds elements of the person's personality as well, so they can be conversant, but aren't actually "there", if that makes sense.

[Azhure]

I agree. You also have to remember that there can be moving and talking pictures of living people, too. Remember in CoS where Colin takes a picture of Lockhart and Harry? When Harry sees the picture it is moving - the picture Harry is trying to get out of the photo, whilst the Lockhart is trying to drag him in.

~~Azhure~~

[nysuperstarz]

I think, specifically with Dumbledore's case, he made sure that when he would be in portrait form that he would be able to converse the whole story to Harry in case he died. The portraits basically capture the essence of who the person is and Dumbledore's life history revolved around Harry and Voldemort so I think it would be easy for him to convey things to Harry and Snape.

[wilfen07]

Thank you all for giving me such amazing options. However, it gives rise to another query and Josh this is for you specifically because it was your answer that set me thinking about it. The others are welcome as well since the more thinking caps the better it gets. So the question is, do portraits appear of there own accord or there is some specific cause? The Hogwarts portraits may be enchanted that way but the others are not I suppose. For example, Sirius's great,great grandfather Phinius & his mother had their own portraits in the Black Mansion but after his(Sirius's) demise no such portrait appeared in the Black ancestral home ?

[musicalwitch]

I think that if the witch/wizard had ties with another place like Phineus and Grimmauld Place or the other Headmaster and St Mungos, then people working/living in that place would create a matching portrait in that place.
Because Sirius had no particular ties to his family home (left whilst still at school, hated his family history) nor was anyone living there, he would not be commemorated there.
Hope that helps?

Emma

[Josh]

Thank you all for giving me such amazing options. However, it gives rise to another query and Josh this is for you specifically because it was your answer that set me thinking about it. The others are welcome as well since the more thinking caps the better it gets. So the question is, do portraits appear of there own accord or there is some specific cause? The Hogwarts portraits may be enchanted that way but the others are not I suppose. For example, Sirius's great,great grandfather Phinius & his mother had their own portraits in the Black Mansion but after his(Sirius's) demise no such portrait appeared in the Black ancestral home ?

I think that in magical places such as Hogwarts or St. Mungo's, they may appear automatically. In Sirius's house we know he was blown off the family tree and never properly regarded as a member of the family since he left home at the age of 16, so the magic may have stopped a portrait of him being made. Sorry if that made no sense, but this is what I think may happen: someone who was tied to a certain place with their soul and heart will have a picture placed there by magic if possible. If though, it's a painting to remember someone who was there or say came to the school the painting is drawn and painted etc. and then enchanted in a similar way to the photographs. Perhaps you have to have a small item of them like for the polyjuice potion or maybe an incantation would be enough. Sorry if this contradicts my last post, I just tried to sort of answer your question =]

~Josh

[Nundu]

I think Josh has it just right.

For Sirius to have a portrait at Grimmauld Place a portrait would have to have been commissioned. Wizarding portraits have magic imbued that allow them to have a semblance of the departed person (JKR addressed this in an interviewhttp://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en...view.cfm?id=80). I was a bit puzzled by Dumbledore's complex interaction during DH for this very reason, as JKR had said in the interview that the portrait is a 'distillation' of the person and cannot do more than repeat 'catchphrases'.

I guess it's one of those things she revised as she went along. I'll forgive her...it's her world, after all!

Photos, on the other hand, do not speak. They can repeat over and over the action taking place and attitude of the subject during the time period of the exposure, but they do not talk.

[wilfen07]

Well thank you guys for your replies. Oh! and Nundu thank you for correcting me. Sorry i mixed up photos and portraits. Its actually the portraits that I meant.

Um, Josh don't you think that as the rightful heir of Grimmauld Place, he should at least be entitled to have one? This is purely my imagination though. What do you think?