Portraits of dead wizards?
Kittykat
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Do the portraits of dead wizards really contain something of their
spirits, do they simply resemble them in personality, or is it only a
physical resemblance that takes on its own personality? I guessed
from the way Dumbledore speaks of the portraits of the former
headmasters, and them travelling between those and their other
portraits, that they did actually have some kind of link to the people
portrayed--how does that work when a wizard has "moved on?" For that
matter, what if he hasn't--how would a portrait of Sir Nicholas
behave?
--
KittyKat (Jack V.)
crkrjack at earthling dot net
How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hands...
Richard Eney
Kittykat <kitt...@see.sig> wrote:
><SPOILER SPACE for OotP>
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>Do the portraits of dead wizards really contain something of their
>spirits, do they simply resemble them in personality, or is it only a
>physical resemblance that takes on its own personality? I guessed
>from the way Dumbledore speaks of the portraits of the former
>headmasters, and them travelling between those and their other
>portraits, that they did actually have some kind of link to the people
>portrayed--how does that work when a wizard has "moved on?" For that
>matter, what if he hasn't--how would a portrait of Sir Nicholas
>behave?
The portraits of former headmasters appear to be all wizards and
witches who have moved on. I'm more curious about portraits of living
wizards. Photographs don't seem to be quite the same, nor do wizard cards
seem quite the same as photographs. That is, newspaper photos are silent,
and tend to repeat the same action. They are short term.
Framed photos, as far as we know so far, are also silent and short term,
but I wonder whether they can travel between frames as paintings can.
We know that wizard cards seem to be candid shots of the individuals,
whether the wizards themselves are alive or not - Ron seems to believe
that Dumbledore only appears in his wizard card when he has time.
Given that Dumbledore _seems_ to be making a joke when he says he doesn't
care what the ministry does about orders and awards as long as they don't
rescind his wizard card, I'm going to pay close attention to wizard cards
if they show up in books 6 and 7. That could be a way for a sufficiently
wizard to travel and gain information, too.
We know that photographs only become wizard photographs when they are
developed with a special spell or potion. I speculate that painted
portraits are short term until or unless a long term spell is put on them,
or a wizard decides to inhabit a portrait _instead of_ moving on. It may
be similar to becoming a ghost (but limited to the odd sub-universe of
paintings), or it may be related to the level of spell put on. (Sir
Cadogan doesn't seem like the type to have been a powerful wizard, but
maybe somebody helped him.)
Lockhart had a painting of himself, but since it was a painting of him
painting himself (talk about a self-made man), perhaps it never got the
full and correct long term spell put on. He's still around anyway, so
far, so it wouldn't have taken effect yet. (Unlike wizard cards, which
don't seem to require that you be dead for them to have the "many frames,
one entity" effect.)
=Tamar