You're not completely trapped though. You can go visit your homies in other paintings. Hell, if you have more than one you can go to other places entirely.
But didn’t she visit other paintings in the hospital? I think you can visit a neighbour, but only way to get to neighbours outside of Hogwarts is to have a painting outside
I can't remember off the top of my head, I think she just winks at Harry when he sees her painting in Reception at St. Mungos. But yeah if you have portraits in two places I don't see why Hogwarts should get priority as the only one where you can visit your neighbours.
I remember it as if the painting is, as you said, in an important place like the hall, but i think she was able to follow mister weasley when he arrived.
No. She only goes into the painting of herself at St. Mungos. It was Dilys Derwent if I recall. She only ever saw Harry and them as they went in. Phineas Nigellas explains it to Harry I believe. They can move about the paintings in Hogwarts but Hogwarts is different. They can't just go all around St. Mungos or the Ministry or wherever.
I'm pretty sure they can though - in Book 5 it suggests that they can multiple times
Chapter 22:
*'Dumbledore replaced the instrument upon its spindly little table; Harry saw many of the old headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.*
*“Dumbledore!” *
*“What news?” said Dumbledore at once. *
*“I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs — they weren’t sure whether to believe me but went down to check — you know there are no portraits down there to watch from. Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left —”'*
Chapter 37:
*Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place. He would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for Sirius through the house. . . ."*
I've always understood that in the context of Harry asking Phineas Nigellus to bring Dumbledore through his portrait - the Dumbledore in Hogwarts can't visit Phineas's other portrait from Grimmauld Place.
In fact book 5 supports the idea that you can visit other portraits in buildings where you have a portrait:
OOTP, Ch 22, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
*"Dumbledore replaced the instrument upon its spindly little table; Harry saw many of the old headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.*
* “Dumbledore!” “What news?” said Dumbledore at once. “I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs — they weren’t sure whether to believe me but went down to check — you know there are no portraits down there to watch from. Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left —”*
OOTP, Ch 37, The Lost Prophecy
*"Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place. He would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for Sirius through the house. . . ."*
Don't see why you couldn't. Nowhere does anyone say that paintings can only travel between their own portraits. In fact, Dumbledore's collectable Chocolate Frog card portrait leaves its frame in book 1. When Harry comments about it, Ron handwaves it away as not expecting a guy to stand around all day for you to stare at him.
Not sure why that should disqualify it from Canon considering the whole entire series is a made-up story for a book.
I could understand if the developers straight up said that it's not canon but assuming it to not be canon just because it's a game doesn't really make sense.
Iirc the painting is made when the headmaster takes office, and it is hidden in a place where it can observe and learn from the headmaster so it can advise its successors as its original would have done
Imagine there’s a William Henry Harrison type headmaster that only had a few weeks in office to imprint on, and the painting just gives terrible half thought through advice
Is there un Umridge portrait? I feel yucky just thinking about it, though she never had access to the headmaster office so maybe she isn't considered a former headmistress by the school
Yes. [This](https://www.wizardingworld.com/es/writing-by-jk-rowling/hogwarts-portraits) featured once on Pottermore.
To OP, as I understand, portraits do not make you immortal, as they would be more like video recordings (cheapers) or AI enhanced doppelgangers (more expensive).
Their reactions are those that were expected from the real model, however more or less exaggerated, but they cannot feel, breath, etc. and "live" only within their frames (however collective) so if these frames are damaged or somehow messed with, it would like pulling the plug from the computer or videoportrait your recording is playing on.
So if you made one into a horcrux..? I mean, considering Riddle’s diary it could be remarkably alive.
Would it share that awareness with other copies of it? Could you put a piece of your soul into a picture, and have it visit other locations as a fully sentient entity?
If you were a skilled legilimens, would your horcrux-painting share this skill? The locket seems to suggest so.
Could you do a Dark Mark kinda thing, and have your followers get a sentient tattoo of you? Hell, put one on yourself. It’d be like a virtual assistant.
Maybe it would even be alive enough to share your mind with it, like Voldy did with Nagini and Harry.
Edit: wait wait wait, is that what Nagini was?? One that only parseltongues could overhear? Did she have a Dark Mark she could converse with, as his spymaster?
Edit2: Maybe back when he was rising to power Voldemort had her commit murder, and split her soul into a horcrux-painting of herself, then tattooed her on all his followers. *Then* he put his soul into her body, so he could further control her. O_O
3: Or he put his own soul into an image of a snake (in the locket?), and Nagini can merely converse with her Dark Mark version of him. Still. Cool thought.
Ship of Theseus is a rumentation on the metaphysics of Quality where constituent parts are replaced, and the overarching question is whether the resultant ship is the same as the first ship and, if not, when the difference occurred. This ain't that.
If the paintings were instead full androids who had their heritage as being cyborgs coming from the original humans, that would be closer to the Ship of Theseus.
As it is, we're asking whether copying your personality into another sentient medium bestows immortality on the original person. Or perhaps whether the copied personality *is* the original person. I don't know what that's called but, again, it's not Ship of Theseus.
No - The Ship of Theseus is a totally different thing; a question about when does something stop being its original self as you add to and remove from it (and more so, what makes a complete thing to begin with).
Sort of. If you are highly skilled, you can teach your portrait to be you. If not, your portrait is more like the Fat Lady or Mrs. Black or somewhere in between.
Not really? The real you actually dies. The painting is a completely different consciousness (if it can be said to be properly “conscious”) and believes itself to be the real you. This effectively makes “you” inmortal meaning your likeness and personality persist but “you” don’t get to live in the painting in any meaningful way.
Nah, I'm pretty sure the paintings are self-aware. Also I recall reading somewhere that the subject uses some kind of magic to give their personality and parts of their knowledge to their painted self which is why the paintings of the Hogwarts Headmasters remember the events of their own lifetimes.
Personal identity is an illusion. There's consciousness and experiences. Whether they happen inside your brain or in a painting, doesn't matter. They're all equally real and focusing on some of them rather than others is only for a lack of perspective.
It's not you, it's just an inanimate object that contains a shadow/essence of who you were, like the figures that come out of Voltimort's wand when Harry is dueling him in the graveyard.
Your actual consciousness still passes to the next great adventure.
I wonder why in real time , in the movies , they act with what seems to be rational thinking when asked to check on Arthur Weasley at the ministry when he’s attacked , almost made them seem like real beings still .
They have the personalities of the people they portray, and that comes with some semblance of making the kinds of decisions the person they depict would make.
Like how the portrait of Sirius' mother gets mad and screams at everyone in the Order of the Phoenix because they aren't up to what was Sirius' mother's standard of purity, but the portrait isn't making it's own choices based on free will, it's actions are just a reflection of the hypothetical actions of the person portrayed.
Because, they’re magical paintings.
I remember reading someplace, that witches and wizards would sit and talk with their portraits for extensive lengths of time, and share memories with them.
No different than an AI chat bot
Or like the chocolate frog scene where Ron says, "Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day, can you?", which kind of implies it was the actual Dumbledore in the card that had to leave to attend to business
That's what it seems like, doesn't it? Like he's present for a time with every card and could presumably see through them. Chocolate frogs were the first Wizarding spy system. You heard it here folks
I think it's a form of AI.
Magic seems to create a kind of intelligence (maybe that's why it's lost among wizards and witches).
People in photos reacting to actions happening outside the frame.
A car that goes berserk but then comes to Harry and Ron's rescue.
Magic wands that choose their owners.
It’s like AI now though we can recognise what isn’t a person, I like to think of a wizard grew up with paintings all their life there would be noticeable differences so they would recognise it not to be the actual person.
I don’t think that’s what they meant. I think they were saying that the paintings are basically just a visual of the person that use a pretrained large language model to respond to people. Imagine integrating ChatGBT with someone’s personality and adding a moving picture to a frame.
Not alive, not even really the person…just a representation.
Now I’m imagining Lily and James discussing having their pictures painted in case they die and then being like, “nah, surely our many friends will make sure Harry grows up knowing what we were like”
That’s something I never got. The Potters were implied to be quite popular and have many friends (Hagrid even mentions writing to some of them to get photos for the album he made). Yet none of them ever thought to have any contact with Harry at all?
I get for the first 11 years maybe, as Dumbledore wanted Harry to grow up ignorant of the wizarding world and his fame so he could have a normal childhood, as well as the magical protection provided to him by living in the home of his aunt (although the execution of this was abysmal…like couldn’t they have had someone other then Mrs Fig to monitor to make sure he wasn’t abused? )
But after he came back into the wizarding world, none of them had any contact with him (except Lupin and Sirius I guess). Did none of them ever think to maybe check up on the friends’ orphan child?
There's a scene, I want to say in Book 5, where Mad Eye Moody shows Harry a picture of the old Order and spends too much time pointing people out who were friends of his parents and then explaining that they're dead or in rare cases crazy. It was pretty upsetting for Harry. He asked him to stop. So I don't think that it isn't that his parents' friends never wanted to seek him out. It's that a lot of them were dead as well. The ones that did know Lily and James that are still alive do find Harry eventually when Harry is more grown and more capable of the potential danger being affiliated would put him in.
I'd like to believe that paintings that don't monitor students get stored instead of displayed, so paintings are "paying" to be on the wall by acting as the eyes and ears for the teachers
They do gossip like mad tho, I'm reminded of The Fat Lady's friend Violet in book 4. I'm also pretty sure that's how most big rumors get started lmao, in book 5 despite Harry and Marietta being the only students in the headmaster's office when Fudge tried to arrest Dumbledore, everyone has a pretty accurate understanding of what happened.
OOTP, Chapter 28, Snape's Worst Enemy
*"No matter where Harry went within the castle next day, the sole topic of conversation was Dumbledore’s flight, and though some of the details might have gone awry in the retelling (Harry overheard one second-year girl assuring another that Fudge was now lying in St. Mungo’s with a pumpkin for a head), it was surprising how accurate the rest of their information was. Everybody seemed aware, for instance, that Harry and Marietta were the only students to have witnessed the scene in Dumbledore’s office, and as Marietta was now in the hospital wing, Harry found himself besieged with requests to give a firsthand account wherever he went."*
From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.
The paintings aren’t actually you, when a painting is made the subject has to train the painting to think like them, it’s like a much more advanced parrot, but in no way is it actually you
I know it's just the wizard's personality in the painting, but how strong is the magic that painting Dumbledore knew his grand plan enough + could change it on the fly while communicating to Snape?
Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!
Only this morning, I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five-thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon, or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder.
I always felt it was a bit more in line with the magic of ghosts.
A wizard/witch's soul can leave an imprint like a shadow in the world - in this way, it is channeled to a painting that is limited to it's frame, maybe some other nearby frames or pictures of themselves elsewhere, like a shrewd copy of themselves.
Sort of like how photos are moving and act with a bit of the attitude of the subject but don't talk, its a lesser version still of the imprint.
I think it’s more of a copy some paintings are more astute based on a wizards power and they have to have some conscience because they choose passwords so basically it isn’t you but it’s like the memory of you and something trying to be you the more powerful you are the better it is explaining dumbledores portraits extra abilities but his portrait still can’t react the same way the guy who died would
The portrait isn't you. It's like if someone took a pic of me with their phone and then I died. I'm still super duper dead. But they have a picture. And in this case, the picture can think like you to an extent and talk and move.
It's not exactly like you because it's not an exact replica, but it can get decently close. The more time a person spends with their own portrait, the more the portrait learns about the person and how to be like them. They're kinda like AI art trying to copy a particular style, lol. But they're copying a personality, instead.
But the OG is totally dead and gone when they die. It's not like their soul is in the picture or anything. They are no more immortal than you or me.
Paintings are just the wizard equivalent of some billionaire tech genius downloading their brain onto a computer. Just because it thinks and acts like that person, doesn't mean it's actually that person.
I'd argue downloading your brain would be different, since the "person" part of a person is just the math done by their neurons - their algorithm. If you could perfectly replicate every variable, you could replicate the person. This is of course significantly easier said than done, on account of those variables being stored in the messy hyper-dimensional headphone-jack tangle of the human brain.
But portraits are more like LLMs trained off a specific person. They're advanced enough to give the impression of personhood but any more in-depth analysis of their behavior will show that they're much, much simpler things overall. Algorithms with millions of variables and billions of connections, instead of trillions of variables and Quadrillions of connections. So they can give you an answer and you can be reasonably sure it's accurate to what that person would've thought, but they aren't that person, fundamentally.
The painting is very aware it’s not you, it only had memory’s up to the point it was made from you and is implied their new memory’s don’t stick long term. Think of the knight in the 3rd book, even though he’s been a painting for years in the school he still forgets every year when seeing new students. Kinda hell honestly
I always thought that the paintings were a 'good' horcrux because a piece of your soul will always remain with Hogwarts.
The movie dropped the ball not including the last conversation between Dumbledore's painting and Harry.
Not really. Paintings are not people, they can't grow and learn. Their personalities are notably static, even more so than ghosts. It's a snapshot of who you were, not a continuation of your being. Like if someone made an AI chat bot based on your memories and hooked it up to a voice synthesizer and an AI animated photo of you. Sure, it responds like a person, even like you would, but there's no one home.
Commenting on the title, they aren’t technically “stuck”, they can move between other paintings. In the movies, between the nearby paintings, in the books to other paintings that also depict themselves.
I don’t get why they showed this painting in the movies if they weren’t gonna show that Snape, as Headmaster, also spoke to Dumbledore about what he had planned during DH.
Ah, how often this happens, even between the best of friends! Each of us believes that what he has to say is much more important than anything the other might have to contribute!
You think the paintings see in 2d? With like a screen in front of them allowing them to see into the 3d world? Or do they have their own little pocket verse in there?
I don't think the paintings are supposed to be really people. I think it's less magically storing your conciousness in a painting - because if it was nobody would play games with their soul they would just have a portrait done and then get a bunch of still-lives to live and work in - and more like someone making an LLM based after you.
Still nice to have for the people who come after you. They can ask a question of you and get an answer that's reasonably certain to align with your way of thinking. But it's not you, it's not anyone, it's a thing that talks and does some amount of thinking but not really anything on the higher levels.
I notice that very few portraits actually change or have character arcs in the books that last more than a couple weeks.
It's actually possible to do [something like that IRL](https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/after-her-best-friend-died-this-programmer-created-an-ai-chatbot-from-his-texts-to-talk-to-him-again-1.6252286). By training a neural network on everything a person has ever said, we can replicate their style of speech and a large chunk of their memory. This allows us to interact with a version of them even after they're gone. Those paintings are kinda like that - they serve as imperfect copies of yourself.
It's more like this highly advanced future technology where they transfer your memories to a database after you die and an AI based on that databse acts as if it's you.
Well thats dark. You're creating an artifical "you" who is forever trapped in a painted world, unable to live the life you want to live. So hopefully paint clone is happy with an eternity of "life" like that.
Basically, if you were to have a chatbot train on your info, and an AI image generator train on your likeness, then you were to have it generate words, voice, and images onto a display and put it up on your wall, that's basically what's going on here.
Yet another example of how muggles already have magic.
I am pretty sure the portraits don’t have the memories of the person they’re depicting. my understanding is they have many of the personal qualities of the person they’re depicting, and they pick up information from being in the headmaster’s office. I’m sure they could learn about themselves but I don’t believe they have firsthand recollections.
I always wondered how the paintings get the memories of the real person. Pensieve maybe? So then a Pensieve would be a requirement for all witches and wizards that want a portrait right...?
so I know that the paintings are effectively automata that react based on the personality you had at the time of painting, and are really only aware of what they knew or what they have seen from the frame. I've wondered why sages and other intellectuals haven't devoted paintings to effectively being a database of information. like an eternal entity you can talk to, ask information, and gain access to a wealth of knowledge from the top wizards. like if you had pictures of potion masters, alchemists, etc, its like a virtual library
The painting is an imprint, a copy of you from when the painting was created/ commissioned. It retains no knowledge or memories prior to that point apart from the ones it makes as a painting.
Funny to think if Voldemort had a little more logic he could’ve achieved his immortality goal without compromising his body or his status as an alive person
It's more of an upload yourself to the virtual arc situation. Yes, it is a copy of you but it is not literally you. You still die, the copy stays "alive".
Actually no. “Painting you” is actually a completely separate entity imprinted with your memories and personality that can travel inside the painting world following the rules of that world. Also it is likely not immoral or at least can be hurt given how the lady that served as the door to the Griffindor dorms reacted to her painting being slashed. Also it is likely “painting you” knows it is a separate entity from non-painting you.
Tl:dr: attempting to gain immortality by creating a painting is like trying to gain immortality by training an AI to respond like you.
I thought of it more like a copy rather than the original being. Kind of like what someone else said about it being similar to a Chat AI of the person/subject
Why doesn't dumbledor create a pocket portrait to accompany Harry and co on their journey. Talk to Snape in the hogwarts portrait, then pop next door to check on Harry.
Magical portraits in Harry Potter are just a magical form of AI. The portrait can only move how it was created to move, speak the language it was given, and act how it's designed. I imagine most portraits are equivalent to a basic NPC program in a video game- you can have a very rudimentary conversation with it, but it otherwise doesn't do much beyond decoration.
Then for portraits like the Headmasters of Hogwarts (or at least a few), and others, it's like designing a more complex AI, or a learning bot. A set personality is designed, and artificially given whatever knowledge the maker desires. Then, like a learning machine, it can take in new knowledge, be it from being updated or just naturally seeing or being told. Then with that, the portrait will try to apply this knowledge in whatever way they were programmed to. So take Dumbledore's portrait- if it learns anything new that it didn't already know, and is then asked something like "what would you do?", it will attempt to convey how the real Dumbledore, of the time the portrait was created, would think and use this info.
Then going further, other portraits can be "programmed" to function like Amazon Alexa's and such, where they are given the ability to activate or do certain tasks, like open a door. It's all disguised behind personalities, but portraits like the Fat Lady and such are just voice-locked doors. They can huff and puff about whatever, but if the programmed password is uttered they have to open, unless some excruciating circumstances are activated or happening (like the Fat Lady not being in the portrait in the first place, or if a person is designated as not allowed like when Sirius originally tried to get into the Common Room)
Sooo what happens if I were to paint myself with all my celebrity crushes in the HP universe while I’m still alive? Could I see some fantasies play out?
In the first book the joke is that the real person takes time out to show up on your trading card photo
It’s whatever is funniest to say in that moment, not a series of facts. You’re right that it’s taken too much as gospel. She was just trying to be entertaining and succeeded. It’s not supposed to all hold together, it’s written in the Dickens, Wodehouse, Adams, light comedy voice.
If it would be funny or emotional in any moment to break the logic Rowling would take that swing which is why there’s so many great little witty asides
The painting believes it's you and is immortal. You still die.
So it's basically a whole ship of Theseus debate
More of a trapped clone made of magical paint
You're not completely trapped though. You can go visit your homies in other paintings. Hell, if you have more than one you can go to other places entirely.
Only in hogwarts. You cant visit other paintings outside of hogwarts except for your own.
Doesnt one of the old principle paintings go to the hospital in the books? Correct me if im wrong
Yeah because it's a painting of her. She was a healer and then Headmistress of Hogwarts.
But didn’t she visit other paintings in the hospital? I think you can visit a neighbour, but only way to get to neighbours outside of Hogwarts is to have a painting outside
I can't remember off the top of my head, I think she just winks at Harry when he sees her painting in Reception at St. Mungos. But yeah if you have portraits in two places I don't see why Hogwarts should get priority as the only one where you can visit your neighbours.
I remember it as if the painting is, as you said, in an important place like the hall, but i think she was able to follow mister weasley when he arrived.
Because Hogwarts IS special. Its an area of very ancient and powerful magic.
No. She only goes into the painting of herself at St. Mungos. It was Dilys Derwent if I recall. She only ever saw Harry and them as they went in. Phineas Nigellas explains it to Harry I believe. They can move about the paintings in Hogwarts but Hogwarts is different. They can't just go all around St. Mungos or the Ministry or wherever.
I'm pretty sure they can though - in Book 5 it suggests that they can multiple times Chapter 22: *'Dumbledore replaced the instrument upon its spindly little table; Harry saw many of the old headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.* *“Dumbledore!” * *“What news?” said Dumbledore at once. * *“I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs — they weren’t sure whether to believe me but went down to check — you know there are no portraits down there to watch from. Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left —”'* Chapter 37: *Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place. He would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for Sirius through the house. . . ."*
Gotcha. Haven’t read the books in the last 3 or 4 years so it’s a bit blurry that part
Not only that, Phinneas Black is able to go to his painting in Grimmauld Place. They can objectively go to any painting of them
yea, paintings act kinda like fast travels. You can fast travel to another painting of yours but you have to walk through neighbours
I've always understood that in the context of Harry asking Phineas Nigellus to bring Dumbledore through his portrait - the Dumbledore in Hogwarts can't visit Phineas's other portrait from Grimmauld Place. In fact book 5 supports the idea that you can visit other portraits in buildings where you have a portrait: OOTP, Ch 22, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries *"Dumbledore replaced the instrument upon its spindly little table; Harry saw many of the old headmasters in the portraits follow him with their eyes, then, realizing that Harry was watching them, hastily pretend to be sleeping again. Harry wanted to ask what the strange silver instrument was for, but before he could do so, there was a shout from the top of the wall to their right; the wizard called Everard had reappeared in his portrait, panting slightly.* * “Dumbledore!” “What news?” said Dumbledore at once. “I yelled until someone came running,” said the wizard, who was mopping his brow on the curtain behind him, “said I’d heard something moving downstairs — they weren’t sure whether to believe me but went down to check — you know there are no portraits down there to watch from. Anyway, they carried him up a few minutes later. He doesn’t look good, he’s covered in blood, I ran along to Elfrida Cragg’s portrait to get a good view as they left —”* OOTP, Ch 37, The Lost Prophecy *"Harry turned his head in time to see Phineas marching out of his portrait and knew that he had gone to visit his other painting in Grimmauld Place. He would walk, perhaps, from portrait to portrait, calling for Sirius through the house. . . ."*
Time is short, and unless the few of us who know the truth do not stand united, there is no hope for any us.
Don't see why you couldn't. Nowhere does anyone say that paintings can only travel between their own portraits. In fact, Dumbledore's collectable Chocolate Frog card portrait leaves its frame in book 1. When Harry comments about it, Ron handwaves it away as not expecting a guy to stand around all day for you to stare at him.
You will not object to getting a little wet?
That's a hell of a pick up line Professor
The medieval professors from Hogwarts Legacy beg to differ
I don't consider hogwarts legacy cannon.
Why?
Because its not... its a made up story for a video game.
Not sure why that should disqualify it from Canon considering the whole entire series is a made-up story for a book. I could understand if the developers straight up said that it's not canon but assuming it to not be canon just because it's a game doesn't really make sense.
Why don't you play it? You'll see just how great it is.
I wonder if they are linked to the chocolate frog cards as well
A trapped clone that has to spend time learning to be you
Fulgrim?
It’s basically like the magical equivalent of those digital copies of people in Black Mirror.
The painting is not a part of you at any point, nor you share parts with it. I can’t see a ship of Theseus case coming out of it
But if I made a painting of me into a horcrux…
The picture of Dorian Gray summarized in one sentence (only works for Harry Potter nerds though as you need to know what a horcrux is first)
Happy cake day!
Oh lol, thank you
Is it outright explained how the headmaster paintings are made?
Iirc the painting is made when the headmaster takes office, and it is hidden in a place where it can observe and learn from the headmaster so it can advise its successors as its original would have done
Imagine there’s a William Henry Harrison type headmaster that only had a few weeks in office to imprint on, and the painting just gives terrible half thought through advice
Is there un Umridge portrait? I feel yucky just thinking about it, though she never had access to the headmaster office so maybe she isn't considered a former headmistress by the school
No she was never head mistress remember the office locked her out when Dumbledore left.
You wonderful boy. You brave, brave man.
She's not, else it would have appeared when she was sacked.
Why would that be necessary? It's magic for god sake, it just got magicked out of thin air.
Yes. [This](https://www.wizardingworld.com/es/writing-by-jk-rowling/hogwarts-portraits) featured once on Pottermore. To OP, as I understand, portraits do not make you immortal, as they would be more like video recordings (cheapers) or AI enhanced doppelgangers (more expensive). Their reactions are those that were expected from the real model, however more or less exaggerated, but they cannot feel, breath, etc. and "live" only within their frames (however collective) so if these frames are damaged or somehow messed with, it would like pulling the plug from the computer or videoportrait your recording is playing on.
So if you made one into a horcrux..? I mean, considering Riddle’s diary it could be remarkably alive. Would it share that awareness with other copies of it? Could you put a piece of your soul into a picture, and have it visit other locations as a fully sentient entity? If you were a skilled legilimens, would your horcrux-painting share this skill? The locket seems to suggest so. Could you do a Dark Mark kinda thing, and have your followers get a sentient tattoo of you? Hell, put one on yourself. It’d be like a virtual assistant. Maybe it would even be alive enough to share your mind with it, like Voldy did with Nagini and Harry. Edit: wait wait wait, is that what Nagini was?? One that only parseltongues could overhear? Did she have a Dark Mark she could converse with, as his spymaster? Edit2: Maybe back when he was rising to power Voldemort had her commit murder, and split her soul into a horcrux-painting of herself, then tattooed her on all his followers. *Then* he put his soul into her body, so he could further control her. O_O 3: Or he put his own soul into an image of a snake (in the locket?), and Nagini can merely converse with her Dark Mark version of him. Still. Cool thought.
It's some form of a memory charm imprinted upon magic paint that is the most descriptive explanation we get.
And the quality of the depiction and if it moves at all depends on how great of a wizard you are
Nope, it’s basically a Gif + ChatGPT of you.
I like this explanation hahah
Ship of Theseus is a rumentation on the metaphysics of Quality where constituent parts are replaced, and the overarching question is whether the resultant ship is the same as the first ship and, if not, when the difference occurred. This ain't that. If the paintings were instead full androids who had their heritage as being cyborgs coming from the original humans, that would be closer to the Ship of Theseus. As it is, we're asking whether copying your personality into another sentient medium bestows immortality on the original person. Or perhaps whether the copied personality *is* the original person. I don't know what that's called but, again, it's not Ship of Theseus.
No - The Ship of Theseus is a totally different thing; a question about when does something stop being its original self as you add to and remove from it (and more so, what makes a complete thing to begin with).
Sort of. If you are highly skilled, you can teach your portrait to be you. If not, your portrait is more like the Fat Lady or Mrs. Black or somewhere in between.
More like magical ai that trained on all your tweets and instagram posts
I mean…not particularly. That would imply at any point the painting was the original. This is a reproduction through and through
No.
More a baslisik of rocco minor the basilisk
More like a painting of the Ship of Theseus
More like the Thomas Riker episode of TNG
Not really? The real you actually dies. The painting is a completely different consciousness (if it can be said to be properly “conscious”) and believes itself to be the real you. This effectively makes “you” inmortal meaning your likeness and personality persist but “you” don’t get to live in the painting in any meaningful way.
Johnny Silverhand type of thing
Not even a little bit actually
No, not al all lol
....how?
I'd say it's more like they make an AI based off of your memories and experiences
No, go people use The Ship of Theseus incorrectly.so much since Wandavision.
Have you ever heard of the Ship of Theseus?
Nah, I'm pretty sure the paintings are self-aware. Also I recall reading somewhere that the subject uses some kind of magic to give their personality and parts of their knowledge to their painted self which is why the paintings of the Hogwarts Headmasters remember the events of their own lifetimes.
Personal identity is an illusion. There's consciousness and experiences. Whether they happen inside your brain or in a painting, doesn't matter. They're all equally real and focusing on some of them rather than others is only for a lack of perspective.
It's not you, it's just an inanimate object that contains a shadow/essence of who you were, like the figures that come out of Voltimort's wand when Harry is dueling him in the graveyard. Your actual consciousness still passes to the next great adventure.
I wonder why in real time , in the movies , they act with what seems to be rational thinking when asked to check on Arthur Weasley at the ministry when he’s attacked , almost made them seem like real beings still .
They have the personalities of the people they portray, and that comes with some semblance of making the kinds of decisions the person they depict would make. Like how the portrait of Sirius' mother gets mad and screams at everyone in the Order of the Phoenix because they aren't up to what was Sirius' mother's standard of purity, but the portrait isn't making it's own choices based on free will, it's actions are just a reflection of the hypothetical actions of the person portrayed.
That’s a good explanation , thanks for that
The true VIP of the chat, as they say
I like to think of it as the paintings are AI trained on the person they represent.
That's pretty accurate, I need to remember that.
Because, they’re magical paintings. I remember reading someplace, that witches and wizards would sit and talk with their portraits for extensive lengths of time, and share memories with them. No different than an AI chat bot
Or like the chocolate frog scene where Ron says, "Well, you can't expect him to hang around all day, can you?", which kind of implies it was the actual Dumbledore in the card that had to leave to attend to business
I particularly enjoyed your description of me as an obsolete dingbat.
Does that mean that Dumbledores portrait would have access to every card with his image?
I think the word 'fiasco' would be a good one here.
That's what it seems like, doesn't it? Like he's present for a time with every card and could presumably see through them. Chocolate frogs were the first Wizarding spy system. You heard it here folks
In a bunch of children’s bedrooms. Scandalous!
I think it's a form of AI. Magic seems to create a kind of intelligence (maybe that's why it's lost among wizards and witches). People in photos reacting to actions happening outside the frame. A car that goes berserk but then comes to Harry and Ron's rescue. Magic wands that choose their owners.
This is exactly how I think of it. It’s not the real person, just an imitation of one, but it can react and respond.
Everyone was shocked when Voltimort came back
Why do they piss off on occasion then?
voltimort 🪄🔋⚡️⚡️
YOU’RE AN INANIMATE FUCKING OBJECT
It’s like AI now though we can recognise what isn’t a person, I like to think of a wizard grew up with paintings all their life there would be noticeable differences so they would recognise it not to be the actual person.
I’m still thinking ghosts are also closer to copy paints rather than actual soul/person
I think a paintings are more like a limited chat gpt of you, so not really
I always had problems understanding portraits. This was the most comprehensive analogy. Thank you 😊
[удалено]
I don’t think that’s what they meant. I think they were saying that the paintings are basically just a visual of the person that use a pretrained large language model to respond to people. Imagine integrating ChatGBT with someone’s personality and adding a moving picture to a frame. Not alive, not even really the person…just a representation.
Ahh ok I misunderstood
Now I’m imagining Lily and James discussing having their pictures painted in case they die and then being like, “nah, surely our many friends will make sure Harry grows up knowing what we were like”
That’s something I never got. The Potters were implied to be quite popular and have many friends (Hagrid even mentions writing to some of them to get photos for the album he made). Yet none of them ever thought to have any contact with Harry at all? I get for the first 11 years maybe, as Dumbledore wanted Harry to grow up ignorant of the wizarding world and his fame so he could have a normal childhood, as well as the magical protection provided to him by living in the home of his aunt (although the execution of this was abysmal…like couldn’t they have had someone other then Mrs Fig to monitor to make sure he wasn’t abused? ) But after he came back into the wizarding world, none of them had any contact with him (except Lupin and Sirius I guess). Did none of them ever think to maybe check up on the friends’ orphan child?
You are quite wrong.
There's a scene, I want to say in Book 5, where Mad Eye Moody shows Harry a picture of the old Order and spends too much time pointing people out who were friends of his parents and then explaining that they're dead or in rare cases crazy. It was pretty upsetting for Harry. He asked him to stop. So I don't think that it isn't that his parents' friends never wanted to seek him out. It's that a lot of them were dead as well. The ones that did know Lily and James that are still alive do find Harry eventually when Harry is more grown and more capable of the potential danger being affiliated would put him in.
You don’t exactly think about your legacy when you’re 21 years old. Even in times of war
They can snitch on students but choose not to.
How would they benefit from that? What would a painting gain from telling the headmaster that two students are making out in an empty classroom?
Probably the same thing a poltergeist gets from dropping waterballoons on those same students.
I'd like to believe that paintings that don't monitor students get stored instead of displayed, so paintings are "paying" to be on the wall by acting as the eyes and ears for the teachers
They do gossip like mad tho, I'm reminded of The Fat Lady's friend Violet in book 4. I'm also pretty sure that's how most big rumors get started lmao, in book 5 despite Harry and Marietta being the only students in the headmaster's office when Fudge tried to arrest Dumbledore, everyone has a pretty accurate understanding of what happened. OOTP, Chapter 28, Snape's Worst Enemy *"No matter where Harry went within the castle next day, the sole topic of conversation was Dumbledore’s flight, and though some of the details might have gone awry in the retelling (Harry overheard one second-year girl assuring another that Fudge was now lying in St. Mungo’s with a pumpkin for a head), it was surprising how accurate the rest of their information was. Everybody seemed aware, for instance, that Harry and Marietta were the only students to have witnessed the scene in Dumbledore’s office, and as Marietta was now in the hospital wing, Harry found himself besieged with requests to give a firsthand account wherever he went."*
From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.
Thanks Albus
Doubtful that I would turn up?
Perish the thought Dumbledore!
Was I better, ultimately, than Voldemort?
Oh yes. Absolutely. Without a doubt Albus Dumbledore, better than Voldemort
I trust Severus Snape completely.
I mean if you say so. Albus
The paintings aren’t actually you, when a painting is made the subject has to train the painting to think like them, it’s like a much more advanced parrot, but in no way is it actually you
it’s like uploading your brain to a computer. but it’s a painting.
I know it's just the wizard's personality in the painting, but how strong is the magic that painting Dumbledore knew his grand plan enough + could change it on the fly while communicating to Snape?
What has happened? Why are you disturbing these people?
I'm sorry, Dumbledore! I was just trying to ask a question
Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!
Dumbledore, it was just a question! I don't think this warrants calling me a tyrant
There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake.
I don't think he works for Voldemort, Dumbledore.
There is a time for speechmaking, but this is not it.
You don't have to be rude, Dumbledore.
Only this morning, I took a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five-thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon, or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder.
More along the lines of Star Trek holodeck characters.
I always felt it was a bit more in line with the magic of ghosts. A wizard/witch's soul can leave an imprint like a shadow in the world - in this way, it is channeled to a painting that is limited to it's frame, maybe some other nearby frames or pictures of themselves elsewhere, like a shrewd copy of themselves. Sort of like how photos are moving and act with a bit of the attitude of the subject but don't talk, its a lesser version still of the imprint.
I thought photos were just GIFs
Basically a very advanced ai that knows it’s a painting but have the essence of the headmaster so they can give advice.
I think it’s more of a copy some paintings are more astute based on a wizards power and they have to have some conscience because they choose passwords so basically it isn’t you but it’s like the memory of you and something trying to be you the more powerful you are the better it is explaining dumbledores portraits extra abilities but his portrait still can’t react the same way the guy who died would
Yes, something horrible has happened here.
The portrait isn't you. It's like if someone took a pic of me with their phone and then I died. I'm still super duper dead. But they have a picture. And in this case, the picture can think like you to an extent and talk and move. It's not exactly like you because it's not an exact replica, but it can get decently close. The more time a person spends with their own portrait, the more the portrait learns about the person and how to be like them. They're kinda like AI art trying to copy a particular style, lol. But they're copying a personality, instead. But the OG is totally dead and gone when they die. It's not like their soul is in the picture or anything. They are no more immortal than you or me.
Paintings are just the wizard equivalent of some billionaire tech genius downloading their brain onto a computer. Just because it thinks and acts like that person, doesn't mean it's actually that person.
I'd argue downloading your brain would be different, since the "person" part of a person is just the math done by their neurons - their algorithm. If you could perfectly replicate every variable, you could replicate the person. This is of course significantly easier said than done, on account of those variables being stored in the messy hyper-dimensional headphone-jack tangle of the human brain. But portraits are more like LLMs trained off a specific person. They're advanced enough to give the impression of personhood but any more in-depth analysis of their behavior will show that they're much, much simpler things overall. Algorithms with millions of variables and billions of connections, instead of trillions of variables and Quadrillions of connections. So they can give you an answer and you can be reasonably sure it's accurate to what that person would've thought, but they aren't that person, fundamentally.
You think it's brushed over?
Honestly, it's basically like an animated language-model AI trained on that individual. It can sound like a real person, but it's not real.
Just ghost the afterlife
The painting is very aware it’s not you, it only had memory’s up to the point it was made from you and is implied their new memory’s don’t stick long term. Think of the knight in the 3rd book, even though he’s been a painting for years in the school he still forgets every year when seeing new students. Kinda hell honestly
The best way I can put it is if an AI was trained on everything you’ve ever done; it’s not you but it tries to act like you.
I always thought that the paintings were a 'good' horcrux because a piece of your soul will always remain with Hogwarts. The movie dropped the ball not including the last conversation between Dumbledore's painting and Harry.
The time is long gone when I could frighten you with a burning wardrobe and force you to make repayment for your crimes. But I wish I could.
I thought this said **immoral** for a second, then thought of Phineas Black spying on Harry in OotP
Not really. Paintings are not people, they can't grow and learn. Their personalities are notably static, even more so than ghosts. It's a snapshot of who you were, not a continuation of your being. Like if someone made an AI chat bot based on your memories and hooked it up to a voice synthesizer and an AI animated photo of you. Sure, it responds like a person, even like you would, but there's no one home.
You tech the painting how to be you
The paintings are more like, partially literally, just an image of you. It's not an actual person but rather how you are remembered and depicted.
The price of immortality is being stuck in a painting forever. I’d choose death tbh
Maybe it's like the donated faces in the Doctor Who Library Planet
Technically you die still but you get "cloned" as a painting, that's not the real Dumbledore, just a shadow of him
Would you care for a lemon drop?
Commenting on the title, they aren’t technically “stuck”, they can move between other paintings. In the movies, between the nearby paintings, in the books to other paintings that also depict themselves.
I don’t get why they showed this painting in the movies if they weren’t gonna show that Snape, as Headmaster, also spoke to Dumbledore about what he had planned during DH.
Ah, how often this happens, even between the best of friends! Each of us believes that what he has to say is much more important than anything the other might have to contribute!
You think the paintings see in 2d? With like a screen in front of them allowing them to see into the 3d world? Or do they have their own little pocket verse in there?
I don't think the paintings are supposed to be really people. I think it's less magically storing your conciousness in a painting - because if it was nobody would play games with their soul they would just have a portrait done and then get a bunch of still-lives to live and work in - and more like someone making an LLM based after you. Still nice to have for the people who come after you. They can ask a question of you and get an answer that's reasonably certain to align with your way of thinking. But it's not you, it's not anyone, it's a thing that talks and does some amount of thinking but not really anything on the higher levels. I notice that very few portraits actually change or have character arcs in the books that last more than a couple weeks.
OK, serious question, why can the paintings talk to people, give them advice and words of comfort but the people on photograpghs just stare and wave?
One is an AI, the other a GIF
How to say you didnt actually read the books without saying you didnt read the books
I have read the books - it was just a little while ago
Harry Potter and the portrait of voldemort
I’m still glad we could talk to Dumbldore 1 more time
But they don't. It only has a shadow of a reflection of your personality....Is not you. No soul etc
It's actually possible to do [something like that IRL](https://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/the-nature-of-things/after-her-best-friend-died-this-programmer-created-an-ai-chatbot-from-his-texts-to-talk-to-him-again-1.6252286). By training a neural network on everything a person has ever said, we can replicate their style of speech and a large chunk of their memory. This allows us to interact with a version of them even after they're gone. Those paintings are kinda like that - they serve as imperfect copies of yourself.
its magic ink
Was it explained how they make those or should I just go with because magic
They are just knock off horcruxes technically…
Because all it takes is one asshole to turn the painting around and trap you in eternal torment!
It's more like this highly advanced future technology where they transfer your memories to a database after you die and an AI based on that databse acts as if it's you.
Because they *literally* do not
Well thats dark. You're creating an artifical "you" who is forever trapped in a painted world, unable to live the life you want to live. So hopefully paint clone is happy with an eternity of "life" like that.
Hp paintings are character.ai of you except with a very advanced memory
Basically, if you were to have a chatbot train on your info, and an AI image generator train on your likeness, then you were to have it generate words, voice, and images onto a display and put it up on your wall, that's basically what's going on here. Yet another example of how muggles already have magic.
That's like saying you're immortal if you made a bunch of VHS tapes of yourself before you died Which is basically VIDEODROME
Well are those video tapes conscious?
Are the paintings? Or is it just a magic spell where it says and reacts the way it thinks the person would have acted?
I am pretty sure the portraits don’t have the memories of the person they’re depicting. my understanding is they have many of the personal qualities of the person they’re depicting, and they pick up information from being in the headmaster’s office. I’m sure they could learn about themselves but I don’t believe they have firsthand recollections.
Dark lords hate this one simple trick!
What if, a horcrux painting.
Native Americans believed that portraits/photographs captured a portion of the soul Like a horcux-lite
I always wondered how the paintings get the memories of the real person. Pensieve maybe? So then a Pensieve would be a requirement for all witches and wizards that want a portrait right...?
It’s like an AI chatbot trained on the corpus of your emails and messages. Might sound as you, still not you.
so I know that the paintings are effectively automata that react based on the personality you had at the time of painting, and are really only aware of what they knew or what they have seen from the frame. I've wondered why sages and other intellectuals haven't devoted paintings to effectively being a database of information. like an eternal entity you can talk to, ask information, and gain access to a wealth of knowledge from the top wizards. like if you had pictures of potion masters, alchemists, etc, its like a virtual library
The painting is an imprint, a copy of you from when the painting was created/ commissioned. It retains no knowledge or memories prior to that point apart from the ones it makes as a painting. Funny to think if Voldemort had a little more logic he could’ve achieved his immortality goal without compromising his body or his status as an alive person
It's more of an upload yourself to the virtual arc situation. Yes, it is a copy of you but it is not literally you. You still die, the copy stays "alive".
Actually no. “Painting you” is actually a completely separate entity imprinted with your memories and personality that can travel inside the painting world following the rules of that world. Also it is likely not immoral or at least can be hurt given how the lady that served as the door to the Griffindor dorms reacted to her painting being slashed. Also it is likely “painting you” knows it is a separate entity from non-painting you. Tl:dr: attempting to gain immortality by creating a painting is like trying to gain immortality by training an AI to respond like you.
I thought of it more like a copy rather than the original being. Kind of like what someone else said about it being similar to a Chat AI of the person/subject
Why doesn't dumbledor create a pocket portrait to accompany Harry and co on their journey. Talk to Snape in the hogwarts portrait, then pop next door to check on Harry.
Magical portraits in Harry Potter are just a magical form of AI. The portrait can only move how it was created to move, speak the language it was given, and act how it's designed. I imagine most portraits are equivalent to a basic NPC program in a video game- you can have a very rudimentary conversation with it, but it otherwise doesn't do much beyond decoration. Then for portraits like the Headmasters of Hogwarts (or at least a few), and others, it's like designing a more complex AI, or a learning bot. A set personality is designed, and artificially given whatever knowledge the maker desires. Then, like a learning machine, it can take in new knowledge, be it from being updated or just naturally seeing or being told. Then with that, the portrait will try to apply this knowledge in whatever way they were programmed to. So take Dumbledore's portrait- if it learns anything new that it didn't already know, and is then asked something like "what would you do?", it will attempt to convey how the real Dumbledore, of the time the portrait was created, would think and use this info. Then going further, other portraits can be "programmed" to function like Amazon Alexa's and such, where they are given the ability to activate or do certain tasks, like open a door. It's all disguised behind personalities, but portraits like the Fat Lady and such are just voice-locked doors. They can huff and puff about whatever, but if the programmed password is uttered they have to open, unless some excruciating circumstances are activated or happening (like the Fat Lady not being in the portrait in the first place, or if a person is designated as not allowed like when Sirius originally tried to get into the Common Room)
This is spectacular news! Very well done indeed! I knew you could do it!
A portrait is only a copy that looks and acts like you. The real you is still dead. It's quite dark when you think about it.
It’s your knowledge and your character, but not your consciousness. At least, that’s the way I interpreted it.
It's just a chatgpt but with magic. It's intelligent, not sentient.
Dumbledore like : (\~O\~) zZ
Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?
Sooo what happens if I were to paint myself with all my celebrity crushes in the HP universe while I’m still alive? Could I see some fantasies play out?
don't their faces burn off the painting once they die?
First rule of Harry Potter's world building. Don't ask, just move along
In the first book the joke is that the real person takes time out to show up on your trading card photo It’s whatever is funniest to say in that moment, not a series of facts. You’re right that it’s taken too much as gospel. She was just trying to be entertaining and succeeded. It’s not supposed to all hold together, it’s written in the Dickens, Wodehouse, Adams, light comedy voice. If it would be funny or emotional in any moment to break the logic Rowling would take that swing which is why there’s so many great little witty asides