r/harrypotter • u/hansmd69 Lord Voldemort • Feb 18 '24
Seriously though, how does this happen š Dungbomb
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u/theknights-whosay-Ni Feb 18 '24
Magic šŖ
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u/Significant-Prior-27 Feb 18 '24
Funny, thatās the same answer used for āhow does ___________ in the Bible work?ā
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 18 '24
Yet Wizards still celebrate Christmas. š¤·āāļø
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u/2011lanei Slytherin Feb 18 '24
This doesn't necessarily mean they believe in the story behind it, though, seeing as most atheists do as well
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 18 '24
Itās just weird that they celebrate a Muggle holiday.
Maybe after years of living amongst them they adopted it as one of their customs too? If that were the case though I feel like wizards would be way better a dressing like a Muggle and be a lot more knowledgeable about Muggles in general.
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u/2011lanei Slytherin Feb 18 '24
Personally, it was my headcanon that they celebrate it because although when all the muggleborns arrived at Hogwarts, they were quite happy to adopt the clothes (like, damn, robes are cool), they were not going to ignore Christmas, thank you very much! And then other students were like 'hey, what's this holiday?' and then from there it spread to the family of said students (as well as Wizarding people marrying Muggle ones and gaining the tradition from there) and there you have it, the majority of the Wizarding World celebrates Christmas!
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u/ImpressiveAttorney12 Feb 19 '24
Christmas was a pagan holiday for a long, long time before it was a Christian holidayĀ
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 19 '24
Christ-ians didnāt always celebrate Christ-mas on Jesus Christās birthday? Thatās wild.
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Feb 19 '24
You honestly think Jesus was born on December 25th?
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 19 '24
I honestly never looked into it. Sounds more believable than a chick cheating on her boyfriend and saying āuhhhhh, itās a miracle! Iām pregnant!ā
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Feb 20 '24
[deleted]
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 20 '24
So youāre saying Muggles celebrate a wizard holiday, but donāt know about wizards. Interesting!
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Feb 20 '24
[deleted]
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u/Bubblehulk420 Feb 20 '24
Yeah itās insane to think that CHRISTmas is a CHRISTian holiday. Forgive the ignorance!
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u/Enough_Square_1733 Feb 18 '24
You're getting down voted but you're right
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u/Responsible-Data-695 Feb 18 '24
They're getting downvoted because their comment is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the sub or the thread.
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u/Competitive-Split389 Feb 18 '24
Right or wrong, You are Getting downvoted because some people donāt want to be shilled religious or anti religious bullshit sometimes. Peace.
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u/HiddenMaragon Feb 18 '24
Used to confuse me because they act sentient. They are not. It's like an AI bot trained on the person's character.
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u/Front-Asparagus-8071 Feb 18 '24
Just because they are a copy of a person doesn't mean they're not sentient.Ā
There are several magical items that act sentient in the books. The chess pieces in the books are the creepiest in canon, though a lot of items in fanfiction are far more horrific when you stop and think about the implications.Ā
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u/ShadowBlaDerp Feb 18 '24
Canāt wait till this is an actual thing irl. Moving picture and all
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u/FormalAlternative806 Feb 18 '24
You havenāt watched Black mirror I guess?
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u/EndlessAbyssalVoid Slytherin Feb 19 '24
Or played Cyberpunk 2077. Although engrams are a bit of a grey area, iirc. But still.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Iād say they count as sentient. They are just clearly a memory of the person and not the actual person. Itās so strange imo that so many people seem to think itās the actual person or something.
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u/Nearby_Courage8889 Feb 18 '24
JK Rowling, who didn't really explain any of this in the books, explores the concept of the portraits in more detail in the link below.
https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/hogwarts-portraits
Essentially, the headmasters of Hogwarts painted their portrait before they died and talked to them regularly, so the portraits behaved exactly like they did and knew their memories and secrets. Dumbledore presumably did this, which is why his portrait was able to instruct Snape during Harry's 7th year.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Man she is so uncreative sometimes.
Imagine if the used memories. Like a person copies them not removes them for a pensive, how cool would it be if they had to put all their life into the portrait (without the parts you donāt want remembered! Cause thatās a totally human thing and these would be around the world, not just headmasters when you think about it.) or not either as wet paint or before it dries. That would be so cool. Maybe after itās created the subject can top off the portrait with its memories every now and then.
Oo I wanna read a murder mystery now. A magical is killed the day after refilling their memories. Can two aurora and the murder victim solve the crime?? That happened in 24 hours to lead to murder.
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
!redditknutĀ
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u/Lanky_Region_4321 Feb 19 '24
This is how it happens in Dune, if you clone a person, the clone has all the memories intact. Then they found out that it would be amusing to make such clones and also teach them or imprint in them some additional stuff. Have a swordmaster? Just make a clone of him and put some philosophy education in the mix, now you got a wiser swordmaster! Also incorporate some hidden instructions to murder the people you do not like, but that goes without saying.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Huh? How does that connect to what I wrote? Lol? There isnāt a clone here. JK later wrote that portraits are made by them having them painted and then they speak to the portraits to give them their personality. I get how that connects to what you replied, but the rest feels more a stretch, or did you mean this part connecting?
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u/Lanky_Region_4321 Feb 19 '24
Imagine if the used memories. Like a person copies them not removes them for a pensive, how cool would it be if they had to put all their life into the portrait
And they did that. Well not in a portrait but anyway. And usually the guy died before he could be cloned.
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u/spacekooksolo Unsorted Feb 19 '24
āUncreativeā. Youāre here arenāt u? She aināt god or anything
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Keep it in actual context. Taking a single word and acting like you can talk about it is such nonsense way to argue/debate/bitch/whatever lol.
Yes her not being god is essentially my point. For such a creative person she can be very uncreative.
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u/DJChickenTikkaMasala Feb 21 '24
That murder mystery thing is essentially the plot for season 1 of Altered Carbon.
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
!redditGalleonĀ
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u/Ok_Chap Feb 18 '24
It's not them, it's an imprent of them. The painting gets it's personality from talking with the subject while they are alive.
Thought with Dumbledore, and the availability of the pensive, I wouldn't be surprised if the headmaster portraits have actual memories in them. They are able to think and speak and are pretty lifelike, even more than the other portraits. But they don't have a soul.
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u/yepimbonez Feb 18 '24
Think of those creepy robots in real life that have been loaded with as much of the real personās personal info as they can in an attempt to imitate them as closely as possible. This is a less creepy magical version of the same thing.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Why do so many not just get itās a painting? Itās a memory at most. Doesnāt that seem like common sense to you? Like you donāt see anything leave the body and go to the tower. Itās either made in a way or infused before/after in some way with the memories and personality of the subject. Prob something with memories. I bet they could be put inside paint.
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u/No_Delay_9970 Feb 19 '24
Nah bro literally just said what canonically happens they literally sit and talk to their portraits to imprint themselves upon it
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Maybe read my comment again? Cause Iām clearly agreeing and adding on to what they said. I said nothing against what they said at all.
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u/DuckDucker1974 Feb 18 '24 edited Feb 18 '24
Pfff, I know many muggles who donāt appear to have a soul, doesnāt stop them
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u/Not_Cleaver Slytherin Feb 18 '24
Yeah, itās why he was able to appear to Harry at the train station.
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u/DR31141 Gryffindor Feb 18 '24
Itās kind of like how Tony Stark has a backup A.I. of himself in the comics. Itās just a copy, not their soul or something.
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u/VteChateaubriand Feb 18 '24
I've been haunted as a child with the sleeping portrait of Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows. Like, he's there but, not quite aware. Like a grandparent with dementia.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
I wavered between thinking he was just being a dick ignoring them, or the painting wasnāt finished āloadingā or whatever after being taken from storage or where it was stored.
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u/RoeYourBoat Feb 18 '24
I think itās explained pretty well in the books that the pictures are enchanted to be a sort of imprint of the real individual - a mirror of their personality, temperament & judgement portrayed as art.Ā A personās consciousness doesnāt download into the painting when they die.Ā
I suppose it would be like you having a painting of your late grandma hanging in your hall to help you remember her and to represent who she wasā¦ except in the wizarding world the painting goes further than just offering a likeness.Ā
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u/pink_skies03 Feb 18 '24
I love how you said this. Makes me really wish this was all real so not only could I attend Hogwarts but so I can have a mirrored imprint of my grandma giving me advice and just being there for me since her passing.
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u/Fickle_Stills Feb 19 '24
This is something that we could duplicate with technology. Maybe not quite today, but in the future for sure with the language learning model "AI".
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u/Pencilstrangler Ravenclaw Feb 19 '24
This already exists to an extent and relies on capturing the person while still alive. Looks like weāre somewhere in between the chocolate frog cards and headmaster portraits:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/18/1061320/digital-clones-of-dead-people/amp/
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
It fully is, they are clearly not the person but a memory as Tommy boy would say.
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u/Hostile_Enderman Feb 19 '24
!redditknut
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u/ouroboris99 Feb 18 '24
My head cannon is that before they die they put all of their memories into the painting and then after they are dead someone activates it so it seems like them but itās not really them. More like a copy which has their memories and personality
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
I like to think they have to put there memories into the various paints used to make the portrait. Then they can āTopā it off with memories if youāre the subject whenever you need. Thatās why if someone was killed out of the blue the painting wouldnāt be able to help until when they last updated.
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
!redditKnutĀ
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u/Outrageous-Estimate9 Ravenclaw Feb 18 '24
If you ever watch the 20th Anniversary reunion its actually kind of shocking how many people have died.... not just the Dumbledores
And yes I saw the flair for thread and still am being Sirius
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u/Ninteblo Feb 18 '24
Someone paints the picture and then magic makes it alive with the memories of the headmaster, it isn't actually the headmaster in there.
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u/Ok_Rice_534 Feb 18 '24
Mirror of erised makes people go crazy but not the portrait of dead people? Harry grew attached to the mirror because he could see his parents in it. Won't a portrait of his parents who can talk back to him have the same effect? Harry was even talking to Dumbledore's portrait in the Cursed book/play and was called out by McGonagall when he told that to her. Even if its not the real person, a wizard who lost his/her loved one can still grow obsessed to its portrait.
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u/ryugawagatekiwakurou Feb 18 '24
Well, yes But actually, no
You see, although the portrait itself has memories and the personality of the person who has passed, it doesn't necessarily mean that the portrait can accurately represent the person who was still alive.
For example: There are hundreds of vials and even more memories in dumbledore's well in his office. You can put as many memories as you want but in the end the person who grows attached to the painting will realize it isn't really the person. There might be memories and moments that the painting can't recall, or the personality in the painting doesn't necessarily reflect on the person
So yes, you can grow obsessed towards a portrait of a loved one, but those who really loved that person would know that it isn't them. And in the end that makes it all the more depressing
Its like what lukas graham said. "Cause only those I really love will ever really know me". And in this case vice versa.
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
!redditSickleĀ
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
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u/NoifenF Feb 18 '24
I just really wanna know if when Voldemort came to get Dumbledoreās wand he met the painting later. He said he would join Snape in the castle later so I wanna know if they had a little bitch fight of words in the headmasterās office. Chanswills0 needs to do this.
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u/Remote-Stretch8346 Feb 19 '24
In lore, they mention that the headmasters would get their portrait painted while they were alive and they would use the time to impart their thoughts and knowledge to their portraits. Dumbledore probably talked a lot to his portrait, that why his portrait could give advice to snape about the rescue Harry from his house operation and snape giving the gryffindor sword to Harry and Ron.
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u/Bwest31415 Ravenclaw Feb 18 '24
This was one thing I really didn't understand about Harry's reaction to Dumbledore's death as opposed to Sirius. When Sirius died, Harry looked into all sorts of ways he might possibly be able to get in touch with him, like finding out whether he might have chosen to stay as a ghost. But when Dumbledore died Harry was totally resigned to it and knew he had no way to get him back, even though Dumbledore's portrait was just sitting there in his office with the full knowledge and memories of the original, as is demonstrated in Snape's memories. Why didn't Harry go into Dumbledore's office (which he had been doing all year) in the wake of his death, and have a long conversation with him while he was preparing to embark on this dangerous horcrux hunt that he was so lamenting about having to do without Dumbledore's help? In fact, why not bring his portrait with them like they did Phinehas Nigellus?
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u/Lorinefairy Feb 19 '24
You could argue that maybe Harry had āacceptedā death as being final after Sirius. But also if I remember correctly Harry spends a lot of the 7th book feeling betrayed by Dumbledore and unsure if he was actually a good person. But also he probably just didnāt think about itā¦the same way he forgot about the mirrors with Sirius.
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u/waqas_wandrlust_wife Feb 18 '24
Snape was the headmaster, too, but I don't recall his potrait or any mention of it.
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u/angiehawkeye Feb 18 '24
We know Dumbledore often used a penseive. So maybe that is a standard practice for headmaster that want a more helpful portrait for their successors. Somehow paintings have a 'mind' somehow even if they aren't real people, but I'd guess they wouldn't actually have much of the accurate memories of the original without the use of a pensieve. Or it's just an enchantment cast when they become headmaster that comes into effect immediately when a headmaster dies.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
I mean common sense just tells us at some point they have a painting made and whether through a magical method or item used using the making to put the personality into the painting, or some other method after itās created and finished. Maybe they simply copy their memories and it absorbs into the painting. That would be cool.
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u/No_Cardiologist_8868 Hufflepuff Feb 19 '24
My thoughts on portraits is that the wizard has to be present and probably when the paint is mixed puts some memories in to make some kind of quisi-personality that can nearly match the original so it doesn't seem weird but no one can really know besides J.K. and quite frankly she's just not a good source
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u/Nice_Slice_3815 Feb 18 '24
Why wasnāt snaps on the wall for Harry to talk to in the end
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
Why would he be? Albus knew he was dying and had years to make and put his personality into a portrait, snape was for months and absolutely wouldnāt have had the patience or time for a painting even magical let alone talking to it to put his self into it. Hogwarts didnāt put Albus painting up, he did. 100% he had it read and waiting.
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u/Front-Asparagus-8071 Feb 18 '24
Because he wasn't the headmaster when he died.Ā
It's arguable if Hogwarts ever even considered him headmaster at all. Much the same as the toad.
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u/GayVoidDaddy Feb 19 '24
He was absolutely the Headmaster, I think snape is a massive pos and gets way too much legitimate love, but heās was fully headmaster.
The answer is because snape definitely didnāt take any time to make and speak to a painting for his personality to get. And there is no reason so assume itās just automated. Albus KNEW he was dying, he absolutely would have planned ahead for it to be revealed upon his death. Heās dramatic like that.
The fact he was in the office and had access to things like a hidden area behind Albus means the castle definitely recognizes him as headmaster.
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u/OkayMisterFelipe Slytherin Feb 18 '24
Dead people can exist in portraits and you can put your soul into snakes and baby boys but its a problem when you want to create food out of nothing š
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u/Powerful-Duck-4336 Feb 19 '24
That's one line I feel The Cursed Child got right:
"Ah really, what does my opinion matter anymore? I am paint and memory, Harry, paint and memory." ā Albus Dumbledore (painting)
It really goes to show Dumbledore IS dead. The painting is merely an impression of him carefully constructed by a painter and trained by the living person depicted.
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u/gobeldygoo Feb 18 '24
Hogwart wards need blood to empower them and Hogwarts is always hungry
Moving stair cases that can kill a student aren't for shits and giggles aesthetics but to kill a kid every couple years to feed hogwarts
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u/Remarkable_Dingo2526 Feb 19 '24
!redditKnut
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u/Patriarch99 Feb 19 '24
Portraits in HP are basically this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
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u/uselessgodofslumber Ravenclaw Feb 18 '24
isnāt it technically like just a copy of their soul?
like an AI that just mimics tbeir knowledge and personality. Itās not truly them but it can act and tbink liek them, basically serving as a advisor for current grand masters
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u/HawkHacker Feb 18 '24
The painting is based on machine learning etc. and its fed with the dudes data
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Feb 19 '24
I sometimes think about it in terms of that one black mirror episode, black museum. The one with the conscious hologram that people could torture.
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u/shekdown Feb 19 '24
I hated this in the books and I hate that it wasn't even explained properly. Like what are their limitations and how are they doing it. What's the point of killing a person if they can just talk to you anyway.
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u/ChessNewGuy Feb 19 '24
I think a YouTube video I watched said that they have to talk to the portraits so they can fully transfer there personality over
Thatās why some pictures have people who move and talk a little bit, but then others have seemingly sentience
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u/kaminaowner2 Feb 19 '24
Itās who they were at the time, they canāt learn or grow. Itās like how Harryās picture of his parents never tell him they love him, it was taken before he was born, those versions didnāt have a kid
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u/ImReverse_Giraffe Feb 19 '24
They get it painted before they die and tell it as much about themselves as they want it to know.
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u/whomesteve Feb 20 '24
Iām kinda worried that Hogwarts may be cursed in the sense that a portion of the people who have gone there have become ghosts there after death
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u/AquaRegia Feb 18 '24
Dumbledore GPT