• @lath@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18•3 days ago

    Siriusly, magic.

    Otherwise, consider it a reflection of that moment. It’s not the headmaster, it’s the portrait of a headmaster. It vividly and actively portrays the headmaster in question, but it isn’t them. Like an advanced LLM recreating a personality by copying their social media content.

    • @zaphod@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      10•3 days ago

      The thing that didn’t really make sense to me or at least is super confusing with this is, that some people have multiple paintings that are somehow linked. They can move between these paintings and can never be in two paintings at the same time. The people in the paintings in Hogwarts can just casually walk between all the different paintings in the castle, not just the ones they are in, so these are all linked together, but if any of these paintings would be linked to one outside the castle it’s not clear if any person from any painting can just move to that painting outside the castle or just the one who the painting originally depicted. The images on the chocolate frog cards are apparently also linked, but the moving photos in the newspaper aren’t.

      • @lath@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6•2 days ago

        Continuing on LLMs, think of it as having different servers or no internet connection.

        The paintings in Hogwarts are all connected through the school itself. The frog cards are like Nintendo’s handhelds. And the newspaper pictures aren’t connected to each other at all because they’re meant for immediate shock value and are disposable.

  • @mriswith@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7•2 days ago

    The basic moving paintings, like in the great stairwell: The painters infuse magic into them to make them move, make noise, etc. and some even have personality traits. But they’re very basic recreations.

    The headteacher painting: The subject of the painting infuse the painting with a lot of “themselves” and their magic to basically make a limited copy.

    Although as McGonagall says: It’s less than half of what they were in life. Which is why they don’t actually continue teaching or similar.

  • @Genius@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3•2 days ago

    What you have to understand is that Rowling is a bad writer and Harry Potter is poorly written

      • FenrirIIIEnglish
        3•1 day ago

        They can talk and respond to people. There’s a friggin’ ghost teaching history

          • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
            1•15 hours ago

            Haha, good one.

            FYI, he wasn’t a ghost when he was hired though:

            Easily the most boring lesson was History of Magic, which was the only class taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staff-room fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

            PS8