A Slight Harry Potter Complaint
In general, complaining about inconsistencies and non-sequiters in a series of books about magic written for children is silly, and I generally don’t endorse it, seeing as it totally misses the point of the books. Some plot gaps and devices, however, are just too absurd to be looked over. Since this does involve some Deathly Hallows spoilers, my jeremiad goes below the fold.
The portraits are perhaps the most infuriating plot device Rowling includes, one where she seems to have thrown it in to lace up certain lose ends in the book. While portraits ability to contain some essence of the dead had been long established, how she uses Dumbledore’s portrait strains the limits of her magical artistic license. We find out that Dumbledore had been directing Snape from his portrait inside the headmaster’s office. This just begs the question, why doesn’t every wizard, especially those of importance, have many portraits made of him or her. Surely Sirius would have been better off if there was a pocket size portrait he could give to Harry, or if James and Lily could have a joint portrait, perhaps one at godric’s hallow or the gringott’s vault and one in the Gryffindor common room. The possibilities are endless, the portrait, especially if there are two, allows all sorts of flexibility and agency that the dead shouldn’t have. Maybe we should just gloss over this type of inconsistency, but she ties up a few too many loose ends with the portraits to just ignore it.
