Who was the Fat Lady from the Harry Potter Portrait: A Mysterious Image in Books and in Movies

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Once upon a time, stories of portraits coming to life terrified readers, but those familiar with the world of Harry Potter tend to be curious about such pictures. The Fat Lady, although she exists only on canvas, is not the least important character from the world of wizards. There are some assumptions about who the Fat Lady was and why she ended up in the portrait at the entrance to the living room of Gryffindor.

The picture you have to talk to

The portrait of the Fat Lady, or the Fat Lady, at Hogwarts school plays a very important role - it guards the entrance to the living room of the Gryffindor faculty. You can only go through the password, which changes from time to time. At the very beginning of the story of Harry Potter's studies, before the portrait, it was required to say "Kaput dragonis", and after a while the password sounded differently - "Pig piglet." The words that opened the way to the living room should be treated carefully - forgetful students had to linger, either looking for a valid password in their memory, or waiting for more focused classmates.

The function of the "watchman" in this case turned out to be not at all nominal - the Fat Lady not only ensured discipline among young wizards, she also helped to protect the students. After all, getting into the living rooms of the Gryffindors, in search of any magic items or just to deal with the enemy, has not so rarely become the goal of various representatives of the wizarding world. She does not trust only the appearance of the students, whom the Fat Lady, of course, remembered - and this is absolutely correct, because it is not at all difficult to take the appearance of another person at Hogwarts: the circulating potion is already available for the junior years.

Protected from outsiders, apparently, and three other faculties of the school, but only the Gryffindors, returning to their rooms, deal with the portrait. The Slytherin students call the password in front of the wall, which then slides to the side, the Ravenclaws must answer the question of the copper eagle, the students of Hufflepuff are required to knock in a special rhythm.

Portraits and pictures in general in the world of wizards have a wonderful property - they not only have characters and show emotions, but also move and talk, they can even move to other pictures. This is used by the characters of the portraits at Hogwarts, visiting each other, and sometimes - those of their brothers who "live" outside the school, for example, in London. The Fat Lady was no exception - she maintains friendly relations with the witch Violet, whose portrait is on the first floor of Hogwarts in a room adjacent to the Great Hall. Due to the fact that one of the ladies has a rather responsible position, Violet can often be found in the frame of a portrait on the seventh floor than the Fat Lady visiting a friend.

It may seem that the Fat Lady is a rather comic character, as she appears both in the Harry Potter books and in their film adaptations - a sort of bored old maid, busy, nevertheless, with responsible work. She grumbles if one of the students comes back late and interferes with her nap, she may suffer from a hangover the next morning after meeting with the monks from the next picture - the one that depicts wine, can go to visit a friend and make those who wait in the corridor, who cannot go to their bedroom. Quite quickly, the fact that the Fat Lady is not an aunt working at school, it is only a portrait, a painting fades into the background.

Is Fat Lady a contemporary of the founders of Hogwarts?

When and by whom this work was written is unknown. The name of this woman is not mentioned in the books either. But Potter fans refer to one of J. K. Rowling's interviews, in which the writer told the story of the Fat Lady. Allegedly, this worthy lady was the sister of Godric Gryffindor and the bride of Salazar Slytherin, and died as a result of a Muggle attack before she could get married. Hence Slytherin's hatred for those whose veins do not have the blood of wizards.

As a matter of fact, this mystery - about the personality of the Fat Lady - might not have happened if at least one of the students of the Gryffindor faculty asked such a question to his good-natured guard - after all, each of them saw this portrait several times a day. A plump Lady in a pink silk dress met the previous generation of wizards at the entrance to the Gryffindor living room - when young Molly Pruett once returned at four in the morning after a walk with her future husband Arthur Weasley, she also listened to the grunt of the Gryffindor watchman.

Only a few times during the years of service the Fat Lady allowed herself weakness - for example, after the attack on her painting by Sirius Black, who escaped from Azkaban prison and made his way to Hogwarts, but, not knowing the password, could not get into the Gryffindor living room. The portrait cut by Sirius was later restored, but the Fat Lady, hiding in other portraits during the attack, then refused to return to her duties for a long time. At one time her work was performed by a portrait of Sir Cadogan, a short and hot-tempered knight in medieval armor, an inhabitant of the eighth floor of Hogwarts. By the way, it was during his "watch" that a stranger nevertheless entered the living room of the Gryffindors - and again it was Sirius Black. He did this with the help of a cat, who stole a piece of paper with a password written on it - one of the students was too forgetful to rely on his memory. After that, Sir Cadogan was fired, and the Full Lady was persuaded to return to her post, having assigned several trolls to her for the safety.

On the day of Professor Dumbledore's death, this lady was so shocked and upset by what had happened that she let Harry Potter into the living room without a password.

Which of the actresses had a chance to play the role of the Fat Lady

In the Harry Potter films, the role of the Fat Lady is played by two actresses. The first to embody this image on the screen was Elizabeth Spriggs, who is familiar not only to the British, but also to Russian viewers from her many roles in films and television series. She once started her career as an opera singer, but because of her health, she had to give up her dream. Then Elizabeth (nee Williams) became an actress. She has appeared in virtually all Shakespearean plays at the Royal National Theater, and has appeared on television in Jeeves and Worcester, Doctor Who, Agatha Christie's Poirot, A Pure English Murder. For her role in Sense and Sensibility, Elizabeth Spriggs was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress - the award then went to Kate Winslet, who played in the same film.

With Spriggs as Fat Lady, viewers met in the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And in the film "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" in 2004, the owner and character of the main portrait of the Gryffindors was already another actress - Don French. In her second film incarnation, the Fat Lady turned out to be a much funnier character, the owner of a loud (and in her opinion - strong) voice, the sound of which is supposedly capable of breaking a glass in the hand of a respectable lady.

By the way, one of the options for the portrait can be seen in the museum dedicated to the history of Harry Potter - in the London suburb of Leavesden, where you can plunge into another reality.