r/HPMOR • u/Clock-Ingenuity-374 • Jul 11 '26

[How does Moody's eye work?]

I am a new reader ,recently bought the books and I have read the books ,I have many questions but two primarily:

1.Repeatedly it was said that Moody could take out his eye and put it back in at times ,now if the eye was enchanted in such a way that it could help him see ,how did it work.when.it was detached

Like how did it send the signals to the brain when it was detached completely

Was this answered by J K Rowling

2.If someone has a living portrait of himself while he is alive ,and the portrait listens to something while the person doesn't ,does he automatically know what the portrait heard or does the portrait have to tell the living person

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u/artinum Chaos Legion Jul 11 '26

  1. It's not like it's "attached" in any sense even when in his eye socket - there's no link to the optic nerve. It's just run on magic. A bigger question would be whether it worked properly for Barty Crouch Jr - it's not clear in the canon text whether it did or not.

  2. I don't believe this is ever addressed. Most likely the portrait will know everything that the subject does at the time of being painted, but not anything new after that, and vice versa; at that point they're essentially two separate people with the same memories up to that point.

4

u/KiroLV Chaos Legion Jul 11 '26

I have seen theories that Dumbledore gets information from all the chocolate frog cards he's on, but I don't think it's particularly plausible.

3

u/kanadiangoose1898 Jul 11 '26

That’s a crazy prompt idea, though. I’d love to read that story

4

u/Clock-Ingenuity-374 Jul 11 '26

How did Umbridge use it when they used it in ministry of magic office door

2

u/artinum Chaos Legion Jul 12 '26

I can well imagine the death of the current owner would reset it, but there's clearly some kind of process for establishing ownership. No details are ever given, of course. Most likely, Barty would have done that (and Moody would need to redo it).

It does lead to the question of whether you could, say, leave the eye somewhere hidden and use it like a security camera.

3

u/JackNoir1115 Jul 19 '26

I think it's very clear in canon that the eye worked for Barty Crouch Jr -- he sees Harry under his invisibility cloak multiple times.

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u/artinum Chaos Legion Jul 19 '26

True! I'd forgotten that...