disillusionment, Luna IS dream, and "jarring notes in a familiar song"

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 71558

>From the first half of OOP, some interesting, or telling, statements, 
leading to speculations on being marked, disillusionment, and "the 
band of pure white light inside." Second half a bit later.

"Between the absence of Hagrid and the presence of those dragonish 
horses, he had felt that his return to Hogwarts, so long anticipated, 
was full of unexpected surprises, like jarring notes in a familiar 
song."

JKR is telling us here exactly what she is doing in the book. This is 
the definitive meta, as it were, in OOP. The sentence thus in fact 
reads - Between the absence of naivete and the presence of death's 
remembrance, the book, so long anticipated, is full of unexpected 
surprises, like jarring notes in a familiar song."

"'Seems the house-elves do want freedom after all.'
"'1 wouldn't bet on it,' Ron told her cuttingly. 'They might not 
count as clothes. They didn't look anything like hats to me, more 
like woolly bladders.'"

Including this as the second funniest line in the book (the first 
being HP's Quirrell as teacher comment that earned him another week 
of detention.) But it also serves as a surfacing point for our 
(readers) thoughts about HG's self-delusion about what she is doing. 
She doesn't knit, magically or otherwise, very well - knitting is a 
purely functional gesture, towards a 'cause' that really interests 
her. RW is noticing that perhaps HG could come up with something 
slightly better, more engaging of HG's passion, perhaps something 
that involves a bit more interaction with, um, let's see... how 
about...  the house elves themselves! (to take a lead from HP). As is 
JKR's wont, she is giving RW, rather less than exemplary in terms of 
self-reflection, a slightly veiled "really good line." (Never give up 
hope in everyman, who has, after all, all things in some small 
measure.) 

'Oh, for heaven's sake, Harry, you can do better than her,' said 
Hermione. 'Ginny's told me all about her; apparently, she'll only 
believe in things as long as there's no proof at all.

Well, what Luna represents to me, who met someone very like Luna in 
school and quite liked her, is more thematic than literal. Luna is 
JKR's gesture, now necessary, since the story is "turning", as I 
mentioned in the bit at the beginning of this post - a gesture toward 
the underlying themes I have alluded to in other diatr... other 
posts, a thematic expression of the so-called ethical imperative, at 
the core. Such an imperative, which cannot be traced to or distilled 
from, direct experience, book-learning, or emotion alone, requires we 
posit something like a "source", a generator of sorts, which guides, 
or shifts, or nudges, what we do with what we've been given and what 
we've experienced, but not just that alone. Luna, and what she 
represents, is overt openness, the non-judgemental, as it were - not 
merely to the idea of Crumple-horned Snorkacks, or to HP's story 
(which, by the way, if I had experienced, wouldn't want to blab to 
too many people either, to then have to sit through their shocked 
responses and then feel absolutely alone and miserable, knowing that 
knowing is not nearly the same as having experienced and can even 
create a false sense of identification), but to seeing (thestrals), 
hearing (whispers) etc., in short, to what some refer to as sixth 
sense, and others refer to as the experiencing pre-self, or whatever 
it is, even, at times, as the band of pure white light inside, or 
some such. At any rate, it is similar to "reading" signs or 
sidewalks, or gestures - that is, taking all of knowledge and memory 
and vision etc. and coming up with something greater than the parts, 
the creative spark, as it were. Luna doesn't represent dream, in this 
role. She is a dream - like dragons in Le Guin - they don't "have" 
magic, they ARE magic.

"'You know what?' Harry said to Ron and Hermione as they entered the 
Great Hall. 'I think we'd better check with Puddlemere United whether 
Oliver Wood's been killed during a training session, because Angelina 
seems to be channelling his spirit.'"

It was the use of the theosophic term that got me here. As sideways 
glance at new agism. But  it is also a statement more in tune, 
emotionally, with the old HP, with the old trio. At least it reads 
that way. Looking at it, however, I can't help feeling that it's 
resemblance to the old HP is marked by just that - it's "like" 
something the old HP would say. HP is being "like" the old HP alot in 
the book. What distinguishes this remark is that the idea of 
channelling, to the reader, doesn't sit quite properly now. Not 
irritating enough to get theorized about, perhaps, (though I wouldn't 
put it passed someone on the list to do so) but nearly.

"He also felt dimly that this was between himself and Umbridge, a 
private battle of wills, and he was not going to give her the 
satisfaction of hearing that he had complained about it."

and

"'Yeah,' said Harry, before he could stop himself, 'that's the only 
bit of me Dumbledore cares about, isn't it, my scar?'"

This is very hard to explain to the list because I find such very 
different readings here, even if the idea isn't that difficult - but 
let me try sideways. Before, the scar meant NOTHING, or rather, 
marked him as belonging in the closet, marked him AS nothing. And HP 
was "just Harry." Later, it was what set him apart in being a symbol 
of why he should even be in the WW at all - a discovery of the "out" 
from his closet - the very same scar! Wow - the imperfection isn't a 
limitation, after all, but is salvation, or what have you. Later 
still, it took on also the meaning of his difference in an even more 
cruel way, a way that propelled him from being unknown to being 
unknowable, from being untouched to being untouchable. His completely 
understandable and justified approach to DUmbridge is partly his 
dedication to becoming self-contained, self-sufficient as a stone, as 
the poet said. Not a bad idea for someone who's been "protected" or 
sheltered in some rather inadequate ways, and I include AD's tragic 
flaw here. The process is nearly complete in OOP. The so-called fate 
sealed by the scar has taken HP to the very edge of the livable. His 
sit down by the lake I read as his decision to "disillusion" himself -
 of ever being free of the marking, and of the marking itself, at the 
same time - if he didn't do this, I suggest there would be nothing 
for it but to jump into the lake sans gillyweed and save us the wait 
for books 6 and 7. (The lake here I am thinking of something that 
will "accept" anything with equanimity, a symbol of the place HP 
needs to be.) Please note, however,it was only after this meditation 
that the exchange with Luna could take place. 

In short, HP has managed to curtail, or set aside, the defining 
aspects of the marking, of being just Harry and of being more than 
just Harry, and he has become more open to what was motivating him 
all along. He was motivated to take on injustice at the beginning of 
OOP, for example, but in a destructive and almost petty way. At the 
end of the book, though still responding to injustice, he sees, 
because he is ready to see, a response that is quite opposite. Harry 
Potter has become, how do I say this, likeable, and perhaps, almost, 
touchable.

dan