OOP - Luna Lovegood

[Wendy St John]

No: HPFGUIDX 62669


No real spoilers here, unless the fact that there's a character named Luna
Lovegood counts! <g>

Anyhow, I was thinking about Luna and something occurred to me that I
haven't seen mentioned. Lots of people have noted that her appearance
seemed sort of, well, abrupt. I agree - she just sort of came out of
nowhere at the beginning of this book. Which made me wonder . . . wasn't
there some rumor about a Weasley cousin who got cut from an earlier book
because she somehow didn't  fit in with the plot? Was this from an actual
JKR interview? The fact that Luna has a media connection (her father
running The Quibbler) sort of connects her with Rita in my mind, and I also
remember something that suggested Rita Skeeter was meant to enter the
series earlier than Book 4. This makes me think that maybe JKR changed
Rita's character a bit from what she'd originally intended (perhaps she was
originally supposed to be a more legtimate journalist). SO . . . maybe Luna
wasn't one of the original characters planned by JKR, and she *did* sort of
appear out of nowhere, to reconcile any plot difficulties posed by the
"missing" Weasley cousin and the late appearance/character change of Rita
Skeeter and a need for Harry to have some way to get his side of the story
into print.

And just *maybe* this is one of the things which took 3 years to sort out
in writing (so hopefully the subsequent books won't take nearly as long!
<g>).

Wendy St John
hebrideanblack at earthlink.net