Further analysis of Luna Lovegood

[dan]

No: HPFGUIDX 84409

To summarize my points so far -

Lovegood is not suspicious by nature, nor does she display a penchant 
for decoding, but rather an obsession with, and unquestioning belief 
in the validity of, her father's newspaper and anything in it.

Lovegood is not particularly a "seer," at least not anymore than 
Potter is. The same goes for speculations regarding Luna's (and 
Harry's) non-human origins, her species, as it were.

Lovegood gets as much validation of her experiences from Potter as he 
does from her. This mutual validation is assailable, if sweet.

Potter's heroic is from the heart, rather than from the intellect.

Lovegood's "spaciness" and apparent equanimity may be more or less 
faulty mechanisms for dealing with her mother's death 6 years before.

The scene at the end of OOP is a breath of fresh air, for the 
readers, for Potter, and, I submit, for Lovegood. I refer to it as an 
opening, preparing the stage for the send-off by the Order, but 
prepared for, by Potter, at the lake, with a sit down without which 
the interaction with Lovegood could not have taken place.

The fact that Luna was not mentioned as being on the train at the end 
of the school year is significant.

Now, for the new stuff.

Melanie describes Potter's hurt at learning the fallability, the 
mistakes, of his father and god-father, a kind of betrayal of his 
inner fantasy. In a sense, Lovegood supplies a method by which a 
fallable ideal (her mother) can be clung to - a level of acceptance. 
But, concommitantly, she finds that, in order to sustain this 
equanimity, she must remain open to fantastical beliefs, some of 
which will be, inevitably (since they can't be disproven, entirely) 
seemingly validated. What Lovegood does get validation of on a more 
important level, in OOP, is of her competance as a witch.

Annemehr states that she assumes that Lovegood has stability and love 
in her family. We are not told much about her father, though. I'm not 
sure what her home life would be like. On one hand, the thorough 
belief in what her father prints might indicate unfulfilled longing 
for that "acceptance," or on the other a genuine 
closeness/love/respect/agreement. The telling thing is that she 
clings to the Quibbler like a security blanket. I agree that there is 
something "definitely wrong" with all of us. But in terms of the 
books, I want to deepen the analysis of Lovegood, precisely because 
she is such a breath of fresh air and precisely because I am so taken 
with her character. In one way, I feel like there are really only two 
Real World, as it were, characters in the book - Harry (insofar as he 
is not Rowling) and Luna. This comes from the questions I asked - why 
was she introduced, given a chapter, and given the penultimate scene 
with Potter? Rowling needed her, so I am wondering exactly why? And I 
am assuming it is because the resolution (the liberation) requires 
someone from outside the fantasy world of Potter - someone who (in 
book terms, for the character Harry Potter) serves the same function 
as the boy in closet (in RW terms) served for Rowling.

I don't have much thought about Lovegood ushering in, or being part 
of ushering in, a period of House unity, but perhaps showing the way 
to a "houseless" Hogwarts.

To Paula, I would add this - 

Analysis on this level can certainly aid one in decyphering plot 
development and devices, in much the same way Lovegood's example of 
equanimity aids Potter.

Concluding then -

Luna's role as agent for Harry's development needs to be analysized 
from her perspective as well, if she is to be more than "a plot 
device" herself. Because of the issues her beliefs, her spaciness, 
bring up, it is perhaps too easy to "accept" what she is at face 
value. Almost as if her role as friend to Potter is her entire raison 
d'etre. A paucity of serious theory regarding Luna the witch, the 
absence of any anagrammed theory especially, such that she cannot 
participate in the WitchWizard Wrestling Federation, for example, 
indicate to me that listees haven't fully let her into the story. The 
strange lack of interest by most regarding her absence on the train 
(she was probably with other Ravenclaws, someone even said) is a good 
example of this.

One thought, too, that interests me is that Rowling probably won't 
leave the Nargles/mistletoe thing just hanging there.

I am thinking of these, for example.

LLL - L3   League of Luna Lovers   
LLLL - L4   League of Loony Luna Lovers
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL - L16   Loving Literature, Loving Life; League of 
Loony Luna Lovers Lifts Luminous Laughing Lass, Leitmotif of Light, 
to Latitudes of Legend

dan (owner and advocate of L 3, 4 and 16, if they ever exist)