Luna and the RW

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 84851

I wrote:
> > Dan, you've said several times that you think Luna is the only RW
> > character besides Harry. What do you base that on? She doesn't seem 
> at
> > all Real World to me. (She sees Thestrals, senses the significance 
> of
> > the veil, etc.) Do you mean that she's familiar with death or that
> > she's ostracized for being different? Can you clarify your thinking
> > for me?
>
Dan answered at length: 
> To explain this, I guess a small description of what I percieve as 
> the so-called Potterverse is required. <snip> the circumference of
Potterverse has 
> always seemed to me to be the RW, us <snip>. The reflection of that
world, the hyperbolized 
> RW, the magicless one, would be the muggle world, which affects and 
> is affected by the witchwizard world. This last is Erised, in a way. 
> I said a while ago that a naive reading of the books stares into 
> Erised, while a more critical one just wants to.

Good. this much I understand and agree with. We're all drawn, possibly
against our will, into what you call the Potterverse, as harry is
drawn to the Mirror of Erised. I, for one, really ought to be
someplace else, but the RW is so unappealing. . . .

 I have also 
> previously, in ANOTHER HARRY, triangulated a third Harry (neither the 
> RW boy upon whom the character is based nor the book Harry, but a 
> Harry who will be liberated, as JKR is liberated, from the closet, a 
> purely imaginary, for the most part philosophical Harry, the Harry 
> that the RW Harry *might* have become), and in the same way the three 
> components of Potterverse are a kind of triangulation. By presuming 
> that Luna is another RW character for whom JKR has triangulated a 
> possible future, I am responding to, not only what made me pose the 
> two questions I asked a week or two ago, but a sense of internal 
> necessity that I get from OOP in particular.

Sorry, you've lost me here. Too theoretical. I like practical analysis
with quotations and examples, concrete illustrations of demonstrable
points. Abstractions and generalizations go over my head. I was and am
hopeless with deconstruction. I imagine you excel at it. :-)
> 
> <snip> Luna's function, at the end of OOP, is 
> as the object of Harry's curiousity <snip> somehow Luna herself was
necessary to advance the psychological 
> story <snip> In most 
> cases, in fact in all cases, JKR has hidden the internal 
> psychological Harry from us <snip> And it is by this act, this scene, 
> that JKR signals the RW Luna, I submit. As Harry acknowledges the 
> other, the other exists in that acknowledgement. <snip> in that late
OOP scene, Harry is 
> aware of - his own feelings, regarding Sirius, regarding Luna, 
> regarding Luna's feelings, just as Luna is aware of hers and Harry's, 
> even the initial pity, as it were. It is, I suggest, an encounter 
> between Third Harry and Third Luna.
> 
> Does that help?
> 
> Dan

Whew! I'm not sure about the Third Harry and the Third Luna, but
Otherness I understand from I won't say how many years of postgraduate
literature courses. Essentially, you seem to be saying that Luna is a
sort of mirror in which (whom?) Harry sees and acknowledges certain
aspects of his psychological self that he hasn't grasped in his
interactions with Ron or Hermione or Sirius or anyone else. Apparently
Harry is a mirror for Luna, too, but she understands this relationship
better than he does at the moment, having already to some extent come
to terms with her feelings (about death). Is that what you mean?

In any case, thanks for attempting to explain what you meant. I'm
still not sure how Luna as Other (or mirror) makes her a Real World
character, but I do agree with you that at least part of her function
is to help him understand himself.

Carol