Rita - Luna and the Qubbler

[Charles Walker Jr]

No: HPFGUIDX 169606

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:
<snip>
> On the other hand, a paper like the Quibbler is so 
> outrageous that no one takes it seriously. There are
> real-life new publications like that, The Globe, or
> some such nonsense. Publications filled with Elvis
> sitings, alien babies, big foot, end of the world,
> space ship landing, and crocodile men. They are 
> very entertaining by no one takes them seriously.
> These particular outrageous, lie don't cause any
> harm, for the most part.
<snip>

Charles:

You've hit partially on what I think the Quibbler is for the WW. I
really believe that it is more like the parody Newspaper the Onion. I
think that Mr. Lovegood publishes the outlandish stories he does
thinking nobody but his daughter believes them. I also believe that
Luna gets humored by her father for believing them, rather than
corrected. I've seen that kind of thing happen in families where a
parent was lost before. The child sinks into a fantasy world somewhat,
but they are still high functioning and bright so they are therefore
allowed to remain in their fantasies because their remaining parent
fears that to try and snap them out of it would cause serious harm.
The later repercussions of that are sometimes hard to deal with, but
often the parents who do things like that are unaware of the
psychological damage they are placing their children in danger
of.(Please excuse that unwieldy sentence, I just awoke and have to be
out the door soon.) (I had a friend who went absolutely nuts when his
bubble burst. It took three months for him to come back to reality. In
some cases that I have read about it takes longer.)

Anyway, my point about the Q is that it is not a fact based paper.
Whether it is based on "whatever will sell" sensationalism like
"Weekly World News," or on parody, like the "Onion" It is not meant to
be a reliable source of information. I believe that the reason Luna's
father told her that Harry's story might not appear is not that he
didn't think it was important, but that he feared the same thing Harry
did about Harry's true and serious story appearing alongside the usual
contents of his publication. (Not to mention the fear that his space
cadet daughter may have been talking to an invisible Harry...)

Charles, with lots more in his brain, but no time to type it out now.