Luna Lovegood (was young Dumbledore like her?)

[psychic_serpent]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince 
Winston)" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> Luna struck me as an affectionate outsider's portrayal of a New 
> Ager. She reads a ridiculous journal and believes all the nonsense 
> it publishes, wears necklace of Butterbeer cork (or bottle 
> caps) ... and is very spiritual. An UNaffectionate outsider would 
> have portrayed their New Ager with self-serving rationalizations 
> rather than with courage and emotional balance.

I definitely think you're onto something here.  This also gibes with 
reports that Michael Gambon is going to be playing Dumbledore in PoA 
as a sort of aging hippie.  This I gotta see. ;)

> Or did the previous issue of The Quibbler explain how a necklace 
> of corks would prevent Mugglepox?

Hehe.  I like that one.
 
> On to spirituality: Luna does what she wants (what she thinks is 
> right), wears what she want to, says whatever's on her mind, never 
> constrained by fear of people mocking her. She showed physical 
> courage by joining the raid on the Ministry and continually shows 
> emotional courage by not minding what people say about her. She 
> stays always calm and sympathetic, never weepy nor angry, despite 
> people picking on her, even hiding her things, and her mother's 
> death. Severus and Ron could both stand to learn some lessons from 
> her about reacting to nasty words (as could I!).

When it comes to Luna, I definitely think it's true that still 
waters run deep.  It's also rather revealing that JKR calls her 
the "anti-Hermione."  In that people have also made much of JKR 
saying that she was very much like Hermione while in school (the 
worst bits, that is, being a bossy know-it-all) one has to wonder 
whether she considers herself to have evolved into a Luna, someone 
with a calm equanimity (the polar opposite of Hermione).  Or, when 
she isn't quite so calm (the comment about the reporter being boiled 
in oil comes to mind) one has to wonder whether she'd like to be 
more like Luna.  (I love her simple faith that all of her belongings 
will turn up again, the night before they're supposed to get the 
train back home.)

Luna also lost her mother, which was a very traumatic experience for 
JKR, and that experience made its mark on Luna (seeing thestrals) as 
it did on JKR (feeling such deep depression that it later inspired 
the Dementors).  I don't think JKR dislikes Hermione by any means, 
but it does seem that she's come a long way since her schoolgirl 
days and Luna's more intuitive approach to problems seems to be 
something that JKR is depicting as slightly more appealing in OotP 
than Hermione's constant library research. It's ironic that Luna is 
the Ravenclaw and not Hermione, although I wasn't really very fond 
of the "fandom response" included in OotP concerning Hermione and 
why she wasn't sorted into Ravenclaw.  All things considered, it 
felt a bit intrusive and I'd rather that sort of thing was confined 
to interviews or never addressed in the books at all.

--Barb