~~ loony luna, how i lurve thee.

[reenka]

apparently, this is from a recent interview with jkr:
Now she, I don't know where Luna came from. Again I think a lot of people would have met a Luna who is slightly out of step, but I really like Luna she's fun, she's really fun to write. In many ways Luna is the anti-Hermione. Hermione is so logical and so very intractable in many ways, whereas Luna is prepared to believe a thousand impossible things before breakfast

yes, yes, i do believe that luna is meant to be a contrast both to hermione and to the previous common conception of the wizarding world as robini said. this unwillingness to believe-- that's what makes hermione and the whole wizarding world so rigid often enough. harry does and sees a lot of things he doesn't necessarily -believe- in, but he encounters them all the same-- he's like the perfect neutral, almost, someone whom theories get tested on. it's always struck me that everyone fits into their very specific place within the spectrum on any issue, in the potterverse, with harry always at the center.

like with the thestrals-- they were always there, and yet you need an alteration to yourself to perceive them (this is a recurring theme-- platform 9?, 12 grimmauld place, hogwarts itself, the potters' house, the room of requirement, etc)-- not the way that magic allows you to see, but also the way grief allows you to see. i wouldn't be surprised if there were things only love or only faith allowed you to see. i think one could definitely work with that, when it came to the veil and harry. often enough in the potterverse, you only see what you -need- to and maybe also what you're ready to.

but to get back to luna.
she's ready to see anything-- i don't know if it's a lack of fear or a lack need for explanation. i think mysteries-- magic without explanation-- have always been threaded throughout the books, it's just that everyone usually ignores them or discounts them until "the time is right". they're always there, right under everybody's noses, all these strange things happening-- in every book, there's a new one-- and yet everyone tries really really hard to go on with life as it was, just so as not to have to face the fact that none of them are safe in their assumptions. i mean, hermione was getting to several classes at the same time for months and harry and ron didn't even question her. it's better not to ask-- and anyway, hermione knows what she's doing, doesn't she. if she says it makes sense, somehow it makes sense. hermione can be trusted that way, supposedly.

the ministry doesn't believe what's blatantly real, had many an eyewitness, is vital to the wizarding world to acknowledge-- and couldn't be trusted. luna -does- believe things that are and aren't real, all mixed together in weird little twirly swirly ways, and it seems like she couldn't be trusted either, but i think she can. 'course, overall i'd say that no one could be trusted so far (but i think harry will get there eventually), 'cause they're all so lost in their own little interpretations of everything,

i don't think this is really supposed to tell us that there are things neither magic nor `reality' can explain. i think these are merely -mysteries-: things at the edges of what is known, things that cannot be pinned down, as firenze was saying. you can perceive them but if you try to chart their course, you will inevitably be using much more of your own imagination than is sensible. firenze and divination and prophecy, the time-magic in the department of mysteries, the room of emotion, the inexplicable brains-- all of this is right up luna's alley. it's not so much that they're beyond what's commonly considered magic as you cannot learn about them in the usual hermione-like "a + b = c" sort of way. you would have to -understand- them on some sort of intuitive level. you would need to have a talent for it, and the desire to believe. it wouldn't be enough to put in the work, to look hard enough. a leap of the imagination is required-- otherwise it's just silly, laughable even, like the man with the baby's head.

i would disagree with robini that this is about the distinction between magic and miracles. and it's not that these things don't -have- an explanation, because it's quite clear that they -do-. it's just that you have to -want- it, really -want- it, and most people don't. couldn't deal with it. would rather not see it. harry doesn't ask about the veil, does he. he asks about the things everyone knows, or the things hermione can probably look up in the library. but this isn't something likely to be in the hogwarts library (although of course, i wouldn't bet on that). this is something he'd have to find out for himself, something which would require a certain sort of bravery to understand, to be open to understanding. a certain sort of sacrifice to accept the burden of knowledge, even. because this sort of knowledge-- harry's and neville's and luna's and dumbledore's-- is definitely a burden, though they all deal with the burden of it in different ways.

i really do wonder if luna's supposed to be like trelawney-- but i don't think she is. trelawney is a fake-- she -knows- that the things she says are fake, she -knows- that there's a difference between a true vision and a lie told to make herself look good. i don't think it's about whether they're right or wrong-- because at least in ootp, everyone is wrong. luna may be wrong, but i don't think that would make her crumble like it would trelawney. luna is all about the importance of belief, that openness that means there are no impossible things. i think in this way she's like a child. she needs to look at things in that skewed, tilted way that makes them change shape, become intractable and new simply because otherwise the world is painful and hopeless and bogged down with the certain knowledge of death, which is what everyone's really running away from and not looking at, isn't it.

if what harry's afraid of is fear itself, i'd say what luna's afraid of is a world with certain unbendable rules which would mean that change is hopeless and gone has to mean forever-- like a closed circle with nothing inside.
~~

and i leave you with this quote by jkr:
Which character do I miss most? Um, I really miss all of them but I suppose, I'm going to have to say Harry because he's, you know, he is my hero and there's a lot of me in there
    EDIT - i think i'm reassuring myself as much as anything, and it pleases it me know jkr does intend harry to be good. i mean, you could easily take that for granted, but important things should never be.

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*preens and curtsies*

...i was going to bow, but i don't know how to bow. of course, on the internet, no one can hear you bow. or something -.-
*giggles* if only i could've had some pithily cute emoticon of a purple smilie bobbing up and down, i'd feel much less silly right now, but obviously that was not meant to be ^^;