(slightly loony about Luna)
Sep. 29th, 2004 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaIt just occurred to me as a sort of struck-by-lightning thing, that I -can-, in fact, see why/how someone would dislike Luna on principle. It's that whole loopy-but-with-no-real-substance thing. Like, those people who prance about spouting nonsense and acting oh-so-silly-and-odd with those over-the-top outfits and multi-colored beads and ten necklaces and five Zulu charms and three rabbit's-feet and eleven little mice strung on a string around their waists or whatever. I myself would probably avoid that sort of person if I saw them on the street. This reminds me of BtVS, y'know, with that vision of Andrew and Warren prancing around in 'heaven' singing 'we are as GODS', etcetc.
I think it's degrading and a silly stereotype of what 'wild' or weird girls are like, really. Of course they're crazy, moon-mad, completely out there swinging from clouds and eating daisies. Oddness, weirdness, intuitive brilliance-- that's one thing. Acting like you're on crack and happy about it is another thing altogether. I don't nod and smile if people eat daisies and sing silly songs in make-believe languages, I wish they'd get some sort of help.
Insanity is a touchy subject with me, of course.
On the one hand, I'm deeply fascinated with madness and particularly its connections to genius and 'truth', as well as truth-seeking. For instance, you could see a character like Fox Mulder as being 'mad' by societal standards, but he's not, really. The point of Luna, to me, and why I identify with her, is that she's not mad, not that she is. Sure, people think (perhaps even the author thinks) that she's loopy and 'out there' and so on, but she just sees things in a different way-- she doesn't sing at shadows and prance about with some wild light in her eyes.
It just bothers me because I keep seeing Luna portrayed with an emphasis on her 'madness', her complete goofy untetheredness, and it sort of hurts because I was a lot like Luna (as I imagine her) when I was a child. The funny thing is how little that sort of behavior-- distant gazes, non-sequiturs, idiosyncratic beliefs, a sort of otherworldly calm-- has to do with madness, really. It's a dreaminess, instead, really. A real Luna type isn't that loud, mad, raving hippie-- she's more of a quiet childlike fey creature, paying attention to invisible things and not quite touching the world and drawing her own conclusions. In the quiet of a childhood spent in isolation-- especially without one's mother (or father, in my case)-- the whole world silently blossoms into strangeness. Things acquire layers of make-believe 'secret' aspects where flowers talk and the moon shows you the path into faery and the dark is full of unnameable, glorious monsters.
Honestly, I don't know anything about these bright, falsely happy empty-eyed people that pass for Luna for so many people. Do they really exist? They probably do. I have had no traffic with them, and want none. Quiet doesn't mean dull; alone doesn't mean insane; different doesn't mean one's mind is scattered to the winds but rather often that one's mind is overly focused on the things others don't bother paying attention to, instead.
I don't care about Luna's earrings or her odd eyes, but it seems that's all most people notice. People are so distrustful of belief, even when the person is on a search for their own truth, while most of them simply accept a whole array of stranger and more frightening dictums as Truth, completely wholesale. I myself spent a childhood lost in a sort of twilight forest of fleeting beliefs and daydreams, picking things up and abandoning them. I know what it's like to see things and want to see more, no matter how strange. Luna is not mad. It's more like Luna is saner than the rest of her peers, maybe.
~~
EDIT - Er. I am interested in what other people think of Luna, positive and negative, btw....
I think it's degrading and a silly stereotype of what 'wild' or weird girls are like, really. Of course they're crazy, moon-mad, completely out there swinging from clouds and eating daisies. Oddness, weirdness, intuitive brilliance-- that's one thing. Acting like you're on crack and happy about it is another thing altogether. I don't nod and smile if people eat daisies and sing silly songs in make-believe languages, I wish they'd get some sort of help.
Insanity is a touchy subject with me, of course.
On the one hand, I'm deeply fascinated with madness and particularly its connections to genius and 'truth', as well as truth-seeking. For instance, you could see a character like Fox Mulder as being 'mad' by societal standards, but he's not, really. The point of Luna, to me, and why I identify with her, is that she's not mad, not that she is. Sure, people think (perhaps even the author thinks) that she's loopy and 'out there' and so on, but she just sees things in a different way-- she doesn't sing at shadows and prance about with some wild light in her eyes.
It just bothers me because I keep seeing Luna portrayed with an emphasis on her 'madness', her complete goofy untetheredness, and it sort of hurts because I was a lot like Luna (as I imagine her) when I was a child. The funny thing is how little that sort of behavior-- distant gazes, non-sequiturs, idiosyncratic beliefs, a sort of otherworldly calm-- has to do with madness, really. It's a dreaminess, instead, really. A real Luna type isn't that loud, mad, raving hippie-- she's more of a quiet childlike fey creature, paying attention to invisible things and not quite touching the world and drawing her own conclusions. In the quiet of a childhood spent in isolation-- especially without one's mother (or father, in my case)-- the whole world silently blossoms into strangeness. Things acquire layers of make-believe 'secret' aspects where flowers talk and the moon shows you the path into faery and the dark is full of unnameable, glorious monsters.
Honestly, I don't know anything about these bright, falsely happy empty-eyed people that pass for Luna for so many people. Do they really exist? They probably do. I have had no traffic with them, and want none. Quiet doesn't mean dull; alone doesn't mean insane; different doesn't mean one's mind is scattered to the winds but rather often that one's mind is overly focused on the things others don't bother paying attention to, instead.
I don't care about Luna's earrings or her odd eyes, but it seems that's all most people notice. People are so distrustful of belief, even when the person is on a search for their own truth, while most of them simply accept a whole array of stranger and more frightening dictums as Truth, completely wholesale. I myself spent a childhood lost in a sort of twilight forest of fleeting beliefs and daydreams, picking things up and abandoning them. I know what it's like to see things and want to see more, no matter how strange. Luna is not mad. It's more like Luna is saner than the rest of her peers, maybe.
~~
EDIT - Er. I am interested in what other people think of Luna, positive and negative, btw....
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no subject
Date: 2004-09-30 12:34 pm (UTC)The thing is, I don't care how others see Luna, how Luna interacts with those others, whether she's well-socialized or badly done by as far as her peers are concerned. That is largely antisocial of me, but this, after all, why I identify with Luna in the first place.
If I 'explained' Luna's behavior to you, of course, it'd be me projecting myself onto her as much as or more than me 'knowing' what's 'really' going on, but for what it's worth: Luna doesn't care how others see her or whether others care about her, because -she- doesn't really care about -them-. It's so funny to me that socialness is taken as this given that of course everyone must worry about one way or the other, and be concerned about their relationships and their place in the strata of their little society. That's simply not what's important to her; so what, people are idiots and they pick on her and steal her things and laugh at what she says. Everyone does that, really. So? They're unimportant. Magical creatures are important.
Her hanging out with people who don't get her is only confusing if you think there's -anyone- who -does- get her or like her for who she is. I mean, there might be, but usually one doesn't meet kindred spirits like that for a long time, in my experience. I hadn't had anyone get me until well past the age of 18. Even now, I think there are very few people, really.
So... there are the important things-- the world, and magic, and mysteries, and interesting new discoveries, and secrets only she knows and things only she sees. And then there are people. Who're nice enough. Kind of annoying when they pick on her. Some of them seem to like her somewhat, which is-- interesting, I'm sure.
It's like, most likely Luna wouldn't 'warm' to anyone either. She's just not very warm, and doesn't seem to need to be, especially, at this stage of her life. I get that 'cause I -was- that, and a part of me always will be that girl that needs no one except the magic she alone sees.
For me, it's not a question of the author telling me there's more to her than meets the eye. I -know-. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt and I think I still wear it most days, actually. Asocial and proud, that's me.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-01 08:38 am (UTC)That interpretation makes a lot of sense, actually, and ironically, kind of makes me warm to her more than before, perhaps ;)