[not...not.... HP META??!?!]

[reenka]

...Can one actually be pretentious but not insecure...?? This is a theoretical question, understand. Pretentiousness is something I find difficult to grasp mostly because it involves uh, wanting the approval of other people(?) and/or wanting to impress people(??) and/or uh, pretending you are something you're not. (As in, well, why would you do that unless you have self-esteem issues?) So basically, are all pretentious people secretly crying inside that they suck and no one loves them?

This is vaguely related to me thinking (after a marathon Draco-talk session with Madames Maya & Magpie-- I think my brain is still buzzing gently while naked Dracos spin about & about) that one of the major things I like about Draco is that as attention-starved and drama-queeny and whiny & narcissistic (and probably insecure as all hell) as he is, he's not pretentious in the sense that he never pretends to be anything but himself. He just -is- whoever he is, and while he can mask some emotion fairly well (not nearly as well as fanon!Draco, but we just won't go there), he doesn't seem to project a front. If he did, I would find him so difficult to like as to be unsalvageable (which is why I really do hate fanon!Draco... somehow, he seems to take that little bitchy-yet-cute shtick and make it into something manipulative & therefore not at all cute). And yes-- Draco is all about the cute, obviously. Obviously!!

I think I always like people who're honestly bitchy and needy and annoying, while disliking people who try to cover up these traits and 'act good' or 'bad' or 'cool' or whatever. Draco is simply too sucky at being cool to pull it off anyway. I mean, people would laugh. I would laugh. Harry would laugh. It would not be of the good. (This is why I love Transfigurations, partly-- it took fanon!Draco and made Harry laugh at him and mock him and not be impressed, which is so my dream come true. I mean, if there's anyone who likes pretentious 'coolness' less than me, it's Harry. It even turned him off his -dad- in that pensieve scene in OoTP, okay. Hello.)

I also realized that my opinion of Luna drops like 300% when I finally get reminded that yeah, she admitted to being lonely & desperate for company in HBP (multiple times, apparently). At least, it drops my ability to really want to get into her head, because in many ways it breaks type-- it becomes a less interesting character to me if she's going to do the Remus thing and need acceptance. I mean, clearly everyone (not psychotic) needs acceptance, but when you have a person with unique/heretical views, to need that acceptance so openly and uncomplicatedly kind of makes me question their intelligence, y'know? Like, you need some degree of independence and voluntary social isolation to be a free thinker. That's just how it works. Only fake quacks travel in herds, y'know? (That doesn't make sense at first glance, I know, but. This is, after all, why I admire lots of goths & indie kids & hippies & ravers & skaters & nerds & gamers and so on and so forth, but never became one.)
    It doesn't make sense that she'd be so easy to get close to and get along with if she's been snubbed so long and she truly still believes things other people would laugh at. It just doesn't work that way as far as I know.

I mean, it works if she -allows- company and gives people a chance-- not being too invested, that's easy. But you know, actually seriously needing attention creates a whole different type of personality altogether, it seems to me....

...In other news: I am so uncool, I know, but I will -never- bloody get an S2 layout, ahahah. -.-;

Comments

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Can one actually be pretentious but not insecure...??

I think you just answered your own question XD.

he's not pretentious in the sense that he never pretends to be anything but himself.

I think he does. He pretends he matters to Harry in some conscious way (in Harry's head, I mean) for most of the books, when in fact that only occurs in the first one. He pretends his dad has more power than he does, probably because daddy does as well. He pretends to be knowing of the Dark side's activities definitely more than he does. And in HBP he pretends to be more in control of his DE problems than he obviously is. So yes, I do think he's pretentious. But I still love him.

I think I always like people who're honestly bitchy and needy and annoying, while disliking people who try to cover up these traits and 'act good' or 'bad' or 'cool' or whatever. Draco is simply too sucky at being cool to pull it off anyway.

That doesn't mean he doesn't try.

It becomes a less interesting character to me if she's going to do the Remus thing and need acceptance.

Really? Because it doesn't to me. I get just the opposite. Nobody's an island. Everybody wants acceptance. A character without this is pointless and badly written. Remus takes it to that extra level because of the combination of his natural personality and his little furry problem, but one could easily argue all the psycho-shit Luna makes up is compensation for her desire to be liked - an escape into a fantasy world where if she wants a non-existant entity to like her, it will. It doesn't lower her intelligence at all, just makes her human. Often those with higher intelligences want to be liked more to know they still have some sort of basic connection with the others around them that is more difficult to attain otherwise because of their different views on life (and potential family situations).

Only fake quacks travel in herds, y'know? (That doesn't make sense at first glance, I know, but. This is, after all, why I admire lots of goths & indie kids & hippies & ravers & skaters & nerds & gamers and so on and so forth, but never became one.)

Dude, you just made two completely contradictory statements at once. What the shit?

But you know, actually seriously needing attention creates a whole different type of personality altogether, it seems to me....

Not really. There's a difference between the basic need for acknowledgement and acceptance, and true attention whoring. James & Sirius were undoubtably the latter, and quite pretentious (and thus, probably insecure as well). Remus was the former, in many ways, because he, whilst still being insecure, had bigger hurdles to overcome in creating real intimate relationships with people. Which is why he didn't really try and stop their pranks when he was a Prefect, because the Marauders were too important to him, but Sirius was happy to jeapordise the group's, Remus's (and Snape's) happiness & potential life for the sake of a prank.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, I don't quite see delusional and/or megalomaniacal as being the same as 'pretentious'. I mean, it should be obvious that Draco pretends things to himself and/or is in denial, but at the same time I associate pretentiousness with a certain -sort- of pompousness, I guess. Like, more like Percy, maybe--? Not quite Hermione, but something more like that, where your delusions are mostly about your own identity-- not just 'having airs' or self-perception problems but trying to act as being more educated/intelligent/cool than you are and being successful-- I guess I just can't see someone being unsuccessfully pretentious. I mean... well, you could say Draco is, but his lack of success is what endears him to me, I guess...??

Anyway, any claim to loving/hating Draco or Luna is obviously not something relevant to any argument anyway-- it's not like you can make any objective statements about that. Like, what would I say? 'No, Draco sucks and doesn't deserve love. The end.' ^^;;;

Some people, especially very introverted and idiosyncratic and self-obsessed or creativity-obsessed people -are- basically unhealthy enough to be islands; I mean, it may not be -normal- but it happens. I personally come very close to the boundary here: I do care about acceptance somewhat, but used to care nearly not at all, and I wasn't repressing so much as barely noticing peoples' existence, y'know? I mean, the phrase 'off in her own little world' may as well have been coined about child!me. It wasn't like I wasn't able to relate to people or didn't like them, I just-- didn't need their company, mostly. So to me, it's not so weird. I realize everyone needs company/acceptance/sociality to -some- degree, I was only talking about the degree to which one is -motivated- by seeking it out. And even now, I'm motivated almost not at all by that. Does this make me healthy? No, but I still exist. I won't comment on being interesting as a character or not, ahahah-- I do think human interaction is the basis of most storytelling, and change would be the obvious dramatic focus of writing about an antisocial or asocial person, but that doesn't make the parts of the story where they don't want company above all else or aren't lonely automatically uninteresting to me, at least.

I think everyone wants to be liked by others, but the degree to which this desire manifests truly depends more on one's level of introversion and/or the presence or absense of some sort of pathology and the way you were raised, etc. I grew up spending -lots- of time alone; it truly and genuinely doesn't bother me. I truly would be fine if people left me alone, period. I would be a bit sad, but fine, really.

There was always an issue of self-projection with me & Luna and I always admitted that (which is why I barely ever write her, easy as it may come). My only point was that I like her less now-- and how are you going to argue with that? Well, I -do-; I never liked her that much in the first place, just identified with her, which is different.

With the quacks/weirdo-groups admiration vs. non-admiration/avoidance... well, that's a central contradiction to my character :P I have lots of them... lots and lots, and all really there, ahahah. I do manage both to admire 'cool' funky weirdo types and look down on if they travel in packs, both at the same time. I'm... weird like that. It's not so much hypocritical as genuinely a conflict in me.

Well, that's what I meant by 'seriously' needing attention. Remus isn't like Luna in that his weirdness/oddness is imposed rather than inborn; if you choose to see Luna as truly a free-thinker and/or a daydream believer, etcetc, then really needing acknowledgement & acceptance to a heavy degree doesn't fit because you learn at an early age it ain't gonna happen, and you deal. Besides this, people who're easily swayed by others aren't likely to become free thinkers in the first place. There's a certain amount of self-imposed isolation that's involved, besides just the others'-imposed kind. But this is all rooted in my own experience, which is why I said I identify with her less now in the first place.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

Shit, Mozilla ate my last comment, anyway...

Pretentiousness is pretentiousness to me, whether it's accompanied by pompousness or not. So both Draco and Percy are pretentious to me, but Percy is far more pompous. It's the mark of the bureaucrat. And you can still be pretentious or pompous and be a total loser. Ala, Draco and Percy XD.

but that doesn't make the parts of the story where they don't want company above all else or aren't lonely automatically uninteresting to me, at least.

Yes well, I don't think I need to point out that you're not exactly the average reader of certain materials. ;)

I would be a bit sad, but fine, really.

But you'd still be sad. Thus, you want interaction of some form in some way. To write a character that doesn't want this in any way is to write a) someone with serious mental disorders or b) to write badly.

Remus isn't like Luna in that his weirdness/oddness is imposed rather than inborn

I dunno. I've met real people who are like Luna or worse through environmental factors rather than anything that's "inborn" into them. Especially in the lacking-mothers department. So in a way you could still argue her environment has imposed it on her. Luna's not so much swayed by others than just plain delusional (and, like I said, probably consciously as an escape mechanism) like Trelawney. They both have to hide away in their towers/heads for one reason or another, but still crave some sort of acceptance from the world around them. Really, I hate the term "free thinker" because it's a load of bullshit, no matter how you look at it. Luna swallows the delusional bullshit her father prints, and Trelawney swallows the hippy-shit every new-age gimp produces around the world. There's nothing "free" about them. They're as trapped in their own heads as the next person who has far better interpersonal skills.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, umm, that's why I said I don't have the greatest grasp of pretentiousness (or even pompousness) in the first place-- I think while I might have some(?? uh?? that I'm unaware of), I still have little enough desire to impress anyone or uh, care about people's opinion that it puzzles me. Normally I would be okay with understanding foreign traits, but something clicks weirdly with this one, I dunno. *sigh* Though I basically agree with you that I shouldn't mix up pretentiousness and pompousness.

Anyway, I was never denying I or anyone without a serious mental disorder wouldn't want companionship-- point was the -degree- to which you let the desire for it motivate your social behavior. Me personally-- it motivates my behavior kind of in the opposite direction, because I actively swerve to avoid passerby, y'know? Though it seems fruitless to seriously compare my theoretical amount of mental damage & Luna's, somehow... -.-;;

I suppose on some level you're right & Luna -is- just plain delusional (and/or mad), but I think there's enough ways in which she's perceptive or is shown to see things more clearly & calmly than others, especially when it has nothing to do with magical creatures. I think I take the magical creatures more metaphorically, because while -in context- we know that of course no such things exist in JKR's world & JKR knows, it doesn't -have- to be true, you know? I think her approach is valid enough because I think she's capable of being swayed by evidence, though this belief isn't necessarily grounded in anything but personal gut feeling. Bleh.

Most of my resistance here is because I think it -is- possible (merely rare) to think freely, or at least rather closer to it than you seem to think, ahahah. As I tried to tell you, my asocialness was worse when I was a small child, though my actual social skills were probably better in some ways (ie, I felt more comfortable with making friends, maybe). I don't think you could entirely make a case that environment forced this personality upon me, y'know? And I had a mother & a (distant but present) father until the age of 10. I didn't 'hide away' when I was like, 4, even though I did later doing the same thing; I just... uh... well, was naturally introspective/dreamy. It's a personality type, not necessarily a defect. I wasn't escaping anything (as in, I had a loving mother & father, some friends, no overt ostracism in kindergarten, was cute and well-enough liked, etc), I was just exploring.

It's true that Luna swallows her father's BS, and that bothers me now more than before. I never just believed anyone (or anything) blindly-- you may choose not to believe this, of course~:) By 'free thinker' I just meant someone who thinks for themselves, and uh yeah, those people do exist~:)) Just v. few of them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

This and the comments made me think that really, the thing is, all teenagers are pretentious at one time or another. They all at some point sort of try on different poses and things they want to be. Hermione, I think, often seems too old because she's so who she is all the time, though in earlier books she's obviously trying too hard and so is pretentious. Harry definitely hits it plenty of times too--I've always thought that anybody looking at the Trio from the outside would notice stuff like the kinds of things Harry noticed about James too. Only we're in Harry's head so we know where he's coming from, and how aware he is of when he says something that sounds off. Like, in the last scene with Dumbledore Draco's sort of fighting with all that sort of thing, so there's times where he tries to sound cool and even he realizes that he just sounds like an idiot or a baby, so tries a different tact. You know Ron is often checking himself the same way.

So yeah, I think with most of the kids you have to have this idealized version of themselves that they sometimes play at and isn't really true, or things they're trying on. Percy is doing it like mad in GoF and because he gets picked on for it he unfortunately does it even worse.

It's not always insecurity, I guess. I mean, I think insecurity is part of it because pretentiousness is like over-acting. People think over-acting is about showing too much emotion but really it's about showing more emotion than people believe you are feeling, so it seems forced. So there, yeah, a person can generally not be described as an insecure type but still have moments where they're pretentious.

Wait, don't you have an S2 layout? I know very little about them but only a few weeks ago finally switched over from S1.

from fandomdirectory

[shusu.livejournal.com]

I had to look it up (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=pretentious) before answering. (Pardon me if I'm a bit fuzzy or incomplete, sleep deprived.)

all teenagers are pretentious at one time or another Yeah I mean, I can't see how you could possibly survive high school without putting on a bit of a show. I don't know about anyone else, but I was exhausted when I got home every day from keeping up the identity and doing all the social networking... and I was not even close to being A-list in my school.

The thing is that there's the other half of the definition... is it undeserved? Is there a line to cross when it seems like the entire magical world delights in putting up cariacatures? I guess of the whole cast, including the minor characters, Lupin strikes me as odd because he's not over-acting. But then he's a werewolf. So... lol.

Re: from fandomdirectory

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I suppose I hated High School in part because everyone is acting but I refused to-- act -or- interact, largely. I basically thought everyone was stupid and unworthy of my time, ahaha, and I dunno if that made me pretentious so much as antisocial, which is more where I placed Luna (ie, without questioning it or myself, I thought she'd think of the people who mocked her as unworthy of her time on some level, with no evidence to back me up, I know).

I came close to not surviving High School, yeah, but I just wanted to say it's certainly -possible- to reject the whole social sphere (like I did) and get the job done well enough (I was valedictorian... in a school for delinquents). All you really need to do is keep your head down, ignore them, and get the work done on time. I mean, you don't ever have to play by the social rules if you're willing to be ostracized and ignored-- and that was just fine by me, because as I mentioned I thought they were all morons anyway. So... I thought then than people who 'kept up' a social identity that was false were losers, and I still think that now but realize it's necessary. On the other hand, I still think you can choose not to.

Re: from fandomdirectory

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But, like I said below, why would you consider Luna anti-social or thinking other people not worth her time? To me it seems like she is always very aware of peoples' reactions to her and in her own way is trying for reactions all the time, which indicates that she's not anti-social at all, she just gets attention this way instead of some other way.

Re: from fandomdirectory

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think it's just that I was responding mostly to this:
I can't see how you could possibly survive high school without putting on a bit of a show
--so I was saying you -can- survive it if you don't care about fitting in. With Luna, it was only when I realized yeah, I agree, she -does- care about fitting in-- that's when I lost one of my central links to her that were mostly actually projection (which I knew... which is why I barely wrote her, of course). I think I just didn't -want- to see it, I guess.

I'm not sure if she's trying for reactions when she says 'shocking' things-- I thought that was just what she thought, which may make her naive or clueless, but that's part of her charm, or something. She -is- very aware of people's reactions, but then so am I. Being aware doesn't have to translate into playing for them or being motivated by them, though of course it could. I wouldn't really ever have said Luna thinks other people aren't worth her time, that's definitely me alone ('cause I'm much more bitter/borderline autistic), but it did seem she wasn't unhappy, precisely, like she wasn't being brought down by the mockery or harassment or whatever. And not that she enjoyed the 'attention' of people hiding her things but rather that it wasn't -that- important; like, she was zen-- there were more important things. At least, that's what I wanted to think, I suppose.

Re: from fandomdirectory

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

This may be the same as your point -- but in OOTP, I had the sense that Luna wasn't doing anything calculated, that she was just being her totally eccentric self, tuned in to her own private satellite signals. But in HBP she seemed more of a self-conscious "personality," like someone who had settled on a personal style that served her agenda, and who knew what she was doing with it. The lion-hat seemed like a deliberate affectation, not something you'd do without thinking about it. And her quidditch commentary seemed to be all about "I'm part of Harry's circle now." It made her seem to have less integrity than before -- I mean, if she's playing ordinary social games, then she should drop the "flake" act, because that's sort of like asking to have it both ways, and it's not really an attractive persona to choose as opposed to just be.

Since I'm writing this after pleading tiredness on you other thread, I have to ask -- does that remotely make sense?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

You know, I just intuitively liked Luna less in the sixth book, without really knowing why-- and of course it rubbed me the wrong way when all these people seemed to say she was more engaging this time somehow. Hmph. Not that, you know, I could really be said to like her, precisely, in the first place-- I mean, she's not my type so much as I am hers, if you know what I mean :> But yeah-- this definitely makes sense, verbalizes what's been teasing at the back of my mind a bit with this.

I do think the lion hat was more of an affectation, a peace offering and/or a sign of solidarity/community, but-- here we see how little I remember details from canon off the top of my head-- Well, but I think she's become part of Harry's extended 'gang' as we see from that initial scene with Neville, but Harry's not so keen on it as they are. She's inevitably become... associated with him rather than just-- um, affiliated, maybe? Though I don't think it's calculating but rather an awkward attempt at playing for the crowd.

I dunno. At the Quidditch scene, I got uncomfortable for some reason-- like, omg so -lame-, you know, but.... In a way, I agree with Sister M that she was playing it up but at the same time I just don't want to believe it, I guess--? A loss of integrity would be a grievous injury to her character overall, and I don't believe JKR -intended- it, but....

It makes no sense, basically, that she'd suddenly -choose- to be like that if she was -already- like that to start with, you know? But perhaps yeah, on some level she could've been doing what was expected of her. Though... in the end, it's hard to tell. It's possible, I think, that she went on about clouds because that's what she noticed, but at the same time maybe she didn't feel competent enough to do a 'real' commentary, and-- well, I just can't bring myself to believe it's an act, because in the end that would totally invalidate her whole character. But it's possible she might be reaching sometimes.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Eh, sometimes I think that having too good a memory for canon gets in the way of a good theory. Actually, now I'm going to sort of whipsaw a little bit because you've got me thinking about Luna and I always like to try on opposite ideas. So how about this:

I wonder if sometimes when we see a person who's a total original, who seems totally self sufficient, if we don't tend to give them too much credit for integrity, for having worked things out to their own satisfaction. I mean, a lot of people looked at Luna in OOTP and said way cool, but in fact, wasn't there a lot of pain there, and a lot of maladaption?

Her fantasies about various spiritual things related back to her inability to deal with the loss of her mother, and her fondness for conspiracies maybe related for her need to believe that her father wasn't a hack, that the Quibbler wasn't just some cynical Enquirer-style rag. And we know that people stole her stuff so we can assume she got treated badly by a lot of her fellow students -- so maybe her pose of disconnection was about pretending not to feel that. And if we just focus on her style, then maybe we're aestheticizing her pain, maybe it's another kind of Harry-obtuseness.

So if that's the case, then her attempts to break out of her shell, to relate more directly to people, in HBP are somewhat more sympathetic. And yeah, it sometimes seems awkward and affected because she's still figuring out how to do it, maybe even only gradually acknowledging the extent of her previous defenses and compensations. But maybe, if we're rooting for her long-term health, we should want her to break away from the "integrity" of her former personal style.

I don't know, I just made all that up this minute, and it's a somewhat more sympathetic take on Luna than I've tended to have in the past. But I'm still in the trial-and-error phase of figuring out Luna, so it seemed a theory worth kicking around!

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Now I wonder why you had a non-sympathetic take on Luna, but, uh, the reason I don't tend to talk about her is that I tend to take it too personally, I think. Well, obviously, right :> I wasn't exactly like her (always more... um, pragmatic? but just barely), but it's not like I trust the people who coo over her & think she's so great either. In the end, a lot of the depth I can see in her is most likely of the projected kind, the same sort of 'wah' feeling I can see fluttering vaguely when people diss Ginny. Ginny is a badly-written character, but I wanna defend her as a -girl-, if that makes sense. I think that's where things always get messed up though, don't they? That line between 'character' and 'person', where anyone's fine with feeling any way about a character, but person.... It shouldn't exist like that, but it does.

Anyway, I think you're definitely on the money with Luna's distance & head-in-the-cloudness being a defense mechanism, and there being some denial about her mother & her loser/quack father-- I should know, I've had a similar deal with my father dying when I was 11, and the loads of displacement that went on. Everyone has a trigger, generally, something in real life that drives them to take a natural tendency and drive it to an extreme. When I say 'integrity' I don't mean 'purity', though; integrity is only being true to yourself, whatever reasons you have for behaving the way you do. Everyone has traumas they deal with in their own ways, and contrary to modern psychiatry, I don't believe trauma -explains- things so much as contributes to their rate of development.

I agree with your point about the pitfalls of aestheticizing her pain (or anyone's), though I don't believe I've ever done that. I do think people overprettify/overglorify Luna, but they do that to some extend to every character they like. I think people oversimplify characters/people like her in general, so they're 'cute' or disturbing or inspiring, but not all these things at once. Of course it's easy to say Luna's attempts to break out of her shell are a good thing-- I mean, how wouldn't they be? That is really her journey, to reach out to people, etcetc. It's not something to be taken lightly; it's taken me years and I'm still lagging behind 'normal' people.

I guess you probably wouldn't have read them, but Francesca Lia Block's books really explore characters like Luna a lot better; I think you'd get a better understanding with Witch Baby ;) There are layers of truth to these things; the thing that bothered -me- wasn't the idea that she was reaching out to people but rather that she was playing for attention, which is different. I mean, I never cared about her style in the first place-- it's everyone else who focuses on it 'cause it's surface & obvious, though I think it's JKR's usual bit of social parody, really, so over-the-top as to be ridiculous.

However, you'd have to be careful with that 'pose of disconnection' bit; for some people (especially some male people I'd known who are hacks and jerks and let's not go into that)-- anyway, yeah, for some people it's a sort of dissociative full-on neurosis. For some, it's partly a defensive mechanism but partly a genuine predisposition to be more concerned with the world of ideas. Not that being alone by necessity doesn't hurt, but it hurts -less- when you're okay with that on some level. I mean, it just bothers me to see all introverts as extroverts in disguise. 'No no dear, don't you -want- to go play with your friends?? Come on...' I mean, no, I don't. Sometimes I do; sometimes I do :> But I did say I took it too personally :>

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

the reason I don't tend to talk about her is that I tend to take it too personally

Well, before anything else, there's of course no intended personal commentary here at all -- I mean, I feel like maybe my observations here are pushing buttons that I want to be totally clear I have no intention of pushing. Obviously, for whatever reason, I don't personally identify with Luna so I just sort of see her from a distance, perhaps even coldly. I never saw her simply as the type of true introvert or person who lives self-sufficiently in her head -- both of these, I should say, are types I do kind of identify with and certainly have a lot of respect for.

But Luna always struck me as something different from that, and frankly as a character I didn't like. I think I tended to react to her the way Hermione did, just losing patience sometimes, feeling she took things too far, though that's as much a reflection on me as on the character. Also, maybe I was a little muddled between my reaction to Luna and my reaction to what I thought was JKR's take on Luna -- you say: it's not like I trust the people who coo over her & think she's so great, and again: I do think people overprettify/overglorify Luna. And I think in OOTP and possibly in HBP, JKR wants us to react that way to her, and I sort of recoil from that.

I guess in the end I think why I reacted negatively to Luna in OOTP was that I sensed a complacency about her character, I thought that she had willfully walked away from any responsibility for introspection, for self-criticism, for the pursuit of health (which is by no means the same as the pursuit of "socialization" or extroversion for a person who is naturally an introvert.) And that might have been an uncharitable reading -- maybe it's more sensitive to read her as someone who really needed a kind of moratorium for a while, where she just exempted herself from that kind of pressure.

I think that's where things always get messed up though, don't they? That line between 'character' and 'person', where anyone's fine with feeling any way about a character, but person.... It shouldn't exist like that, but it does.

Yeah, I think this is a general issue in meta about characters, and I've certainly gotten heated about differences in interpretation sometimes because they seem to reflect issues that it's really important to take a stand on in RL. I mean, ideally, literary character types are a safe(r) kind of proxy for engaging directly with personal issues. It's a sliding scale, I guess, rather than an absolute distance -- it gives you a little more room for talking over feelings and possibilities without cutting too close to the bone, but you can still feel the edge or the point even through the layers of insulation, and it still can bruise. If that makes sense! :)

Anyway, nothing I'm saying about Luna is meant to be conclusive or a definitive evaluation, of course -- I'm just puzzled by her, and trying on one possible interpretation after another.

It may be a doomed effort, though: I mean, to some extent JKR's premise is that she's exploring traumatized people and how they work their way to health -- that's certainly true of Harry, and of Neville, Sirius, Remus . . . you can apply it to some extent to nearly all of her major characters. But just when you want to give JKR credit for being profound and empathetic and all that, it seems like she forgets her starting point, and her attention wanders, and she just gets into the comedy of it without maintaining the connection to a deeper character analysis. So Luna, and the other characters, might just not be imagined consistently or rigorously enough to stand up to that kind of analysis. Maybe projection is the best we can do?

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think some of JKR's characters are either personal or universal enough to be consistent-- where she doesn't laugh at them, really, and just observes. I think Harry & Sirius & Ron & Hermione & Remus (and Snape--?) all give me that vibe of believable depth. With Luna, it's more complicated because to me, she's always read as imcomplete-- like a shorthand character, a hint at a type which I understood in general but which was a bit lacking in execution. So I don't think it's that I projected onto her out of nowhere, but rather saw an invitation in her. I can basically intuitively tell why she'd act the way she does, whether or not it's really 'true', if that makes sense; same goes for Harry and Ginny to some extent, and perhaps Remus. With Draco, it only came from long analysis, and even now he pisses me off too much to be -obvious-, y'know?

I get the feeling like her calm (or 'complacency', yeah) is what puzzles you most, and I guess since I do act like that a lot of times, it's just easier for me. I think it comes from a precociously high emotional intelligence and a lack of true friends-- so you could just observe people and go 'oh, well, that's interesting'; turn off your emotions as much as possible, in other words. Introspection & self-criticism are important, but at the same time they could be pretty destructive if you sense there's this void that threatens to consume you if you look too long. It's a sort of precarious balancing act, like walking a tight-rope, I guess. I wouldn't claim it's healthy, but to me it's just so -obvious-. I mean, it doesn't work if you're trying to act holier-than-thou or anything-- this is just classic, genuine dissociation.

Perhaps she annoys you-- and Hermione-- not because she's introverted (thinky) type but because she seems more like an introverted (feely) type. She's basically 100% Classic Original INFP (http://www.typelogic.com/infp.html). She seriously reads as if she was taken from a psychology textbook on this-- it's just completely by-the-letter. Needless to say, I'm an INFP with some INTP tendencies :)) I suspect you're an INTP or an INTJ like Hermione, and TJs (thinky-judgy types) just have a natural befuddlement by the (purer) NPs. Regardless, the FP seems more important than the IN, come to think of it, so in some ways the introverted vs. extroverted point is vaguely moot :>

I do think JKR's writing itself is to blame to some significant extent, definitely-- too comedic often enough to stand up to close scrutiny. I'm also the sort of reader who naturally built up a defense against JKR's moral meta-imperatives so that I could read her books at all-- otherwise I'd have given up 10 pages into the first book (which I did to start with). With Luna moreso than other characters, though, people who don't just see her the way I see her puzzle me-- in some ways I panic a little, suddenly taking qualities I've always taken for granted as alien and 'weird'. It's like looking in the mirror and suddenly not recognizing yourself. Not that we're -that- similar, but in enough ways that it makes me feel odd to see her as manipulative (which is my anthetical quality if there ever was one-- like, I'm largely incapable of it and also hate it most of all human qualities and cannot see Luna through that lens without freaking out).

The people who coo... well, I try to ignore them, though the fandom cooing bothers me more than the stuff in canon. In canon, I feel like she gets patted on the head a lot and smiled indulgently at, which is-- fine, I can see the characters acting like that. But it really really REALLY pisses me off to see her paired with someone like Draco, who'd laugh at her more than anyone. People are so insensitive, I swear :> Well, and some are oversensitive, heheh :> That would be me :>

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Whenever I start thinking about this, I have some sort of tick where I'm like '...but I'm not like this...' and then my mind sort of sputters and dies -.-;; I think trying on different identities, if you're genuinely confused about yourself and/or don't know where you fit in, seems different than pretentiousness, which seems more conscious posturing. Sometimes we all contradict ourselves, of course (and some of us more than others), but I don't think, also, that -seeming- pretentious is the same thing as -being- pretentious. I'm sure -I- can seem pretentious (or elitist), but that would be false so I just discount it; same with Harry, to me. Just because people don't know better, in other words-- well, that just makes them wrong.

So what you're saying is, it could be insecurity (that is, desire to be liked but the feeling that one isn't worthy) but also just confusion (not being sure of one's identity in the first place). That works, I guess. Well, though I tend to like people who're certain of themselves -more-, but it's not like I'd dislike people for experimenting or going through phases (like that whole goth/raver/hippie thing)-- but at the same time, it's not pretentious if you mean it. Or is it...?

Is pretentiousness all about emotion, though? I thought it was 'appearance of distinction'-- meaning, the emotion seems empty because its source isn't personal or genuinely rooted in the feeling itself, I suppose. It's like, the distaste people would feel would be intuitive in that case, based on their own emotional reading of the person-- like they're smiling fakely or their expression is stiff or their mannerisms forced. I guess I would think of Luna and Draco both as people who can't really force emotion like that, and this is triply true of Harry-- I dunno, do all teenagers force a front? Really? I man, personally I'd rather eat glass than force a fake emotion, so there's a wall here of sorts that makes it difficult for me to really get where all this would be coming from....

Hahah, my current lay-out is plain old altered Generator, and before it was just Punguin :>

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't necessarily mean going through phases, though that can be part of it. I mean where somebody really tries to push it and act important in a pretentious way and gets laughed at. Actually, since you were talking about Luna above, I think there's times where her persona gets near to that. I knew plenty of kids in high school who were weird but at times it was obvious they were pushing it for the effect. Luna seems to do that at times.

But yeah, so I don't mean being something you're not but sometimes the opposite--you are what you are, but you're jumping ahead and trying to make that more important or act like parts of it are natural when it's more what you want it to be. Like, it's not like Percy doesn't really think his job is important and doesn't care about cauldron bottoms, but he's trying out claiming that as an objective identity and it doesn't work. Draco isn't being something he's not, but sometimes he's trying to be a little more than he is, or take on an identity he feels is rightfully his but isn't always completely natural--and I'd say the same with Luna and Harry as well. They know who they are but the pretentiousness comes from what they are being just a little more important than it is, so there are times you catch them acting. At least that's totally the way they seem like they'd come across to me at school.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Hmm, well, sometimes I push my weirdness for -humorous- effect, but it's hard for me to relate to pushing it for attention (since, well, I actively -don't- want attention). It also bothers me when one insists Harry wants attention (though I agree he was suspiciously pissed about being on page 8 of the Prophet or whatever)-- I think, though, that he only wants attention of certain kinds or from certain people (that he likes). He's gotten used to his fame/notoriety, but at the same time I don't think he's extraverted enough to bask in undifferentiated attention. I'm probably oversensitive to this distinction, but there it is. I don't find Harry to be extremely introverted by any means, but introverted he is regardless, from what I could tell. Not that introverted people can't want attention, it's all about the degree to which they want it, really.

Maybe I'm just insensitive to this pushing thing with Luna-- I didn't notice, though I can admit the possibility, which is why I like her so much less. I can't help it, it's just the sort of thing that annoys me in most people. I don't mind over-acting for humorous effect or to prickle/annoy people or something, but if you do it out of desperation and passive-aggressiveness, that's when it gets to be a sort of fakeness I dislike.

I can deal with them jumping ahead and appropriating bits of themselves they want but don't have yet-- I think this depends on whether I think the character/person will get there or has 'grounds' for acting that way-- like, can they live up to it? I think Harry can, for instance, and so can Percy, probably. That's why I was including 'success' in my own understanding of 'pretentious' above; like, at least, truly pretentiousness and desire to 'put on airs' seems to be all about -wanting- success, at least, wanting to 'pull one over' people. I dunno -.-; Heh. Maybe there's different degrees of pretentiousness like with everything else.

Though I do agree with e-san below, like, that's what I was trying to say: that while Luna may want friends like a normal person, she's not really willing to change for them like Remus had been, and that's probably what I'd always focused on before.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Harry strikes me as pretty average in terms of wanting attention. He'll dream about having lots of fans screaming for him like Krum, but he doesn't want the pressure of constant attention all the time. He doesn't go phoning the paper to get himself in. He's used to a certain amount of attention so that when it's taken away he notices, but he rarely does things to draw attention to himself really. The paper is lying when it says that he makes up stuff about Voldemort to get attention. He uses the paper to get the truth out in OotP, but only after a fake story is told about him. Most of the stuff about him was done without his wanting it, and isn't true anyway.

I don't know whether Remus reallly changes himself. He does choose to keep quiet rather than have his friends see him as a stick in the mud, even when he thinks they're wrong, which is a slightly different thing, but that still seems to be part of his personality. He doesn't really care enough about these things to risk confrontation with his friends over it, and he hates confrontation. This isn't something Luna would do, certainly, but it seems to be part of Remus is. As an adult he seems more confident, but he still makes similar choices. It's kind of a grey area--if you are non-confrontational, is becoming more confrontational making you more or less your authentic self?

Luna does seem to refuse to change to conform and so be more accepted, but that doesn't necessarily make her less needy than Remus--she may just have different needs. I mean, rather than saying that Luna refuses to give up her radish earrings to have friends, one could just as easily say that Remus doesn't need to wear radish earrings to be noticed or seen as having a personality. Nobody's asking Luna to give up her earrings. It's hard to say she'd be popular or not without her weird quirks because we rarely see anything beyond that.

I think if I knew Luna I would probably treat her a lot less condescendingly than people in canon do. If I got impatient with her I don't think I'd say, "you're weird," or "act normal" so much as "stop pretending to be weird" (because I think it would drive her nuts to have someone suggest she's normal, and also because I think she strives to be really authentic). Almost every scene with Luna is about Luna being strange--she grinds lots of conversations to a halt by bringing in some thing that's a special interest of hers, and she's the most decorated character in canon. She's kind of the opposite of Remus in that way. If Remus was asked to do Quidditch commentary, for instance, he'd probably try to be unobtrusive and make the game easier to understand for people watching. Luna gives us 90 minutes of what Luna thinks.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I think my only discomfort is with any implication that Harry wants attention than he 'should' or than is 'normal' or reasonable for him, like, uh, because that's one of the ways people who don't like Harry put him down (like, oh, he complains but he's really desperate for everyone to lick his butt or something). Like, I think he's pretty normal but on the low side because of the whole... not particularly -wanting- to go out and make an impression on strangers, though perhaps that might have to do with them all knowing he's the Boy Who Lived. It just doesn't seem like he thrives on it, not -particularly- much, anyway--? That's all I meant. I'm not sure why I even brought that up anymore, btw -.-;

With Luna, it's less about 'would she give up her earrings' and more 'would she compromise herself in any significant way', which I doubt she would because of that thing with authenticity, as you said. I don't think Remus has any particular issue with putting up a front or what have you ('cause he does), but Luna would. I do think we see her saying intelligent or insightful things sometimes, if a bit off-kilter, though I can't give you any quotes, so it's not -all- about her little quirks, which I always found rather irrelevant though omnipresent. It's like, in a way she has a more fresh/unbiased outlook on (certain) things than most people, and that's not just a quirk.

I agree it's likely she has different needs; that's totally in keeping with my initial impression of her and my whole thing where I Mary Sued her all to hell. It's perfectly possible to have needs that -don't- include being desperate for human contact above all else, though one may need it still. However, I think Luna's apparent self-centeredness is less about demanding focus on herself and more about not being aware of the 'right' amount of modesty/sensitivity she should have. I totally know people with low social skills (myself included) who make the common mistake of just, um, being so solipsistic that they can't help but see everything through their own special lens of self, in an oblivious sort of way. It's a disconnect of sorts, I guess. I think typical for nerds ^^;;; Like, 'what do you mean, this isn't deeply fascinating?? Aren't you intrigued, I found that... blahblahblah....'

I think with Remus, it's not that I meant he's not himself but rather he's more socially aware/intelligent and thus more willing to see his situation rationally enough to realize there need to be choices & compromises made. I don't think Luna even sees it as a choice, and wouldn't take it if it existed because in the end her ideas are more important to her than people (well, she's probably Ravenclaw for a reason where Remus isn't). This is the basic problem I have with needy-for-a-friend/boyfriend!Luna, especially -so- needy she'd tolerate more of the same abuse/condescention that's coming from everyone else coming from that person too (ie, Luna/Draco). It just ain't gonna happen; she's not gonna stick around if you laugh at her because if she was going to do that she would've done it already.

I don't think she'd be popular unless she changed her whole personality anymore than Neville would be popular even if he stopped being chubby and clumsy. They're just dorks. Teenagers especially smell it on people; not that I'm bitter (precisely), it's just been my experience that dorks don't get popular no matter what, unless you mean with other dorks. And actually sometimes even with other dorks (like Luna and Neville), the bonding doesn't really happen because they're just too different. I guess I take the whole believing-in-nonsensical-creatures thing as a metaphor for something like being a fantasy-reading RPG-playing videogame-obsessed Wicca-practicing teenager who everyone avoids; I mean, it doesn't help that I -was- that teenager (more or less), but still, Luna rings those bells for me. The clothes are only a symptom, it seems to me.

Though I do know you'd not treat her condescendingly 'cause you just don't treat people you consider out of their gourd condescendingly in the first place~;) Though that bit with pretending to be weird... ouch. Straight for the jugular, there :>

[likethemodel.livejournal.com]

Luna, to me, is no where near Remus in the neediness department. He was perfectly willing to change himself to be accepted. With Luna, however much she wants friends she's never willing to put away her raddish earrings and pull a Ginny.

(In fact, Ginny reminds me most of Remus. She changed herself completely to get the attention and acceptance of Harry.)

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with you-- Luna's lack of neediness was one of her trademark distinctions, I'd always thought, and to liken her to Remus just sort of short-circuits my understanding of her in a lot of ways. I think it's normal to want friends, yeah, but at the same time if you see Luna as willing to put up with 'questionable' things and/or changing herself for friendship/company-- that's a whole 'nother thing altogether. I mean, that's where the trouble starts with me disliking people and Luna in particular, though with Remus I forgive it because it fits his overall personality more naturally, it seems like.

I totally see the resemblance with Ginny, too. I think Ginny canonically is pretentious in more Gryffindor-like fashion than Remus, perhaps. She just charges forward with her projected front rather than using it as a shield, anyway.