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Luna Lovegood Analysis

By Harleen

    Hello everyone. Today I'll be talking about the highly controversial, highly strange, and highly fascinating character of Luna Lovegood and giving you some of my thoughts.

    A lot of people have described Luna as saying that the girl is a fruit-loop, nut-ball, space cadet with highly questionable taste in accessories. Enjoyable, but in small doses.

    Luna, to me, was a wonderful new character introduction for a number of ways. Yes, she was quirky and weird and annoying. Harry's annoyance at being caught in a train car with her at the beginning is very real. Everyone's been in that situation, where you've been stuck with someone less-than-cool (as you perceive it). But I was impressed with the way that JK Rowling introduced an outcast character who wasn't just clumsy like Neville (who has always been "included" in Gryffindor) or something similar. Luna is really freaky. On top of that, she lost her mother, and her father is the editor of a tabloid of dubious reputation.

    Luna, it appears, is the modern-day parallel to Snape. How Harry and his friends treat her is different than how James (the git) treated Snape. Harry has made the choice to be nice to "Loony Lovegood" and reach out to her as a friend and he will reap what he has sown.

    She's obviously very smart, and she is good for Harry in the sense that she is one of the first people outside his circle of friends to "believe" him. 
And Harry's feeling sorry for her at the end of the book was an important step in his character development - it was probably the first time in the book that he felt sorry for someone else and not himself.

    I didn't think she was "flat" or undeveloped (although maybe she was - she left a strong impression in my mind - but I'll have to go back and re-read). She was a *new* character, and maybe that's why some people felt like she was foisted onto us.

    As for she and Harry, I really do think that they might have a good 
friendship coming along. The fact that she's so calm (if that's the right 
word...lol) might help him. She seems to sort of understand him, because she lost someone she truly cares about as well. Her mother. So I think that, as a friendship, these two go great together.

    I hope we do see more of her sometime in the future. I don't know if there is something more the her than just the fact that she's a little...er..out there, but hey, you never know!

    She is going to end up important later, I think, very important ... did 
anyone else notice the way she made Harry feel slightly better at the end of OotP, and connect it with Dumbledore and company? I mean, so far it's always been either Dumbledore or Hagrid to comfort Harry at the end of a major crisis. But Luna is a year younger than Harry, and this made her seem very grown up ... I dunno, I'm kind of getting the feeling that she's an incarnation or something ^^*

    One of the things I liked about this book overall is that we are starting to 
really see Hogwarts as a society outside of Gryffindor, and for that, I am 
also grateful to Luna.