Your team of Potter Pundits — Travis Prinzi, Pepperdine’s James Thomas, and yours truly — sent in a ‘Luna Lovegood’ segment to the The Leaky Cauldron’s PotterCast and it aired this week. It was a lot of fun to record, which is a good thing because we got to do it three times, and the feedback from Fandom for this show, John Noe tells us, has been “excellent.” The show segment is several minutes into the program. Please share your thoughts about the program and about Luna here.
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I loved your discussion of Luna! But here is my question: How similar is she to Dumbledore? Her beautiful attitude toward death is an echo of Dumbledore’s description in Philosopher’s Stone. Her knack for calm and unexpected comments is also similar. We later find out that Dumbledore is more flawed than first suspected, but Luna seems to mirror his best qualities. What do you think? Is he also a lunar influence? Do they both have the same other-worldly focus?
Yes! ‘Albus’ of course means “white, resplendent” in Latin and, like Luna, is a marker for the albedo or white stage of alchemy, in which the object having been reduced to prime matter is purified in preparation for its apotheosis in crisis during the rubedo or red stage. Luna and Albus are the relatively removed signs of a greater Reality which purifies the alchemical subject as human reflections of the Transcendent Light. Luna and Albus could be brother and sister, no?
I posted about this over on HH, but wanted to give my props to you as well. I really enjoyed this segment. I never really understood Luna’s purpose, until the very end of DH- obviously Harry needs her to get into the Ravenclaw common room. And that one scene changed my perception of Luna entirely. The main question I have is, why so we like Luna so much, and not her father? She seems more mature than he does, and I don’t think its a lack of development. I feel like JKR showed us all there is to Xenophilious. LUna is just as fantastical, but with more depth. Why?
Can Xenophilious be faulted for more than loving his daughter more than Truth and Principle? Certainly, that is a grave failing, but understandable. Luna has more depth, because, as the representative of the Lunar sphere well above the concerns of the sub-lunar world, her height is transcendent.
I certainly don’t fault Xenophilious for loving Luna and turning the three in to the death eaters. I certainly may have done the same thing. But even at the wedding, he comes across as a caricature, and maybe that is his purpose- New Age gone wrong, as it were. Which I believe JKR said in reference to that character as some point. I just find it interesting. I think Luna is a great character, and with many of the other characters, we like their families as well- kindred spirits as it were. But with Luna, we love her, but not her family.
John, I’ve been following you off and on ever since you did an interview with Jerry Bowyer a few years ago now. You turned me around on HP, and I am really enjoying your recent radio appearances from MiddleBrow, The Hog’s Head, and now PotterCast. Thanks so much for all you’re doing. Your work in decoding Rowling’s writing has sparked a desire to write my own fiction.
I very much enjoyed the show on Luna and look forward to (much) more from the Pundits!
Blessings,
Steve