Harry Potter
was a sensation in my teenage years. I remember how I used to read reports on
the news about queues forming outside bookshops the day before the next book
came out. Then they made the books into movies and the people of the world
queued outside movie theaters desperate to beat the "House Full"
signs by even one second, if possible.
Yes
Pottermania was well in swing when I was 14 years old. And why shouldn't it
have been? It was a riveting tale of a boy wizard who had lost his parents and
was going to a school where they taught you magic! Magic! That alone was enough
to keep me hooked, because having read many books where the key element of the
plot was magic, this one therefore
attracted me. It was well written, had original characters and plot themes and
the USP for me was that it was a world in which I could lose myself. Hogwarts
was my home. There were dragons and talking paintings, spells that could turn
you into a toad or help you disguise your nose, shapeshifting, salamanders and
carnivorous books and so much more in the Potter universe.
Among the
characters of which there are plenty- such as Hermione Granger, the intelligent
and studious spell caster whose razorblade of a brain and never say die
attitude makes her a lasting experience. We must also mention Cedric Diggory,
who died for his friend Harry. You see Hogwarts was an ecosystem where it was
never just about Harry and Voldemort and was always about
the universe Rowling managed to create.
However in
this universe of half giants and basilisks there is one character who for me
stood out sharper than even Harry. Her name was Luna Lovegood aka Loony Lovegood
and she appeared in the fifth book- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
and instantly became my favorite character in the book.
How did she
do this? She did it by being totally, fantastically awesome!
Luna was a
girl who lived in her own dream world, as far away from reality as possible, while being thoroughly grounded in reality all the time. She was
intelligent, witty and had a sense of humor that rivaled that of Fred Weasley
and that was no mean feat! She was also very underplayed- appearing for a few
scenes in the book and making her presence felt in each of them. It was like an
elephant in the room when Luna appeared, with her Quibbler held upside down and
her weird grin.
But my dear
reader, this character was also capable of shooting Pluto with a Blasting curse
in The Ministry of Magic and making it incapacitate a Death Eater, so I would
urge you not to mess with her.
Luna is the
embodiment of The Beatles' song "The Fool on the Hill".
"He never listens to them
He knows that they're the fools
They don't like him
The fool on the hill"
This checks
a lot of boxes where Luna is concerned. She is a Ravenclaw out and out, and
although many people are of the opinion that Miss Granger should have been one,
I disagree. Luna is a much better fit in Ravenclaw, because she is so
underplayed. Her subtle hints to Harry at times make a lot of difference to
him. While she may believe some strange things, she also stands up against evil
and defends what to her is more precious than gold- friendship with Harry and
the rest of the DA. We see that when Harry visits Xenophilius Lovegood and sees
her room for the first time.
To conclude,
Ravenclaw's motto was "Wit beyond
measure is man's greatest treasure", and Loony Lovegood is the
embodiment of that. She is street smart, very intelligent and in all aspects of
her there is wisdom.
Hats off to
JK Rowling for having created Luna Lovegood!
The Bilge Master
Luna is my favorite character too, just amazing .
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