The Women of and the Sacred Text Blessing Luna Lovegood (*pre-roll music*) Vanessa: Hi everybody. Before today’s episode, we wanted to let you know that we love doing Women of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, and in order for us to do it sustainably, the way that it is going to go from now on is one episode a month will be posted right here, and one episode a month will be posted only on Patreon. So if you go and support us on Patreon, you can get all sorts of goodies – videos of Casper and I answering questions, extra sacred imaginations from Casper, and you can get a second episode of The Women of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text every month. (*pre-roll music fades*) (*theme music*) Ariana: Hi Vanessa Vanessa: Hi Ariana Ariana: Welcome back to Women of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Vanessa: Thank you. It is my favourite place. Ariana: You’re not allowed to have favourites. It is my turn to bless a character this week. (*theme music fades*) Vanessa: Yes. I’m so excited! Who are you blessing? Ariana: I’m blessing – Luna Lovegood. Vanessa: I have definitely heard of her. Ariana: Yeah. Super minor character… Vanessa: (*laughs*) Yeah. Ariana: … but I just really wanna zoom in on her and make sure that everyone appreciates Luna. Vanessa: So obviously I love Luna. We joke that you are the Luna of our podcast.

Ariana: Which is pure flattery. Vanessa: Yeah, I know. It’s the nicest thing that I can think to say. There are so many wonderful things about Luna – what specifically are you blessing Luna for? ‘Cause I feel like we might do more than one episode on Luna. Ariana: It’s possible. I’m blessing her for something that I actually noticed when we were re-reading the books this time, which is when we first get introduced to Luna, she’s on the Express and she’s meeting the Trio for the first time. I really got the impression that she had a crush on Ron. Vanessa: For sure. She’s like laughing really hard at all his not that funny jokes. Ariana: Exactly. Number one evidence that anyone has a crush on anyone is if they laugh really hard at jokes that really aren’t funny. Vanessa: Agreed. Ariana: Ans then she… Vanessa: Aah! I have a crush on my partner! (*both laugh*) Ariana: Cute! I’m glad that you’ve just realised that. But then also she like offers to carry his owl so that she can give the owl to Ron later. Erm, and she’s like, “If you had taken me to the Yule Ball, I wouldn’t have minded that we didn’t dance.” Vanessa: Yeah. There’s something about Ron, ‘cause the best women like him. Do you think that women like Ron for the same reason that a lot of women will like-like the drummer of the band? But there’s this feeling of like, “Oh, you’re not the main guy, and so maybe I’ve got a shot with you ‘cause you’re the secondary guy”. Ariana: I really hope that people like him for his own merits. I don’t know what they are. Vanessa: (*laughs*) Ariana: But the beginning of book six, I noticed this quote that Luna says about Ron, and she says: “He says funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?” said Luna as ​ they set off down the corridor together. “But he can be a bit unkind. I noticed that last year.”

Vanessa: Whoof, that is the correct diagnosis of . Ariana: And I think as I continued looking at Luna throughout the books, there was no further evidence that Luna was as infatuated with Ron as she is in book five. And that line made me think that she had a crush on Ron and she saw him being unkind, and she changed her mind, and I wanna bless her for that because I think that is such a wonderful thing to be able to do, and I wanna feel more empowered to change my mind about things, and I think sometimes it’s really hard when it comes to love. Vanessa: Yeah. I have definitely had a – like – crushes in my life where I feel like it’s almost the way that Trump’s supporters talk about Trump, like I could have watched my crush like kick a puppy, and I’d be like, “He probably had his reasons.” Ariana: Right. There have been people who I have liked, and I have been able to step aside and say, “That’s not a very good person; I don’t like what he’s doing,” and then I still have a crush on him anyways. And I can’t get myself out of it, and so I so admire Luna for being able to change her mind about him. Vanessa: Well, and here’s the thing – we will never know if she changed her mind, but at minimum she’s changed her behaviour. So even if she’s attracted to him still, she’s no longer presenting as such., which means she’s no longer like, quote-unquote, “going for him” in any way, right? And that not that she was like throwing herself at him to begin with, but she was like signalling attraction before. Whether or not she still like, “dammit, you’re a jerk, but I still like you,” she is not acting like it, and that’s what actually matters, right? Ariana: Totally. And we see that Luna like, doesn’t care what other people think of her, like, she acts in a way that is true to herself at all times, so I think the ability to act true to how she has started to think about him is just evidence of Luna being Luna. And then as I was thinking about Luna and Ron, I was thinking about – how similar they are in certain ways. Vanessa: Huh? Ariana: Well, I think they’re both really blunt characters. They’re both people who sometimes say the truth at inconvenient moments. Vanessa: Hm mm. Ariana: I think Harry says about Luna once that like, it was uncomfortable her truth telling.

Vanessa: Hm mm. Ariana: And I think, the worst thing about Ron – one of the many bad things about Ron – is that he says the wrong thing all the time, right, we know that, people joke about it in the books, that he’s like always saying the wrong thing. But the way that Ron does it in the books is that he does it like without empathy, and I don’t think I ever see Luna doing it unkindly. Vanessa: That’s interesting, ‘cause like sometimes Ron can say blunt harsh truths with kindness, right? Like he’s just done this with Hagrid with where we are, where Hagrid is like, “Oh, my face is fine!” and he’s like, “No it’s not, and if my face looked like that, you’d be mad,” but he also like, will just say things that like, “Woah, Cho’s having a lot of feelings all at once!” right, like – any thought that goes through his head, he’ll just sort of say it and not think about the consequences. Ariana: Yeah. The one regarding Luna that comes up for me is he’s like, when Harry takes Luna to Slughorn’s party, and Ron says. “You could’ve taken ​ anyone,” said Ron in disbelief over dinner, “Anyone. And you chose Looney Lovegood?” Vanessa: Yeah. No, that’s ridiculous. Ariana: Yeah. There’s so much about Ron in the way that he talks about other people that I think reveals prejudice… Vanessa: Yeah. And profound insecurity, right? Ariana: Yeah, and I think what’s so beautiful about Luna is, what we always talk about with her, is how non-judgemental she is, how she says true things, but they don’t bring any kind of judgement to them. They’re just observations with nothing passed, and I think when Ron says blunt things it’s often veiled in his own judgement. Vanessa: Yeah. No, I think that that’s really wise. Ariana: So I guess the two of them make some kind of sense together in the way they approach the world. Vanessa: Uh huh. Ariana: Uhm, but when you dig a little bit deeper I think that there’s this profound mismatch.

Vanessa: Luna’s sort of announcement of mind changing is interesting, right? She is saying something bad about Harry’s best friend to Harry, which we think of as like not a very socially ept thing to do, but she doesn’t say it with judgement, she has a way of saying it that sounds like an observation and not an inditement, and like uh, “This is something that bothered me,” but like not, “And he’s a bad person,” right? Like there’s a softness to her language that leaves a possibility for like, “This is just my perspective of him.” It’s like basic non-violent communication, right? She like uses an “I” statement. Ariana: Totally. And I think that points to something that’s true about Luna in general, which is that I think she’s like quite zen, like she is so profoundly alone and she’s so appreciative of having friends when she has them, but she’s so matter of fact about it. And she’s so appreciative when Harry invites her to Slughorn’s dance, and so appreciative of having friends, but she never expects it, and she doesn’t seem to be like grabbing hold of it desperately. It has come to her and she’s grateful, and she’s going to be a good friend in return and show up when she’s needed, and but there’s something about the way in which she lets things in and out of her life and lets things roll off her back when people say bad things about her, like she knows that they call her Loony, and I think that is really incredible. Vanessa: So in book seven we see a mural that she has painted on her wall of Harry, Ron and Hermione. Do you think that she has changed her mind again about Ron at that point, or do you think that she is someone who’s like, “You are no longer an object of crush affection for me, but I still like you and respect you”? Like what do you think is going on there? Ariana: I think it’s what you were just talking about in terms of that line. She is pointing out that he’s unkind, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t wanna be his friend. It is a kind of radical acceptance. She says, “We’re in this together, and you’re kind of unkind, you’re also funny, you have a lot of qualities, and you’re my friend.” Vanessa: Mm mm, and like, “The fact that you’re unkind means that I will no longer crush on you in the same way, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like you as a person.” The thing that I really love about having this conversation about Luna is that right now as we’re really in the midst of this like “Me Too” conversation, often a lot of the conversations are about women changing their mind, right… Ariana: Mm.

Vanessa: …it’s like, there seems to be regulation on women, and up till what point in any interaction they are allowed to change their mind, or something that I’ve heard many women talk about is if they decide not to go on a date with someone who they met on Tinder and were chatting with, or if they have gone on a date and don’t wanna go on a second date, that men will sometimes use language of entitlement, of like, “Well, you owe me a date, you owe me an explanation,” and I love that Luna is modelling for us that you don’t need to explain things, you are allowed to just change your mind. And changing your mind does not require an explanation to anybody else. And I think she’s just modelling that for us; her behaviour changes and we get this like one line where she’s talking to Harry, and like that’s it. It’s unapologetic, right? Because changing your mind doesn’t mean you were wrong, it means that you didn’t have all the information. Ariana: Yeah. And that's so interesting to think about because Luna, there are moany things that she believes in without all of the information, there are so many things that she’s actually unwilling to change her mind about when faced with the facts. I’m wondering what you make about her changing her mind on Ron – and-and staying faithful in times when it seems like there are so many facts against her. Vanessa: Well so, I guess I don’t know enough about the things that she has faith in as to whether or not there are actually counter facts, or if it’s like mysteries right, where Hermione is like, “Well, there’s no such thing as that,” and Luna’s like, “Just because we can’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not there,” whereas with Ron there are actual counter factuals – she has seen him be unkind. And so I think Luna is someone who’s open to the possibility, but I actually think this moment of her changing her mind on Ron shows that when she is presented with actual evidence she is capable of changing her mind, and I actually think it makes me have even like more love for the things that she does have faith in. Whether or not they exist is sort of irrelevant to me; I think so much of the beauty of her personality is that she is open to seeing things that are invisible. When she’s in Malfoy Manor’s dungeon, she sees it as an opportunity for kindness and caretaking, and bonds with Ollivander. She sees things that aren’t there and then she manifests them – um – and so I think that this proves that she’s like capable of dealing with facts and that she’s like making a choice to believe in the things that she does believe in. Ariana: Mm.

Vanessa: And I think it’s what makes her so good at being a caretaker. Ariana: Yeah, I mean I think people inside the books often write Luna off as a little bit dumb because of the way in which she believes. Vanessa: Hermione definitely does. Ariana: Definitely. But I think we see that instead of it being a non-choice, like she hasn’t thought about the facts so she doesn’t believe, it is a really active value that she has placed on the world, that she wears these earrings, that we learn aren’t radishes, they are actually dirigible plums so as to enhance the ability to accept the extraordinary. That is a talisman that she carries around with her, and a symbol of how she wants to approach the world and I think that’s so beautiful, and I think when she sees Harry pretending to be Barry at Bill and Fleur’s wedding and in disguise, she knows that it is Harry immediately because she does have this great ability to see the truth of things and to say the truth of things, and it is like that she is both, she is both able to see truth and hold truth and honour truth and to open up the space for things she doesn’t know. Vanessa: Right. And she’s willing to admit like. “I don’t know if this doesn’t exist, so who am I to say that it doesn’t right?” I think that that’s humility not stupidity. Ariana: Absolutely. Vanessa: I also think that Luna pulls off this like sweet spot of mind changing, which is if you change your mind too much, you’re flighty and unreliable, and if you never change your mind then you are like stubborn and pig-headed, right? And I believe that about both. Like if somebody flip-flops all the time on things, I’m like, “Who are you?” right, like, “Do you just go with the wind?” and if somebody will never change their mind, I’m like, I think that that’s arrogant and like sociopathic, right? And Luna just manages to change her mind sort of the perfect amount and the perfect degree. She doesn’t like throw Ron out with the bathwater, right? She’s just like, “Oof, you are no longer crush level.” Ariana: That’s so interesting that you think that. I definitely agree with you about people who never change their mind, but I think there’s something about being always open to being convinced another way that is really admirable, that I don’t see as flip-flopping, that I see as-as humility like you’ve talked about , as saying like, “I have gathered the facts that I know and here’s my opinion about x, y, z, but if you tell me something different I’ll change my mind,” and then

you go through the world saying, “I have gathered all of my facts including the facts that you’ve just told me,” and someone else comes along and is able to help me see something that I didn’t see before. I think, to me, that’s the ultimate way I’d like to be in the world. Vanessa: Urchk, no way! Like, where does loyalty live in that? Choosing to love someone, based on enough information. Ariana: I think there’s always gonna be information that will cause me to change my mind about someone. Vanessa: Oh see, no. My brothers could murder someone. Ariana: No, that’s – I think that’s why I’m blessing Luna, ‘cause she finds out some new information and she moves forward because of that. I think if I learned that my brother murdered someone… Vanessa: You’d help him bury the body! And I think that matters. Ariana: I think I would help him bury the body and then I would stop talking to him. Vanessa: Okay. That’s fine. I guess whether or not I think it’s good, I think it’s true. There are certain things that I know I am unwilling to change my mind on, and I am fine with it. I am willing to have a more nuanced point of view on these things. My aunt has been the bad guy in my life and in my mom’s life, and I am like not open to her not being the bad guy. I am open to like learning more about her and having a more nuanced point of view on her, but it is like important to my relationship with my mom that my aunt stay the bad guy, and I am just like fine with that. Ariana: I think you’re right that there is value to commitment. Vanessa: Yeah, that – yes! Ariana: And that there is something that comes out of commitment that wouldn’t be able to come out anyways, but I think I wanna be able to hold the space to know that I’ve picked something for the sake of picking something, but that doesn’t make it the objectively right thing. Vanessa: I think that’s right, I think that that is exactly right. But yes, I just do, I believe in the value of commitment. And Luna shows that, right, Luna is so committed to her dad.

Ariana: Yeah. Vanessa: Luna is committed to things, she is not flighty. Ariana: And the way in which she has like become a part of the friend group at the centre of this book. It seems like she’s just in the right place at the right time when they decide that they need to go to the Ministry and the Hall of Mysteries, and once she is there and has fought alongside them she is there alongside them for the rest of the books. That’s not even really a matter of choice for her, she’s there, and then she’s committed. Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have loved thinking about this with you, this is like such a beautiful thing to bless Luna for. Ariana: (*laughs quietly*) Thanks. It seems really small compared to all of the ways in which she’s extraordinary that we’ve touched on, but it was something that really struck me in this reading. Vanessa: And I think it is emblematic of a larger part of her, which is like that she is open to the world in a different way than I am, and like it’s a way that I wanna be more like her. So, I have come up with a game. Ariana: Yay! Vanessa: I think that everyone could agree that Luna Lovegood is a woman who lives up to her name. Ariana: True. Vanessa: She loves really well, and she has a moon-like spirit. Ariana: Yes. Her eyes are kind of moon-like, they’re protuberant. Vanessa: Right, exactly. So I did a little bit of research on people who are living up to their names. Ariana: Ooh my! (*laughs*) Vanessa: And so I’ve pulled some of these names, some of them are from my life or friends’ lives and others are from a Buzzfeed article, and I am going to tell you the person’s name and then I would like you to tell me what their profession is. Ariana: That’s amazing!

Vanessa: Okay so, the first one – what does this person do? His name is Les McBurney. Ariana: Les McBurney, oooh… McBurney? What does Burney mean except being a person’s name? I think – am I overthinking this? Vanessa: (*laughs*) Yeah, literally listen to… Vanessa and Ariana: Les McBurney. Ariana: Oh, he’s a firefighter! Vanessa: Yep. (*both laughing*) Vanessa: Les McBurney is a fire sheriff; he wants there to be less burning, so he is that. What is Ferris Achoo? Ariana: See, this is hard because both names could be something, right? Ferris, Ferris wheel; Achoo, sneeze, and there’s not really a natural link between Ferris wheels and sneezing. Vanessa: So I will say that this person’s first name matters less. Ariana: You should’ve just let me guess. Vanessa: Oh sorry, I’m sorry. Ariana: So – ear. nose and throat doctor then. Vanessa: (*laughs*) Yeah, he’s a general practitioner, he probably sees a lot of patients with colds. Dr Achoo! Okay, what about a woman whose name is Sue Yoo. (*both laughing*) Vanessa: S-U-E, last name Y-O-O. Ariana: That’s such an unfortunate name for a lawyer! Oh my God! (*both laughing*) Vanessa: Isn’t that amazing? Ariana: This wasn’t a very difficult game.

Vanessa: (*laughs*) There you go! I wonder what my name has fated me to do – Vanessa Zoltan. Ariana: Ooh. Ariana Nedelman… Well, I could’ve been a seamstress… Vanessa: Yeah, I was gonna… Ariana: … Nedelman, Needleman. Vanessa: yeah, you should’ve been a seamstress. What a missed opportunity for you. Ariana: My partner calls me Noodle. Vanessa: Ah ha. Ariana: So I could’ve made pasta for a living. Vanessa: Yeah. I should’ve figured out a tanning salon for people’s souls as Soul-tan. Ariana: Soul-tan! (*both laughing*) Ariana: Zoltan sounds like sultan. Vanessa: Yes! I should be a god! Ariana: Yeah! Vanessa: What should Ariana Martinez be? Ariana: Ariana Martinez… I think from now on the word “Martinez” should just mean “editor”. Vanessa: Because Ariana is such a great editor. Ariana: Yeah. Vanessa: Oh I love that. Okay. So… (*outro music starts*) Ariana: This has been The Women of Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. I’m Ariana the Noodle-maker. Vanessa: I’m Vanessa the Goddess.

Ariana: We are a production of Not Sorry Productions, distributed by Night Vale Presents, and edited by Ariana Martinez. Vanessa: We are Martinez-ed by Ariana Martinez. Ariana: We will talk to you in two weeks time, when Vanessa, it will be your turn to bless. Vanessa: I have no idea who I’m going to bless next, I’m so excited. Ariana: Start thinking about it. Vanessa: Okay. (*music fades*)