Emails From Luna Lovegood

by Mallory Ortberg · October 15, 2015

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: classified wizard Benghazi reports

 

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: 2015 NEW Loose Change 3rd Edition! MUST SEE!

 

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: essential oils and false flag operations

 

To: Ron Granger-Weasley <[email protected]>
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Squibs caused by MMR vaccine?

 

To: Harry Potter <[email protected]>
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Gringotts conspiracy to ruin the value of Britain’s Galleon reserves

 

To: Harry Potter <[email protected]>
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: dementors are a myth, invented as a TERROR TACTIC to cow populace into submission, please pass this along to your superiors

 

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject:  SIGN this petition to keep the MINISTER from enacting an APPARITION TAX

 

To: Hermione Granger-Weasley <[email protected]>
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: FW: Microwave radiation interfering with wand performance – WATCH LIVE

 

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Hogwarts founders’ connection to Dogon people and Sirius B – PLEASE TURN ON READ RECEIPTS

 

To: [All:Hogwarts]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Dumbledore’s Secret Allergy Elimination Techniques – What The Ministry Doesn’t Want Us To See

 

To: [All:DA Members]
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Voldemort defeated by 366 geometry

 

To: Hermione Granger-Weasley <[email protected]>
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: The Lizard People who Control The Mer People Who Control The Giant Squid (VIDEO LINK INSIDE)

 

To: Hermione Granger-Weasley <[email protected]>; Ron Granger-Weasley <[email protected]>; Harry Potter <[email protected]}
From: Luna Lovegood <[email protected]>
Subject: Dinner Thursday?

Special joke assistance thanks to Christian Brown.

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


145 Comments

  2. CordeliaFitz +227

    Remember when Nicole was really adamant that there would be NO MORE Harry Potter posts for a while?

    I’m glad Mallory wore her down.

  4. ArsenioB_Ham +201

    I’m not sure how I feel about this, because I always felt Luna’s beliefs were harmless, garden-variety nuttiness rather than aggressive, anti-government conspiracies. I don’t know if I can make the leap to Luna Lovegood as anti-vaxxer.

    1. Sarah +41

      Yeah, I’m getting a NAH on this too. “Tori Amos Lyric or Luna Lovegood Email Subject Line” would be more believable to me.

      1. popelizbet +17

        I would embroider every word of this post on my heart. Also “Björk Lyric or Observation from Luna Lovegood’s Journal.”

    2. celery +99

      Yeah, I can’t make the leap to Luna being an anti-vaxxer because it’s way too common a conspiracy belief. Luna would be the one convinced that the four Hogwarts founders were aliens and that the government was covering up the evidence. She had plenty of anti-government conspiracy theories (like Fudge campaigning to exterminate goblins).

    3. malloryelis +142

      She was anti-government, believed in cryptozoology and pseudoscience, and had no sense of when to keep her beliefs to herself; Luna ABSOLUTELY believes essential oils can cure cancer and it drives Hermione crazy to have to be polite to her when they run into each other.

          1. popelizbet +54

            Being a little too open-minded about believing things without evidence is not the same thing as denying actual evidence to the contrary, which I don’t recall Luna ever doing once. Also I think the conspiracy crap would have died down as she left her father’s ambit – she knows there was an *actual* conspiracy now and what that looks like.

          2. jonahblues +46

            Sure, but in practice Luna’s habit of believing the most interesting theory rather than the most correct one is no different than what a lot of conspiracy theorists do. I agree that she’d have chilled out later in life, though. She’s not a true nutcase, just the magical equivalent of a kid who gets really into radical libertarianism in high school.

          3. popelizbet +17

            I imagine Luna dealing with her trauma by harmlessly hunting cryptids, and finding at least one that no one had believed in. A wizarding coelecanth or the like.

          4. Unreadaethel +43

            Also, she and Neville meet up when he’s on an interesting herbology research trip, and they have the hottest, filthiest sex EVER.

      2. maggiegrift +132

        But, in a world where magic is real and true, I’m not sure that pseudoscience or anti-science positions are wrong. Like, maybe Luna is right, essential oils DO cure cancer? What do we know! We’re not WIZARDS! She is! Am I a Luna truther? Yes, turns out, maybe. I’m finally convinced.

        1. msbias +112

          Also the Ministry of Magic seems to be entirely undemocractic, so being anti-it doesn’t seem like a terrible idea.

      3. SI Rosenbaum +16

        In times of strife, people prone to paranoia may be optimized for survival. But in the absence of crisis, the tendency to paranoia, having nothing concrete to stick on, can get out of control.

  5. blushingflower +117

    I disagree with the premise that Luna would be an anti-vaxxer, but if she were, you know Hermione would just set up filters for Ron and Harry to automatically archive and mark her emails as read.

  6. ppyajunebug +184

    Luna would NEVER think the dementors are a myth, between them guarding Hogwarts in her second year and everything that went down during the Second War. That they were created by the government to harm the public? Possibly. But she’s more likely to believe creatures are real than fake.

    (strong Harry Potter opinions, I have them)

  7. Frumiosa +146

    Excuse me but I think you mean Professor Trelawney. Luna is the Phoebe of the Harry Potter universe! She is awesome and this post hurt my feelings.

      1. Frumiosa +131

        I love you Mallory but if you Creed-armsed into me over this I would step aside and let you fall on the damn ground.

  8. bighairnoheart +29

    Perfect in every possible way. (As I resist the urge to email this to my History of American Conspiracy Theories professor.)

  9. April +54

    I have so many mixed feelings about this! I mean, didn’t Luna prove to be right about some of the crazy stuff she said? Like nargles? Or am I mis-remembering??

    I just hate seeing her characterized as the kind of person who would believe Food Babe and all that nonsense. But the textual evidence is there. But I love Luna. </3

    1. celery +34

      In the movies, she’s implied to be right about Wrackspurts (she can see little white lights flitting around in Harry’s head through the invisibility cloak while he’s lying petrified and invisible on the Hogwarts Express, and this makes NO SENSE). In the books, as far as I can remember, none of her theories are right.

        1. celery +20

          Does that count, though? We/Harry had already seen Thestrals–Luna was the first person to tell Harry he wasn’t crazy, but it wasn’t like Luna had the theory “There are these wacky skeletal horses with bat wings that pull the carriages!” and then later we saw them. Mentally I classify that as a different trope, but that could be me being pedantic (The trope “Wisdom/reassurance from character thought to be weird” vs. the trope “Weird character is proven right”)

          1. popelizbet +60

            I think if we’d seen Luna before it was plot convenient we’d have seen her interact with thestrals to much derision from kids who can’t see them. Otherwise how does she so serenely know they’ll consent to be ridden? She can’t have learned it in care of magical creatures. You may be right about the trope, but I think part of the reason Luna is so open to belief is having been able to see things other people can’t so young.

          2. celery +19

            …How have I never realized that?! That makes perfect sense! I always just assumed her credulity was 100% from her dad.

          3. popelizbet +16

            I don’t think he made it any easier for her to separate fact and fantasy. I think going through a war and losing him would have tipped her over to transparency in government versus conspiracy theorist (Fudge wasn’t trying to exterminate the goblins but he sure did attempt a fascist takeover of the major educational institution).

    2. maggiegrift +27

      My memory is also foggy, but wasnt Mr. Luna’s dad the one who taught Harry about the hallows? I am remembering a scene where he reveals some myth and they depend on it for the whole final book. No?

      (I know Mr. Luna’s dad is not Luna, but I’m just saying the Lovegoods aren’t all wrong and Luna mostly learns stuff from her dad, I think)

  10. OliviaPJones +174

    Oh, I could totally see Luna as an anti-vaxxer, but that’s because I live in the Bay Area, where you’re talking to someone and they seem nice! and normal! and then they mention that they are an anti-vaxxer and also they are on this incredible juice diet and all their pores just screamed open and ran away and now they have no pores

  11. contrarianbear +47

    My one quibble with this is that as a former Oxford St. Hilda’s student I strongly believe Hermione would be a member of Hilda’s.

    But Luna’s email handle is sheer perfection.

    1. lesliejroot +26

      My main reaction to this post is that I now really want to know more about Hermione’s life at Oxford! Can you tell she’s not at St. Hilda’s by her email address? (I don’t know very much about the college system!)

      1. malloryelis +45

        oh guh yes you would not have oxford.ac.uk as your email address unless you were like, a generic oxford admin, I should have picked a college for her

        1. bookwormV +56

          I was going to write a comment about why Hermione would not have an oxford.ac.uk email address, but restrained myself. I am so glad other people have stepped in. (The domain is .ox.ac.uk, so you get email addresses like [email protected]; most people will have an email address which reflects the college/faculty they are part of. I have an alumni email address ending @merton.oxon.org, as a member of Merton College; current members and staff have email addresses ending @merton.ox.ac.uk. English Faculty emails end with @ell.ox.ac.uk. And so on.) (I am sorry, Mallory, I just have a lot of thoughts about Oxford email addresses and not many places to put them, apparently.)

      2. contrarianbear +44

        Book one Hermione yes, but book 7 Hermione has Seen Some Things and no longer stands for needless stuffiness and ceremony. Or extraneous men.

          1. bookwormV +12

            I am a total Hermione, and while I am completely in favour of Wadham’s general principles, the anecdotes from friends and acquaintances about Wadham life make me feel like I would have spent all my time if I had ended up there hiding in my room in a state of terror (so much sex and drugs and general debauchery!). Maybe Balliol?

          2. Deborah +3

            Balliol is where BoJo went, which always makes me a bit suspicious of it. Although that being said, the provisions for post grads there are probably the best of the lot. Mansfield might not be too bad – less stuffy, more egalitarian but also not quite as…out there as Wadham.

          3. krasnajacamelopard +1

            Balliol is full of rampant leftyism — they don’t even have high table!

            As much as it kills me, as a CCC Old Girl, I have to agree with the Mertonians. Hermione would be at Merton, no question.

          4. 30Litresof +2

            As a member of King’s Cambridge with friends at Wadham (I understand the two are seen as vaguely equivalent), Wadham’s got nothing on King’s. Of course, neither’s really that radical and debauched as they’re still made up of Oxbridge students, but still.

        3. shy +9

          Hermione learning to have female friends rather than competing with them while she cleans up after the boys, would be high on my post Book 7 wishlist.

      3. theinvisiblecritic +2

        Obviously New College. Unquestionably New College. There are sufficient medieval crumbly bits.

    3. sevanetta +11

      Luna’s email handle made me think: ‘oh no, she is one of those ‘I’m a MAMA not a MUM’ people’ and now I’m sad bc it’s just another friend who’s gone all… I’m a mama. Sigh.

    4. EvaGr +1

      Hi!!!! I’m applying at Oxford. Which colleges are you suggesting? Which are the most progressive/liberal ones?

  14. irishbreakfasttime +36

    I think this post is the missing reason why wizards don’t use email. The Hogwarts faculty listserv would be a nightmare. But walking all the way to the owlery is so much more effort than clicking “FWD.”

  15. sausagedog +82

    Oh my god WHY is [All:Hogwarts] not a moderated listserv??

    Or is it, and poor Colin Creevy or someone has to hand reject all her missives, and feel slightly guilty about it even though he knows it’s the correct action?

        1. popelizbet +17

          +1. That’s the happiest ending for Colin I can think of, if he was afraid and ended up a ghost.

      1. StillT +15

        Many of these comments are fantastic, but this is the one that made me sputter with laughter.

  16. bethcorriveau +90

    Misinterpreted “dementors are a myth, invented as a TERROR TACTIC to cow populace into submission” as “dementors are a threat to the populace of cows” and spent a good minute wondering what cows would see if a dementor came after them and really why they would need submission in the first place because aren’t cows fairly docile? (Says the city-dweller who’s never been within fifty feet of a cow.)

    It’s been a long week. Reading comprehension slipping.

  17. cosetthetable +67

    Okay guys, Yes, I agree that the Luna we know and love, as her best self, wouldn’t send these emails.

    But you can’t deny that she’s got batshit conspiracy theory tendencies, she certainly does. And Merlin only knows what happened to her in the basement of Malfoy Manor. And, as recently discussed, Hogwarts and the Wizarding World does not, in canon, spend really any resources on mental healthcare.

    So we can HOPE that Luna doesn’t become this….. but the possibility is greater than zero.

  18. Aunt Constance +41

    I bet every Christmas, Luna gives the Granger-Weasleys the WORST presents that always end up setting something on fire, or making tentacles grow on every open surface of the house. It drives Hermione absolutely mental and Ron literally has to beg her not to send Luna some passive aggressive gift in return that would ruin Luna’s life completely.

        1. cosetthetable +24

          Counting down until the listicle of “The 10 Best Times we were all trolled by Mallory Ortberg”.

          The listicle itself will be trolling in nature, as it will include “Books Literally All White Men Own”, just for all the people who will immediately go to comment BUT NICOLE WROTE THAT.

  20. mikelywhiplash +34

    Unfortunately, due to my all-abiding and unconditional love for Luna Lovegood, I now believe each one of these conspiracy theories.

    Send help!

  21. Ruby +44

    I got to thinking about this when some people were hurt by the Luna tweets. They (to paint it in broad strokes) relate to Luna, because she was an outcast. A lot of us here are smart weirdos, so I’m guessing the outcast thing wasn’t uncommon in school. A lot of people who read The Toast feel like they’ve finally found their tribe. I think it sucks for them to read something like this and feel a little like they’re outcasts from their tribe, too.

    Anyway, it’s just a comedy article, but I love ya, Lunas 🙂

    1. logicbutton +15

      Yes, as I said on Twitter earlier, I love my pals who identify as Lunas just as they are, and I wouldn’t have them any other way. <3

    3. redheadedwolf +30

      I get what you’re saying, but Luna wasn’t just an outcast — she was an honest-to-God conspiracy theorist, and it wasn’t something she ever tried to play down. She did push them in people’s faces like this by attempting to sell and distribute the Quibbler. So I think it’s fair to point out the Muggle equivalent, which reveals exactly why they made Luna’s peers uncomfortable.

      1. popelizbet +11

        I don’t remember her selling it and the only distribution (other than loaning a copy to Harry) I remember was after they were telling the actual facts about the Ministry? I could be wrong.

        1. celery +12

          I don’t remember her selling the Quibbler either (in the books, though she distributes it in the movies). She does bring up her beliefs in group contexts multiple times. The closest I can remember to her ever “pushing” her beliefs on people is the first or second DA meeting, though, when she pipes up with one of her government conspiracy theories, argues with Hermione, and in the process poor Neville gets seriously concerned that there really are giant demons of fire out there. I can’t remember if she has any other moments of seriously arguing for her beliefs, though she does mention them casually a lot.

          1. popelizbet +2

            That’s the only one I remember either where she pushed an issue instead of retreating like she did when they met her and Hermione started shit talking TQ.

  23. msbias +111

    This feels like an American Luna. Now trying to work out what an Irish / Southwest English Luna would be.

    She’d be against water fluoridation for a start. And she’d vote Green (if the Ministry for Magic was actually democratic) and be into an extra specially weird version of homeopathy and against mainstream homeopathy. She’d be pro-badger-cull, not because of TB, but because badgers attract Finoggly-fooglers. (Nobody else knows what a Finoggly-foogler is, but Luna assures you that they’re very dangerous.)

    She’d be very concerned about pixie-infiltration of the Campaign for Real Ale.

    1. contrarianbear +29

      She would be strongly in favor of the greenbelt and do reikei and yoga on the village common.

    2. geekcrackteam +11

      She’d currently be found at a water charges protest. And would have made a distance auntie register her to vote in Ireland so she could fly home to vote in the Marriage Referendum.

      And she would have voted against the Children Rights Act because she heard that the government were going to use it enforce mandatory vaccinations.

      (Yeah for obscure Irish current events.)

      1. msbias +10

        ah, now, I think the marriage referendum completely passed her by, even though she was living in Ireland with Muggles at the time. Someone asks her after the fact how she voted, and she stares at them with big eyes and doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Once it’s explained, she’s incredibly indignant to discover that equal marriage wasn’t already allowed.

  24. osutein +78

    Hermione: Oxford domain. Harry: Ministry of Magic domain. Ron: Hotmail domain.

    Perfect.

    I mean, there’s no way Hermione Granger wouldn’t go on to Oxford, since she wouldn’t be satisifed with a mere secondary school education and she grew up a middle-class English Muggle, so getting a doctorate at Oxbridge would likely be a dream of hers from childhood. I imagine her specifically attending Christ’s Church because the Great Hall would remind her of Hogwarts’s and that would make her feel more at home, a Muggle-born witch among Muggles once more. Sometimes she even sneaks in late at night and enchants the ceiling and eats a chocolate frog while working on her dissertation.

    1. bookwormV +29

      I don’t know; the Hermione who founded SPEW and fights for everyone’s rights might not like being at the poshest Oxford college there is. (The one person I know in RL from Christ Church is lovely, and I know there is at least one Toastie from there, so obviously Hermione-esque types can exist there! It just does not have a very Hermione-like image.)

      1. osutein +23

        Good point. Maybe she’s at a more progressive, less posh college but still sneaks into Christ Church at night to enjoy the Great Hall.

    2. jmstevenson76 +20

      Controversial thought: Do wizards even go to college? Even Percy, who, of all Weasleys, was most likely to, went straight into the world of work. Given what I can sort from the timeline, I don’t think Lily and James went, either. I think they got married and went straight into fighting Voldemort before dying tragically young.

      Post-secondary education seems Not A Thing Wizards Do. I suspect Hermione would have gone straight to working at the Ministry of Magic and started clawing her way to the top of her department.

      1. osutein +39

        Yeah, there’s no university in the Wizarding World (somehow) and most wizards and witches graduate Hogwarts and then go into a profession. BUT. Hermione is Muggle-born. She grew up in the Muggle World and, as a genius daughter of dentists in England, would likely have set her sites on Oxbridge before she got the Hogwarts Letter. Percy wouldn’t think of going to a Muggle university, but I don’t think Muggle-born, wicked smart and endlessly curious Hermione Granger would settle for a simple diploma from a vocational high school.

      2. msbias +38

        I once wrote a series of HP careers-guidance drabbles in which the University of Wittenberg was the largest magical university in Europe and Neville was going to do an MVQ (Magical Vocational Qualification) with a placement year at Kew Gardens.

        [/funny to British careers guidance nerds*]

        *of which I am probably the only one.

  25. contrarianbear +62

    (Unpopular Luna opinion below)

    Despite being a gigantic outcast in school, I just really don’t feel any particular affection for Luna? She’s a great human being but my god she always seemed hard to spend time with.

    Also why is she the chosen Hermione femslash pairing when CLEARLY it should be Tonks or Fleur.

    1. tragicallyludicrous +13

      Agreed. She was entertaining in the books but she would have been difficult to actual deal with on a regular basis.

      1. isabelcooper +25

        Thirded. Luna reminded me way too much of the pagan chicks who are like fifty percent of the reason it took me two decades to publicly identify as pagan or join in anything organized. Like, people think I worship Satan and eat babies? Cool. People identify me with I Feed My Cats a Vegan Diet Girl? NOOOOOOO.

    3. eli b +18

      That’s what I love about her as a character, though. Genre fiction tends to reflect the assumption that kids (and adults for that matter) have that if someone is a good person who’s on your side, then that means they ought to be basically your kind of person, and any idiosyncrasies they have should be just cute and funny rather than something you’d actually dislike; or if not, then they’ll see the light at some point and change to be more like what you want. Rowling does a good job of making Luna someone who’s not well suited to being a close friend with Harry & co., and who’s probably wrong about a lot of things, but saying that that is OK— she’s doing the right thing in her own way, you don’t have to want to hang out with her or approve of her dad.

  27. eisoj5 +9

    I had a dream last night that Luna became a murderous serial killer straight out of horror movies. Coincidence or CONSPIRACY????

    1. bookwormV +14

      This reminds me of a thing I saw on a Harry-Potter-focused British English LJ community, where someone mentioned hyphenation as a thing which you often saw among younger/feminist-leaning Americans, and how they assumed that was a thing in the UK as well because of the existence of Justin Finch-Fletchley. Cue lots of horrified comments saying that no, his surname was not meant to convey the fact that his parents were progressive and feminist, it was meant to convey the fact that he was super posh (having his name down for Eton was also a clue, of course).

      (We do hyphenate for more feminist reasons too, and I can definitely see Hermione either hyphenating or not changing her name at all, but the Finch-Fletchleys double-barrelling is clearly meant to mean something very different.)

  29. Jessie +44

    I kept waiting for a Luna email that was a reply, like “Hermione sweetie u need to open ur mind :)” or “I’m sorry Harry but yes I do need to send these to ur work email” “Ron here are a list of my children’s allergies for when you reciprocate dinner at ur house”

  31. redheadedwolf +47

    I’m sorry people’s feelings are getting hurt over this! I was also a miserable outcast in high school, but the thing is, I was not pushing a conspiracy theorist publication at people! Nor did, I imagine, most of those who identify with Luna and are upset here. I’m not saying you shouldn’t identify with and love her, but Mallory has done us a service in drawing the veil away and demonstrating the Muggle equivalent of Luna, and our discomfort with that version is exactly what her peers felt. But they still shouldn’t have bullied her, of course.

  32. StillT +27

    I have an unabashed love for Luna, but I also really enjoyed this piece. I can totally see Luna slipping to this side of the conspiracy crowd.

    Also, it may just be my love of making up email addresses (/other contact information) for fictional characters (and historical figures) tainting my opinion of the piece. Fittingly with all the Hamilton fanaticism going on around here, my go-to test profile for any registration system or user database is Aaron Burr ([email protected], ftr.)

  36. Dave +17

    The real question is, does Luna know the truth about Ron being a time-traveling Dumbledore?

    Also, I was so enthralled in reading this and the comments that I missed my subway stop reading this. First time in 5 years. Darn you Mallory!!!!! 🙂

  37. emdalton +5

    Most of these, yes, but not the anti-vax or faux Dementors. I could see Luna thinking Dementors were re-processed Azkaban criminals, or possibly a byproduct of making chocolate frogs, or even that they are really made of Dark Matter, but not that they don’t exist. As for anti-vax… I realize the point is that Luna believes in all kinds of wacky stuff that more “sensible” wizards completely reject, much of it conspiratorial, but the anti-vax thing just doesn’t feel quite right. I think it’s too main-stream, for one thing. Luna would say “everyone knows…” and then come out with something none of the Trio had ever heard of. Granted Harry lives with Muggles, but Ron is pretty plugged in to Wizardry folklore, and Hermione is obsessively well-read. Another hallmark of Luna’s theories was that they tended to be difficult to disprove. “Microwave radiation interfering with wand performance” is spot on. I would see her going for the “we live in a holograph of the real universe”….

  39. The Invisible Critic

    Obviously New College. Unquestionably New College. There are sufficient medieval crumbly bits.

  40. Narvi +1

    I don’t like her too much so I was going to compare Luna to Madeline Bassett, but second thoughts feel that’s a bit much.