Question RE: new info from jkr.com

[justcarol67]

Yb wrote:
<snip>
> But again, "Daco's Detour" is the most interesting in my eyes. See,
the HP series is written in third-person limited point-of-view. For
those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, it means that the
narrator is not in the story; he/she is an objective viewer of all
events. But, the narrator is limited to what Harry can
see/hear/experience. There are very few times where we depart from
this line of writing, and all of them occur during PS/SS.

Carol responds:
Yes, I know. I've posted about half a dozen times regarding the
limited omniscient narrator on the main list, mostly in response to
people who persist in calling Harry the narrator. A technicality,
maybe, but it's important to our understanding of the series. And
there *are* other instances when JKR departs from Harry's (for example
In GoF when the narrator reports that, unknown to Harry, Neville is
also lying awake). And I wouldn't call this narrator "objective" since
his/her observations are usually colored by Harry's. The key word is
"limited." Such narrators are unreliable because they are limited by
what the POV character experiences, knows, and believes. If the POV
character is misinformed, so is the reader. (JKR cleverly uses the
mind link with Voldemort to escape the limitations of this POV, and of
course she can't use Harry's POV in SS/PS chapter one or the scene
where Hermione sets Snape's robes on fire.)
> 

Yb wrote: 
> So unless we get a major change in the Point-of-View (third person
> limited to Draco), it means that Harry will be along on "Draco's
Detour," because that's the only way we'll find out what happens  on
said "Detour." So we have 3 possible scenarios (if in fact "D's D" is
> referring to Draco going somewhere, or even having a change of
heart, going to the good side):
 
> 1)       Draco goes somewhere and takes Harry along.Hmmm, H and D
> getting some quality time in.
> 
> 2)       Draco tells Harry about this "Detour" of his.
> 
> 3)       Harry is eavesdropping on Draco, and hears something, like
> Draco's plans/recount of breaking 
> Lucius out of prison.
 
> I'm leaning toward number three. I don't see Draco spending any
amount of time with Harry and divulging anything important any more
than I see Lucius seeing the light and becoming a warrior for the good
side.
 
> Any thoughts?

Carol responds:
Interestingly, it appears that at one point JKR considered having some
scenes told from Draco's POV. (The narrative technique would have been
the same but with one rather than two possible viewpoints.) Note the
deleted lines in the draft chapter in the scrapbook on her site and
the discussion of Theo Nott in, IIRC, the Extra Stuff section. The
conversation between Draco and Theo could not have been done from
Harry's POV and must have been (reluctantly?) discarded once she
decided to limit us to Harry's POV most of the time. It would appear,
too, that Draco was once a more important character than he is now--or
at least, had more "page time," so to speak.

About "Draco's Detour": You're absolutely right. Either she'll have to
switch to Draco as POV character, which would be hard to do at this
point since she has established Harry as the primary, and *almost*
exclusive POV character, OR Harry will have to go along with Draco on
the detour, which seems equally unlikely, OR Harry will have to hear
about it either directly from Draco (very unlikely) or by overhearing
his story. My theory of the moment is that he follows Draco, wearing
his invisibility cloak, and overhears him telling Crabbe and Goyle
what he's been up to--much like young Severus following MWPP, except
that Severus didn't have an invisibility cloak. Imagine Harry
following them into the Slytherin common room and then being trapped
inside because he can't open the door while any Slytherins are
present! Maybe we'll learn more about Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini in
this scene as well.

Carol, also voting for option three