Point of View

[cornflower_o_shea]

No: HPFGUIDX 30933

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Philip Nel <philnel at k...> wrote:
Philip Nel wrote: 
> A further question is: is it truly Harry's dream or does it really 
happen?  If we're supposed to believe that it
> really happens, then Harry's dream is not a dream but a vision of 
actual events taking place.  In this case, then
> perhaps we should omit the third point of view, listed above.
> 
Calypso wrote:
> >Actually, the first chapter of GoF *is* sort of in Harry's 
> >PoV...He dreamed that entire scene.


I'm a little confused. I have trouble seeing how this scene can be 
interpreted as perhaps not having happened. Doesn't the line "Two 
hundred miles away the boy called Harry Potter woke with a start" 
(p.19 Raincoast ver.) make it clear that Harry was dreaming the 
scene simulatneous to its occurance?

As an aside, I think it is very confusing to use the term point of 
view when we really mean what Phil nicely called "A third person 
voice aligned with" a particular character. In other words, we 
basically float around the scenes while a voice tells us what is 
happening and lets us eavesdrop, and that floating generally takes 
place around Harry, but not always. The Riddle house deviation isn't 
as much a deviation in terms of "alignment" (Phil, I really do like 
that term!) as we might think. Remember how we spent the first part 
of PS "aligned" with Uncle Vernon...In fact it is a very useful 
device to help build empathy with Harry. The opening chapter defines 
the bad guy and then we get, in contrast, Harry! It works so well to 
endear him to us.

Cheers!

- Cornflower O'Shea

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"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" -Albus Dumbledore

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