Harry not catching details (was Re: Chill out, guys)

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25841

$%#^%! I did it again!  After apologizing for forgetting to change the 
heading to reflect the content shift in that 'Re: Ron' post, I 
promptly did the same thing again in my last post.  Despite the 
unchanged subject, it bears no mention of how to pronounce Nagini, nor 
is it really about SuperMolly per se, it's just in answer to Steve's 
comments about Molly which were asked under that same subject.  Grr!  
Sorry again!!!  At least this one is done right.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., prefectmarcus at y... wrote:

(snip description of all manner of Harry-trauma in the graveyard scene 
of GOF)
 
> Don't you think that he possibly just might, maybe, perhaps not 
> catch ever single detail of what is going on?

This is a valid enough point except that technically it would seem to 
violate the Authorial Theory of Misinformation (I *really* need to 
explain what that is one of these days).  Anyway, what I mean in this 
particular context, is that the details we receive here are dependent 
upon the perspective/accuracy/veracity of the third person, 
limited-omniscient narrator and not upon Harry.  The details he would 
or would not notice are irrelevant provided that he was in fact 
present at the time.  We have no precedent to show that the narrator 
ever leaves out concrete fact because Harry might not have noticed 
provided he was there.

There ARE books where third person, limited-omniscient narrators leave 
out details even when the character is capable of witnessing them, 
even ones that outright lie, despite the fact that they're not even 
characters.  But there is no reason to believe that the HP narrator 
fits into this category.

Please ask me to elucidate if I didn't explain this well.

-Luke