Harry's POV was Snape is NOT Sexy

[severin_szaltis]

No: HPFGUIDX 56497

Diana:
Nope, sorry, you've got this wrong. An Omniscient Narrator (Also 
called
Third Person Omniscient) tells everything that is going on, 
regardless of
the person's POV. It's not done very much nowadays, but there are 
several
classics that use this technique. (Example: "Dear Reader, you might 
suppose
that Harry's curiosity would be his downfall, but this was not the 
case for
at that moment Hermione was racing to his rescue.") The Harry Potter
stories are Third Person limited omniscient, which means they are 
told in
the Third Person (he as opposed to I) and from one or more person's 
point of
view. In this case - Harry's. We don't know any more than Harry does. 
If
it was a "videocamera" kind of POV, it would be Third Person 
Objective, in
which case we would only see what is going on externally, as if we 
were
watching the movie. We would not know Harry's thoughts and feelings on
anything - we would have to guess them based on the actions he took 
and the
words he said.

SS:
Ah no, sorry... I didn't mean `as though we are watching a movie' 
(though I quite see how you could feel I was suggesting this).  When 
I said video cam, I meant to show that we see what Harry's eyes see 
(as though he was using video cam to record what he sees), but that 
this is not the same as every word been Harry's word.  Which is 
clearly what people are thinking narrative POV means.  It does not, 
not even when it is a limited narrator not an omniscient one.

When people say "Harry describes," then they are confusing the third 
person, limited narrator Harry POV with First Person narrative.  
Clearly, the HP books are not First Person narrative, the narrator 
therefore does have some input even though it is Harry's POV.  

We cannot assume that every descripion is biased by Harry's 
opinion/view.  Sometimes it's just a descripion by the narrator of 
what of what Harry sees and we can assume that we would see the 
same.  For example, with regards to Snape, we would see "greasy hair, 
a hooked nose and sallow skin," regardless of the POV the narrator is 
using because Snape has, "greasy hair, a hooked nose and sallow 
skin."  It isn't Harry's bias talking.  "Harry saw Snape as a greasy 
haired hook nosed man with sallow skin," would be his bias.  
Otherwise we (and the narrator) are using his eyes, not his opinion.

SS ~;o)