Identifying the Put-Outer

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 85993

> Oryomai asked:
> > OoP, Chapter Three: page 58 (American):
> > "Got it," he muttered, raising what looked like a silver cigarette
> lighter into the air and clicking it.
><snip>
> > "Borrowed it from Dumbledore," growled Moody, pocketing the Put-Outer.
> > 
> > 
> > My question is this: how did Harry know it was the Put-Outer?  We
> usually learn about things like that from Harry's POV and nowhere in
> that area did anyone mention the Put-Outers name.  Are we just
> supposed to assume Harry just *knew* the name?  
> 
> I don't think it necessarily implies that he does know the name.  If
> he did, I think it would say, "raising a Put-Outer into the air and
> clicking it".  Instead Rowling used the description, which implies
> Harry had never seen or heard of this device before.  The word
> Put-Outer is used in a fairly neutral area, so it could a description
>  from the perspective of the omnicient narrator (who is present,
> despite the fact that she usually limits her decriptions to Harry's
> perpective)   rather than Harry's.
> 
> -Corinth

Carol:
Right, except that JKR seldom uses a fully omniscient point of view
(the first chapter of SS/PS is the most notable exception). Usually
she uses a limited omnisicient point of view: The narrator can get
into Harry's mind but no one else's (except in the startling first
chapter of GoF, which violates our expectations on a number of levels,
but I don't want to talk about that now).

In the passage Oryomai quoted, "what looked like a silver cigarette
lighter" reflects Harry's (still somewhat muggle-oriented) point of
view, but "Put-Outer" is information provided by the narrator to the
reader, who presumably has read the first book and is familiar with
the term. However, I agree that there's something odd about the
passage. First, as I've already mentioned, the slip into fully
omniscient mode is conspicuous because it happens so rarely and
usually with much better cause.

Second, Moody's cumpulsion to explain to Harry that he borrowed the
Put-Outer from Dumbledore without telling him what it is seems
unmotivated. Why do it? The explanation implies that Harry already
know what the Put-Outer is and that it belongs to Dumbledore--as if
Moody is forgetting that Harry was fifteen months old when Dumbledore
put out the lights on Privet Drive and can't possibly have any
recollection of the incident (even if he'd been awake). But then Moody
also seems to think that Harry will enjoy looking at photos of the
Order members just before they died or met some other terrible fate.
Both incidents may reflect a kind of obtuseness in Moody, the
imaginative inability to see from another person's perspective.
Alternatively, the "borrowed it from Dumbledore" line may just be a
rather clumsy way of presenting information to the reader without
having Harry ask Moody what the object is, a tactic that might have
needlessly slowed the pace of the narrative (and deprived us of a
chance for overanalysis).

Or--irony of ironies, given that Moody has recently spent nine months
in his own trunk while an imposter taught his classes--maybe ESE!Moody
stole the Put-Outer from Dumbledore. Or the line could be a red
herring to make us suspect that he's not telling the truth. . . .

Carol, who thinks it's really just a small blunder that JKR didn't
consider worthy of revision