Unreliable narrator (Was: Snape's stalling)

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 117365


-snipping Pippin's post (sorry)
> 
> Neri:
> I think the part that you don't follow is that I'm not talking 
about
> "a reader". I'm talking about particular kinds of readers. To use 
your
> terminology, I'm talking about the "conspiracy theorist" reader and
> the "anti-conspiracy theorist" reader.
> 
> The "anti-conspiracy theorist" reader believes that distrust has 
its
> limits. There are some things in the text that are just plain true 
and
> you have to trust them. Some anti-conspiracy theorists (probably 
most
> of them, certainly myself) believe that Lupin is obviously a good
> person. Therefore anything that makes him appear not good has some
> explanation (usually not a flint. It could be a flaw or a mistake 
of
> Lupin that makes him more human, but not ESE). You can of course
> disagree with such a reader, but at least he is consistent. He does
> not claim to be what he is not.
> 
> The "conspiracy theorist" reader, in contrast, claims to use
> "subversive reading" and distrust anything, especially things that
> appear to be certain. His/her motto is "things are not necessarily
> what they appear to be". For example, you have often justified
> ESE!Lupin by saying that he is presented as such a nice person and
> above any suspicion, therefore he must be the traitor. Now, since
> Snape usually appears to be a bad person, the conspiracy theorists
> saying that he is actually the hero seems like proper "subversive
> reading". But then we arrive at the end of OotP, and Snape appears 
at
> least as an OK guy. The great DD assures us Snape did everything he
> should have done to prevent the MoM battle. The narrator clearly 
tells
> us (I think you have recently quote this yourself) that Harry 
blames
> Snape only to relieve his own guilt. Superficially, Snape really
> appears to have done things right here. But then, a bit of 
subversive
> reading discovers a 5 hrs hole in the plot, which Harry DIDN'T 
notice,
> which makes OK-guy!Snape look very suspicious, and which DD 
appears to
> be covering but doesn't deny outright. What should a REAL 
conspiracy
> theorist do? He/she should immediately try to get to the bottom of
> this and find out who is the ESE here, or at least who is the 
puppet
> master, right? So how come all the conspiracy theorists either lose
> interest, or try to save Snape's honor by any means including 
assuming
> a flint? It seems that they are inconsistent in their own doctrine.
> One would suspect that they are actually more of Snape apologists 
than
> real conspiracy theorists. 
> 
> I hope I've managed to clarify my meaning.
> 

Potioncat:
Well, I'm jumping in kind of late here.  I've read up and down this 
thread and I'm sorry my computer was down while this was fresh and 
new.  (And, I'm in over my head as well...do you like my sea-serpent 
floatation devise?)

  Conspiracy...anticonspiracy...subversive reading. I'm not sure 
where I fit in, but I'll toss this out.  We've learned a few things 
over the past few books. Not everything a character says is always 
true.  The character may be telling the truth as they know it, but 
they may be mistaken.  Not everything we see is correct.  Mad-eye 
Moody did not turn Draco into a ferret for attacking Potter from 
behind.  It was Barty Crouch who turned Draco into a ferret and he 
did it because.....? Conversations that we overhear don't always 
mean what we think they do.(Lupin and Snape discussing the map)

So taking whatever topic you choose, you have to look at which 
character is saying what to determine what you believe.  Sort of 
like real life. 

Hagrid is a good guy.  He says Snape's ok.  He's a Hogwarts 
teacher!  (Paraphrased from SS...but if this is movie contamination 
I'm going to really iron my hands)  Well, Hagrid may mean that, but 
if his reason for trusting Snape is that Snape is a Hogwarts 
teacher, I'm going to reserve judgement. That just isn't good 
enough. We've seen too many untrustworhty teachers for that to work. 
Hagrid is a nice guy, pretty simple minded in lots of ways, so I'll 
look at anything he says very carefully.

Harry is ok, but we know he makes mistakes.  He trusted Crouch!Moody 
(didn't we all!) He already dislikes Snape and for very good 
reasons, and he usually attributes the worst possible motives for 
anything Snape does.  That would be OK, except we've seen cases 
where Snape is doing something for some another reason. I recently 
re-read the section where Harry discovers Snape is brewing a potion 
for Lupin.  Harry thinks Snape's poisoning Lupin and Snape's 
behavior seems to confirm it.  Reading that section after the book 
has been read, and you see it differently. So while I trust Harry, I 
know his interpretation isn't always correct.  It's fair for me to 
look at his opinion of others very carefully.

Dumbledore says Snape is OK.  Well, I'm sort of relying on this.  DD 
is supposed to be trustworthy...except that we know he doesn't 
always tell exactly the truth, or perhaps, not all of the truth. So 
there are times I think DD trusts Snape, but shouldn't.  And there 
are times I think he trusts Snape to betray him. And there are times 
I think he knows and is correct and all is right with the world... 
or will be. But for the moment, Snape seems to be one of the good 
guys. 

I remember when the time line for the MoM battle was first going on, 
some of us raised the flint flag or at least the JKR math flag.  I 
think we were justified at the time.(and may still be) But a lot of 
reasearch went into sunset, sunrise, this fact,that fact...and we 
most likely have a reasonable time line.  On the other hand if we 
ever ask her, JKR may say, "Oh my, I just intended a few hours and 
never would have had the time to do all that research!"  (I've seen 
reports on this list showing that the night sky as Harry saw it on 
OWLs doesn't fit realtiy. That's OK, she was writing for a literary 
purpose, not a scientific purpose.)

My point being, if any of us want to figure out what a particular 
scene is telling us, we have to use tools and things we know to work 
it out. And that includes whether a particular character is reliable 
in this particular time and what we think JKR was really trying to 
say. 


And back to whether Snape did or did not stall, Neri, I think you 
have some execellent points, and I don't think you're crazy for 
raising them.  I just don't happen to agree with them.

But if it later turns out that he was stalling and it fits in with 
the plot line that we were fooled, I'll be the first to ring 
out "Wow! Neri was right!"
Potioncat