Unreliable narrator (Was: Snape's stalling)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 117373


> Potioncat:
>  <snip>
>   Conspiracy...anticonspiracy...subversive reading. I'm not sure 
> where I fit in

Neri:
I'm pretty sure you are an anti-conspiracy reader, Potioncat, like 99%
of us (including some who won't admit it ;-)  ). We anti-conspiracy
readers know that the books are full of conspiracy, of course, but we
also know that conspiracy has its limits, and sometimes you just have
to trust a character. I trust Lupin. You trust Snape. Actually I trust
Snape too, although I have no doubt he hates Harry with all his heart
and enjoys hurting him, but I trust that DD's trust in him will be
justified in the end. And I also trust DD not to be a ruthless puppet
master.

Even the best characters are somewhat flawed, and they make mistakes
now and then, and JKR makes mistakes to. This is why it is easy to
cast suspicion on any character. Lupin acts suspiciously when (to take
a single example out of several) he forgets to take his potion in the
night of the Shrieking Shack night. Sirius acts suspiciously by trying
to kill Peter, when Peter is the only one who can prove Sirius'
innocence. Snape does suspicious things all the time, of course, but
usually he is so suspicious anyway that we are sure it's all red
herrings. But in the end of OotP, DD tells us that Snape did
everything ok, and this is exactly why the timeline makes Snape look
really suspicious here. 

It is of course impossible to disprove all these suspicions now,
unless JKR explicitly denies them in her website, and even then it is
not always enough for some readers ;-). Therefore, we anti-conspiracy
readers should be clear about our position. You simply trust Snape. I
simply trust Lupin (and also Snape). No shame in it. There are very
good chances we are right. Until now, JKR had never let us become
really attached to a character and then told us he is ESE. She has no
need to resort to such lowly means, when she can get much grander
effects by using magical devices. In CoS it turns out that the most
innocent and less suspicious person, ickle firstie Ginny Weasley, was
the one who dunnit. Of course, she didn't know what she was doing at
the time. In the next two books it might be Ron or Hermione or Hagrid
or Dumbledore. Why not? We have the Imperius curse, we have
metamorphmagi who can assume the shape of any person. Who needs ESEs? 

Neri