Unreliable narrator (Was: Snape's stalling)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 117456


Carol earlier:
> > <snip> So the narrator, who is *not* Harry, *is* frequently
unreliable. If he weren't, we would have known from the outset that
Crouch!Moody was a villain in GoF and that Sirius was not really a
captive in the MoM in OoP. JKR *needs* an unreliable narrator.
> > 
> > Our view of the other characters, and Snape in particular, *is*
limited, and to some degree shaped and conditioned, by Harry's POV. We
need to tread carefully, to watch actions as well as listen to words,
 to distrust what Harry *knows* if it involves another character's
feelings or motivations. 
> > <snip>

> Neri:
> 
> My problem with the Snape fans is that the "subversive reading" (is
> this the term?) always seems to be in ONE direction. Somehow it is
> always to make Snape look better than what the way he comes out in
the text, never worse. For example, in this post you first write that
> Harry's negative estimation of Snape is because of his limited and
> biased POV, and we need to distrust it. This is OK by me, but then
you go on to disregard a huge time hole in the plot (which Harry
doesn't notice!) as "JKR's lack of attention to details". Why? Because
it casts the suspicion on Snape? <snip>

Carol again:
I think we're talking at cross purposes here. You're concerned about
your timeline, which is only tangentially related to my argument. (I
think it's probably an indication that JKR's scenes don't always hold
up to close scrutiny--her focus was on Harry, not Snape. Also
Dumbledore may not know all the facts and is certainly not giving
Harry all the details.) But let's just, for the sake of argument,
accept your timeline. That way you can look at what I'm really saying
without thinking that I'm ignoring a plothole to defend Snape. I'm
really not talking about Snape here. I'm talking about JKR's narrative
strategy, which affects our perception of a great many characters and
events, Snape among them.

My concern is with the unreliable narrator. I'm trying to explain that
he or she is not Harry but nevertheless generally tells the story from
his POV, and that Harry's view of events and characters has all too
often proven incorrect. My argument has to do with *narrative
technique*, not with conspiracy theory. I am not and have never been a
conspiracy theorist. I don't believe in ESE!Lupin or Puppetmaster!
Dumbledore or TT!Ron or any other speculation-based theory. I do
believe in close reading, in interpretation and analysis of the text,
in distrusting what most characters say and withholding judgment of
characters based on Harry's perceptions. I'm arguing that we need to
distinguish between a character's words and actions and Harry's
perception of those words and actions. Pippin's example of Snape
giving Lupin the wolfbane potion, which Harry fears is poisoned, is a
good example of a perception that later proves erroneous. The
presentation of Snape has followed this pattern from the moment of his
introduction, when we are set up, along with Harry, to believe that
Snape's gaze causes the pain in Harry's scar, but as I'll show later,
Snape is not the only character Harry misperceives. 

The unreliable narrator is not an invention of "Snape apologists" (who
are not the same as the "conspiracy theorists," though the categories
may overlap). The convention of an omniscient narrator who represents
the author's perspective, without limitations or irony, is very rare
in twentieth- (and twenty-first) century literature. Most authors
choose either a first-person narrator, or, like JKR, a third-person
"limited omniscient" narrator who sees through the eyse of one
character, or a handful of characters. Our knowledge of events is
limited to what that character sees and hears and shaped by what that
character knows or thinks he knows. His perception, with very few
exceptions, is our perception. JKR's narrator, who (usually) sees
through the eyes of a teenage boy who knows less than he thinks he
does, should not be confused with the voice of an objective narrator
stating the "facts" of the Potterverse. (We see such a narrator very
rarely, most notably in the first section of the first chapter of GoF,
where we learn about the murder of the Riddles. In the second section
of that chapter, we get a new POV character, Frank Bryce, whose
perception is in its own way as faulty as Harry's. For example:
"Owing, no doubt, to a buildup of earwax, he had heard the word
'Quidditch,' which was not a word at all" (GoF Am. ed. 7). Does anyone
who reads the book believe the narrator here? No. We disregard the
statement because we understand that it reflects the POV of an old
Muggle (and because we recognize "no doubt" as a signal, like "knew"
and "realized," that this is the character's POV, not the author's).
We should bear in mind that JKR uses exactly the same device when
she's presenting Harry's POV; it's just harder to recognize when she's
doing so unless we're on the lookout for words that signal perception
rather than "fact."

This example should demonstrate that not all of the unreliable
narration relates to Snape. I used Snape-related examples earlier
because they are the most familiar to me and because the post I was
responding to was Snape-related. But my concern is not with the
plothole you perceive in OoP (which I'm conceding may well exist);
it's with the narrative as a whole. I can find many examples that are
not Snape-related, beginning with the "car accident" that we're told
in SS/PS is the cause of Harry's parents' death. That statement is
presented as fact, but it reflects Harry's belief at the time. Once we
learn, from Hagrid, that Harry's parents were murdered by Voldemort,
we should realize that the narrator is *not* reliable and we should be
on our guard. (Contrast LOTR, where we see into many minds and the
narrator, IIRC, never leads us astray.)

"Unreliable narrator," as I said earlier, is a standard term in
literary criticism, a legitimate device common in mystery stories and
many other works of fiction, not something that Snapefans have
invented to defend a particular character. It can be used in the
analysis of any character whose depiction should not be taken at face
value. One more example that has nothing to do with Snape should prove
this point:

". . . Moody was drinking from his hipflask. Madam Rosmerta. . . was
looking askance at Moody as she collected glasses from the tables
around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead,
but Harry knew better. moody had told them all during their last
Defense Agaonst the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his
own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to
poison an unattended cup" ((GoF Am. ed. 521-22).

This passage very cleverly "explains" Crouch!Moody's hipflask from the
 vantage point of Harry's present "knowledge." But, true as this
statement must be for the real Moody (from whom Crouch!Moody must have
obtained it), it is wholly false for Crouch!Moody, who is drinking
polyjuice potion from the flask.

This passage and the others I've cited illustrate the deliberate use
by JKR of an unreliable narrator. Other such passages can be found in
every book. Most such passages operate as red herrings to mislead us
regarding the actions and motivations of a real or suspected villain
within a particular book, but the perspective from which Harry views
Snape is an ongoing instance of the same tactic used over the long
term. Other characters, from Percy Weasley to Fudge, are ambiguously
depicted, again because we see them only from Harry's perspective and
they have yet to be definitively revealed as good or evil or somewhere
in between. There are many instances that I haven't cited and no doubt
 many that I've overlooked, and still others that will only be
recognizable as unreliably narrated when all the evidence is in at the
end of Book 7.

I am not talking about Flints or scenes that JKR has perhaps not
thought through fully (which may or may not be the case for Snape's
actions on the night of the MoM). I am talking about the deliberate
use of a literary device common in mystery novels and other works of
fiction told from something other than an omniscient point of view,
the unreliable narrator. 

Nor am I saying that we can't take *anything* the narrator says as
true. Obviously, when the narrator tells us that "[Winky] was
clutching a bottle of butterbeer, swaying slightly on her stool" (GoF
536), to take a random example, we are to take this assertion as a
statement of fact within the context of the book. But it would be
naive to accept the narrator's assertion that there is no such word as
"Quidditch" as the same sort of objective information. It merely
reflects old Frank's inaccurate perception. We need to be on the
lookout for the same type of assertions when they reflect Harry's PoV
and determine for ourselves, based on the evidence at hand, whether
such perceptions are accurate.

A mystery writer must at many points deceive the reader, and the HP
series is in some respects one big mystery, not just a series of
individual mysteries each resolved within a single volume. One key
element in the ongoing mystery that will not be fully resolved until
Book 7 is Severus Snape. JKR has told us that there is more to him
than meets the eye, that we should look beneath the surface. One way
to do that is to strip away the subjective elements in Harry's POV
(and our own personal experience of "horrible teachers" projected onto
him) and look only at the actual words and actions rather than Harry's
 interpretation of them. And even that is not enough to fully reveal
Snape's character traits and motivation. For that we'll have to wait
until Book 7, when I hope she'll answer the questions that Harry asks
near th end of GoF (Am. ed. 720-21). And even then, I think, the
mysterious Severus Snape, and all the other characters whose thoughts
we will never see because of the limited omniscient narration, will
remain subject to interpretation. And so, for that matter, will Harry
himself.

Carol, jumping down from the podium with apologies for the lecture