The Too Unreliable Narrator (was: What really happened on the tower)

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 155832

 
> Neri:
> Yes, you found the example I mentioned as a special exception in the
> post were I first suggested the term "non-description":
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/148445
> 
> As I wrote there, it is indeed a non-description used to fool the
> reader, but it is not used to fool *Harry*. In fact it is Harry here
> who is fooling the reader. It's an exception that in a sense only
> strengthen my suggestion, that JKR considers it unfair to fool both
> Harry and the reader with non-descriptions. This example shows that
> she is quite able to employ a non-description in a very purposeful
> way. She certainly has that tool in her arsenal. She just never uses
> it to spring a surprise on both Harry and us.
> 
> In that post I issued the challenge of finding an "unfair"
> non-description, that is, a non-description that is used to fool both
> the hero and the reader. See also:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/148501
> where I answered some other counter-examples raised by other listees.
> Since no clear-cut counter-example was yet found in six books I guess
> I'll now have to extend the challenge to Austen's books as well <g>.
> 
> Neri
>
wynnleaf,

First, many of us don't consider these "unfair."  Second, you
originally said JKR didn't do this, now you say that there are "fair"
exceptions.  Then you ask for "clear-cut" examples of "unfair"
situations.  The PT *is* an example.  If it was "clear-cut" it
wouldn't be misdirection at all and would be a failure on JKR's part
to deceive us.  These things don't become clear-cut until after
they've been explained in a "The Truth Comes Out" sort of scene, which
can't happen until Book 7.  You were also given an example from the
cursed broom scene in PS/SS, but I guess you don't consider it
"clear-cut."  Many, however, do consider it clear-cut and not unfair
at all.  It is simply your own preference for how you care to be
surprised and for how you do not wish to be surprised, that is moving
you to label this form of misdirection "unfair."  I have not seen any
particular literary tradition that considers this method "unfair."

wynnleaf