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

[Neri]

No: HPFGUIDX 155952


> zgirnius:
> My, you have a nasty suspicious mind. (I mean this in the best 
> possible way...I would love ESE!Dobby!) It never occured to me to 
> suspect him of anything in nay of my reads of CoS.
> 

Neri:
It's not me who suspected Dobby. It's Fred:

***************************************************
CoS, Ch. 3, p. 28:
"What, you think he was lying to me?" said Harry.
"Well," said Fred, "put it this way — house-elves have got powerful
magic of their own, but they can't usually use it without their
master's permission. I reckon old Dobby was sent to stop you coming
back to Hogwarts. Someone's idea of a joke. Can you think of anyone at
school with a grudge against you?"
***************************************************

So Dobby was challenged by Fred, but he wasn't vouched for be anybody
AFAIK, and in the end he turned out innocent. I think this doesn't fit
with the rule Pippin suggested.


> > Neri:
> > Who challenged Ginny in CoS?
> 
> zgirnius:
> I believe that Pippin does not consider her a guilty party in CoS. It 
> was Riddle, controlling her mind through the Diary. And memory Tom 
> was challenged by memory Dumbledore.
>

Neri:
Ginny was at the very least guilty of breaking into Harry's room and
stealing the Diary back. That was her idea and not Tom's, and she also
could tell Harry and Ron about it but didn't. In any case, even if you
don't consider her guilty, she certainly deceived Harry and the reader
here, and yet IIRC she had not appeared as unreliable before that. So
this breaks at least one of Pippin's rules ("no character has been
revealed to have deceived the hero or the reader in a plot twist who
had not previously appeared to be unreliable") if not two of them.
Naughty Ginny...


Neri