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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 155961


> > Pippin:
> > No magic has ever been used in a plot twist before it was explained 
> > to the reader. (animagi, polyjuice potion, portkeys)
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> I generally agree but there seems to be some notable exceptions. 
> First, Voldemort coming out of the back of Quirrell's head when the 
> possibility of possession wasn't mentioned (let alone explained) 
> before. Second, Hermione's time turner when the possibility of time 
> travel wasn't mentioned before. However, both possession and time 
> travel are known plot devices outside the Potterverse, and in both 
> cases there were additional clues (Quirrell's turban and Hermione 
> going to more than one lesson at the same time) so I tend to agree. 

Pippin: 
Voldemort appearing, time-travel and the priori
incantatem weren't twists in the sense that they took the story in an 
unexpected direction. Voldemort bursting out of Quirrell's head
was startling (and also a non-description, since the "bursting" isn't
revealed until OOP) but we already expected that Harry would
confront Voldemort. To me there's a difference between, 'We're
expecting Voldemort and Yipes! there he is' and 'We're expecting
Snape and Yipes! it's Quirrell.' 

The time-turner doesn't change the direction of the story --
Harry still has to save Sirius-- it just gives him a chance to do it.
Buckbeak's survival is a twist -- but by then  the time turner has
been explained. 

The fact that wands store images of prior spells was revealed when
Harry's wand disgorged the ghostly Dark Mark. The appearance of
Voldemort's victims was a surprise but didn't change the direction
of the story. Harry still had avoid being killed and escape from the 
graveyard.

> 
> > Pippin:
> > No character has been  revealed to be innocent in a plot twist 
> > whose character was not previously vouched for. (Hagrid vouched 
> > for Snape in PS/SS, Madame Rosmerta vouched for Sirius in PoA.)
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> Hmm. Who vouched for Dobby in CoS? Well, you certainly can say that 
> he vouched for himself, but that's kind of stretching it, isn't it?
> 
Pippin:
Dobby was accused of lying and did in fact  equivocate about whether
Voldemort was involved. He was never accused of opening the chamber.

> > Pippin:
> > No character has ever been revealed as guilty in a plot twist who 
> was  not previously  challenged. (Snape challenged Quirrell, Dumbledore
 challenged Riddle, Crookshanks challenged Scabbers, McGonagall 
challenged Fake!Moody.)
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> Who challenged Ginny in CoS?

Pippin:
Harry himself, on the morning of the day she was taken. He asked her
if she knew anything about opening the chamber.


> 
> > Pippin:
> > No character (including the narrator) has been revealed to have 
> deceived  the hero or the reader in a plot twist who had not previously 
> appeared to be unreliable.
> > 

Pippin:
Okay, this was muddy. (I blame the heat.) Let me try again.

Characters that Harry gets wrong always seem to have a bit of
fishy business in the background that's never explained until the
twist.  Of course  the face value characters can
act fishy too, but when they're hiding something important, we
always know. 

 We know that Hermione is keeping a secret about how she's getting
to all those classes, and we know that Ron is probably
practicing Quidditch on the sly. OTOH, we never got a chance to guess  
that Ginny was practicing Quidditch, but we did learn that she can be 
sneaky because she pretended  she never knew the diary was dangerous.

Other examples:
Quirrell tells an unconvincing story about his turban. 
Scabbers inexplicably falls asleep after the fight with Goyle.
Fake!Moody says Crouch disappeared from the map. 
Kreacher tells an unconvincing story about where he was over Christmas.

These sneaky bits are never followed up on, and seem to have no
purpose, in retrospect, except to warn us that the character was not
to be taken at face value.

The narrator pulls a similar trick, telling us that Harry's parents died
in a car crash. It's fishy because we already know that they seem
to have been killed in a place called Godric's Hollow by someone 
called Voldemort. Sure enough, it turns out we can't take the 
narrator at face value either. The narration shuttles seamlessly
between one character's seeming reality and another's, and does
not always let us know when a character's seeming reality has
strayed from the objective reality of the books. However, by using
the other rules to look for hints,  IMO we can try to guess when it has
done so. 

Pippin
 melting in California