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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156008

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> 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. 

Carol responds:
Harry doesn't know that the reader exists, nor is Harry the narrator.
The narrator (or JKR, if you prefer, since she controls the narrator)
is keeping information from us that Harry knows precisely in order to
trick us and make us think that Harry did give Ron the Felix Felicis. 

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.

Carol responds:
Earlier in HBP, information is withheld from both Harry and the reader
so that we're led to believe, as he does, that Slughorn is the DADA
teacher, not the Potions master. He even tells Ron and Hermione that
Slughorn is the DADA teacher, based on his interpretation of that
withheld information. So, yes, both Harry and the reader can be fooled
together and quite often we are, especially with regard to Snape but
also with regard to the Thestrals, the so-called weapon in OoP and
countless other examples. And how about Ron's rat, who for nearly
three books is just a rat?

Carol, again noting that "non-description" (your invented term) is
just one of many tactics that JKR uses to misdirect the reader