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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 156060

Neri wrote:
> <snip>
> Also, I think the narrator is a case for herself, she is not like
any other character out there. Are you saying that, since the narrator 
> had deceived the hero and the reader several times in the past, she
is now allowed to do *anything*, because she gave us "fair warning" 
that she's unreliable? This would contradict the rules you are trying
to formulate here, which suggest that the narrator did accept certain
 limitations upon herself. <snip>
> 

Carol responds:
First, a technicality: a third-person narrator (unlike a first-person
narrator) is not a character, only the voice or persona that tells the
story, in this case usually but not always from Harry's pov. 

Second, and more important, the narrator does not deceive the hero.
The hero has no clue that he's in a story and has no way of knowing
what the narrator says about him. The narrator doesn't impose
limitations upon himself or herself. The limitations are imposed by
the author, who decides whether to use a third-person limited narrator
(limited to a particular character's pov), a third-person dramatic
narrator (who sees the characters from the outside), or what amounts
to a first-person narrator (detailed exposition delivered by one
character to another, notably Crouch!Moody in GoF or Dumbledore's
expository near-monologues in most of the other books). (BTW, the
expository *dialogue* at the end of HBP, with Harry answering most of
the questions, is as unreliable as any commentary presented directly
by the narrator in any of the books.)

But to focus on the narration as opposed to the dialogue, in the HBP
books we have instances of straightforward narration, where the
narrator merely reports what is happening (for example, an owl lands
on the table and knocks over the sugar bowl). We have other instances
where this reporting is colored by Harry's (or some other character's)
misconceptions. Sometimes these misconceptions are cleared up
immediately (e.g., Harry thinking that Snape is Crucioing him) or we
already know that they're misconceptions (Frank Bryce not believing in
wizards); in other cases, the misconceptions are cleared up much later
(Harry thinking that Snape is lying about James Potter's arrogance, an
idea introduced in Book 1 and finally shown to be a misconception in
book 5). In cases like the second one, the reader is deceived along
with Harry, but the narrator is not deceiving *Harry.* In such cases,
Harry is misinformed or lacks information or has misinterpreted the
evidence, and the narrator, seeing from Harry's pov, is deceived along
with him. In a few instances, we have the narrator rather sneakily
hiding from the reader things that Harry knows perfectly well, for
example that Harry isn't giving Ron Felix Felicis. And we also have a
few instances of dramatic irony (another technical term, not something
I made up), in which the reader knows things that Harry doesn't (e.g.,
Voldemort's plot at the beginning of GoF or Snape's UV in HBP). 

Very frequently, the narrator withholds information, such as the color
of particular spells or the identity of a speaker or what a speaker
would have said if he hadn't been interrupted. In these instances, the
narrator either chooses to withhold the information because it's
crucial to the plot and the reader can't know it yet or because it's
unimportant or  the narrator doesn't reveal it because he, like Harry,
doesn't know the information. The second Petrificus Totalus in "The
Flight of the Prince" could be any of the above. (I think it's the
first, but I could be wrong.)

But in *no instance* does the narrator withhold information from
*Harry.* Harry is a character in the books. He sees most of the action
that's depicted on-page and hears (or overhears) most of the
conversations reported on-page, but there are whole chaters when he's
absent and moments when he's distracted, and, of course, he misses all
the off-page exchanges between, say, Snape and Dumbledore or LV and
the DEs. But what Harry does see and hear is not necessarily fact
since it's subject to interpretation' just as the Hufflepuffs saw and
heard him talking to the snake in Parseltongue in CoS and concluded
that he was the Heir of Slytherin. Here's just one example of Harry
(mis)interpreting what he sees and hears:

Harry overhears Mad-Eye Moody suggesting that LV may be possessing
him. He pulls out the Extendable Ears before Moody has finished his
sentence (naturally) and looks around, heart hammering and blood
rushing to his face. "[The others] were all staring at him, the
strings still trailing from their ears, looking suddenly fearful" )OoP
Am. ed. 491). Harry thinks they're afraid of *him*. He thinks of
Quirrell and feels dirty and contaminated. Then he remembers Sirius
Black talking about a weapon and concludes that *he* is the weapon.
The narrator, going along with Harry, misleads the reader into
thinking that Harry is right, that he's being possessed (but the alert
reader will suspect that the others are afraid *for* him rather than
*of* him). The narrator is *not* misdirecting Harry. He (or she) is
using Harry to misdirect *us.*

The narrator sometimes knows things that Harry doesn't know (Harry's
forgotten dreams or Snape's conversation at Spinner's End or what
Hermione is doing in the stands in SS/PS), and Harry obviously does,
thinks, feels, believes, and knows things that the narrator doesn't
report. (We don't see the majority of Harry's classes, for
example--only those in which something significant [or misleading]
happens.) Usually, what Harry knows--or thinks he knows--controls what
the narrator reports and how he reports it. But never, ever, does the
narrator report anything *to Harry*, distorted or otherwise. If Harry
is fooled, it's by another character (Crouch!Moody, for example) or by
his own preconceptions (the vision of Sirius Black in the MoM "must"
be real because the vision of Mr. Weasley was real). Harry is *never*
deceived by the narrator. He doesn't know that the narrator exists.

Carol, hoping that the concept of unreliable narrator is finally clear
and giving up in despair if it isn't