Danger in designating an "Other" / Bad magic

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174580

Carol earlier:
 
> Put another way, the third-person-limited narrator is not the voice
of the author, who knows how the story will work out, but a creation
of the author who describes the sensations, thoughts, perceptions, and
interpretations of the pov-character, in this case, Harry. (Fans have
called this device "the Harry filter.") Like human beings in RL, a
character is limited by his surroundings. Harry and his companions are
isolated in the middle of the book as they have never been before.
Almost their only contact with events outside their microcosm is
Harry's scar.
> 
Angel responded:
 
> I actually disagree.   The reader REALISES that Harry's perception
clouds his view because we SEE and HEAR not only what he looks at and
listens to but that which he overlooks, mishears and misconstrues.  We
are privy to much more than just that which Harry coerces us to
misread.  His slant on what he saw was unmissable yet very
distinguishable and I think Rowling meant it that way.  It is part of
her brilliance - my view of her views does not detract from her bag of
tricks. <snip>

Carol responds:

I don't think we disagree, actually, although it's possible that you
didn't understand my point. (It's hard to disagree with the definition
of an established literary term like "third-person limited omniscient
narrator" and you seem to acknowledge that the narrator is a creation
of the author.) You snipped the part of the post which shows how
Harry's perception starts out as inaccurate and becomes accurate at
the end. I wasn't talking about the reader at all, just the difference
between narrator and author--one of several forms of misdirection that
JKR uses, detectable by a sophisticated reader. 

I think you've just taken my point a step farther to say that by the
time we get to DH, the disconnect between Harry's pov as given to us
by the narrator and the evidence presented by the author that Harry's
perception is inaccurate is more obvious than it's been in previous
books. (Up until DH, posters were arguing that Harry was right about
Severus Snape. Obviously, that view was as wrong as my certainty that
Harry wasn't a Horcrux.) But even those of us who were sure that Snape
was Dumbledore's man may have found ourselves in doubt, not sure what
was a clue and what was misdirection because our emotions got in the
way. And a lot of us aren't sure even yet regarding Dumbledore because
we're limited to Harry's pov about him. We may not share Harry's
perceptions, but we have to sort through the same pieces of evidence
that he does. We can be pretty sure that Rita Skeeter isn't giving us
the full truth, but what about that letter in DD's handwriting?

As I said, HRH are more isolated than ever in this book. Dumbledore is
dead. Snape is in Hogwarts and they hear only whispers about him,
which they naturally misconstrue based on their preconceptions. We
should, by now, be aware of Harry's tendency to leap to conclusions,
but in HBP he was right about Draco. Could he be right about Snape,
too? And what *is* the truth about Dumbledore?

DH is in part the usual detetive story, putting together clues about
Horcruxes and Hallows, but it is also a journey to maturity for Harry
in particular. And part of that journey, the only part I'm concerned
with here, is the clearing of Harry's perception. By the end of the
novel, the narrator, reflecting Harry's pov, is no longer unreliable.
"Dumbledore's betrayal was almost nothing," DH Am. ed. 692) is one of
the last instances. Another is "Dumbledore had overestimated him. He
had failed" (693). The last instance I can find is "He saw the mouth
move and a flash of green light and everything was gone," which tricks
us for a second into believing that Harry is dead. Unless, of course,
we have the Scholastic edition and see a myopic-looking Harry floating
bodiless above the chapter title, "King's Cross.")

At any rate, by the end of the book, JKR's narrator has become
reliable. Harry's pov as reflected by the narrator and JKR's as author
have merged. When Harry says that Severus Snape was probably the
bravest man he ever knew, we know that JKR believes that, too. And the
name of his second son, Albus Severus, shows that he forgave both
headmasters, one for his spiteful bitterness redeemed by courage and
love, the other for his manipulation, which Harry no longer regards as
a betrayal.

The reader, by now, is used to being manipulated by JKR, used to her
misdirection, but nevertheless, she can play with us like puppets if
we drop our guard. But a reader who is not caught up in hopes and
fears and excitement, who can coolly watch as she drops her red
herrings and clues, who knows that the narrator is unreliable, can, as
you say, determine where Harry is going wrong, but, like Harry, the
reader will not have all the answers until the end. (And most of us
are more confused than Harry seems to be or find those answers less
satisfactory or complete than he does.)

All I'm saying is simply that Harry's perception of events as
presented by the narrator is not and never has been the same as the
author's view. By the end of the book, however, he has most of the
answers he's been seeking (note his insistence on learning the truth
about Dumbledore) as well as answers he wasn't seeking: He thought he
wanted revenge on Snape and instead he nderstandins and forgives him.

By the time we get to DH after having read the other six books, we
should be aware of JKR's fondness for the unreliable narrator and
other forms of misdirection (Snape under cover as a DE, first seen in
"Spinner's End"; overheard conversations; incorrect conclusions
reached by a variety of characters; clues mixed in with red herrings).

A reader's awareness of the unreliable narrator or JKR's other forms
of misdirection does not mean that the unreliable narrator does not
exist. I don't see how you can argue against a device whose existence
you're aware of. Nor does it mean that the author is the same as the
narrator. Clearly, the narrator is merely a device for telling the
story, and our narrator doesn't know what JKR knows, only what Harry
knows or thinks he knows. Even at the end of the book, we're limited
to Harry's point of view, but at least his perception is clear.

Carol, who thinks that arguing against the definition of a literary
term is like arguing against the definition of a refrigerator: it is
what it is