Unreliable narrator yet again (Was: Why did Snape call Lily a 'Mudblood'?)

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 177987

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:

> Here's just one clearcut Snape example from DH: "[Harry] felt even
> more cheered at the thought that Dumbledore had had some reservations,
> however faint, about Snape's trustworthiness" (DH Am. ed. 305)--an
> assertion based on the false assumption by Harry and Hermionethat DD
> had not told Snape about the fake sword which, of course, supports the
> reader's false impression that Snape treacherously murdered DD. (Ron,
> meanwhile, has the false impression that his sister is in terrible
> danger from Snape.)

Prep0strus:
Now, there's definitely a lot of misdirection in the books, but to
call the narrator unreliable might be a stretch.  There might be
examples, but when I was reading, I didn't find it too difficult to
tell when the narrator was telling us Harry's point of view and when
she was not.

This example you give is a false one - the narrator is very reliable 
- she is telling us Harry felt cheered at the thought that Dumbledore
had reservations.  She is not saying, 'Dumbledore had reservations,
and this is when Harry realized it'.  She is describing how Harry felt
about the thought that Dumbledore had reservations - a very different
thing. There's a difference there, and it's meaningful when you read
the story.  This would only be unreliable if harry did not feel
cheered, or if he were feeling cheered about something other than this
thought.


I'm not sure how confident I am that JKR always pulled this off
perfectly, but a narrator showing inside the head of main character is
not necessarily an unreliable narrator.  It is not like 'Catcher in
the Rye', where the narrator, a part of the story, gives every single
sentence a filter.

Just because everything every character thinks or says isn't reliable
doesn't make the narrator unreliable - especially not in this instance.

~Adam (Prep0strus)