Truth or consequences

[nkafkafi]

>Kneasy wrote:

> Truth.
> It can be slippery stuff.

 <heavily snipped>

> Let's look at a few examples.
> "There wasn't a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in 
> Slytherin."

> Another -
> "I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because it 
> would make him and your father quits. Then he could go back to 
hating 
> your father's memory in peace...."


Neri:
There are some differences between these two statements. The first 
was made by Hagrid, not one of the brightest characters around, 
during small talk. The second was made by DD immediately after 
mentioning that Truth is "a wonderful and terrible thing" and 
refusing to tell Harry why Voldy had tried to kill him. The first 
statement indeed proved wrong, but in a very unspectacular way: even 
after OotP we didn't know for certain that Sirius and Peter weren't 
Slytherins. We had to be told about that in a chat with JKR. So in 
hindsight this statement wasn't meant to be a clue nor a red herring. 
The second statement gets some good confirmation and elaboration in 
the other books. 

Truth is also a matter of degree. The fact is, until now we know 
about only ONE wizard who turned bad and wasn't from Slytherin. 
Hagrid's statement IS a general (although not categorical) Truth. So 
if the two statements are similar, it means that Snape really feels 
he owes Harry for James saving his life, but there's more to it, and 
indeed we already know that there's more to it, though probably not 
all the more that there is to know.

There are a few general things we do know about "Truth" in mystery 
books (which do not necessarily apply to RL truth). One thing is that 
the majority of the things we are told probably ARE true. Otherwise 
there wouldn't be much meaning to the concept of "a clue", and it 
wouldn't be much of a challenge. If you've built your theory based on 
(say) 10 canon clues, and probability says that about 7 out of these 
10 are actually not true but the author deceiving us, then there's 
not much point to playing this game. I'd estimate that at least 95% 
of canon is "Truth", and the trick is of course identifying which are 
the deceiving 5%. To take PoA as a typical example, the Potters WERE 
hiding in their house, there WAS a Fidelius charm, the secret keeper 
WAS the friend of the family and he WAS a traitior, and the other 
friend DID come after him. The tricky part was only the switch in 
Peter's and Sirius' roles.

This especially applies to a mystery tale that takes place in the 
Potterverse, because as readers we aren't very familiar with its 
realty and rules (much less than we are familiar with RL rules) and 
because these rules are much more easily bent than RL rules. This 
makes it much easier for the author to lie to us. For example, if 
your recent suggestion about Pensieve used for planting memories is 
true, then we can't trust even Harry's firsthand memories of events. 
So what CAN we trust?

(BTW, I actually like that idea of planting false memories with the 
Pensieve, but not in order to deceive Harry. I sometimes imagine 
Snape as a person with two different sets of memories. Before he goes 
to visit Voldy he removes one set and put in the DE set instead) 

In such a story, if the author is a good one and plays fair, she has 
to tell us what are the relevant rules BEFORE she uses them to 
deceive us. Before she could spring Padfoot and Wormtail on us she 
had to tell us that animals might be animagi. Before Crouch!Moody she 
had to tell us about Polyjuice Potion. She even told us that this 
potion works only for one hour, and then she told us that "Moody" 
drinks from his pocket bottle. This is what makes the game 
interesting. Truth is hidden in plain sight, and yet it's hidden.

If DD is a liar, he can deceive us very easily about huge parts of 
the mystery, for which he is our single or main source. DD lying to 
us about many of the important things would go against the 5% - 95% 
rule I suggested above, and IMHO would make JKR a bad mystery writer. 
Another option is that DD tells us the truth MOST of the time, but in 
a few carefully chosen cases he does lie. Again, I think this would 
not be playing fair unless we were given a way to deduce which are 
the lies. We'd have to be able to at least work out a theory about 
DD's motives that would suggest why (other than making it difficult 
to solve the mystery) he tells Harry the truth in most cases but lies 
in other cases. And developing such a theory is again difficult in an 
unfair way because we know so little about DD, and most of what we do 
know about him could easily turn out to be a lie too. As I see it, 
the only way out of this dilemma without developing a serious 
headache is simply assuming that DD always tells us the truth. This 
rule seems to be suggested in the ending chapter of SS/PS, when DD 
promises Harry to tell him the Truth if he can, and then refuses 
answering Harry's first question. It is repeated again in the end of 
OotP when DD refuses to tell Harry why he trusts Snape. The rule 
seems to be: "There are things I can't tell you, but I won't lie to 
you".  

Another thing to remember about Truth is that a GOOD book is meant to 
be reread even after the mystery was revealed. I recently came across 
an old interview with JKR in which she was asked what books she likes 
to read. She mentioned that she reads mystery books if she just wants 
to relax, and that she never rereads them. If JKR wrote the series in 
a way that it will be reread after the solution is known, this means 
that each passage is supposed to feel right both before and after the 
reader knows the Truth. Now read "The Lost Prophecy" chapter and tell 
me if it feels right if DD is lying through his teeth.    

The last thing (for today, anyway) is that different rules apply to 
Truth in the plot level and Truth in the thematic level. In a mystery 
tale, Truth in the plot level will be known only in the last chapter 
or so. OTOH, while a good book doesn't pound on your head with its 
theme, it usually doesn't hide it all the way to the last chapter 
either (although I'm sure those with the literature degrees around 
here would be glad to supply me with some counterexamples). And the 
thematic Truth tends to constrain the plot Truth to a large degree, 
so it's good to have an idea of what are the main themes when trying 
to solve the mystery.   

> Kneasy:
> No, this ineffable truth that he whitters on about seems to 
> be that damn Prophecy, which he interprets as meaning that either 
Voldy 
> kills Harry or vice versa. Bloody brilliant. I'd guessed that as 
the 
> eventual climax halfway through chap. 1, book 1, as did anyone who 
> doesn't get a nose-bleed spelling 'c-a-t' - and if Harry hadn't 
reached 
> the same conclusion yonks back then there must be troll blood 
somewhere 
> in the family.

Neri:
Give the poor lad a break. HE doesn't know he's staring in a mystery 
series with his name on the cover. From his POV the idea that only a 
certain kid can vanquish the Dark Lord is indeed a huge leap. As for 
us, I suspect that the prophecy was meant more as a new mystery than 
a solution to an old one.


Neri