Truth or consequences

[davewitley]

Richard wrote:

> And I can't see any dissembling on 
> Barty Jnr.'s part at all.

You wha...?  Did I catch that right?  Could you just say that again?

> And I can't see any dissembling on 
> Barty Jnr.'s part at all.

Thank you.

> Actually, the greatest (indeed, by my count, *only*) liar in GoF 
is the 
> omniscient Narrator, seeing as Crouch!Moody is regularly referred 
to as 
> Moody. Of course, it is difficult in any book to represent 
characters 
> impersonating one another, and doubly so in mystery stories when 
the 
> denouement revolves around the concept. Although JKR did her best 
to keep 
> narrative references to his name to a bare minimum, there remain 
instances 
> of the reader being lied to, which by my own personal standards is 
the 
> gravest sin in story-telling (and another of the reasons why I'm 
not keen 
> on GoF).

I feel that we are allowing ourselves to become a little hung up on 
whether the form of words uttered by a character is a literal lie.  
That way madness lies.  Every colourful metaphor then gets 
scrutinised for the possibility that it may, in fact, have a literal 
interpretation.

Lying only has meaning when one considers the intention of the liar 
with respect to the listener.  *Of course* JKR intended we should 
think that Crouch Jr was Moody.  However, the actual references to 
him as 'Moody' are the least of that: they are merely Harry's POV, 
which no reader is obliged to accept as a true description of 
Harry's world.  As the authorial representation of Harry's POV, they 
are entirely veracious, they contain no lie.

Crouch Jr. gives us a whole lot of fun by saying things that take on 
a new aspect of truth when we know who he really is, but there is no 
doubt that he is lying all the time.  Just because we never catch 
him *saying* "I am Alastor Moody" is irrelevant to that.  He knows 
full well that his use of Polyjuice means that everyone around him 
believes him to be Moody, and does everything he can to ensure that 
they continue to believe it.  That's lying.

David