Unreliable Narrator: Difference between revisions

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[[File:unreliable_1014.png|link=Dresden Codak (Webcomic)|~~right~~]]

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{{quote|''"You just show that your first-person narrator was actually in an insane asylum and then OH MY GOD, did it actually happen? Who can say? Here, I can say. It didn't happen because your narrator was just no good. Listen. Never lend an unreliable narrator money."''|''[[Dinosaur Comics (Webcomic)|Dinosaur Comics]]'', "[http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001195.html Literary techniques comics: Unreliable Narrator]" [[Alt Text]]}}

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* Within the context of the novel, Bram Stoker's ''[[Dracula (Literature)|Dracula]]'' exists as a [[Scrapbook Story|series of ''transcriptions'' of letters and newspaper clippings]] about the [[Character Title|eponymous vampire]]; about midway through the novel, [[Dracula]] destroys the originals by tossing them into a fireplace in order to discredit the protagonists should they ever wish to make their story public. The transcriptions are kept by Mina Harker, a trained secretary, who foresees the usefulness in keeping backups. However, Mina herself undergoes some pretty severe trauma throughout the course of the novel; apart from the whole vampire-hunting thing, her best friend is turned by Dracula (and then [[Staking the Loved One|staked by her friends]]), and she [[Vampire Refugee|very narrowly escapes]] being ''turned into a vampire herself'', which [[Through the Eyes of Madness|brings her mental state and her reliability as a recordkeeper into question.]]

* Read ''Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'' for a comedic (if archaically sexist) take on this trope.

* In Megan Whalen Turner's ''[[The Queens Thief|The Thief]],'' the narrator, Gen, tells the story in such a way that the reader assumes he is an ignorant, dirt-poor, none-too-bright street thief being forced to help the other characters steal a precious artifact. Only at the end does it become clear that though Gen has never actually lied in his telling of the story, certain omissions and misdirections have allowed him to obscure the fact that {{spoiler|he is a queen's cousin, a hereditary master thief, and the {{Chessmaster highly intelligent orchestrator of everything that has occurred in the story thus far}}.}}

* In Megan Whalen Turner's ''[[The Queens Thief|The Thief]],'' the narrator, Gen, tells the story in such a way that the reader assumes he is an ignorant, dirt-poor, none-too-bright street thief being forced to help the other characters steal a precious artifact. Only at the end does it become clear that though Gen has never actually lied in his telling of the story, certain omissions and misdirections have allowed him to obscure the fact that {{spoiler|he is a queen's cousin, a hereditary master thief, and the [[Chessmaster|highly intelligent orchestrator of everything that has occurred in the story thus far]].}}

** This continues in the sequels, as characters interpret Gen's actions without knowing what is really going on is his head. This leads to some very interesting bits of confusion, though Attolia can be forgiven for not realizing that the man she {{spoiler|mutilated is still completely in love with her.}}

* ''[[The Hobbit (Literature)|The Hobbit]]'' has a somewhat odd example of this. In the first edition, Gollum bets his Ring in the riddle game with Bilbo. After [[JRR Tolkien (Creator)|JRR Tolkien]] decided to [[Canon Welding|set it in Middle-earth]] and write ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' as a sequel, this didn't fit with the concept of the Ring. So for the second edition of ''The Hobbit'', he [[Retcon|RetConed]] the riddle game part of the story was changed to the "true" version of events. His explanation for the first edition? Bilbo was lying to legitimize his ownership of the Ring! He even obliquely apologizes for that in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', at the Council of Elrond.