Discussion Unreliable Narrator

This is one of the trick that could be used by an author to make a beautiful twist in their story. I won't quote everything from the various sources out there (Wikipedia, TV Tropes) for the explanation, you can see them for a more detailed information. The point is, with this trick a skillful author could lead the reader to make a wrong speculation by limiting the information they got, only from the point of view of the said narrator. There's quite a number of variants of this trope which you can dig out yourself.

I've made a Tag for this trope, Unreliable Narrator. Currently there's only a few sample in this Tag, but I believe there's already numerous novel with this characteristic. So please do me a favor and fill it up with titles you know in which the content fit the description of Unreliable Narrator.

There might be other uses of creating an Unreliable Narrator beside to mislead the reader. You might think by using this as a tag would be too much of a spoiler. Well, this is a discussion.

 

Here's a 15 minute podcast about that...

http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/12/13/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-30-unreliable-narrators/

 

We just covered in my literature class. The Professor wanted us to expound on this topic. That's why this post caught my attention.

 

well... this will make all the story told in 1st person and has stupid/misunderstood mc +1 tag...

 

If you can understand right away that the MC is misunderstood something here, then it's not quite fit the idea. A successful Unreliable Narrator usually makes you believe everything the narrator said as true, up until a certain point of the story.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita


classic unreliable narrator

 

This bump is inevitable. I've to do it because I believe some people doesn't really understand the meaning of Unreliable Narrator. So one of these people found this badly sounding phrase in their favorite novel, misunderstood it as an insult to the said series, and then removed the tag from it without trying to understand it's meaning. (This is an indirect kick to your shin, @Tony. For "To Do" List: Genre/Tags explanation field)

Okay, before any further misunderstanding, this tag by no mean is an insult to any author/series. It's not easy to create a successful Unreliable Narrator. The author had to make sure the reader sympathize with the narrator and thus begin to trust him/her, before clarifying how unreliable he/she is in the later part of the story. A well planned execution is needed.

I'll make a specific example here. For those who doesn't read as far yet, you might find this as a spoiler.

Spoiler: Kumo desu ga, Nani ka?

When told from Sophia's perspective, there wasn't a mention about her, although minor, brainwashing conduct using her charm skill. There wasn't a mention about her kinky relationship (as a vampire and her prey) with the boys. Only after the story is told from Shiraori's perspective all these exploit mentioned.

And this is only one of the many example found in this Novel.

Yes, I uses Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? as my example because this is already the second times I had to put the tag back on this series after someone removed it, the third counting when I make this thread. I'm not trying to play nazi in this aspect and reject any kind of dissent. That's why this is an open discussion, if you think a Novel currently on the list does not meet the criteria of Unreliable Narrator, feel free to speak up.

 

The narrator of game The Bard's Tale is sarcastic and dislike the bard.

 

Nooo not TVTropes.

 

Why not? It's good.

 

Because I'm never going to get off it.

 

Another inevitable necro. I've added this tag to Kuro no Maou. Not because of Kurono's denseness, of course.

Spoiler: Reason

The reason why Unreliable Narrator fit to be put on Kuro no Maou is because: in the latter chapter it will be revealed that Kurono's current personality actually is a makeup, as a result from the torture he received.

 

I've added this tag to Dungeon Defense. I'll explain the reason, but of course it'll become a spoiler to those who have yet to catch up with the latest release. You have been warned.

Spoiler

The 2nd vol is started with a lover's quarrel scene of Dantalian and Lala. And the entire volume actually is Dantalian telling the story about the cause that lead to this event to Barbatos. With that in mind, we the reader actually are sitting on Barbatos' seat. He lead us, and Barbatos, to believe they really were still quarrelling. But actually, this is just a charade made by the couple to entice Barbatos. They really were quarreling, but they've get over it by that point.

This is also an example of an Unreliable Narrator, in the truest sense since he was actually narrating a story to the audience. And a well executed one at that.

 

http://www.novelupdates.com/series/bringing-the-farm-to-live-in-another-world
Is unreliable narrator. Author forgets own plot within 50 chapters and constantly retcons.

Spoiler

1) it was said that 8th level expert can escape from 9th level in one piece but it was proven unreliable since 9th level crippled 8th level with 1 move, the only reason he was able to escape was due to mc's cheat teleport. 2) it was said that nobody will dare to offend dark magician and again unreliable, said dark magician was attacked at least twice since then. 3) author said that beastmen are pure and uncorrupted but proves himself unreliable again with his own plot, with how the beastmen constantly scheme and try to sabotage each other. 4) there was a battle on the beastman prairies and they could have avoided it but instead came up with a lame excuse of "they already noticed us it will be troublesome if we don't participate", it was immeduately in the same chapter revealed that nobody expects merchants to participate in random battles, everyone expected them to run far away.

Other description would be false informed attribute or unreliable author.
Author takes 180 degree turns every chapter, sometimes this bullshit happens even within one chapter.

In chapter 241 author even contradicted himself inside 1 paragraph.
He says that as long as dark magician doesn't use human undead then he won't be disliked, especially on beastman prairies.
It implies that beastmen dislike dark magicians that use undead of same race as you.
But then immediately within the same paragraph says that beastmen don't care if you use human undead.

Author is complete birdbrain, he can't even follow own plot. Very unreliable.