Who Can You Trust? Unreliable Narrators (Feat. Lindsay Ellis) | It's Lit! | PBS Digital Studios

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    Who is the most powerful character in fiction? Villains may doom the world, heroes may save it, but no one has more control over the plot than the narrator - expositing the who, what, where, when and how directly into the reader’s mind. But how can you tell that the person telling you the story is telling you the whole story?
    Interested in using this video as a teaching resource? Check it out on PBS LearningMedia: to.pbs.org/3fG...
    Written by Annie Matthews and Andrew Matthews
    Directed by Andrew Matthews
    Animation by Dano Johnson
    Produced by Amanda Fox
    Executive in Charge (PBS): Adam Dylewski

ความคิดเห็น • 473

  • @pbsvoices
    @pbsvoices  4 ปีที่แล้ว +31

    Looking for more It's Lit? You can find the latest season on Storied, PBS's home for arts and humanities content here on TH-cam. Subscribe to Storied for the latest episodes of It's Lit and get your folklore fix with Monstrum while you're there! th-cam.com/channels/O6nDCimkF79NZRRb8YiDcA.html

  • @neeneko
    @neeneko 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1164

    I am always frightened by how many people do not realize that Lolita has an unreliable narrator... it is almost like a litmus test.

    • @Wezla
      @Wezla 5 ปีที่แล้ว +144

      He's a silver tongued villain. It is a litmus test to see if the reader falls for his fancy speech

    • @Roiben100
      @Roiben100 5 ปีที่แล้ว +131

      I think because most people know Lolita from the movie where the story is portrayed as very much the objective thing that happened people dont realize that the book is told by the villain. Also the differences make it somewhat different of a piece of art.

    • @neeneko
      @neeneko 5 ปีที่แล้ว +66

      ​@@Roiben100 *nod* I think that is where it started, but after the movie influenced public perception, and now people often go into the book with the idea the narrator is reliable and thus read the whole story that way. It isa fascinating and creepy inversion of a trope.

    • @AnnekeOosterink
      @AnnekeOosterink 5 ปีที่แล้ว +103

      Someone who definately should know better (literature reader and I think graduate as well) called it a frickin love story, and meant it. Yes, the love story of a pedofile for a 12 year old. So romantic. Ugh.
      I mean, Lolita has become synonymous with sexy girl who licks a lollypop suggestively while wearing frilly pink dresses. It's all pretty gross.

    • @rudolfix7772
      @rudolfix7772 5 ปีที่แล้ว +35

      @@AnnekeOosterink i know. the advertising for the kubrick movie has skewed public perception so much that now pretty much everyone i ask if they've read lolita is like "oh, isn't that that erotica book with, like, the pedophile?", even though nothing could be further from the truth. and you know, on the one hand there are some story elements which lend themselves to be overly sensationalised, and it _was_ first published by the olympia press, but on the other hand, it's a deeply intelligent, delightfully told piece of literature written in the most beautiful english there is, so it's kind of... sad? that this is what people think about lolita.

  • @artemiswolf4508
    @artemiswolf4508 5 ปีที่แล้ว +45

    I like how in the vampire chronicles one book is from Louis’ perspective and another is from Lestat‘s and you realize THEY REMEMBER THEIR RELATIONSHIP COMPLETELY DIFFERENTLY.
    I loved that because yeah, different people will recall the same relationship on widely different ways. And with no objective POV both accounts become equally valid.

  • @VegaNorth
    @VegaNorth 5 ปีที่แล้ว +242

    Great example: Lemony Snicket. He makes us think that the Baudelaire children are actually saying their dialogue in ASoUE, when he literally was not there to hear what happened. He has such a stranglehold on the narrative and the children never have their own autonomy until he cannot physically follow them anymore.

    • @ethanrichmond3992
      @ethanrichmond3992 5 ปีที่แล้ว +42

      Lemony being an unreliable narrator is kind of why I like the end of the series. We see he ends the books because he just can’t take it any more.

    • @cholten99
      @cholten99 5 ปีที่แล้ว +52

      Aaaaahhhhhhhh. *cough*. #SPOILERS
      When I got to the end of that series and discovered that the point of them was to say "hey kids - I'm not going to explain any of the dangling plot threads, sometimes in life you just never get to find out stuff" I literally threw the book across the room
      Your mileage may vary :-).

    • @oof-rr5nf
      @oof-rr5nf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +12

      How are those books? My sister was obsessed as a kid, but they looked too depressing to me so I stuck with my YA vampire fantasy shabang :P

    • @SanaSamaha
      @SanaSamaha 5 ปีที่แล้ว +30

      @@oof-rr5nf They're actually really funny... I thought so anyway. It does have its dark moments, but the characters are clever and quirky and the storytelling really makes you want to cheer on the children.

    • @oof-rr5nf
      @oof-rr5nf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@SanaSamaha Thank you 🌻

  • @ScionStorm1
    @ScionStorm1 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

    Hears "Unreliable Narrator"
    Me: Is *Mr. Robot* on again?

  • @CelestiaLily
    @CelestiaLily 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    It's not literature but Welcome to Night Vale does really fun things with Cecil's perception of his "entirely normal" town

  • @suadela87
    @suadela87 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I think this might be my favorite episode. I love unreliable narrator stories and Lindsay was very good at explaining their use.

  • @ChinoWantan
    @ChinoWantan 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    It reminded me the last Maggie Fish video about Fight Club

  • @UpSky2
    @UpSky2 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I regret to have to confess that when I saw this title, my mind instantly jumped to Robert W. Chambers' story "The Repairer Of Reputations" as the most classic example of a (surprisingly/startlingly) unreliable narrator that I could think of.

  • @jacobedling40
    @jacobedling40 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Catcher in the Rye is a good example

  • @oliviawilliams6204
    @oliviawilliams6204 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    An interesting example is all the POV characters in A Song of Ice and Fire serie (that's Game of thrones for those unaware) all chapters are from the point of view of a character who all have their own feables, and they taint their perspective, so you sometimes have a bit of screwed view of things that happened

  • @TheRachaelLefler
    @TheRachaelLefler 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Hey, the Curious Incident makes perfect sense, it is allistics who narrate incorrectly. XD

  • @EladLerner
    @EladLerner 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I don't care which topic, but I want Lindsay Ellis to host Crash Course.

  • @emmarose3421
    @emmarose3421 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    basically the whole honestuck epilogue

  • @Serai3
    @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    One of the best examples of the unreliable narrator is Alex from _Everything Is Illuminated._ For one, his grasp on English is rather tenuous, with a skewed syntax that is both puzzling and endearing. Another thing is his eagerness to connect to his audience, an audience of one, for the chapters he narrates are actually letters he's writing to Jonathan, the young man with whom he recently shared The Very Rigid Search. It's natural to take his narration as truth, since he is, after all, recounting it to someone who witnessed the events himself. But we find out over time that what he's saying isn't the truth, or the whole truth. It's the version he wants Jonathan to believe, and ultimately, the one he wants to believe himself. This reveals itself over the length of the story as he backtracks, corrects himself, admits his faults and his deliberate rewriting of their shared history, and even, near the end, hints vaguely at an ulterior motive that colors everything we've just read. It's a really beautiful balancing act that I've seen nowhere else, with many colors and layers to what starts out sounding like honesty, reveals itself as dishonest, and finally becomes the truth all along. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the idea of the Unreliable Narrator. (And there's the other half of the book as well, which engages with the concept in a completely different way, that of mythology and folklore.)

  • @amaliomontana
    @amaliomontana 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    Never been so early. Great as always

  • @blameitoncapitalism
    @blameitoncapitalism 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Lindsey: "So maybe the most powerful character of the literature is not actually the narrator, maybe it's *you,* the reader."
    Roland Barthes from his grave: *and I approve of this message.*

  • @crystalgeek78
    @crystalgeek78 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    I'm surprised Margaret Atwood wasn't singled out. A lot of her books feature unreliable narrators, and leave you wondering what really happened. The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace are both great for unreliable narrator narratives. In the Handmaid's Tale, the final chapter---written from the academic conference in the future---raises the question of whether it's fact or fiction entirely or some mix of the two.

  • @khaosbydesignuk946
    @khaosbydesignuk946 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Love this series, glad to see more regular Lindsay in my notifications :)

  • @adamschexnider8402
    @adamschexnider8402 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Hi, Lindsay. Have you ever done a video on tense? Writing a piece and had trouble to settle on one.

  • @VelkanKiador
    @VelkanKiador 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    The Game of Thrones books are also filled almost entirely with unreliable narrators, and it does have a lot of protagonists who's perspective we get to see the story through. All of them are unreliable narrators and have limited information considering information takes weeks to travel across the world, but the readers can peace together what is really going on better than the characters because they get info from so many different perspectives. And a lot of information in the books is there in the open if you are clever enough to spot it, it is quite possible to peace together who Jon Arryn's assassin is in the first book alone and what his/her motives are even if you don't learn it until later books.

  • @sillylittlefella8143
    @sillylittlefella8143 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    There is a high chance that Greg Heffley is an unreliable narrator, considering how rude he is to his friends, and how much he justifies it..

  • @RoboBoddicker
    @RoboBoddicker 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I read a book that was narrated in second-person omniscient, and now I know everything

  • @arthurdurham
    @arthurdurham 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I find this esp interesting in video games. Bc unlike other story mediums that are mostly passive in gaming you can literally be playing as the unreliable narrator. And can cause a dissonance more direct bc you are experiencing these things in a way. .
    A more straightforward and classic media type example is Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, they use this to great effect for levity. The entire game is being told by an old gunslinger to a crowd in a bar.
    Often someone will interject that something doesn't make sense or is historically inaccurate. And the game will change based on the info. It's very blatent that your character is probably exaggerating everything for effect.
    And you can argue that the Bioshock games are a more dramatic use of an unreliable narrator. The first game especially having a very famous twist that completely recontectualizes everything you've done and a meta critique on gaming as a whole. Which puts all your "choices" into a whole new context.
    And there's my favorite dramatic example of Spec Ops: The Line. That is entirely being presented from a very unreliable perspective, the game often using this brilliantly to tell its horrific story. It's basically the point of the story your character is an unreliable narrator and flawed perspective can help you rationalize terrible things.
    There are many examples of this but I love it when it's done well as it hits you harder being directly in control of the actions rather than just being told them. You're not just being lied to, you're complicit in the lie.

  • @kylefoutz4920
    @kylefoutz4920 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I love these It's Lit videos.

  • @Uriel238
    @Uriel238 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    So _Huckleberry Finn_ is a cyberpunk dystopian novel.

  • @DA-bm2mj
    @DA-bm2mj 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I can't believe how you did not mention Agatha Christie.
    she wrote several novels with unreliable narrators.

  • @Cephalopod51
    @Cephalopod51 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    The iconic unreliable narrators for me are Emperor Claudius from I, Claudius, Redmond Barry from The Luck of Barry Lyndon, Salieri from Amadeus, Jack Crabb from Little Big Man, and Harry Flashman from the Flashman novels.

  • @natsoray
    @natsoray 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Fun & thought-provoking content as always. Glad to see Lindsay creating content with PBS.
    Maybe this channel could collaborate with Folding Ideas or Rantasmo?

  • @xander2698
    @xander2698 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Lindsay!!
    You got on PBS!!

  • @DodaGarcia
    @DodaGarcia 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    What a wonderful video!

  • @SerenityBane
    @SerenityBane 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    There’s a couple of great Agatha Christie novels where the narrator you’ve trusted through the whole novel ends up being the murderer. Makes for a great second read, too. Can’t say which titles, so you’d have to read her books to find out...there’s only about 100 of them, lol.

  • @mrmochameme
    @mrmochameme 4 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    i cant focus cuz I keep wishing she was my teacher

  • @michaelolsen2760
    @michaelolsen2760 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    The fact that Elliot is an unreliable narrator in Mr Robot is my favorite part of the series.

  • @drinksanddice9528
    @drinksanddice9528 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    James's governess can't be an unrelable narrator. While Douglas is reading the governess' manuscript to an audience this framing convention is never closed. Meaning the entire novella is focalized through the governess, and since James never gives his reader the benefit of any other point of view it's impossible to know whether the governess is reliable or not. Now you could say the 1898 Collier's weekly edition has nondiagetic context clues (Robert Collier's revision of his father's periodical was marketed as a "family paper" to women, and James brother William had published his Principles of Physcolohy 8 years earlier and the academic perspective of female histeria was beginning to change) but this is a slippery slope. Edel's response to Edmund Wilsions psychoanalytic criticism is a good starting point for this argument if anyone is interested.

  • @macsnafu
    @macsnafu 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    You were doing pretty good there, covering all the literary bases, when you decided to go full-psych and apply a literary device to non-literary cases. You may be right about the latter, but that really deserves a separate video, one that seems beyond the scope of this series.
    Also, the Rashomon effect really takes the unreliable narrator to a second level, with multiple unreliable narratives, leaving it to the audience to sort out the truth from multiple stories of the same event or events.

  • @widewailcorduroy7278
    @widewailcorduroy7278 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I did not expect this to go into narrative psychology. But damned if Lindsay doesn't make it work.

  • @cheriboberry1808
    @cheriboberry1808 4 ปีที่แล้ว

    Wonder if the release of Life Itself inspired this episode....

  • @Hemostat
    @Hemostat 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    dis is lit

  • @gregcampwriter
    @gregcampwriter 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Knowing this topic made the ending of The Usual Suspects predictable--pleasingly so.

  • @disenchanted987
    @disenchanted987 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Are you suggesting that the power was inside me all along?

  • @edwardgaines6561
    @edwardgaines6561 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    She looks like Enid from _Ghost World!_ 👻🌎

  • @RicardoLuna
    @RicardoLuna 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I'm surprised you didn't mentioned 300 in this video. It's an interesting case because the narrator is not only skewed, but it's intentionally changing the story for propagandistic reasons... or at least that's how I understand it.

  • @TheRachaelLefler
    @TheRachaelLefler 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I'm feeling HashtagBlessed and HashtagGrateful that I am following Lindsay Ellis!

  • @RedCatHabitat
    @RedCatHabitat 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Check out Gene Wolfe's work

  • @DonKen66
    @DonKen66 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Remember she got Arrested

  • @muticere
    @muticere 5 ปีที่แล้ว +15

    I've heard The Song of Ice and Fire series described as having unreliable narrators because each chapter is written from the perspective of a character in the story. I'm not sure if this is something that comes from the Word of God or is just a misunderstanding, but the text of the books don't support this interpretation. Each chapter is in the perspective of a character in the same way that Harry Potter is from the perspective of Harry Potter. It's written in a Third Person Limited perspective in that we only hear the thoughts of one character and the narrative follows that one character, but that character is not telling the story. It's not written in First Person and therefore the "perspective" character is not narrating the story. As such, the narration is as reliable as the author himself.
    Just wanted to get that off my chest, I hear those books described as having unreliable narration too much and again, I don't know if George R R Martin just doesn't know how to use the trope or if people don't know how the trope works.

    • @kimberlycasey5957
      @kimberlycasey5957 5 ปีที่แล้ว +17

      If a character's point of view is presented without any distance, it can have much the same effect as an unreliable narrator. In Harry Potter, I would suggest that many readers do not question Harry's opinions when sometimes they should.
      Martin has referred to Sansa as an unreliable narrator, which is obviously inaccurate because she is not a narrator. But he is referring to her memory of a particular event being inconsistent with an account of the same event that was told 'live' by another character.
      Unlike a first person narrator, a character in third limited cannot directly lie to the reader, but we can still be presented with the story through the filter of the character's biases and delusions, skewing our understanding of the reality of the story.

    • @dublinjake
      @dublinjake 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      It's not that the characters themselves are unreliable narrators, but the author may present the third-person narrator as a character unto themselves who has their own biases, or as someone who is influenced by the perspective of whatever character is in focus. For example, in The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad, Mr Verloc is not the narrator. Nor is Stevie, or Ossipon or anyone else. However, the narrator clearly has their own biases and therefore his reliability is questionable. Furthermore, at several points, limited third person perspective is used to deliberately mislead the reader as to what is going before the actual reveal of a character's motivation purpose, or the point in time we are at in the story.
      Unreliable narrators are not restricted to first-person perspectives.

  • @Serai3
    @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    22 people want to believe everything they read.

  • @videodromeTVversion
    @videodromeTVversion 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Sorry of the potential triviality of this comment, but... what a cool chair!

  • @jezzuh9120
    @jezzuh9120 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    I like that shirt

  • @benhbook
    @benhbook 5 ปีที่แล้ว

    Carrying the personal unreliable narrator idea further, we people can have our Narrating Self spin any kind of skewed story. Are you convinced that you are a fraud, an idiot, or a failure? The Unreliable Narrating Self will only include your shortcomings in the story it tells, excluding contrary evidence.

  • @danielsimmich1858
    @danielsimmich1858 5 ปีที่แล้ว +222

    My favourite unreliable narrator is myself

    • @gerenuk8245
      @gerenuk8245 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Me

    • @KelniusTV
      @KelniusTV ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I don't believe you...

  • @billcasey3492
    @billcasey3492 5 ปีที่แล้ว +405

    Lindsay Ellis just keeps getting better...

  • @stanconnorstan4266
    @stanconnorstan4266 5 ปีที่แล้ว +187

    Lindsay is a national treasure. I'm only subbed because of this series honestly.

  • @GdoubleWB
    @GdoubleWB 5 ปีที่แล้ว +220

    I remember as a kid watching an episode of Dave the Barbarian where the villain kidnapped the narrator and forced him to do his bidding to defeat the hero. Pretty clever for a kids show, in my opinion.

    • @brittanyyates6527
      @brittanyyates6527 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      Omg I love that episode ♥️

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      The movie version of _George of the Jungle_ has a narrator that manipulates the characters, chides them, and orders them around. One of them actually starts to argue with him. It's a great bit that lets the audience in on the fact that the whole thing should not be taken seriously.

  • @worldofcardboard3203
    @worldofcardboard3203 5 ปีที่แล้ว +193

    An unreliable narrator can make people think critically about what they assume to be true. Some people are happy to do this, and others find this uncomfortable.

    • @thegenderfluidthing8660
      @thegenderfluidthing8660 4 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      I think that most people would find this uncomfortable if they saw straight into the implications of where thinking critically can lead them, maybe a newfound moral burden to action which they can never accomplish in their life times, or something else that's wrong with something they aren't able to change. It's always good to think critically, but I tend to think that people who are very willing to go into it are blessed with not being sensitive enough to see directly into where this knowledge could lead, or are unsually brave and bold.

    • @king_big_pp
      @king_big_pp 4 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      This actually explains why so many guys miss the point of Fight Club

  • @rea8585
    @rea8585 5 ปีที่แล้ว +643

    Such a pleasant host 😍

    • @unvergebeneid
      @unvergebeneid 5 ปีที่แล้ว +21

      #blessed

    • @brighty-go6nn
      @brighty-go6nn 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Thats PBS. Lindsay swears

    • @thescowlingschnauzer
      @thescowlingschnauzer 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

      Lindsay Ellis is great! Her long form video essays are insightful. Her history as the Nostalgia Chick movie reviewer is...in the past. This PBS series is a great bite-sized packaging of her intellect.

    • @porsche911sbs
      @porsche911sbs 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Such a red lipstick

    • @SuperSecretAgentNein
      @SuperSecretAgentNein 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

      Lindsay rules, she’s got a lot of other great videos on her own page.

  • @jeffgoode9865
    @jeffgoode9865 5 ปีที่แล้ว +33

    You mean...I might NOT be a brilliant, handsome bad ass?
    o____o
    Nah!

  • @SodaVampire
    @SodaVampire 5 ปีที่แล้ว +103

    Another unreliable narrator is Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye. He spends so much time criticizing how “phony” everyone around him is, but isn’t aware of his own pessimistic biases and immaturity.

    • @MiloKuroshiro
      @MiloKuroshiro 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

      That's not much as a Unreliable Narrator. It's more just a character flaw

    • @silvasilvasilva
      @silvasilvasilva 5 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      This has more to do with his opinions and feelings. It doesn't look like he misrepresents the facts themselves. So he's not an unreliable narrator, but more like someone with very particular opinions about the world around him.

    • @dr.johna.zoidberg5907
      @dr.johna.zoidberg5907 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

      Yea I agree plus his pessimism causes him to describe all the characters really negatively and skews the readers perspective in that way too

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว +15

      Absolutely. It puts me in mind of the saying, "If you meet an asshole in the morning, you've met an asshole; if you meet assholes all day long, _you're the asshole._ LOL

    • @dublinjake
      @dublinjake 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@silvasilvasilva Yeah but his opinions are regularly demonstrated to be wrong. I haven't studied it in a while so I can't hurl out quotations but Salinger strongly implies that Holden is much more traumatised by the death of his little brother than he lets on.

  • @sebastianqm6064
    @sebastianqm6064 5 ปีที่แล้ว +35

    We stan an educated,national treasure, video essay QUEEN

    • @Bee-nw6df
      @Bee-nw6df 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      👸🍷💜

  • @Ohwhatamuddle
    @Ohwhatamuddle 5 ปีที่แล้ว +57

    We're all looking at you, Lestat

    • @jacobvardy
      @jacobvardy 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

      And Louis. Their story just happens to be a mirror of Aristotle's tragic hero?

    • @Ohwhatamuddle
      @Ohwhatamuddle 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      @@jacobvardy Yes! It's clear Louis is also a liar (which is extremely disappointing) when he is lecturing Lestat and Lestat begs him to stop. He says he will weep. Louis basically says high time he did because he's never seen his famous tears. Then Lestat calls him out for lying in IWTV about him crying on Louis' shoulder.

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      +Samantha That's something I liked about the movie version, how they took the idea of Louis literally narrating the story and ran with it. It made me wonder how much of what we were seeing was the truth and how much was Louis's obvious affair with melodrama and self-flagellation. The soundtrack was a partner in this, with its huge sweeping motifs and button-pushing musical stings. A wonderful example of how film can sometimes enhance a story rather than diminish it.

  • @FisherSticksBeardMan
    @FisherSticksBeardMan 5 ปีที่แล้ว +87

    Love the emasculating ikea chair

    • @BJSepuku
      @BJSepuku 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      ... what ?

    • @AnnekeOosterink
      @AnnekeOosterink 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      @@BJSepuku Those are definately words, strung together into a technically grammatically correct sentence I guess...?

    • @FisherSticksBeardMan
      @FisherSticksBeardMan 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@BJSepuku Strandmon in Skeftebo yellow

    • @d.rabbitwhite
      @d.rabbitwhite 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      does it come with a strinne green stripe pattern?

    • @paraboo8994
      @paraboo8994 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@d.rabbitwhite a year late, but thumbs up for the Fight Club reference ❤

  • @pampoovey6722
    @pampoovey6722 5 ปีที่แล้ว +26

    This reminds me of the Tracy Chapman song 'Telling Stories' "there is fiction in the space between - the lines on a page; the memory. Write it down but it doesn't mean, you're not just telling stories."

  • @MaiteLorena5
    @MaiteLorena5 5 ปีที่แล้ว +42

    I really really love this series! It warms my literature nerd heart

  • @ChesVlog
    @ChesVlog 5 ปีที่แล้ว +19

    At what age did you realize that the story of Huckleberry Finn is to help a boy escape slavery?
    Now years old.

    • @goodjobeli
      @goodjobeli 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

      It's supposed to be today years old....

  • @anthonywheeler2082
    @anthonywheeler2082 5 ปีที่แล้ว +35

    Lovecraft used the unreliable narrator trope a lot too

    • @Carewolf
      @Carewolf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +23

      On top of that. He was an unreliable narrator. At times simply calling things "unspeakable", "demented" or "unnatural" when the monster he was describing was just child of a mixed-race couple.

    • @Braxant
      @Braxant 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      @@Carewolf in which story did that happen?

    • @jeromydoerksen2603
      @jeromydoerksen2603 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      Looool! That misdirection. A+

    • @anthonywheeler2082
      @anthonywheeler2082 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      @@Carewolf Yeah, there was a lot of metaphorical and literal racism in his work unfortunately

  • @emilyro_sews
    @emilyro_sews 5 ปีที่แล้ว +11

    Ian McEwan explores this brilliantly in Atonement. As for HP, JK is inconsistent - in the very first chapter the narrator is not only omniscient but addresses the audience directly in the line "one the dull grey tuesday our story starts". I rather hoped the series would close on this note, but she stuck to Harry's pov for the remainder of the story.

    • @natesmodelsdoodles5403
      @natesmodelsdoodles5403 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      that was actually a fairly brilliant decision on her part, in my opinion. we only ever know a little bit more than Harry does for the entire series, so we understand why Harry does the things he does. we even share his biases, so when new information contradicts them, we understand Harry's thought processes even better.

  • @stefan1024
    @stefan1024 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    Damn you, inner narrator! Always feeding me unhealthy snacks!

  • @amycollins5984
    @amycollins5984 5 ปีที่แล้ว +23

    I like to see them talk about children books

  • @whiskeyii4515
    @whiskeyii4515 5 ปีที่แล้ว +13

    You're giving me Sound and Fury flashbacks. So. Much. Stream. Of. Consciousness.

  • @paigemawile
    @paigemawile 5 ปีที่แล้ว +124

    I always thought the concept of calling Harry Potter an unreliable narrator was interesting because it gives fans a way to bypass some of JK's biases and present a lot of head canons that maybe Harry missed because he's an ignorant kid
    like maybe Dumbledore was more obvious about his homosexuality but Harry was too oblivious to notice
    it kind of adds some pure enjoyment to a now tainted series

    • @raggedcritical
      @raggedcritical 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      I stopped paying attention after I read book 7 - how is the series tainted? By the critically panned prequels? The stage play? Or have elements since been deemed "problematic"?

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

      "Now tainted"? LOL, you do realize you just revealed your own bias, right?

    • @paigemawile
      @paigemawile 5 ปีที่แล้ว +22

      @@Serai3 ok feel free to sit on your high horse thinking that Nagini actually being an asian woman transformed into an animal all along is a good and beneficial addition to the canon

    • @Serai3
      @Serai3 5 ปีที่แล้ว

      +paige And why wouldn't it be? Because YOU don't like it? LOL, you're not going to get far if you're that inflexible. There's a lot about the world you don't know, and if you're going to get pissy every time you find out you thought something that was incorrect, you're going to spend a lot of your life in a snit.

    • @sarahlott8755
      @sarahlott8755 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

      To be fair, any time an author takes on creating several novels within a unique universe over years, things can get problematic because its just very hard to keep up with that much information (hence plot holes). Also magic systems are one of the most difficult things to write because it's way too easy to contradict previous set rules. Time traveling complicates things even more, which is why a lot of writers refuse to touch it out fear that they will fall into a paradox. So, ultimately jk Rowling took on some very difficult world building... mistakes were bound to be made. I mean for Christ's sake, it took j.r. Tolkien 20 years to fine tune the mechanics of his fictional world.

  • @Kohdok
    @Kohdok 5 ปีที่แล้ว +16

    Dofus: The Treasures of Kerubim, while not literature, is a wonderful example of this. It's about a retired adventurer telling stories about how he got his amazing magical items to his adoptive grandson Joris. However, about halfway through, he tells a story with some of his old party members around and they frequently correct him on his account. Kind of interesting to start the series trusting his words with an innocent naivety, but even when the cat is out of the bag it becomes fun trying to pick out what is true and what is embellished.
    Also a tad surprised Rashomon didn't show up in this vid. Then again, that's the whole point of the story.

    • @LimeyLassen
      @LimeyLassen 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Treasures of Kerub is a hidden treasure.

  • @MariaVosa
    @MariaVosa 5 ปีที่แล้ว +28

    Love this topic. Slightly disappointed Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd didn't get a shout out... :)

    • @hajarmdn4883
      @hajarmdn4883 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

      I feel like that would spoil the whole story 🤐🤐

    • @rmsgrey
      @rmsgrey 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      @@hajarmdn4883
      Yeah, major spoiler, and it doesn't really do anything special with the concept - everything is reported faithfully except for one crucial omission, which is done deliberately and knowingly, and then explained explicitly at the end.
      I guess the idea of unreliability by omission is interesting in itself - and I don't recall it being addressed in the video - but it's not unique to this story - the general case is the "Tomato Surprise" on TV Tropes - where the narrative leaves out something that everyone but the reader knows all along.

    • @hajarmdn4883
      @hajarmdn4883 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      @@rmsgrey I haven't read the books in years. So I really should check it out again as the only thing I remember was the twist. I was in middle school when I first read it and the idea seemed revolutionary to me at the time. I'm still fond of the novel.

  • @rozempire2843
    @rozempire2843 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    Great example of Unreliable Narrator: Narrator of Netflix show “You”

  • @PogieJoe
    @PogieJoe 5 ปีที่แล้ว +10

    One of the best yet, I say. The Experiencing Self vs. Narrating Self blew my mind.

    • @mhawang8204
      @mhawang8204 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

      Agreed! Lindsay's videos are always educational, but the depth of research her team does takes it to another level.

  • @vickisigh2674
    @vickisigh2674 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    i love lindsey ellis!! this video is so interesting, i learned a lot thank you!

  • @horizonbrave1533
    @horizonbrave1533 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    God I love this channel....PBS is such a boon and benefit to the world of academia...

  • @Cephalopod51
    @Cephalopod51 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    When you mentioned Miles Gloriosus (I've heard Miles pronounced as "Me-lays"), it reminded me of the famous song from A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum: "I, Miles Gloriosus,
    / I, slaughterer of thousands, / I, oppressor of the meek, / Subduer of the weak, / Degrader of the Greek,
    / Destroyer of the Turk, / Must hurry back to work." In that musical, he's not a coward, but he is dimwitted, and he's also a pompous, arrogant, and ruthless military commander who's blissfully unaware with how much he repels people, including his betrothed bride, with his brutality and boorishness. Learning that his original inspiration was a coward makes his character even funnier.

    • @lissaquon607
      @lissaquon607 4 ปีที่แล้ว

      Well everyone in Funny Thing IS pretty much a stock character from Roman tradition. In fact the main plot beats are ripped from a Roman played called Peudolus. And their names are literally translated to "Love" "Hero" "Old Man" - in Psedulos' case I believe it means liar. So Miles being another stock name makes perfect sense.

  • @helenwalter6830
    @helenwalter6830 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    The boy in the striped pajamas has an unreliable narrator too. It makes it hard to understand if you don't know anything about the holocaust, which my younger sister found out too late.

  • @moesydocious
    @moesydocious 5 ปีที่แล้ว +20

    ❤️ this series.

    • @oof-rr5nf
      @oof-rr5nf 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

      Me too!

  • @ozthemk5902
    @ozthemk5902 5 ปีที่แล้ว +7

    I knew you would mention Lolita

  • @Redem10
    @Redem10 5 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    I feel every youtube video as unreliable narator

  • @ltfringr
    @ltfringr 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Slaughterhouse Five is my favorite example of this

  • @BuffaloEdward
    @BuffaloEdward 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Where would Agatha Christie's.....
    (spoilers)
    ...The Murder of Roger Ackroyd fit? The narrator in that one isn't unreliable exactly... everything he says happens does actually happen in the book. He just chooses to leave out bits of information.

  • @isprobablyjobhunting
    @isprobablyjobhunting 5 ปีที่แล้ว +9

    Oh, thats what an unreliable narrator is.

  • @johannageisel5390
    @johannageisel5390 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    *Spoiler for "The King in Yellow"*
    .
    .
    .
    I recently encountered one. I was reading "The King in Yellow" by Robert W. Chambers and during the first story I felt like I didn't connect with the protagonist (who is also the narrator). He described things so intensely and over the top.
    Since I started reading in the tram to my therapy session, I even spoke to my therapist about it and wondered whether the people a 100 years ago just wrote in different style than today and/or whether I was just somewhat limited in my ability to tolerate certain personalities. I also spoke about other works from around the turn of the century, in which I found some characters odd.
    However, when I finished the story, it turned out the narrator was very unreliable. That explained a lot. ^ ^

  • @beaavonlea2023
    @beaavonlea2023 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    Highly recommend reading 'The People In The Trees' if you're interested in some more complex and unreliable narration

  • @cholten99
    @cholten99 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Lindsay's videos are always great. American Psycho is another great example of this as are #SPOILERS
    ....
    The Basic Eight and The Hole (Guy Burt).

  • @brianbrown2237
    @brianbrown2237 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Heyyyy, this video was gr8! Mixed with facts, and humor. I like it. 😎😎

  • @LacedWithOreos
    @LacedWithOreos 5 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    A Clockwork Orange. Alex make himself to be the leader of his group but he's the youngest and his 'droogs' left him high and dry at the cat lady's place.

  • @KravenErgeist
    @KravenErgeist 5 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    The song would have me believe that his name is pronounced like "Mee-Les" Gloriosus.

  • @galrjkldd
    @galrjkldd 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    I would actually like to know what Lindsay Ellis thinks about a new theory I recently found, It was an article that theorized that Brad Pitt's character in Fight Club was actually the spirit of a car crash victim. Then he goes on to show that Edward Norton works in a car insurance company, and they also make sure to mention, that Ed's boss wasn't actually a bad guy. Or maybe that was another article.

  • @G0LDEN
    @G0LDEN 3 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    You know you're a nerd if you're watching this in your own time instead of online learning

  • @brunoanthony9452
    @brunoanthony9452 5 ปีที่แล้ว +5

    Liked before even watching it! Your series is just that great!

  • @haroldfeld
    @haroldfeld 5 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Surprised this video did not mention Rashamon, the ultimate unreliable narrator story with multiple unreliable narrators.

  • @duaspontes3716
    @duaspontes3716 4 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I highly recommend Machado de Assis' "Dom Casmurro" for an interesting take on unreliable narrators. It's great literature, and outside of the traditional US-Europe axis for lit canon.

  • @jasoncromwell4206
    @jasoncromwell4206 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    You forgot about Ted Mosby. Quite possibly the most unreliable narrator of the 2000s.

  • @ginao6810
    @ginao6810 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I appreciate that Lindsay’s essay was about literature, but as a teacher, I used How I Met Your Mother as a way to demonstrate the unreliable narrator.
    The show has ups and downs, but it’s at its best when it plays up the unreliable narrator. Ted, and the other characters remember events differently often in conflicted ways, or in conflicting timelines, or narrator Ted forgets details, like the date he calls “blah blah”. They use the unreliable narrator for ongoing jokes, like the goat at Teds birthday.
    I think my favourite example is in the second last season when a whole episode takes place in the bar with the whole gang and their usual antics, and at the end, an imaginary Barney tells Ted none of is happening, you’ve been sitting at the bar by yourself for hours remembering the good old days before your friends grew up.
    It makes you feel sooooooo sad for Ted, it makes him look so lonely. My students saw how powerful the unreliable narrator tool could be, not just in a murder mystery context like may of the examples my English syllabus suggested.
    I love unreliable narrators in books. I love going back and questioning everything. It totally indulges my “over-analyse everything” gene. I remember the punch in the gut when Gone Girl switched over the “real” Amy. It wears brilliant.

  • @56purple78
    @56purple78 5 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    absolutely loving this series

  • @iliashigin
    @iliashigin 5 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    Lindsay, it's not Nábokov's it's Nabókov's. Love ya!