Trope Talk: Unreliable Narrators

[@ReapCykes]

What's interesting is that the Narrator in The Stanley Parable could be unreliable, be definitely reliable but with an unreliable protagonist, or have both be unreliable! It just depends on the ending you're going for...

[@KasumiRINA]

I enjoyed Stanley Parable but still don't understand the choice to not make most objects interactable: people made lists of things you can do with radio without leaving the room in Portal but Stanley can't even knock down a coffee cup.

[@themasteronhigh1665]

​@KasumiR I think you're annoyed that Stanley parable isn't a different game. Lol. It's not a physics playground like portal is.

[@Fragmentsinfractals488]

@@KasumiRINA It is because the Stanley Parable Railroads you on purpose. It is the idea that even if you get off the path, you are still on the path.

[@emblemblade9245]

The entire game was originally created as a satirical diss towards games of the time that gave players the illusion of freedom by letting them go where they wanted and do what they wanted, but the only thing that actually affected the story was what the game wanted the player to do. TSP makes fun of it by giving the player as few options as possible (walk and click on things) and a narrator that desperately tries to railroad you into doing only what he wants, and you get to try to do things your own way, only to discover that even when you think you’re in control sometimes you’re not.

[@glumbortango7182]

Even better example by one of the same developers, the use of this trope in The Beginner's Guide to twist the knife was also devastatingly effective.

[@Hjhugj]

My favorite unreliable narration is from Meet the Robinsons: “Hey, Goob! Cool binder!” “Goob, wanna hang out at my place today?” “They all hated me.”

[@Vinemaple]

Although people *will* say nice-seeming things, or pretend to be nice, in order to make someone more miserable. It's not an unreasonable conclusion if you have grown up with certain experiences.

[@cam4636]

@@Vinemaple Sure, but the example is of a boy who grows up to be a supervillain due to missing a catch in a baseball game.

[@B2WM]

@@Vinemaple It's sad when the complements are genuine but you only hear the sarcasm in your head. Facts, though.

[@farkasmactavish]

​@@Vinemapler/im14andthisisedgy Like, sure, there are _some_ people who _might_ do that, but the idea that everybody ariund you is doing it is absurdly implausible.

[@Vinemaple]

@@farkasmactavish Generally speaking, you're right, but (a) one learns to recognize the tone of voice, and (b) it all seems fun and safe and friendly, until they grab you from behind. If nobody's ever treated you like this, then, congratulations, your life is great! Do a little happy dance, take a minute to appreciate it, then ask yourself if you've ever treated someone else like this.

[@girl1213]

I like Emperor's New Groove where Kuzco tells himself (the Narrator) to give it rest since he really *is* so unreliable. The narrator can't even defend himself since Kuzco points out that the audience is very much aware of his lying since they saw the whole thing and there forth won't listen to him anymore. So he tells the Narrator to leave him alone and we never hear from the Narrator again. Pretty clever use of the trope since it's framed as Kuzco coming to accept he very much deserves being turned into a llama. He very much *wants* to paint himself as the victim, but the betrayal of what might as well be his maternal figure and how he's treated Pacha, who really has no reason to help him has hit him hard. And his old way of thinking doesn't work anymore, showing character growth and the taking of responsibility.

[@meganaitken7522]

Well, in his defense, firing Ezma was probably a good thing considering how in her first scene where she’s doing his job behind his back, her response to the civilian talking about how the common folk (or at least the commoner’s family and/or village) are to basically reveal that she was barely paying attention and then to blame the issue on the commoner(s) saying “It’s no concern of mine whether your family has… what was it again? (Guy says “Ah, food”) Ha! You really should’ve thought of that before you became peasants! We’re through here. Take him away. NEXT!” Might partly explain Kuzco’s behavior if you think about it, and definitely the one honest point in his unreliable narrative

[@girl1213]

@@meganaitken7522 Yeah I know. But the point I'm trying to make is Kuzco accepting he's the bad guy. Ezma *never* thinks of what she's doing is wrong. She should have known that the reason Kuzco is the way that he is because she "practically raised him" but never once asks the question "Is it my fault?" I think the only good thing she did for him was teach him that being the Emperor is *work* since he is doing his duties and *wants* to rule instead of just lazy around doing nothing or partying, wasting his wealth. Sure he's doing it from his throne, but the point still stands that he's working.

[@adoniscreed4031]

Rewatched that movie for the thousandth time last week and that bit definitely stood out as particularly clever is such a cool movie!!

[@sammykat2hb]

Yzma herself might be unreliable when she complains she practically raised him - though if she was his only maternal figure, it’s not surprising he turned out that way. XD

[@goatlover6312]

@@girl1213I think the reason Yzma never asked herself “is this my fault?” is because she knew from the very start that she was the villain of the story. She knows what is good or evil and knowingly chooses evil. Well this is just my unprofessional analysis of her character anyway.

[@dianagoenaga7263]

I love unreliable narrators. My favorite thing is when the narrator changes, and you can just FEEL the bias from the previous guy.

[@eisgnom7383]

Like in bartimaeus

[@marijag]

How I met your mother does this and I love it every time!

[@kingofdragons7]

Like the Game of Thrones books

[@treyslider6954]

One of my (many) favorite bits of Worm is when Taylor is made to watch a video of herself in action, and she's just like "woah, I look really creepy and terrifying, don't I?" and everyone is just like "THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU!"

[@pixelatedshinobi2945]

Harrow the Ninth in a nutshell

[@jacobsedlack1173]

The moment in Emperor's New Groove when Kuzco silences his own narration monologue and it remains silent for the rest of the adventure is symbolic of him getting over himself and realizing he was a tyrannical brat unfit to rule his land even before becoming a llama.

[@danielramsey6141]

Definitely one of the best scenes from that film.

[@kathyjohnson2043]

And it's really funny. Breaking the 4th wall successfully instead of predictably

[@cloud4323]

@@kathyjohnson2043 hey what does smd mean?

[@emblemblade9245]

Oh wow I never realized the implications there! Such a good movie. Rewatching it recently made me realize how sad his character actually is (especially with Yuma’s line about how she practically raised him. Imagine having YZMA as your closest family), and thus how heartwarming the ending is when he more or less gets accepted into Pacha’s family

[@kathyjohnson2043]

@@cloud4323 it means I can't type. I'll fix it😁

[@lunarSmite]

My favorite subversion of this trope is how Percy Jackson in the first series written as an unreliable narrator, but instead of portraying himself as a cool badass like any 12-16 year old would, he SEVERELY underestimates himself. He's just a silly lil guy but to everyone else he's a murder machine with ~20,000 kills across the first 5 books alone

[@spindash64]

Like some kinda reverse Navy Seal copypasta

[@frankwest5388]

I mean in a world filled with gods that will turn your entire bloodline into dolphins if they perceive you as cocky, underplaying yourself and staying humble are valuable traits that will keep you alive.

[@mahbuddykeith1124]

Ci-Ci-Ciaphas Cain! Hero of the Imperium! Meanwhile, Cain’s inner monologues: *crippling impostor syndrome*.

[@spindash64]

@@frankwest5388 it's pretty telling that he managed to survive mailing them Medusa's head, and rather than turn him into a jackalope or something, they just send it back like "funny kid. Now run along and find something useful for it"

[@Narutokun11]

Indeed, I really enjoyed how Rick wrote Percy, especially after he dipped himself in the Styx and became a nightmare to the opposing force. He thought he was just doing his best to protect everyone, everyone else pointed to the literally mountain of dead enemies he left in his wake. I like that SO much better than a narrative that goes out of it's way to suck off the MC and facilitate them power tripping.

[@Agent719]

My favorite kind of unriable narrators are when the unreliable-ness is subtle. "We were best friends!" "We hung out sometimes."

[@airplanes_aren.t_real]

I hope someone makes a story where the unreliability of the narrator is not due to him lying but him being too honest Like whenever he hears someone calling an aspect of the story or characters boring and uninteresting the narrator baretes them and changes their description

[@PrototypeSpaceMonkey]

My favorite example of this is from "So I'm a Spider So What?" (spoiler warning, I guess) where there's one character who's racked with guilt about how she mercilessly bullied a girl in highschool because she was jealous of how beautiful, popular, smart, aloof and practically perfect she was. And then there's this OTHER character who remembers her time in highschool as being an awkward, anti-social, hot mess of a gamer-girl loner who didn't have any friends apart from one very extroverted girl who went out of her way to talk to her and play pranks... and it's only like 5 books into the series that these two meet in the story and it becomes clear they were talking about each other. One hell of a long setup but the payoff was well worth it.

[@Dezandor]

​@@PrototypeSpaceMonkeyI feel like the whole story is the series of set ups and payoffs. Whole reveal of what a Taboo was blown my mind

[@wesleythomas7125]

"He took it like a champ" (character is fully dressed in a running shower, crying like a baby)

[@jhamanrai]

“He definitely didn’t scream like a little girl.”

[@MrCoolinschool]

I love the fact that Sherlock season 4 has basically become her punching bag for when writers think they’re too clever for their audiences

[@belindaluna2067]

That season is _everybody's_ punching bag.

[@johndavidtibbetts7320]

it's getting a little stale, if I'm being entirely honest. Like, the show's almost a decade old, how about we move on? Problem is I can't think of a better example, so until one presents itself it'll have to do XD

[@merrittanimation7721]

@@johndavidtibbetts7320 I don't know of any other tv shows show seasons so bad they were convinced there was a secret good finale out there with basically no evidence but the fandom's goodwill towards the creators being good at their job.

[@armintargaryen9216]

@@merrittanimation7721 I second the sentiment, but Gane of Thrones also suits that description (kinda)

[@MatthewSmith-sz1yq]

Its honestly so hilarious, though. Like, someone showed me a satirical spoof of sherlock, where both characters are doing increasingly improbable things ("I have a gun!" "Oh yeah, well I took all the bullets out!" "Oh yeah, well those were decoy bullets, I reloaded it afterwards!") It was honestly the same as that show. It felt like the writers in the writing room were playing one of those kid's games with zero rules, where they just keep making up things to win. "I am a giant monster!" "I poisoned you with monster poison!" "My monster is immune to poison!" "It's a special poison that he's not immune to!"

[@Fikayoz]

And what people didn't realize is that Blue was the one telling this story all along, but he's heard Red do these segments so many times that he hallucinated her doin this one too

[@bluetorcher5544]

Plot twist of the century

[@laserfan26]

I hope this isn't about "this is how you lose the time war". Please don't be about that. I'm hoping it's not cuz you used he when they're both fem

[@bluetorcher5544]

@@laserfan26 Yeah it’s not. The Blue being referred to here is the second content creator of this channel (Red is the person who’s doing Trope Talk)

[@bugjams]

​@@laserfan26 my dumb ass thinking this was about Red vs Blue

[@nataliapanfichi9933]

​​@@bluetorcher5544I like it when the narrator is anonymous for most of the story but is revealed later in the plot (usually near the middle or at the end) to be an actual character. Like in the into the woods movie where the twist ending is that the omniscient voice over narrator is the baker. Or sorry for the spoiler warning:if you want to see it but in the 2005 anime gankutsuou-el-conde-de-montecristo (anime adaptation of the count of montecristo) the later episodes near the end of the series reveal the omnipresent narrator as an alien demon spirit that has been possessing the body of the revenge obsessed protagonist.

[@alexandercandicedad1355]

3:43 "a theoretically perfectly reliable narrator would explain absolutely everything" JRR Tolkien gave it his best shot!

[@Samahiel]

The lord of the rings is metatextual. It's a self proclaimed translation of two author's narrative work drawn from a mix of personal experience and secondhand accounts of historical events. Personal head cannon: The silmarillion is Noldor propaganda meant to influence the political leadership of Numenorean successor states.

[@reubenoakley5887]

​@@SamahielThe Silmarillion doesn't really work as propaganda, because propaganda has to be read to take effect.

[@crazygirls9000]

​@@reubenoakley5887talk for yourself, for me it worked and now I think the feanorians were done dirty

[@JacklynBurn]

@@reubenoakley5887 "Nobody reads the Silmarillion" jokes will never get old, thank you for giving me a new one actually laughed out loud at this one

[@leandersearle5094]

The [trees], Mason, what do they mean?

[@jalapenoofjustice4682]

My favorite take on a narrator is The Book Thief where the narrator is death. He doesn't actually affect the plot, but he has a very distinct personality and will often voice his perspective on things

[@jacobcain9008]

Its such a good book and such a sad one too.

[@MinecraftWorld1954]

ABOUT TIME I SAW SOMEONE BRING UP THE BOOK THIEF

[@sivagamishankar9094]

Yes! Someone has read the book thief!

[@androkguz]

It's a great book and the idea of making the narrator of such a mundane story be an abstract/supernatural being is genius

[@fallentitan9811]

Oh absolutely, just the best narrator.

[@okamiv5]

Adult Goob from meet the Robinsons is a great example when he tells his backstory. He believes his life was ruined completely by the ball game but in reality he just held his grudge so hard he let his life fly by him.

[@cam4636]

"Hey Goob! Cool binder!" Narrator: _They all hated me._

[@okamiv5]

@@cam4636 YES!! lol

[@hydropizza]

Another good one is Syndrome from The Incredibles. His recollection of Bob's "rejection" of him have Bob coldly dismissing him and treating him as a nuisance. What really happened is that he was constantly butting into Bob's business, including during an active supervillain fight, and was making the situation much worse. He doesn't even remember Bomb Voyage, his near death caused by his own stupidity, or the damage his actions inadvertently caused. He only focused on how much Bob's words hurt him specifically. It's a pretty good way to show Syndrome's narcissim and immaturity.

[@redpanda6497]

@@hydropizza Syndrome is egoistic, that's true, but that one is more anxiety than egoism.

[@CanidRose]

@@hydropizza You know, it just occurred to me; Bob could've totally thrown Buddy under the bus. It was his fault the monorail got blown up, his fault Bomb Voyage got away... But Bob wasn't going to ruin the kid's life just to cover his own ass. And of course, Buddy repaid him by becoming Syndrome and single handedly reducing the adult Super population by a solid 75% at least. It's no accident that in the sequel, most of the new Supers are either young adults or too old to have been in action when Syndrome was a fanboy, thus escaping his notice.

[@yepyep86]

But is Red one in this trope talk? Is she secretly leading us astray with this information? Is there misinformation mixed in? We'll never know

[@simples6475]

We need Blue to narrate his own version of this trope talk to be sure.

[@WilyGryphon]

That honestly sounds more like the kind of thing Terrible Writing Advice would do. Or is it?

[@roaringthunder115]

Top ten questions science can’t solve

[@rainknite]

​@@WilyGryphonevery terrible writing advice video is an unreliable narrator video

[@simonschnedl]

​@@rainknitebut he is SO unreliable that he is become reliable in his unreliableness.

[@potahtwah9591]

"You mock my suffering?" "Who would lie about pasta?" is such a golden frame and I need it

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

The one on the left looks lke that Kenshin guy with the inverted-edge katana.I thought it was a reference.

[@cjstanky]

A lot of the Percy Jackson books have the unreliable filter because it follows the viewpoint character and it leads to some funny moments, like when Percy realizes that one of his close friends has feeling for him and he's kinda like "When did this happen" while most readers have probably been screaming at him to figure it out since book 1. Heroes of Olympus expands this when have various characters trying to get a grasp on other viewpoint character's mindsets which leads to funny moments where one of them will comment about how inspiring and heroic the other is and how focused they are, then the next chapter perspective switches and the other character is just thinking about how they could go for a cheeseburger at the moment. It even gets played for drama where one character hears a slightly doomy prophecty before their group heads on a dangerous quests and doesn't pick up on or grasp why one of his companions kinda became sort of sad and melonchally on the trip and is talking about, which hits a lot harder on the reread.

[@asherthedisaster4724]

a good portion of the narration in pjo is also sanitized, because it is a 12 year old narrating a book for 10 year olds. i mean how many of us didn't realize the gavity of Gabe when we were reading it as kids?

[@Hisnitch]

It's also interesting because Percy makes it consistently sound like he's probably the worst combat person and pretty dumb to begin with. Then, when the third Olympus series rolls around, it turns out that he's pretty much a combat god and it's kind of a surprise that Carter Kane even held up as long as he did against Percy.

[@cjstanky]

@asherthedisaster4724 Yeah, although I do like that, Percy is able to put 2 and 2 together quickly when given the context clues and immediately gives his mother the way to get vengeance. It really helps paint Percy as someone who although often lacking the context for what is happening, usually is pretty fast on the uptake and can diagnose a situation rather fast.

[@Lordmewtwo151]

@@Hisnitch I get the "dumb" part, but when does Percy consistently sound like he's probably the worst combat person? Yes, he mentions how he's bad at archery (especially compared to Apollo's and Artemise's descendants, which makes logical sense), but while he doesn't brag about his skill with the blade, he does, as far as I'm aware, acknowledge his performance during his myriad of fights. Unrelated note, minor nitpick in the series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians (at least the original, I'm not sure about Heroes of Olympus) is largely accurate to Greek mythology, but Rick Riordan refers to Heracles by his Roman name Hercules.

[@greenhydra10]

I think I actually remember the burger part.

[@ShanRenxin]

“Remember when I said our love was like ‘a dream come true’?” “Aww, beans!” Gods I love Red’s writing

[@philosophy_bot4171]

Beep bop... I'm the Philosophy Bot. Here, have a quote: "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me" ~ C.S. Lewis

[@bayleeberger9586]

@@philosophy_bot4171 good bot?

[@clara_corvus]

I.. was not aware that non-scam bots were a thing on KZbin.

[@daviddaugherty2816]

​@corvus_da I don't know if I'd call Bible-bots scams either because they're not _directly_ selling anything. Unbelievably annoying, though.

[@elderliddle2733]

The interesting part about The Emperors New Groove: Kuzco narrating and then calling himself out later is real major character development. He’s looked back over his life and found out what really happened. It was all his fault. Had he been nicer to people he’d not be in that situation. It’s literally his own thoughts until he cuts himself off. I think it’s a great subversive take on a narrator.

[@Xazyv]

It's great that this video gave me the insight to understand why I loved that "bit" so much about the Unreliable Narrator, Pre-Development Kuzco. I REALLY enjoy how that is playing into the Unreliable Narrator so perfectly but does so in a way that actively destroys the trust break that may have built up from having an unreliable narrator. You were always PERFECTLY aware of Kuzco being an unreliable narrator, literally from minute one. And then both Kuzcos play out a clear transition where you no longer have that unreliable narration. It played into the toon force styled comedy of the movie perfectly and highlighted the character growth. Top tier movie.

[@sylviaperich970]

So, I’m 40, and I think this is the first time anyone has ever spelled out for me that the narrator is a character and therefore has personality characteristics on purpose. 🤯 Like, it seems so obvious! Never stop learning kids!

[@christophera4527]

I'm 37 and this is the first time I think about this as well. Now I gotta fix a few things in my own story

[@Iamtk777]

There's a fascinating variety of levels of characterization for narrators, especially in third-person narratives. Some try their best to blend in and not have any character, while others are subtly there, and yet others go so far as to tell you that they have opinions. C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia is particularly interesting here, as it typically sits in the middle but a bit towards being a character, having notable quirks of storytelling and giving little asides that are very subjective, but not overtly a character. But very occasionally, and especially in The Silver Chair, the narrator takes a moment to express personal thoughts and desires, including a part where it says "I hope you won't lose all interest in Jill for the rest of the book if I tell you that at this moment she began to cry." and then proceeds to give all sorts of excuses for why Jill crying is quite reasonable.

[@gianni206]

@@Iamtk777 love that quote

[@Vinemaple]

Never read a Tom Robbins book, have you? Some of the narration can get a little creepy, hasn't aged well, but it's a real trip, I tell ya.

[@penguindrummer252]

Funnily enough this facet of narratology shows up in german education as early as elementary school. Not singing the praises of my country's education in order to bash those of other nations or anything, we've got a long way to go elsewhere ourselves. In fact I reckon elementary school is a bit soon but it's a neat divergence. Wonder how it is elsewhere.

[@ptgia1301]

I do think one of the best unreliable narrators is Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes.

[@caroline8590]

Yeah!

[@teslaromans1023]

I’m still trying to figure out if Hobbes was magical and actually became alive when no one was looking, or if it’s all in Calvin’s head 😶😶😶

[@markusayasse99]

@@teslaromans1023Bill Watterson explained that he always felt it was an exploration of perspective. Calvin sees the world one way and everyone else sees it different than that, and no one is truly right or wrong. He very intentionally went out of his way to never resolve that question.

[@mr.o8539]

It's very clear that it's the overcharged imaginations of a child

[@wyattbascom9711]

@@teslaromans1023I like to believe Hobbes works on Toy Story rules. He can come alive anytime he wants, but he only does so around Calvin alone, mostly because Hobbes thinks it’s funny that no one believes that Calvin’s stuffed tiger is actually alive.

[@skeleman5883]

From Into the Woods: "There must always be an outside observer to pass the story along!" "Some of us don't like the way you've been telling it."

[@Vinemaple]

I still don't _really_ like Broadway musicals, and there are a few values-dissonance moments, but even so, I'm always up for Into the Woods!

[@hope1447]

I just see Berndatte Peters for this

[@StrategicGamesEtc]

​@@hope1447who else would you see? (The movie doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. The movie doesn't exist, it can't hurt you. The movie doesn't exist, it can't hurt you.)

[@hope1447]

@@StrategicGamesEtc I meant I saw the play version of into the woods on youtube and she was in it.

[@StrategicGamesEtc]

@@hope1447 yeah, it was a joke about how the play is better than the movie (I have the play on DVD).

[@thegodofalldragons]

6:21 I've never noticed that Syndrome completely changes the context of the "Fly home, Buddy" quip in his memory of it.

[@kylegonewild]

It's subtle but yea, Buddy had a completely fabricated version of what happened that night in his head.

[@hamburgerlord7849]

I really like how Greg is an unreliable narrator in the DoaWK books, because it just kinda makes sense. He's a kid writing in a diary, of course he's gonna fudge some details to make himself look better.

[@EMLtheViewer]

And yet he _still_ makes himself look like a terrible person! I guess he just lacks self-awareness or something.

[@hamburgerlord7849]

@Benjamin-mj9pd Diary of a Wimpy Kid goddammit I got the acronym wrong

[@WooffzTheCoon]

@@hamburgerlord7849Diary, not dairy. The book is a journal, not a glass of milk💀

[@hamburgerlord7849]

@WooffzTheCoon Fun fact: I had my wisdom teeth pulled earlier today and was under heavy anesthetic. It's a miracle that those two comments were even legible, despite the spelling mistakes.

[@WooffzTheCoon]

@@hamburgerlord7849 lol! My comment was met lightheartedly, don’t worry! Congrats on your teeth, hope your recovery goes well!

[@Nasser851000]

How do we know we can trust Red? XD

[@HamisGood12]

You are asking the real questions. XD

[@ginge641]

We don't. Can't trust a sentient colour.

[@thefrinkydinkman368]

Who knows she might be a red herring

[@kryptonianguest1903]

Dun dun dunnn

[@JDM-is-my-name]

Based on how she presents, I'd say yes. She has a lot of insight and we have yet to see her disengage with the story in the way unreliable narrators tend to. However, I have not been in the 7th grade for a few years, so I may be lacking behind in my traning

[@itayker22]

I recently read a fanfic that did something interesting with this. Usually, you don't know the narration is unreliable, at least at first, and it's some kind of plot twist - "this wasn't actually real/accurate!". Said fanfic has a character with time travel powers that is ABSOLUTELY going insane trying to fix something in the past - time travel messed with her memories, and she lost all sense of chronology - doesn't know anymore where she is, when she is, what happened before what, just a complete mess. As such, the third person narration is self-consciously unreliable regarding the order of events, and doesn't hide this. The story isn't in chronological order, and while we know we can trust it that all the events happened as told, neither us not the narration seems to know in which order, and how the different story lines it keeps cutting to relate to each other (one before the other? The other way around? Parralel timelines or something?). Just thought this was a very clever trick, because usually you can't straight up tell the audience the narration is unreliable without them losing interest in the story (aka "if I can't be sure any of this is real, why should I care"). This both keeps the tension because we know the events ARE real and accurate, while passing really well to the reader the character's sheer confusion and frustration. Edit: It's called Eternal Return by notoriousjae, look it up on ao3. Since it's a fanfic though you DO need to know the source material first, in this case the game Life is Strange

[@boobailey4509]

That fic sounds amazing

[@_modernmage]

what fic is this? I'd like to read it, it sounds super interesting!

[@SingingSealRiana]

that sounds facinating, thanks for sharing! not as elaborate but somewhat reminding me of that, I read a ff about someone who could remember about 10 of his past lifes and in some dramatic irony, there happen to be a lot of more or less coincedental similarities and that synchronicity has part in desorienting him temporaly at times. His gender and past, job and nationality change, but he often finds himself in similar situations, places that ment something to a past selfe things like that. so he gets really confused at times what skill he should or should not have, franatically look for someone under his protection, that is dead for houndrets of years, confuses his brother with someone else . . . . . His grounding technic is recalling his soulmate, someone he meets and falls in love with everytime though they of cause change just as him but if he knows, who they are at the moment, he can extrapolate who he should be in context . . . like if they are not the pseudo chinese emperess, he is not their bodyguard. While he immidietly recognises them in any form, he still percives them as seperate people too, with their own lifes and all so if he knows who they are everything else settles into place. The story is brilliantly writen truely making the most of the utter confusion and comedic potential with the connections drawn and through who we learn what information. My personal favorit moment has the aunt of the soulmate listen in on the conversation of the mc and his teacher, who exchange their experiences with remembering and talking about their soulmates in very reduced language so someone listening would lack all the context, but the reader was given everything needed to connect the dots beforehand though other povs . . . . . just how said aunt tries to make sense out of what they are saying and the fact they are talking about her nephew in a context that absolutly makes no sense at all . . . it is hilarious and through the brilliant writing you can read basically all 3 characters mind at that moment, dispite the pov having no clue what is going on. sadly the ff absolutly needs the reader to know the source material, since the characters only get explained as far as they are changed and it straight out jumping the whole climax of the actual plot, the focus lies soley on those perspective games, finding out details about their past lifes and how they deal with it . . . also the shipping is really controversial due to an age difference, in the ff it makes sense due to the past lifes but I fault no one for still finding it ikky

[@itayker22]

Happened to come back to this video, added it to the comment if you're interested! ​@@_modernmage

[@_modernmage]

@@itayker22 omg thank you!!

[@thanatoast]

Sometimes it's such a shame how much trust we put on our narrators. Lolita is a great example of this as Humbert Humbert spins prose after prose, dancing gray areas and expecting you to nod along. He's a monster of course, but there's still people who are convinced the book tries to justify being a PDF File.

[@namesrelaxed4106]

Yeah, I was thinking of Lolita too! It's disheartening that a lot of people misunderstand it

[@thefactthat3709]

I didn't take Humbert as an unreliable narrator. Everything is depicted earnestly, except maybe Charlotte's death.

[@thanatoast]

​@@thefactthat3709I mean he makes Dolores out to be a Nymphette and that she indeed wants sex and love. He makes out their relationship to be something pure and mutual when it very much couldn't be. He even refers to Dolores by a name she didn't even pick for herself, her nickname was probably Dolly. This last thing is very minor, but it speaks to Humbert creating the character of Lolita rather than it being how Dolores actually is.

[@thefactthat3709]

@@thanatoast initially she does want to have sex after her experience at camp. Their relationship quickly devolves into a one sided love after she realizes the reality of the situation, though.

[@BurningTNT]

From what I heard (having not read it personally) his narration is at war with the rest of the narrative scene setting, where anywhere there is beauty or should be beauty there’s something unpleasant to undercut it. Effectively telling the reader that any attempt to dress something up as romantic or beautiful has rot beneath it

[@chrisyaworski2080]

one of my favorite Ignorant Narrators is a short story set in the Dresden Files that follows Dresden's apprentice. She's on her own job and comes across a situation where she is way outside her depth and she tries to think about what Harry would do because "...he always knows what to do in these situations." Where as the entire Dresden Files series is Harry punching something way above his weight class going: "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH OH GOD ITS GETTING WORSE! THIS WAS A MISTAKE! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF MAGIC WORK."

[@tokujinsicura2190]

I've still yet to read brief cases and side jobs, but I've heard they're really good👌🏾

[@chrisyaworski2080]

@@tokujinsicura2190 dont expect anything as detailed as the novels. But they're great at expanding the world and using the characters to tell other types of stories that dont affect the main story. Not a bad pick in the bunch. Also most have actual cases that get solved. I cant think of the last mainline novel where there was a legitimate case for Harry.

[@Snow_Fire_Flame]

I do think this is touching on an actual issue with The Dresden Files - you really do stop being the underdog after the 5th or 6th humongous threat you've foiled. Even if Harry or whoever really did get by on raw grit and luck, others don't know that, and will assume that Harry / (Insert Hero with Serial Adventures Here) is a demigod in disguise or at least a vastly powerful wizard or the like. Really, everyone else should have been terrified to deal with or cross Harry by the time he's done things like wipe out entire vampire clans.

[@audriusfrankonis6862]

@@Snow_Fire_Flame ...People kind of are terrified of Harry in the recent stories, though, unless they're real heavyweights or extremely dumb.

[@zachariahkindle8926]

​@audriusfrankonis6862 the short story from Murphy's perspective has a great view of this. She describes the fear you feel when Dresden cuts loose as "not run and hide Scooby-Doo fear, but as the 'I need to kill this now, because evolution itself has passed me by' level fear" and that "he casually treated lightning and fire as though they were his playthings"

[@miikomakes8083]

One of my favourites of these is actually how Twisted the musical reframes it’s whole story, it’s a wicked style retelling of Aladdin with Jaffar as the hero and at the end it shows aladdin becoming the merchant narrator of the movie we know reframing every future viewing I had of that film

[@SingingSealRiana]

yeah, that one is so so amazing!!! another I like is in asoiaf GrrM does not have one unreliable narrator, but like everyone is one and the intruige is figuring out who got it right or if the truth lies inbetween two or more accounts which leaves a lot of room for interpretation and allowes people to have a compleatly different read on the story just like on real life history. There are things like the dragon babys, that have several possible explanations, magic, incest, lie etc and all of those do exist for the world the story resides in, but it is not always the same answer, sometimes we get a real answer later on, sometimes we do not but in a wierd way it gives the whole tale a very grounded feeling cause that is how people work, they missremember something, miss something, have an agenda when telling something, details get lost and added with time . . .

[@johnniefinney3266]

I love unrealiable narrators because it's funny when they put they're personality into they're narration. It's just as funny when the narrator is antagonizing a character in their narration because the narrator is a character they don't like.

[@feritperliare2890]

If you wanna have a book that goes pretty heavy on that tress and the emerald sea while linked to many existing books is still a fun standalone read There's a pirate crew that the narrator was too disinterested to remember the names except of 4 of them and the rest he names doug

[@johnniefinney3266]

@@feritperliare2890 nice thanks

[@Lightice1]

Probably one of the most absurd unreliable first person narrators that I've come across is from one Arsené Lupin story where the protagonist is a detective tracking down the titular master criminal, only for him at the end reveal that he was lying all along, he wasn't searching for Lupin, he himself was Lupin and the whole detective shtick was just distraction for his latest heist that the reader missed because Lupin was misdirecting them for the entire story.

[@jacobliddell6761]

They're is a contraction of they are. Their is the possessive word like their personality. There refers to a location. I'm not over here I'm over there. You can remember this by associating there with here and their with they and them.

[@retraceyourvods]

I don't know if unreliable is correct but the narrator in the English dub of "love is war" is full of personality and basis in a way that's incredibly funny

[@SouthernGothicYT]

My favorite example of this might have to be Life of Pi (the book better illustrates this than the movie) but Pi _LITERALLY_ tells both the reader and the characters in story "which tale do you believe is true?" and when you know which story is the correct one, it makes you retroactively put yourself in Pi's shoes and understand why he made it all up.

[@bobaoriley1912]

Yeah. And the difference between the two answers is how much one can suspend their disbelief.

[@ultraman6644]

​@@bobaoriley1912I have to disagree there it's not got anything to do with suspension of disbelief. And rather is a question of philosophy. The question the pi asks is not which is the true story. He doesn't care. The question is which is the better story. And that is the only question that matters. Both pi and the author agree the one with the tiger is the better story. It's a question of how you look at life and can be applied to religion. An atheist and a religious person will likely give different answers.

[@maxmingo7392]

I remember getting to the end of that book in one of my old high school classes, was such a twist for my young mind it made me instantly fall in love with story’s and how they’re told

[@bobaoriley1912]

@@ultraman6644 Thinking about it, an outlook based on religious versus atheist perspectives does make sense as the book has a strong emphasis on religion and faith.

[@blueteller]

"If the author makes too much of their story a lie, they lose the ability to control the audience's belief in what they're telling them" That's very true. I once read a book with an unreliable narrator who imagined entire sequences of events before saying "Sike! That's just what I WISH happened" and I was super frustrated with it.

[@cheer_io]

Did the book happen to be "Dork Diaries" because that one was really frustrating.

[@blueteller]

@@cheer_io I haven't read that, but from what I can tell, it was pretty similar except for older audience - it was a "diary style" book for teenagers, with an Australian teenage girl narrator. So yeah, I imagine the annoyance level was pretty similar.

[@maria.skorik]

​@@blueteller okay this is long shot, but was it by any chance a story where the main character turns out to be a werewolf who accidentally killed her brother? Because I read that as a teenager and it stayed with me as an example of how NOT to make an enjoyable story. It was written like a fairly normal teenage girl's diary and then several chapters in she's like "lol I lied, I never went home that evening, instead I was hanging out with my friends". Then a few chapters later she's like "okay so I lied, actually I don't have any friends and everyone hates me. I just didn't want to go home because my family is abusive". And like 15 chapters in it turns out her entire family are werewolves and they lock her up in a cage when she transforms but she escaped?? Or something idk It pissed me off so bad I still remember it over a decade later.

[@blueteller]

@@maria.skorik No, the one I read was about a girl who had a couple of friends with troubles and she was "investigating" it by throwing accusations around, there was an entire scene of her confronting her friend's dad about abusing his daughter, the police arrested it et cetera and it was almost cool until the book was like "SIKE, what actually happened is that my friend turned out to be depressed and self-harming and I was actually wrong about everything". Which, while a decent twist I guess, made the resolution utterly frustrating. It's as if the author was like: "No, this cool climax didn't actually happen, instead have this awkward cringe scene which ends the story on a depressing note". It felt probably as disappointing (probably, I didn't watch it) as the scene in Twilight Breaking Dawn Pt 2 where there's an epic climax with vampires and werewolves fighting, and it turns out to be just a fake vision. That kinda thing. *Why even bother writing it at all-*

[@maria.skorik]

@@blueteller oof that means there are multiple books out there with lying narrators, who allowed this 😬 It could be argued that the book you described is an exploration of how teenagers want their life to be exciting like in fiction and end up disappointed by the bleakness of reality? How problems aren't usually solved with a dramatic battle, and growing up means letting go of your fantasies and embracing complexity and nuance. But "smart" and subversive writing doesn't equal an enjoyable story, and I would much rather read something straightforward but enjoyable

[@KayrBayr13]

A friend once gave me the idea that Zelda games are all told by an unreliable narrator. Essentially, they are all legends that have been passed down, and might even be the same legend. Each time it's told the details are all different because the person telling it is giving their version. The villain was an evil demon-like person, but were they a beast, a gerudo, or a minish? Did the hero go through 5 dungeons or 7? I find it very fun and makes it easy to explain continuity issues.

[@alexandercandicedad1355]

Oh! This would explain why we never get any insight into Ganondorf's motivations or feelings. No one cares what "the bad guy" thinks!

[@SkyeWint]

This is basically how I view things. If anything, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (almost) resolve this, because of how late they occur and how many references to all previous games exist, even when those games literally could not have occurred in the same timeline. But, they could also easily be legends themselves. In the end, all of the games are the "Legends" of Zelda, not the "Accurate Recountings of Past Events" of Zelda. People will still want to make canonical timelines where everything is accurate somehow, but I think that's convoluted and doesn't really get at the core of the series, which is that each game also has specific themes and coherent values that they communicate, very fitting for stories passed down over a long time and retold over and over. The details and internal consistencies in myths and storytales generally matter less than the emotional cores and primary elements of the story, after all.

[@sechran]

Eh, the Legend of Zelda doesn't feel like it has that explicit intention to have an unreliable narrator to trick the audience, or highlight different teller's PoV - it's just different takes on a given story that are all independent of one another. That feels more like evolving folklore/mythology than anything explicitly engineered for this trope. A story changing with different retellings isn't the same as a story being told within a story changing.

[@alexandercandicedad1355]

@@sechran that's the beauty of the trope! It doesn't NEED explicit intention! It's a way of interacting with the text!

[@EMLtheViewer]

This is something I've thought about too, particularly after playing Tears of the Kingdom. The story of TotK seems to contradict some things we thought we already knew from previous games (who and what Rauru was, stuff about the Sages, Ganondorf's deal, etc.), but that can simply be explained as stories getting distorted through history, while BotW and TotK are the most reliable tellings to date. It makes it easier to swallow the complete mess that the Zelda 'timeline' has become.

[@susythomas6816]

My favourite unreliable narrator portrayal is how they showed Lemony Snicket in the Series of Unfortunate Events show. Him telling the story as he runs away from various plot-relevant villains was a joy to watch.

[@Cybermaul]

Bashir: Out of all the stories you told me, which ones that you told me were true and which ones weren't? Garak: My doctor, they all were true. Bashir: Even the lies? Garak: Especially the lies.

[@Crazael]

For those who don't know, Elim Garak is an alien (possibly) former spy who now works as a tailor in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Early in the show's run, he forms a (possibly romantic) friendship with the human Doctor Julien Bashir. In one episode, due to a series of events, he tells Bashir several stories about his past and of how he came to be exiled to the space station the show takes place on, many of them mutually exclusive and all of them at least partly contradictory, with that conversation happening at the end of the episode, after everything is back to normal.

[@halfpenny69]

It was a shame in the later seasons when they confirmed Garak was a former spy and the illegitimate son of the head of the obsidian order... but it was cool they never truly revealed why garak was exiled..

[@jebnordost7487]

Garak is truly one of the best Star Trek Characters ever

[@Undydamon]

YEEEEES DS9 REFERENCE!!!!!! WHOOOOOH

[@nataliapanfichi9933]

​@@CrazaelI like it when the narrator is anonymous for most of the story but is revealed later in the plot (usually near the middle or at the end) to be an actual character. Like in the into the woods movie where the twist ending is that the omniscient voice over narrator is the baker. Or sorry for the spoiler warning:if you want to see it but in the 2005 anime gankutsuou-el-conde-de-montecristo (anime adaptation of the count of montecristo) the later episodes near the end of the series reveal the omnipresent narrator as an alien demon spirit that has been possessing the body of the revenge obsessed protagonist.

[@crimsonprincess7420]

One of my favorite examples of this is when a character is doing something impressive but doesn’t realize it and then when it changes to another perspective that character is like “HOLY SHOT WTH”

[@ziziJ1235]

Literally Percy Jackson

[@IndigoWhiskey]

thats a fun one in general as you can do a bit of a tour of the characters showing various strengths that might otherwise go underappreciated.

[@crimsonprincess7420]

@@ziziJ1235 that’s is exactly what I was thinking of lol (specifically the one scene in book 5 where he makes a hurricane)

[@Shovel________________]

it's even better when the person who did the cool thing was literally freaking out the whole time, then the POV switches and everyone else thinks that the previous guy absolutely 100% knew what he was doing

[@B2WM]

The moments where Character X is like "I am so dumb. I am the dumbest dumb dummy who has ever dumbed." and the people around are convinced that the character is playing sixth dimensional chess? Those are great.

[@kahoshi]

Myne from Ascendance of a Bookworm is my favorite example of an unreliable narrator. You don't realize she is at first, until you start realizing other characters see events differently. Once you know it leads to some highly entertaining moments. Such as her saying "Everything went perfectly!" Leaving the reading going "oh no, what did she do!?" The series has side stories outside the main narrative that allow us to see just how unreliable she can be. I love it.

[@atheistsquid]

I agree 100%. Ascendance of a Bookworm is my literal favorite work at the moment, though the fact that it is ongoing does tend toward some bias there. I love that all the narrators are unreliable and you get to see some of their personality in how the perceive different events. Myne has huge blind spots and there are sections where she basically says "and then I stopped paying attention because they were boring."

[@kahoshi]

@@atheistsquid I'm reminded of Lueuradi's side story, where she completely gets the wrong impression. That one was absolutely hilarious.

[@advanceringnewholder]

I'm totally lost here since i don't follow it anymore

[@kahoshi]

@@advanceringnewholder you need to catch up, part five has been absolutely amazing!

[@kindredspirit9703]

Ascendance of a Bookworm mentioned!

[@ineffie8032]

absolutely obsessed with all the Pratchett excerpts used as examples of narration, Sir Terry’s narrative voice is so unique and one of my favorite parts of his writing style

[@SingingSealRiana]

and its the reason why adaptions tend to fail badly

[@CalliopePony]

I love when the narrator gets metafictional like in "Into the Woods" and "George of the Jungle". They're narrating the story to the audience, and they're interacting with the characters, which offers a very interesting perpective on the events.

[@pabloapostar7275]

"Some of us don't like the way you've been telling it."

[@emblemblade9245]

“Don’t worry, no one dies in this story! They just get really big boo-boo’s!”

[@Monsuco]

The video game The Stanley Parable is basically this in spades.

[@TheLuckOfTheClaws]

In the game Tattered World, there's a character called the Narrator, and he's a lot like this. Especially since he's a known liar, and yet also one of the only characters still alive who has certain information.

[@D._Eath]

" . . . Are you arguing with the nawRator ? "

[@DawnzeenaMcGill]

Leave it to Red to better explain Narrative povs better than my entire middle and high school English teachers, who whenever asked about second person POV, always said there wasn’t one, just first or third. For years I thought that second person POV meant a combination of first and third, where you focus mainly on one character’s experience but without telling it from their pov. I found in 2019 what second person pov.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

To be fair, while that definitely *is* a failure of teaching, second person POV is both rare and often discouraged. So in a way your teachers gave you real-life examples of unreliable narration by lying to you. Yay! /s

[@Krlytz]

I was also told that 3th person was always omniscient, and if you wanted a limited perspective you had to use 1st person. Then I asked my teacher why in the HP books 90% of the story is told entirely from Harry's perspective despite being in 3th person (I didn't have better examples at the moment). I was told "that's 3th person, so it's omniscient". Got into an argument with the teacher and ended up with no satisfying answer 🫤

[@MegaBanane9]

@@Krlytz could be argued to be "omniscient" by virtue of knowing the main-POV character's thoughts without actually being them, and just not including it for other characters

[@RisingproMK123]

2nd person POV just having the reader be the lead character, basically the POV that has the most direct immersion. A typical example is Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories

[@naolucillerandom5280]

​@@RisingproMK123 Only time I've read second person was in a Beauty and the Beast retellings collection. I liked it, you were the Beast in a post robot apocalypse AU.

[@EyeOfEld]

One of my favorite examples of this trope is the Black Company series, because the books are supposed to exist in-universe as the official history of the group written by it's members. In the first book, the original narrator straight up says he is leaving parts out because he doesn't want to dwell on the fact that the men he sees as family sometimes do horrifically evil things to people. A latter narrator complains about how his two predecessors give completely incompatible measurements of miles and dates to travel between locations.

[@Kaing007]

One of my favorite unreliable narrators is Taylor Herbet from the webnovel Worm. She tends to present her actions as necessary and perfectly rational in the moment, but completely fails to recognize how terrifying she is to others. While she's thinking "Just need to lock down this person so they don't cause any trouble" they're thinking "oh god the biblical plague keeping us hostage just turned it's attention to me and the spiders in my ears are starting to bite"

[@SeraphinSnecmel]

I personally didn‘t question Taylor’s narration pretty much at all when I first read it, I only really realised the scope of it after I listened to We‘ve got Worm ^^‘

[@sonofhades57]

Glad to see a Worm mention in this comments section!

[@nottaserialkiller7238]

Where can I read this worm story.

[@nickmalachai2227]

​@@nottaserialkiller7238I am going to preface this by saying Worm is an incredibly dark story. It's not grimdark-there's a point and the capacity to change in all this-but that gives the incredibly horrible actions, experiences, and decisions more of a gut punch, much the same way it highlights the idealism. There's extreme trauma, death, and physically impossible gruesome body horror and torture. It's a web serial. Google "worm parahumans" and you'll find it.

[@auriumdelaurium6292]

​@@nottaserialkiller7238It's an online web serial. Just search for it, and you should be fine. It can be a bit long, but it's good, and the author has several other stuff as well, including a sequel

[@TetsuShima]

What it's most memorable about Batman's episode "Over the Edge" is that (even knowing in advance that it is all a dream) the plot and atmosphere are so well written that you can feel the despair and misery of the characters. This episode was a great tribute to the imaginary tales of the Silver Age, showing us that a story didn't have to affect the continuity to be memorable because, as Alan Moore said, "Aren't all stories imaginary?"

[@kacperdrabikowski5074]

Yeah, Dumbledore's quote from Deathly Hallows is endlessly applicable. "Of course it's all in your head! But doest it mean it's not for real?"

[@helendocherty6324]

Honestly that episode is one of my favorites. The opening scene was just iconic in how it completely threw you for a loop and (fittingly) over the edge into the worst case scenario, even when you know it's not real it still hits you like a truck. Especially the VA's they went all out for this one!

[@seanmcloughlin5983]

I honestly preferred “Perchance to Dream.” In that regard It was less stressful but gave a lot deeper insight into Bruce’s psyche since it should’ve been everything he wanted, his parents are alive, someone else is Batman, he’s engaged to Selena. But in the end he just can’t stand not doing anything, and ends up fighting his alter ego, with even a hint at who’s doing everything from the soundtrack.

[@rmsgrey]

I've always liked Legends of the Dark Knight - the episode where a group of kids take turns describing Batman.

[@roaringthunder115]

@@rmsgreyyeah that was great

[@desmondcoppin591]

When I was younger, I read a book series called origami yoda. The books were fictional journal entries tracking instances of origami Star Wars puppets at a school. It was weird. The entries in the journal were all made by different characters, telling their stories. On those entries, you can see some characters writing notes and comments on those entries. This is my absolute favorite use of an unreliable narrator, as you can directly see people biases and perspectives converge in an extremely fun way.

[@newseason3917]

I’ve found another origami yoda enjoyer in the wild they’re genuinely solid kids books

[@DragonMaster66]

Never my favorites when i read them, but they were decent, weird & honestly more interesting to look back on now that I'm a little older. And you're right, they're a really good example of unreliable narration.

[@mooyah4129]

I fkn love those books!

[@fionakriner5848]

Indeed, Origami Yoda is so good at this!

[@imstillplayingarknights]

Kim Dokja from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a really meta example, because his perspective on what's going on is clearly very different from what everyone around him is experiencing, in the sense that he makes himself the focus of attention, which makes perfect sense, because he's literally self inserting himself into his own favourite novel.

[@omniscientnarrator6579]

Kim Dokja is one of my favourite unreliable narrators! His character shows so well how one's own bias and thoughts automatically makes a person an unreliable narrator. Also when he eventually comes to realise that his perception/understanding (of others and himself) isn't always correct, is just so well written!

[@val5452]

I was waiting to see a KDJ comment!!

[@_Sloppyham]

Is he really that unreliable, though? I read everything up to the start of the epilogue story and didn’t feel like he was unreliable at all. Of course his perspective is going to be different, he has a lot more information than literally anyone else does.

[@kjarakravik4837]

@@_Sloppyham There are moments in the story where the 4th wall's narration is different from his own (although the 4th wall is also an obvious unreliable narrator with how moody it gets). Plus moments like in the demon realm where he's like "Oh no! That bastard Yoo Junghyuk is mad at me and wants to kill me!" where Yoo Junghyuk is obviously just worried and wants to save his friend but kdj can't recognize that bc of low self esteem

[@millianarakuzen]

@@kjarakravik4837 it's even worse after KDJ revealed to his members about the book and YJH attacked him. KDJ thought he's mad because he's just a character from a book but it's actually along the line of why KDJ gotta went so far for him and not telling him sooner. not even counting other times he misunderstood YJH intention for his action

[@tinyetoile5503]

Surprised you didn't use any shots from Knives Out, I really liked the subtle touch in that movie where flashback scenes would play out/be framed differently depending on who was narrating, a particular subtle example being Ransom giving his great-grandmother a touch on the shoulder in his mother's retelling of the events, but not in his father's.

[@mrh8142]

I was thinking about that too

[@amycox5733]

Yes! And how every single one of their retellings include that shot of them next to their father as he blows out his candles and with each other nowhere in sight!

[@McSkullmun]

My favourite execution of a ‘but it was all a dream’ plot point was in season 3 of Hannibal, when it’s revealed that Abigail didn’t actually survive and Will was just hallucinating that she was alive as a way of coping with her death. Instead of a disappointing, ‘But never fear that tragic thing wasn’t real!’ It did the opposite, giving some hope that it could all turn out alright before one of my favourite scenes of all time, where he comes to terms with her death and it replays all the scenes with her in as they actually were.

[@flintlocke1344]

I like Cloud’s status as an unreliable narrator in FF7. It goes a long way in establishing how desperate he is to be seen as a cool SOLDIER.

[@Gabrielc_14]

I think its less him wanting to be seen as cool and more his memory of events is completely damaged by the mako energy, and he is unconsciously changing the story without knowing. He really believes most of the story he’s telling

[@The_Biscuit_From_Heaven]

@@Gabrielc_14Exactly. Cloud was getting an unhealthy dosage of Mako running through his brain, and the trauma from watching the people surrounding him get grievously injured and/or die probably didn’t help.

[@selenopheria]

@@The_Biscuit_From_Heaven Zack called him his living legacy and our boy took it a bit too literally

[@seanpeacock4290]

I didn't fully understand what was going on in Cloud's head until I watched team 4 star abridge ff7.

[@selenopheria]

@@seanpeacock4290 That series do convey it really well, even with the humor. No one abridges like TFS

[@zoelio999]

Oh God I thought we were done with deep thoughts with Heinlein, but here he is again!

[@linkenby]

I haven't even gotten to that part yet but this comment broke me lol

[@leobastian_]

"one was rumored to be his granddaughter" HEINLEIN WHAT THE FUCK

[@BrackenwoodVtuber]

What timestamp?

[@jasonblalock4429]

I'd still love to see Red tackle "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" someday.

[@rmsgrey]

@@leobastian_ The narrator does make it clear that that rumour is particularly unreliable and says more about other people's opinion of the character than the actual facts of the case by pointing out that rumours can't agree on which. It also goes a long way in establishing the age difference.

[@clarasundqvist6013]

One of my favourite uses of a named narrator is in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The narrator is Death, and we get Death describing their work during WWII as well as their obvious affection for Liesel, the main character. It’s such an interesting use of narration and I love it so much

[@teslaromans1023]

2:54 « It’s time for deep thoughts with Heinlein »😂 So glad to see this bit make a cameo

[@Vinemaple]

The idea of hearing Robert Heinlein's deep thoughts makes me nauseous

[@squibble08]

yesss, her coverage of this book is one of my favorite videos because it takes the overly sarcastic to 11

[@Vinemaple]

@@squibble08 Looks like I'm not getting a channel community reference?

[@squibble08]

@@Vinemaple its a reference to her modern classics video on "stranger in a strange land"

[@CanidRose]

"It's like Heinlein is personally lecturing you, from just beyond the page..."

[@AegixDrakan]

On the subject of narration in general, I've been re-reading Animorphs for the first time since high school and something I really appreciate book to book is how each one is told from a different main character's perspective, each time showing their particular way of viewing the world, and also what's going on in their head that no one else sees. Rachel having genuine concerns and worries under her badass facade, Jake doubting his ability to lead, Ax keeping secrets from the rest of the gang, etc.

[@kileychristianson3868]

Whoa, nice to see another Animorphs fan out in the wild! I agree. It's really hard to pick out a favorite POV. Most have something interesting or fun to bring to the table

[@brucewatkinson5254]

I already mentioned it in my comment about the series (also cool to see another fan), that with each volume being narrated as though that character was writing down the story of their adventure in real-time, the catch is each volume comes with a disclaimer from the narrator of that volume that they're changing some details or crucial information to prevent being discovered by the Yeerks. This also includes the possibility that their names and general appearances are false. I can't think of many stories where this specific approach to writing an "Unreliable Narrator", where the narrator is forced to change certain details to prevent being detected, was written like a hastily put-together autobiographical record.

[@stm7810]

Legit the best books so glad I'm finally starting to find the audio since they were never available in braille as a kid. it's amazing what they got away with like depicting slavery, war, speciesism, childism, racism etc so brutally honestly.

[@anthonynorman7545]

​@@stm7810ya know...good point! Those books were very dark very early.

[@stm7810]

@@anthonynorman7545 like in the very first chapter of the first book it's hinted that the boys want to travel with the girls to prevent anyone sexually assaulting them, Tylor is basically a trans boy, meta textually speaking, it's all so great! as a vegan I'm loving all of the insights into the animal minds.

[@OhMyGoshItsALeg]

My favorite first person perspective unreliable narrator is Taylor Hebert from the webnovel Worm, because its a really subtle one. Taylor's a bullied teenage girl who's learned that reacting openly to her tormentors only encourages them, so she compartmentalizes her thoughts and emotions so hard that by the time she's trying to make her way in the world of superheroes and supervillains, her perspective is colored by it drastically. The author is great at portraying how her experience changes how she interprets other people's actions, and thus how she reacts to them. Meanwhile, as the main chapters are from Taylor's perspective, there are occasional interlude chapters (or once a whole block of chapters) with a third person limited perspective on a separate character, covering a broad range of different people in different situations, and even a dog once. The author also uses these outside perspectives on Taylor to reveal the places where her perspective is skewed, and subtly enforce the unreliability of Taylor's narration.

[@DarthRayj]

I love Worm, and I hadn't even consciously considered the subtle unreliability of her perspective! You're absolutely right though, she's constantly justifying her actions and explaining why she's doing these completely horrific things, and if the audience just takes her at her word she seems to be in the right, when if the story wasn't mostly told through her perspective she would mostly come off as a genuinely terrifying villain. I love the interludes where we get to see her from external perspectives, because whether they're familiar with her in-story or not, it always really hammers home how desensitized the audience/Taylor has become to the fact that she acts like a nightmare straight out of a horror movie 98% of the time. Thank you for commenting this and giving me yet another reason to consider Worm one of my favorite literary works of all time, holy shit. Every time I reread it (about once every couple years) I find new things and get more out of it.

[@raalkire-eaton2704]

wasn't expecting to see a comment about worm hear but it is a dam good example taylor is honestly terrifying

[@moviesfilmsandmotionpictur8364]

I love the running gag of Taylor being consistently surprised that she's fucking horrifying, right from arc 1 to gold morning

[@ethantaylor9613]

Ice and fire is probably one of my favorite series, and there isn’t a single, completely reliable narrator across all of the books.

[@tenkenroo]

Exactly, even Ned you can tell has a deep secret he doesn’t even really acknowledge in his own internal monologue

[@perrisavallon5170]

I like the way this even applies to the lore book, World of Ice and Fire. It's canonically being written by a maester that keeps writing off a lot of the supernatural elements of the world that the audience already knows actually exists.

[@MorriganReads]

Lol, same with wheel of time. You have to read with the lies the characters tell themselves in mind.

[@androkguz]

Yeah, that's a huge point of that story: everything we know is biased. The narrators of Ice and Fire aren't just biased: they are extremely biased and most of them still make sense

[@misskate3815]

The funny thing is that there are characters whose fans have decided this ONE person is actually reliable. Like, when I recently did a reread, my mild dislike of Arya Stark went into total dislike, because her first chapter is one that people use to characterize her as a sad little Cinderella, unfairly persecuted by her mean-girl older sister and said sister’s friends. And in reality, it’s Arya not even attempting to do her schoolwork, interrupting Sansa’s conversation, picking a fight, and throwing a tantrum when being called on her behaviour, followed by running off to sulk.

[@nevaehaho61]

I feel like one of the best examples of unreliable narrators (or at least writing tropes related to them) being used horribly is Miraculous Ladybug. A big part of the story is the dramatic irony that our two main heroes have no idea what their respective secret identities are, which was interesting in the beginning, affecting how they interacted with each other and formed something of a love square that was really just two people instead of four. However, so many characters have extremely overpowered time traveling or time reversing powers that there are so many fake outs where they dramatically reveal their identities to each other and the audience feels all the hype and gets really excited only for it to be immediately ripped away because the timeline got reset by someone using their powers. And this happens MULTIPLE TIMES to the point where almost no one watching believes a reveal is actually going to stick. I haven’t finished the show because I got so tired of this, but it definitely feels like a boy who cried wolf situation where the audience has been tricked so many times they won’t believe the actual reveal when it happens. This could have been used effectively to increase the drama, but it’s been dragged out so long that many have actually dropped the show. Yikes.

[@cjstanky]

Plus they do the dumb, "This major info I learned about a loved ones life that could potentially recontextualize everything in their life could hurt them, therefore I must keep it a secret instead of being honest with them upfront about it. Especially when loss of control and being kept in the dark are a major constant source of pain for this person". Like its always dumb because these stories always have the person learn that secret anyways because its a major Chekov's Gun that needs firing, so it just feels like a lazy way to contrive drama for them keeping a secret rather than the drama from said person learning major information about their lives....... I have thoughts about the recent season finale and many aren't positive.

[@mattdeblassmusic]

Sometimes the "it was just a dream" reveal is a huge relief, other times the big reveal makes things SO MUCH more traumatizing. Like that old M.A.S.H. episode with the chicken. I was way too young to handle that one.

[@Vinemaple]

Don't tell me. To me, this is a Noodle Incident gauntlet, and I intent to take up the challenge.

[@lluewhyn]

The Finale with the chicken is the first time I ever got teary-eyed from watching a show/film. In that case, the unreliable narrator aspect is used extremely well, especially since it's revealed he's unreliable fairly early on.

[@Great_Olaf5]

When you mentioned that scenario of someone being in a bad situation, imagining a rescue, them finding themselves back in the situation, then actually being rescued, my brain jumped immediately to that being the actual villain plot, kidnap someone and torture them with endless fake rescues so they'll be hostile if/when their friends _actually_ show up to rescue them. Sometimes, you don't care about turning an enemy into an ally as long as they stop being allies with your other enemies.

[@reddytoplay9188]

The villain would be either dumb or has lots of time like two seasons to even make that happen or a long time skip.

[@serpentmaster1323]

My brain jumps to how I’ll wake up, realize Im late for whatever I woke up for, wake up, realizing it was a dream and Im even later then I thought before I actually wake up to my alarm that I set and everything is actually fine.

[@sleepy_royal]

Lolita is a perfect example of the unreliable narrator where hints of the truth sneak in throughout the book and it's amazingly well written

[@MinyRosa]

I was looking for someone to say that it’s unfortunate that the book covers exploits the ideas of the awful mind of the main character

[@Attackontrashcan]

​@christineyramsey5433 fr I wanna read it, but I don't want people to think I'm a pedo I just really like unreliable narrator stories and psychology

[@sleepy_royal]

@@MinyRosa I was able to read one with a basic cover that just says LOLITA in two colors from my college's library. It's unfortunately due to the movies that claim to be adaptions but just use the name and very little of the actual book

[@sleepy_royal]

@@Attackontrashcan Anyone who thinks that should look up the millions of video essays on the book and realize it's about a man who is a pedophile and has serious problems. It'll be fine, basically. Read it to your hearts content.

[@miikomakes8083]

Agreed but if you were gonna pick a Nabokov novel pale fire was right there

[@Zela_Night]

A great use of unreliable narrator is when everything is filtered through a POV character's perspective. Like in The Sixth Sense when the audience and the POV character all learn the big twist at the same time, but most of the other characters in the story already knew this information.

[@Devontothefourth]

I love this trope in Encanto, and it’s easy to miss: We are shown Pedro’s death twice. Once toward the beginning, where Alma is sad, but in a very stoic way. Mirroring the stoicism the Madrigals are presenting to the community. Toward the end of the film we see it again, but this time we see the true wail of desperation from Alma, and we get to see how traumatized she is afterwards

[@lord_toker]

Definitely a good example of effective use of this trope

[@SirAsdf]

I do like when even the narrator shares a bit of the audience's annoyance when the characters make stupid or frustrating decisions, it's kinda like when you're watching a TV Show with a friend and you both have the same reaction to what is going on. My personal favorite use of the "unreliable narrator" is in the Honor Among Thieves movie. In it, there's a bit where our heroes have to go through a battlefield graveyard and temporarily revive various soldiers who were there to ask them what happened to a certain McGuffin they need. So our heroes basically go on a game of Narrator Hot Potato since most of the warriors' stories end with "and then I died suddenly" except for one guy who died in the bath before the fight even started and they realize they asked the wrong guy.

[@BiggestGal]

I remember there was an anthology book I read in school called The Homework Machine where each chapter alternated between different kids in a friend group, with the focal character for the chapter being a first-person narrator, which was really cool because sometimes you'd see multiple perspectives of the same event.

[@OspreySoul]

The unreliable narrators in Revolutionary Girl Utena are soooo good. They present the story as a fairy tale, in the way the protagonist WANTS to see her life, but all the way through, they're warning her that she's wearing rose-colored glasses and that the story isn't so cut and dry.

[@XescoPicas]

That series was so freaking good… and painful. I literally had to take health breaks between episodes during the last season when the surreal psychological torture starts in earnest

[@BJGvideos]

It's a fairy tale all right, but one of the pre-Grimm kinds

[@S00NERD0G]

Gogai! Gogai! Gogai! Thankfully A-ko, B-ko & C-ko are there to help us "understand" the "truth"

[@VegetaLF7]

@@XescoPicas Right? It was definitely something I wasn't expecting based on the presentation, but that show is one that deserves a deeper look.

[@passedthevibe-check141]

My favourite incident of an unreliable narrator is definetly The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It was completely unexpected, and yet make total sense looking back on it.

[@mabryperry1829]

That's exactly the book I was thinking of, especially when she talked about killing the guy during the ten minutes the narrator skipped. It's really a good book

[@worthythaneofross3925]

My mind was completely blown when I finished it, great book

[@evaneshelman9551]

One of my favorite stories with an Unreliable Narrator is Worm by Wildbow, as the main protagonist has an incredibly skewed perspective on good and evil. She constantly justifies her actions to herself while doing her best to not notice things that would challenge that worldview. The story also contains several chapters that are from the perspective of other characters, helping to flesh out both the world building and the reasons why different characters act the way they do. Its a decently long read, but definitely one I recommend. :)

[@DarthRayj]

Someone else commented this and I have to agree! It's one of my favorite things about the series, but I think I have genuinely not realized that it's a big part of what I find so appealing about it. This is seriously one of my favorite literary works bar none and I usually reread it once every few years.

[@HighAsHeckPriestess]

Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket did really well as the unreliable narrator. His behavior is kind of how it goes in the story, where he's learning whats happening along with the audience because the lore of the books is that Snicket is studying the Baudelaire orphans and how they end up in these situations

[@spaghetti_circle]

Oh god yes, Lemony Snicket may be my favorite narrator. He's just written so well!

[@pokemonmaster1505]

The narrators of Ever After High fall into Objective Omniscience despite neither of them being very objective in how they describe certain characters' actions.

[@demonreanimated3593]

Yes!

[@HyattHyatt3179]

I like how they get told off by the characters as well for not being able to stick to the story or when they start bickering

[@gutsmasterson2488]

Or when their daughter Paige does a deus ex by starting her on the path to solving the plot in one special.

[@andeverytimewekiss]

i’m so happy that Ever After High is being included in this conversation

[@Obi-Wan_Kenobi]

A random Ever After High reference in the comments? Never thought I'd see the day, a surprise to be sure but a welcome one!

[@quincius8638]

I was assigned to write an essay about unreliable narrators, so good job for making me interested in something that school assigned me

[@joganesha4151]

My personal favorite narrators are the spiderpeople from the spiderverse films. Their introduction scenes tell... Pretty much a lot about their character, setting, origin, and wgat their universe is like. This is weird for me because I don't like introduction bits in movies but these ones are so interesting to watch! Especially Miguel's... Dude. Say what you want about him but his spider intro is haunting. No comic book, no hype music, it contrasts with the bright future city of nueva york. Beautiful stuff

[@strategicowl192]

Kumoko from "So I'm a Spide, So What!?" is such a fun narrator. She's so energetic, edgy, and fed up with everything she has to deal with. She also makes me forget that a characters' name is Sophia and not Vanessa because she keeps referring to her as Vampy.

[@mastertroll1780]

Kumoko is so much fun that show was borderline unwatchable when she wasn't on screen.

[@MiguelSanchezDelVillar]

Kumoko is just great

[@Kuwagumo]

The best thing about So im a spider is that it uses the suspension of disbelief the audience has about the gamefied world and twists it to a very impressive degree! If you thought the anime was good, you should check the books too!

[@Mathignihilcehk]

I just like how the author takes the effort to make the gamified world make sense. My favorite story with respect to this is actually Grimgar of Ash and Fantasy. But I just hate when the author writes a magical fantasy world and then expects the audience to suspend their disbelief for logic. I LOVE alternate universes with unique physics and rules… but logic must always apply. And, where I’m a spider so want and Grimgar do above and beyond basic continuity is designing fights that are predictable without power creep. They teach about the mechanics of the world and then you the reader or watcher can parse and predict the outcome of engagements and follow along. Honestly, I almost prefer video game based stories because they almost always do this perfectly, even if the story isn’t that good otherwise. Because you’re a player in that world, you naturally learn all the abilities. How much damage do you do to level 5 goblins with which stat gear at what level… you intuitively understand it, and if you’re a theorycrafter, you could give an exact value. And since the audience already knows all the mechanics, the author need only tell them about the characters and the audience can interpret the rest. Of course, if you’re going to give us video game mechanics, where we know the stats, it’s a challenge to force a real fight with some element of uncertainty. Either you give the boss a gimmick or finely tune it… or make the protagonist unreliable sometimes. Or you make the protagonist win a lot of easy fights, but make the story bigger than that.

[@stm7810]

@@Mathignihilcehk I like the idea that the stat sheet isn't exact, like you don't see that you have 27 strength or what that means in terms of carry weight or exact application of force and only that it increases at a poor rate and you're level 9, or you know that someone has a skill to slow time, but it's fantasy times so you can't exactly use a stop watch to learn how much it works. I enjoy that middle ground where there's still some uncertainty. like you don't get to read Kumoko's who skill sheet, and some things are just random like crit chance.

[@drakon6878]

I love the ultra subtle detail of the little wibble wobble on Jason Funderberker saying "oh hey wirt" 😂

[@julesb.1840]

The reveal at the end of Catcher in the Rye was SO satisfying to me (spoilers ahead). Throughout the story, Holden holds back important information until HE deems it absolutely NECESSARY to share. It makes total sense that he's in a mental institution.

[@AuriofTheHooligans]

He was Holden it back?

[@Tustin2121]

Oh really? So glad I stopped reading that book then and just took the bad grade. I already hated the narration to begin with, and knowing that my most hated trope was at the end of all that pain just makes my decision to quit while I was ahead that much more justified.

[@julesb.1840]

@@Tustin2121 he's not there bc he's schizophrenic but because he's, like, extremely suicidal and has gone through sexual assault. I hate the whole "it was all a hallucination" thing too.

[@DFloyd84]

@@AuriofTheHooligans 🙄

[@stm7810]

@@julesb.1840 yeah as an actual schizophrenic and in a plural system with many kin memories it's an insult used to uphold sanism.

[@maiaharlap]

There's a particular type of unreliable narrator that I hope Red talks about elsewhere at some point-the moralising unreliable narrator who's doing it on purpose. There's the 'deep thoughts with Heinlein' mould where the subtle moral judgements of the narration are a window into the author's biases, and then there's this one, where it's intentional. A character or narrator who's unwilling or unable to recognise their own deteriorating sanity, or who frames every situation in a way that justifies their actions even if those actions are less and less defensible (e.g Taylor Hebert from Worm).

[@fangsabre]

A narrator who is incapable of realizing their own unreliability and/or constantly paints themselves in the best light possible is the exact description of Humbert from Lolita. So much so that it's easy to forget that, in universe, he's going to die for his crimes and the book is his confession.

[@naolucillerandom5280]

​@@fangsabre I don't think I'll ever be able to read the thing, but it's really something when the book starts off by telling you "we got this story from an unrealiable guy so take it with an ocean of salt" 😂

[@fangsabre]

@@naolucillerandom5280 yeah, Lolita is definitely in there with 1984 or I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream in the "good literature, but I'll probably never feel comfortable enough to get through it" list. From an analysis standpoint it's a really amazing example of the most unreliable narrator possible. The only problem is you have to listen to that narrator if not defend or justify at least obfuscate his horrible actions. Kinda hits the same place as reading SS officers explain how the Holocaust was carried out by people just following orders.

[@somdudewillson]

...But Taylor's actions are pretty easily defensible from a hypothetical outside, pseudo-objective viewpoint?

[@gunnarschlichting9886]

@@somdudewillson Before I start, I just want to say I actually like Taylor, admire her willpower and determination, and especially in the events leading up to and during Gold Morning everything she did was the best decision she could make in her circumstances. I will mostly be focusing on the early parts of Worm below. Some of her decisions were defensible yeah, but not all. Pre-Leviathan she was definitely starting to come up with justifications to not betray the Undersiders just because she liked them as friends/people and didn't want to hurt them. Dinah's situation was too far for her, but before that point she was trying to rationalize to herself why being a villain and making the heroes look bad was definitely a good thing for the city as a whole. Again, not completely lacking in logic and solid reasoning, but slowly slipping further away from what is defensible. The thing is, all her actions are completely understandable from her perspective and she has good reasoning for most of it, she just is lacking perspective/knowledge to make a truly educated decision. It's just the Undersiders specifically end up her blind spot with shakier justifications for sticking with them. Post-Leviathan is just a total cluster-fuck where there isn't really a "best" decision, she's just working with what she can. Still biased towards the Undersiders (especially her demands after turning herself in, but that's because Taylor in general doesn't really negotiate, she forces you to do what she thinks is best, separate issue), but also with much firmer morals guiding her decision making rather than slowly sliding further down.

[@rocklombax50]

There is a good book from Agatha Christie that has an unreliable narrator. It's probably well known, but I won't mention the title, because simply knowing that the narrator is unreliable spoils the fun of figuring that out yourself. I really enjoyed it and I hope to re-read it some day and see what hints I missed the first time

[@hotaruimai3719]

Yup, it was so satisfying indeed

[@andrewdemayo945]

Though the narrator does not lie to the reader - merely withholds parts of the truth.

[@theawickward2255]

@@andrewdemayo945 Red does mention that as part of the 'lying liars' subtrope.

[@universalperson]

"But suppose I had put a row of stars after that first sentence! Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened...?" Bonus points for the narrator being bewildered by everyone else's deceptions.

[@naiflohani]

Cannot believe I had to scroll so far down to find this comment. It didn't even occur to me that it might spoil the story, I was beyond angry trying to figure out where the people with good taste were.

[@TetsuShima]

8:55 Actually, the Star Wars opening texts may not be THAT objective and reliable in the end. In the Legends continuity, said texts are revealed to be R2-D2's retelling of the history of the Galaxy to the far descendants of Han, Luke, and Leia. Knowing that our astromech is a manual troll, it wouldn't be surprising if he made certain alterations to the story to make his participation look more badass, which would probably explain why he is always depicted saving the day for the protagonists 😅

[@B2WM]

Pete would rewrite the DM's notes in Darths and Droids...

[@BJGvideos]

​@@B2WMYes! Came here to say that!

[@TheGolux]

I can't believe R2 could swear so little!

[@linuxsbc]

Brandon Sanderson does this really well with Shallan in the Stormlight Archive. She has a bunch of trauma, so her backstory and memories are totally untrustworthy and keep changing when she accepts the truth about a detail. The story is extremely internally consistent for the other characters, and even for her most real-time events are accurate (just with a bit of interpretation, which is usually noticeable and makes sense), but her memories are almost always hiding or misrepresenting details.

[@dragoon4530]

Man FF7 had one of the coolest unreliable narrator tropes. The reveals were so good.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

I feel like the entire internet became an unreliable narrator for FF7. "Man, Cloud was the world's biggest badass!" *scene after scene of Cloud doing completely stupid and/or wacky things*

[@Ralathar44]

@@jonothanthrace1530 I mean, Cloud really was the world's biggest badass. Just not originally. He starts out a weak mook, but by the time we start the game with him he's already quite strong and competent and then just scales into being insanely powerful from there. The reveal is not that he isn't a badass, but rather that he didn't start out as a badass as presented. But even then, even in his mook form he was ACTUALLY still a badass and that's why after being impaled he still threw Sephiroth into the reactor despite Sephiroth supposedly being so much stronger than him at the time. So really really by the time his mook power level cut scene is over he's already become a badass and the lie that you were told about him being strong actually wasn't a lie. The only thing that ends up actually being a lie is that Zach was there instead of him in a few different memories. I LOVE FF7 but after growing up and looking at it with experienced adult eyes the writing definitely doesn't hold up quite as well as it did to my younger mind. It's got plot holes and overplays its part in several areas. Still a great story, but it went down from like a 10 to an 8 for me. Conversely Final Fantasy 6 went from like a 7 to a 10 for me. That one only got better in time, train suplexes and all lol.

[@FavaMamaaaaa]

I'm glad the other plot twist is the one that has been spoiled for everyone on the internet because this one is cooler

[@jamesbenson1208]

Tales of the Abyss also had hints of that type of narrative as well in the story as you learn about not just Luke's backstory and his relationship to the anti-hero character Asch, but even the other main cast as well. It helps that the whole story creates an interesting spin on the "chosen one trope"

[@thaneofstuff7340]

Kaguya: Love is War has my favorite narrator ever. It seems like it's omniscient but if you actually look at it and remember the different things they say (sub if you watch it) then you'll notice that the narrator changes what it says when the characters change how they think. Also the narrator is completely focused on the Main Casts' point of view on the world so they can actually play up the drama accordingly. I love that show so much.

[@liamminnihan9021]

Was hoping that someone would mention Kaguya. The narrator is one of the best parts of the show. Especially the dub narrator.

[@fangsabre]

Meanwhile the dub narrator is just as exasperated as the audience. You can practically hear him throwing popcorn at the screen

[@leobastian_]

the dub narrator is very different from the sub narrator, but also a masterpiece. Hes clearly viewing it from the perspective of the audience and hes great when you can tell that just like the audience hes so done with the main casts BS

[@kingturboturtlednoc5722]

The Narrator is so interesting because the dub and sub narrators are two, entirely different, unreliable narrators Whereas the sub narrator is a reflection of the protagonists' own weird af view of the world and society, the dub narrator is a fan of the show buying into that false narrative subconsciously

[@staticinmotion8614]

I love seeing Leverage mentioned so much on this channel, and especially in this episode. The Rashomon Job is the best episode of the show, and easily one of my favorite episodes of television ever.

[@Hisnitch]

Fun fact: the Showrunners mentioned that even Nate wasn't entirely correct, with him be around 20% wrong.

[@MikeJones-js5ly]

I love Leverage so much! It's honestly one of my favorite shows ever and that episode is possibly my favorite!

[@orestis9977]

10:50 One example of this that really hit hard: House MD - the end of season 5 when it’s revealed he’d been hallucinating. That one line “I’m not ok” always gets me.

[@carlinc.christensen3478]

A fun version of this recently is "Tress of the Emerald Sea". Yes we love the narrator but how much can we trust him??? 😂 This is a fantastic trope! Thanks Red! P.S. Leverage and Princess Bride are some of my favorite examples of narrators.

[@Rozesama]

I'm not saying Hoid is unreliable as a narrator but he will make fun of you for trusting him

[@elzed2667]

@@Rozesama And he's a prime candidate for future overarching cosmere villain

[@carlinc.christensen3478]

​@@elzed2667So what I'm basically hearing is "trust Hoid with my life". Got it!!! 🫡🤣

[@jameshart2622]

I especially liked the bit in the story where the narrator says "I can't remember what everybody's names were, so I will call them all Doug." This stays true through the rest of the story, even when put in the mouth of characters who don't know they are in a story and would never canonically dream of calling the rest of the crew "the Dougs".

[@Truck-kun11]

Ted from "How I Met Your Mother" is shown early on as an Unreliable Narrator, and many of the show's funniest moments are based on this, such as the "Pineapple Incident", and also one of the most emotional ones such as "You're all alone"

[@michaelamadeira9217]

Kids, it wasn’t confetti.

[@olotocolo]

"you are all alone" is where it's revelead at the end that the cool events of the evening happened years ago and now everyone has someone to be with and he is the only one alone?

[@Truck-kun11]

​@@olotocoloYep

[@Kahtisemo]

One of my favorite things is when he admits there's no way he could have known such as when Lily and Marshall tried to go hang out with other married couples and then ditched the party, but Ted explains it as "Now your Uncle Marshall SWEARS he did this [shows him landing after jumping out a window]" 😂

[@louisonpatureau4028]

I took English literature: Critical approaches this year in college and I was so excited to understand every technical word in this video

[@justtyler4795]

The unreliable narrator in anime I love is from “ So im a spider. So what?” Where the perspective bounces back and forth between the terrifying 7ft demon spider and the humans that encounter it. Even changing the face from a spider face to a human face depending on the perspective. Everything she does for luxury or survival, people either praise as a gift from the gods or are genuinely terrified of her careless murder sprees.

[@noytelinu]

I do like the Manga better because the human story is less interesting and the chronological nature helps.

[@JarieSuicune]

@@noytelinu That sounds good... I got very tired of so much of the other characters' drama in the anime.

[@noytelinu]

@@JarieSuicune people say the LN is the best since it does the 2 story better but I don't like the humans so I haven't read that yet

[@stm7810]

My fav part is when the humans attack, they see this spider rolling about and squeeling and stuff and then it was her upset at her house burning down and yelling at them. or how she tries to use her front legs like arms so often.

[@barnowl6752]

It’s very fun, I’d honestly love if they use that comedic contrast more! It was a bit jarring the first time since the cuteness is turned up a *lot* from her perspective though lol Has it been confirmed whether they’ll adapt more of the novel? Hopefully they don’t cheap out with the animation studio and end up with the situation at the end again if they do

[@fiascothe63rd]

One of my favorite takes on narrator as character comes from the Simon Bloom books. The narrator is a real character describing, in first person, him doing his job of actively chronicling the adventures of the main characters as they are relayed to him in real time via a television screen. The whole thing blows up a little when he realizes that the door he just watched them knock on was his, and he is now an active part of the story he was supposed to be observing from afar.

[@tj-co9go]

Fight Club is an excellent example of unreliable narration in a visual artform

[@andrewfrey9070]

I love these trope talks! I’m still holding out for the team mascot trope. The unspoken 6th member of the 5-man band. They are everywhere now (Avatar, scooby doo, Harry Potter) but have roots as old as named mounts for heroes like Pegasus. There are so many tropes that happen with companion animal.

[@9nikola]

Ok now I need to know which character in Harry Potter's "5-man band" is the team mascot "6th member". Luna?

[@nerdycatlover8627]

@@9nikola Probably Hedwig?

[@9nikola]

@@nerdycatlover8627 Hedwig does nothing else than send letters and take a bullet. Would maybe work as the 4th member of the trio, but even then Pettigrew is a more iconic mascot, though really it should be Crookshanks, but nobody seems to know who Crookshanks is. Fawkes would make sense if Dumbledore was the 4th member of the "5-man band", but then who would be the 5th? Snape??

[@nerdycatlover8627]

@@9nikola I was only guessing Hedwig because she's the animal mascot, but yeah I have no idea

[@FierceGalactaKnight]

Haven't seen the whole video yet but I hope she talks about how Luis from Ant-Man just inserts his own vernacular to all the characters in his stories.

[@infinityc2859]

"You're on a path in the woods and at the end of that path is a cabin and in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world." -The Narrator in Slay the Princess The fun thing about Slay the Princess as a game is not only do you have a narrator who is trying to persuade you to kill the princess, you also always have the Voice of the Hero who questions the legitimacy of the narrator's claims, and then depending on your choices in the game you get more voices that reflect your actions (Voice of the Contrarion, who basically exists to defy the narrator, Voice of the Cold who is indifferent to everything and pragmatic, Voice of the Smitten who is head over heels in love with the princess, etc). It's also really funny when the other voices all team up against the narrator in one way or another.

[@jerry3115]

(spoilers for Danganronpa v3 chapter 1) There's a really cool couple moments where Kaede, the current pov character, is orchestrating elements of her plot to kill who she thinks is the culprit, but her narration sort of glances over that. For example, when she's supposed to pick up stuff to make a camera, she says something like "I shoved everything into my backpack" when in reality she also grabbed a shot put ball, or later she says something like "I dropped everything I was carrying" which glosses over the fact that she just used that shot put ball to kill someone.

[@ClaireWritesSometimes]

The final part of this video actually rings so true for my feelings on that game - "if the audience has been lied to enough and doesn't like what thr story is telling them, they might just decide that's all a lie too."

[@jerry3115]

@@ClaireWritesSometimes i think the later parts of v3 escape the pitfalls of lying too much by putting emphasis on what is real and why it matters, personally. Who cares if it's all a lie, they're still alive.

[@coughedfeathers1292]

Glad I'm not the only one who thought about V3 here!

[@VixYW]

@@ClaireWritesSometimes Well, the whole point of that game was to question absolutely everything, and the fact that all of it could just be a lie lends to the message they were going for in the first place. Though aside from the first case, none of the other lies came from an unreliable narrator, but from the other characters and the setting itself.

[@Valkhiya]

I loved that you used an exerpt from The Locked Tomb as an example. That series uses so many unreliable narrators in so many different ways, it's amazing.

[@swirlingsun]

omg i missed that do u have the timestamp

[@Valkhiya]

​@@swirlingsunIt's the second person narration example, around 0:30. (Mild spoilers for Harrow the Ninth)

[@sanguinius6815]

I've been reading the Ciaphus Cain novels recently and the humour gained from having two or more narrators is a lot of fun, with the bulk of the story being Cains memoirs that in turn are being edited by another character with their own asides and notes in the margins.

[@lyinar]

I do love the Cain books, and the way that the in-universe editor is trying to make up for his extremely tight focus only on stuff that affected him... with other sources that are just as biased in different directions (I remember one book had excerpts from a guy who did a largely-accurate summation of what happened, but also had a bizarre conspiracy theory that it was all the fault of Rogue Traders, somehow).

[@superanimeniac]

7:15 Red, I don't know if you are a fan of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but the Ciaphas Cain series is pretty much the DEFINITION of this trope. The entire setup for the series is that Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium, has been lauded and worshipped for years, but one of his close friends/lovers is adapting his personal memoirs into a readable form for certain interested parties. What results is a wholly self-focused story, where he uses a lot of slang that no outsider would understand, and constantly cuts away from parts of the story that aren't relevant to him personally. This results in needing the person working on his memoirs to insert passages and quotes from other involved parties. This also has a result of, as SOON as his direct involvement with a specific event is over, his writing just cuts off, often without even a satisfying conclusion to the events of the war he was involved in.

[@jonlee6794]

its kind of a double unreliable narrator as well, because if you really look at the stuff that cain does, he is actually kind of a hero, and is actually a better leader/person than he gives himself credit for. the footnotes keep pointing out how cain is obsessed with his own perceived selfishness and can't give himself credit for any of the actual heroic stuff he does.

[@Luke_Danger]

@@jonlee6794 Doubly so when IIRC those writings were not just memoirs but *confessionals* from Cain's own imposter syndrome, so bragging about his deeds in a confessional kinda defeats the point.

[@superanimeniac]

@@jonlee6794 yeah, Amberley constantly brings up the legitimate rapport he builds with his subordinates...and he downplays how he has actually duelled enemies even space marines would struggle with

[@chrisyaworski2080]

Also the unreliability of the adapter Amberley is fantastic too. She occasionally swoons over Ciaphas in her notes, spits venom regarding any attractive woman who interacts with him or shows any attraction to him, and leaves scathing or glowing reviews of other authors writing when she has to use it to fill in where Ciaphas leaves out. its funny how her notes will go from completely objective and informative, to giddy as a schoolgirl, to "UH BABE, when did you want to tell ME about THIS." and then back.

[@Kyzarc]

And Amberly herself is also an unreliable narrator, prone to editorializing and having a distinct bias in her own interjections which is pretty neat

[@Landsponge99]

Probably my favorite use of unreliable narrators is in the Locked Tomb series. In each installment so far the POV character for whatever reason knows the least about what's going on in their respective books. I especially love in in Harrow wherein the 2nd person narrator gives so many hints of the unreliability and the book confuses you until the reveal at the end of the fourth part of the book

[@Belthazor24]

When Red talks about the narrator changing, I'm reminded of Animorphs. Every book was narrated by a different member of the team alternating until the end of the story and the way they narrate really highlighted that fact. Marco books would often gloss over a lot of technical talk and little detaild because he wasn't paying attention or didn't understand what was being explained. Whereas Ax books would have a completely different tone to them since Ax was viewing all of the everyday earth things as something strange and new to him. One of the Megamorphs books (Elfangor's Secret, I believe) alternates narrators every chapter, giving the reader a fairly constant update to see how everyone was feeling throughout the story and dealing with the events that unfolded.

[@TheMustardMan8]

I think my personal rule of thumb about maliciously concealing the truth in narration is that in-story spoken narration can contain outright falsehoods, but when presenting non-dialogue narration (even in first-person), it’s generally safer to stick to lies of omission. The easiest form of this is simply not showing what’s inside everyone’s heads (including that of the POV), thus concealing their true motives, and omitting the more openly compromising scenes outright.

[@audriusfrankonis6862]

Even that can be overdone - read (spoilers, of course, and I actually strongly recommend you don't) The Silent Patient.

[@alexandercandicedad1355]

I think it's very closely that's to The Twist, and you should ask the same questions before implementing an unreliable narrator. [I'll have to re watch Twists to remember those questions...]

[@SuddenlyUpsidedown]

I love how unreliable narration is set up in the Locked Tomb series. There's no way I can go into details without major spoilers, but the dramatic irony it creates is so very juicy in books 2 and 3

[@cactuspeach2517]

I was SEARCHING for a comment about htn haha. Specifically the 2nd person narration/dream sequence portions in that book make it SO trippy to read-- I didn't fully understand it til like the 3rd reread. So fantastic.

[@jelliefishr2336]

I don't want to spoil anything, but I successfully predicted the twist that happens near the end of book 2 PURELY based on the narrative style, and it just recontextualizes the entire thing once you realize what's going on. a super effective use of the narration itself to hold clues to the big mysteries that the book is building to, and it's worth so much more on a reread once you've pieced together the narration

[@stonethered]

I would love to see Red's reactions to the series. I think she'd really enjoy the craft side of the writing.

[@DotRD12]

@@stonetheredShe uses the second book as an example in this very episode, so she’s probably read at least the first two. Would be very cool to hear her talk about it in an OSP After Dark, perhaps

[@swirlingsun]

she's mentioned it on the ospod, i think she's at least started it!

[@ElectricChair1923]

As a writer, I love watching these videos to learn about different tropes! Each of them have such interesting analyses and provide very helpful information.

[@alexpasquale8870]

My favorite movie with unreliable narration is "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" it took me a rewatch to fully understand it but MAN the twist is good

[@stevejakab274]

I think pretty much all of Charlie Caufman's works involve an unreliable narrator, even if it isn't made obvious.

[@lilysprague9285]

I especially like malicious unreliable narrators who are telling a story to manipulate another character into thinking they are a victim, or a good guy, ect.

[@ondururagittandeska2004]

The Joker!

[@namesrelaxed4106]

YES I LOVE THOSE TYPES OF NARRATORS

[@Anonymous-ks1pn]

This kind of sort of maybe happens in Piranesi

[@mazelennon9536]

Tamsyn Muir does a wonderful job playing with perspective. Gideon, Harrow, and Nona the Ninth are fantastic examples

[@emblemblade9245]

In Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Koichi narrates the beginning and ending of the story. And we know he’s not an unreliable narrator because he’s a really reliable guy!

[@ondururagittandeska2004]

There is another part though where he is a bit unreliable in Josuke's backstory when narrating it to Okuyasu though mostly accurate

[@Cyfrik]

Although, there are scenes in which he's not present, meaning that if he's narrating the story those parts must be him retelling what he's heard from the other characters, adding some level of unreliability to those bits.

[@emilygillock3803]

To quote an internet classics, "How do you know about the parts you weren't there for?"

[@maskedgamerjoker6148]

@@emilygillock3803DBZA I’ll miss them

[@emblemblade9245]

Ok full disclosure I was just doing this to make a joke about the reliable guy meme since the topic is UNreliable narrators, I know there’s gonna be some holes in the reality of it! But I’ll throw hands with anyone who wants to suggest Josuke time traveled to save himself