Harry's Thoughts in GoF, chapter 33

[PhoenixGryffin]

So the other day I was rereading Goblet of Fire and I noticed something very odd. While the majority of the book seems to be told in a third person limited point of view, this one, except for three times, seems to be told by a different narrator, a casual viewer of the scene. Ergo, for the majority of the chapter we have no idea what Harry is thinking or feeling.

Here are the three times where the story is told from Harry's point of view.
-when Avery is being tortured and Harry wishes for the police to come
-when Voldemort touches him on the face
-when Voldemort tortures him

Other than that, it all seems like the narrator is simply a casual observer of the scene, and we cannot see into anyone's head. Why do you think this is?

Personally, I have two theories. One is that the scene was already very emotionally charged and very scary already, without hearing Harry's terrified thoughts throughout. So Rowling may have opted for a mostly omniscient telling, so as not to scare younger readers any more than necessary.
Another theory I have is that she just wanted to get on with the story at hand. After all, this is an important chapter, and you need to pay attention to Voldemort's speech. It may have been harder to do that had we been hearing "it was scary" or something like that every other line.

What are your opinions on this topic?

[Goddess_Clio]

I sort of disagree. The story, with the obvious deviances of, say, the Frank Bryce chapter, is told through third limited, we just aren't always informed of Harry's every thought via a tag like "thought Harry" or "Harry wondered."

Third person limited means the story is told from the viewpoint of one person, not that you get that person's every thought. We don't, for instance, experience the story through Ron's eyes, or Hermione's, or Snape's, or Dumbledore's as you would with an omiscient narrator.

To me, the only times the books deviate from the 3PL are the Frank Bryce chapter, the Other Minister chapter, the Spinner's End chapter and in PS/SS when Hermione has her moment of brilliance and we follow her to the teacher's box during Harry's quidditch game and sets Snape's robes on fire. Those are things Harry could not have known about or found out about because there is no reason for him to be there (Frank Bryce/The Other Minister), he couldn't be there (the quidditch match), it would ruin the suspense and tension in the story (Spinner's end) or the author simply needed to give the reader information that she couldn't have Harry knowing about (Frank/Spinner's end) otherwise the entire reason for the story to take place becomes negated. We only know about everything else in the stories because Harry sees or experiences them; the flashes of Voldemort are things Harry experiences; Harry delves into the pensieve to learn of events in the past; Harry eavesdrops on the Weasleys and learns about Sirius's escape and possible plan to track him down and kill him, etc.

I would also argue that a lot of writers lean too heavily on expressing character thoughts on page in third person limited perspectives and that JKR's limited expression of Harry's thoughts on page in GOF means that she felt that we, as readers, understood Harry's character and motivations well enough by book 4 that we didn't need to hear Harry's every thought in order to understand why he's doing the things he's doing. By book 4 we know that Harry solid insticts and a good heart but that he's sometimes temperamental or hot headed. We know he doesn't bask in the glory of his fame and reputation and that he feels somewhat uncomfortable being famous for something he doesn't remember doing. We know that he's an average student but a great flier, that he has more confidence than Ron but not so much that he feels comfortable amongst the other Champions. Knowing all this, I certainly don't feel like I need to hear Harry's thoughts any more than we did in GOF. The only reason I feel like we hear more about them in OOTP is because Harry's character undergoes a fairly major change; he was deeply traumatized by the end of GOF and needed to sort out his feelings which is an internal struggle that, by necessity, must be told through some amount of thoughts.

[PhoenixGryffin]

You have a good point, we do already know what Harry's personality is like.

And did I say "omniscient"? I meant "casual viewer". Sorry if that confused you at all, I'll change it.

[willfitz]

Given that the narration decides to focus almost entirely on dialogue for the duration of the chapter, it is impossible to me to distinguish narration from Harry's point of view from narration from a third-party. For example, consider the line

the Death Eaters The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle's grave, Harry, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.

How would this passage be changed if being told from an casual, third-party perspective, rather than Harry? In my mind, it wouldn't.

I think that the events unfolding through the chapter are the main focus here. Harry could do nothing but watch, and I highly doubt any other thoughts were able to penetrate his mind while he watched and listened. The exceptions, of course, would be when there was terrible pain to contend with.

[PhoenixGryffin]

I think that the events unfolding through the chapter are the main focus here. Harry could do nothing but watch, and I highly doubt any other thoughts were able to penetrate his mind while he watched and listened. The exceptions, of course, would be when there was terrible pain to contend with.

Yes, they are the main focus, and I think that's a lot of the reason why Rowling doesn't go into detail about Harry's thoughts. However, Harry is perfectly capable of other thoughts-look at the previous chapter. Although I must admit that Voldemort was not speaking there, so it might have been easier to have different thoughts then.

[Goddess_Clio]

Another way to look at the POV of the story would be to take a passage and replace all the third person references to Harry with "I" "me" or "my" which would effectively turn the passage into first person. If the passage still works with all the pronouns changed to first person than the passage was written as thrid person limited. For example, Willfitz's passage about the Death Eaters:

Originally Posted by willfitz

Though there are only two pronouns we can change to turn it into first person from Harry's POV, it still works.

Death Eaters : First Person Revamp The Death Eaters behind me did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed me, Tom Riddle's grave, Voldemort, and the sobbing and twitching heap that was Wormtail. Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.

Though Harry is only observing this scene, it is still written from his perspective.

[PhoenixGryffin]

...Couldn't you do the same from a Death Eater's perspective and it would still make sense, though?

[Goddess_Clio]

Originally Posted by PhoenixGryffin

...Couldn't you do the same from a Death Eater's perspective and it would still make sense, though?

No, because the entire book would have to be rewritten to be told from the perspective of the death eater. Harry would no longer be the hero of the story because he would be working against the goals of the Death Eater now telling the story.

The bottom line is that the books are written from Harry's perpective in third person limited; in order to make the books make sense from anyone else's perspective there would have to be major rewrites because that person wouldn't go everywhere with Harry, wouldn't do everything Harry does, etc. For example, if Ron were the third person limited narrator of Harry's story, we wouldn't know what happens at the end of Philospher's Stone, the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, what happened in the Chamber of Secrets or the graveyard in Goblet of Fire because he wasn't there to see any of that stuff and if we found out about it it would be in a very boring Harry-retelling-the-tale-of-his-exploits sort of way.

The example passage above could be made to work for a Death Eater standing in the cirlce, but the rest of the scene wouldn't work. The scene would begin when the Death Eater felt the dark mark burn and he apparates to the graveyard instead of when Harry and Cedric are portkey'd there so there'd be necessary boring exposition about how Harry and Cedric got there to begin with. Not only that, but there would be no story up until the moment the Death Eater's mark burned so the Death Eater's story would effectively begin with the graveyard scene and continue from there rather than the graveyard scene being the dramatic climax of the middle of Harry's story. (Technically, the scene would begin after Cedric is dead, after Harry is tied to the grave marker, after Wormtail has concocted the potion, after Voldemort has regenerated and after Voldemort summons his Death Eaters back to him so all you'd get from this scene is a long-winded talk rehashing what happened before the narrator showed up in order for anything to make sense)

[willfitz]

Originally Posted by Goddess_Clio

No, because the entire book would have to be rewritten to be told from the perspective of the death eater. Harry would no longer be the hero of the story because he would be working against the goals of the Death Eater now telling the story.

The bottom line is that the books are written from Harry's perpective in third person limited; in order to make the books make sense from anyone else's perspective there would have to be major rewrites because that person wouldn't go everywhere with Harry, wouldn't do everything Harry does, etc. For example, if Ron were the third person limited narrator of Harry's story, we wouldn't know what happens at the end of Philospher's Stone, the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, what happened in the Chamber of Secrets or the graveyard in Goblet of Fire because he wasn't there to see any of that stuff and if we found out about it it would be in a very boring Harry-retelling-the-tale-of-his-exploits sort of way.

The example passage above could be made to work for a Death Eater standing in the cirlce, but the rest of the scene wouldn't work. The scene would begin when the Death Eater felt the dark mark burn and he apparates to the graveyard instead of when Harry and Cedric are portkey'd there so there'd be necessary boring exposition about how Harry and Cedric got there to begin with. Not only that, but there would be no story up until the moment the Death Eater's mark burned so the Death Eater's story would effectively begin with the graveyard scene and continue from there rather than the graveyard scene being the dramatic climax of the middle of Harry's story. (Technically, the scene would begin after Cedric is dead, after Harry is tied to the grave marker, after Wormtail has concocted the potion, after Voldemort has regenerated and after Voldemort summons his Death Eaters back to him so all you'd get from this scene is a long-winded talk rehashing what happened before the narrator showed up in order for anything to make sense)

More simply put, because the books are written as a whole from Harry's perspective, it would need to be made explicitly clear that a different perspective was being used in order to claim that to be the case.