But first person *isn't* the same as unreliable narrator. Not only can I not find any literary clues that she's unreliable in relating events, there are actual suggestions to the contrary, namely, that her report at the end shows a differing perspective than the beginning, showing she's reporting things as they happen rather than manipulating things with bias. And in the future, if you don't mean something to be a direct quote, don't put it in quotations (especially following the direct-quote capitalization rules) and have something like 'I'm sure' or 'no doubt' at the end to show it's the narrator's opinion. Quotation marks typically mean it's what the narrator hears. In a lot of tales with unreliable narrators, the dialogue is the only thing the reader *can* take as truth.
"...their screams of "Get the Absol!" and "Kill the bringer of misfortune!" slowly but..." = literal.
"...their yells - 'kill the absol', no doubt - slowly but..." = subjective.
There's also the issue that the absol doesn't even hate humans to properly give a sign she's honestly biased. The story jumps from reporting the death of her mate and children to 'humans nice', 'trainers good', and 'I am a pathetic little lapdog who thinks it would be the best thing ever to be trained', then right back to humans are stupid and evil for the rest of the story. (One of those 'eating your cake and having it too' things. Next time, don't take a break to talk about how unbelievably wonderful trainers are, it's really jarring and it's just as bad to make them angels as it is demons.)
The humans were definitely aiming the guns at the Absol when they shot her mate, that's clear, whether they were aiming to try to kill them all or just shoot at them mainly to scare them off but also killing a few.
See, you're either trying to kill them or you're not. If you mean to say they were shooting to kill but didn't care if some of them ran off, then the text contradicts that by having them follow her (and if there was only her, her mate and her children, there are only two who even could run, and they shoot one right off). If they were shooting for the purpose of scaring them away, they would have been shooting into the air - even if they don't care about the well-being of the absol improperly aimed shots could have injured but not killed the absol, meaning they would not have left and defeating the purpose. See, this is what I mean by demonizing humans. Their actions don't make any sense from any perspective, they're just generically 'bad'.
But there's bias and then there's bias. The absol has control only over herself. If objective events in the story match the absol's beliefs, the absol isn't biased, the story is. If you do establish the absol is an unreliable narrator - say, talking about how the humans were unable to shoot them and how incompetent they were, in a way that makes it clear the humans were deliberately missing (The humans were too stupid to even manage to point the gun adequately - the muzzles of the guns aimed well over my head when they fired.)- that's character bias. If you don't, then it's assumed the absol is a reliable narrator, and if the text also gives additional evidence to support this, then it is, from a literary perspective, not open to interpretation (there being, in the literal sense, nothing there to interpret otherwise).
This all hinges on the idea I didn't overlook suggestions in the text that she is reporting events unreliably, so if there are some I've missed, feel free point them out and I will apologize for not paying enough attention.
I don't mind disagreement, you're welcome to your opinion and if you can back it up with reasoning, all the better. And I don't mind if you do feel like just defending your story - it is yours, after all.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: Dragonfree here.
Date: 2004-10-21 02:00 am (UTC)"...their screams of "Get the Absol!" and "Kill the bringer of misfortune!" slowly but..." = literal.
"...their yells - 'kill the absol', no doubt - slowly but..." = subjective.
There's also the issue that the absol doesn't even hate humans to properly give a sign she's honestly biased. The story jumps from reporting the death of her mate and children to 'humans nice', 'trainers good', and 'I am a pathetic little lapdog who thinks it would be the best thing ever to be trained', then right back to humans are stupid and evil for the rest of the story. (One of those 'eating your cake and having it too' things. Next time, don't take a break to talk about how unbelievably wonderful trainers are, it's really jarring and it's just as bad to make them angels as it is demons.)
The humans were definitely aiming the guns at the Absol when they shot her mate, that's clear, whether they were aiming to try to kill them all or just shoot at them mainly to scare them off but also killing a few.
See, you're either trying to kill them or you're not. If you mean to say they were shooting to kill but didn't care if some of them ran off, then the text contradicts that by having them follow her (and if there was only her, her mate and her children, there are only two who even could run, and they shoot one right off). If they were shooting for the purpose of scaring them away, they would have been shooting into the air - even if they don't care about the well-being of the absol improperly aimed shots could have injured but not killed the absol, meaning they would not have left and defeating the purpose. See, this is what I mean by demonizing humans. Their actions don't make any sense from any perspective, they're just generically 'bad'.
But there's bias and then there's bias. The absol has control only over herself. If objective events in the story match the absol's beliefs, the absol isn't biased, the story is. If you do establish the absol is an unreliable narrator - say, talking about how the humans were unable to shoot them and how incompetent they were, in a way that makes it clear the humans were deliberately missing (The humans were too stupid to even manage to point the gun adequately - the muzzles of the guns aimed well over my head when they fired.)- that's character bias. If you don't, then it's assumed the absol is a reliable narrator, and if the text also gives additional evidence to support this, then it is, from a literary perspective, not open to interpretation (there being, in the literal sense, nothing there to interpret otherwise).
This all hinges on the idea I didn't overlook suggestions in the text that she is reporting events unreliably, so if there are some I've missed, feel free point them out and I will apologize for not paying enough attention.
I don't mind disagreement, you're welcome to your opinion and if you can back it up with reasoning, all the better. And I don't mind if you do feel like just defending your story - it is yours, after all.