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7->''"You just show that your first-person narrator was actually in an insane asylum and then OH MY GOD, did it actually happen? Who can say? Here, I can say. It didn't happen because your narrator was just no good. Listen. Never lend an unreliable narrator money."''
8-->-- ''Webcomic/DinosaurComics'', [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1195 "Literary techniques comics: Unreliable Narrator"]] AltText
9
10In most narratives, there's an element of trust that the [[{{Narrator}} person telling you the story]] is telling the truth, at least as far as they know it. This trope occurs when that convention is discarded. The narrator's facts contradict each other. If you ask them to go back a bit and retell it, the events come out a little differently. It can be like dealing with a [[HonestJohnsDealership used-car salesman]] — there's a real story in there somewhere, but you're left to piece it together through all the lies, half-truths, and mistruths.
11
12Reasons for the unreliability vary. Sometimes the narrator is a guilty party and is trying to mislead the audience as well as the other characters. If the narrator is insane, it's ThroughTheEyesOfMadness. A consistent and sincere testimony may prove Unreliable if coming from a perspective of personal bias, or conclusions drawn from incomplete observation. If the narrator has honestly misunderstood what's going on due to naivete, inexperience, or just lack of information, it's InnocentInaccurate. A variation commonly seen in kids' books is that the narrator is a small child and is actually playing make-believe, but claims their "adventures" are real.
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14As an author, this is a difficult trick to pull off. It is a lot easier to tell a straight story than it is to deliberately mislead the audience, never mind that it violates the traditional assumption that ViewersAreMorons. And there's always a risk of attracting MisaimedFandom.
15
16One common technique is to use a FramingDevice, so that the narrator is presented as a character in the frame story, to emphasize that they are not actually the author. Another, even trickier method, is the DirectLineToTheAuthor, where the narrator is supposedly relating things that happened in RealLife, or LiteraryAgentHypothesis, for when fans speculate that such a thing is occurring. Multiple unreliable narrators results in RashomonStyle. If it's a visual medium and the picture contradicts the narration, it's an UnreliableVoiceover. This can also be used as a trick in [[{{Advertising}} commercials]], to evade claims of false advertising by having an unreliable character do the talking. Sometimes, the story might be illustrated so that the narrator lies but the illustrations tell the truth.
17
18First-person stories and third-person-limited stories are candidates for two levels of the UnreliableNarrator. First, a well-written story would have the InnocentInaccurate version, simply because the narrator shouldn't provide any information that the viewpoint character doesn't have, and in a more-difficult version, may not be able to provide information he has because the character hasn't the vocabulary or the necessary background knowledge. Second, the narrator sometimes refuses to tell us what the viewpoint character knows or sees at a critical junction.
19
20In video games and other interactive works, an unreliable narrator can maintain immersion while dismissing the character losing numerous VideoGameLives as poor memory or wandering thoughts, or even while drawing attention to [[WhatTheHellHero uncharacteristic actions]] or [[ButThouMust exhaustion of options]]. This does require more effort on the designers to identify potential plot branches and the consequences of '''all''' of the player's possible input at every critical moment.
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22UnreliableExpositor is a variant with less than credible {{exposition}} from specific characters, as opposed to narrators of the whole story. Contrast MaybeMagicMaybeMundane where the evidence is reliable but insufficient, and InfallibleNarrator, when the narration of the character is far more accurate than the character's capabilities. A LemonyNarrator is usually reliable as far as the facts go, but probably eccentric or opinionated in other ways.
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24This can also be a source of humour for the work, too.
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26Note that this is specifically for narrators within the work. When it's the author that's lying, that's LyingCreator. When the author simply can't make up their mind, that's FlipFlopOfGod.
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28Note: as this is often a particularly subversive [[TheReveal Reveal]], '''REALLY BIG spoilers''' ahead, especially in the Literature section. See also RashomonStyle, UnreliableVoiceover, and SelfServingMemory. {{Fanon}} tropes like AlternativeCharacterInterpretation result from the fandom treating the narrator as unreliable by default. On the other hand, the narrator may end up being seen as unreliable due to breaking the audience's WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, thus leading to tropes like UnintentionallySympathetic and [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic its converse.]]
29
30[[noreallife]]
31----
32!!Example subpages:
33[[index]]
34* UnreliableNarrator/AnimeAndManga
35* UnreliableNarrator/ComicBooks
36* UnreliableNarrator/FanWorks
37* UnreliableNarrator/{{Film}}
38* UnreliableNarrator/{{Literature}}
39* UnreliableNarrator/LiveActionTV
40* UnreliableNarrator/{{Music}}
41* UnreliableNarrator/{{Radio}}
42* UnreliableNarrator/TabletopGames
43* UnreliableNarrator/VideoGames
44* UnreliableNarrator/VisualNovels
45* UnreliableNarrator/{{Webcomics}}
46* UnreliableNarrator/WebOriginal
47* UnreliableNarrator/WesternAnimation
48[[/index]]
49!!Other examples:
50
51[[folder:Comic Strips]]
52* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Calvin's six year-old imagination has the tendency to run away with him, resulting in spectacular fantasy sequences featuring characters like [[CaptainSpaceDefenderOfEarth Spaceman Spiff]], [[SupermanSubstitute Stupendous Man]], and [[FilmNoir Tracer Bullet]]. Then, of course, there's Hobbes himself, Calvin's stuffed tiger to whom he attaches a personality. Hobbes is even drawn differently when other characters are in the panel, to reflect how they see him as just a toy. WordOfGod is deliberately mum on whether or not Hobbes is just a stuffed toy, or really somehow alive. And then there's the storyline where Hobbes ties Calvin to a chair and Calvin's dad finds him and can't for his life figure out how the heck Calvin has managed this...
53[[/folder]]
54
55[[folder:Podcasts]]
56* In ''Podcast/InStrangeWoods'', by his own admission, Brett is captivated by Peregrine, Howl, and their stories, leading to bias towards them in his narrating and thoughts.
57[[/folder]]
58

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