History Main / UnreliableNarrator

* Lampshaded twice in ''HarryPotter/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'' (HarryPotter has the hero as third-person narrator, except in first chapter in some books): in Gringotts, the narration tells the path in full of stalactites and stalagmites, then Harry confesses he can't tell the difference between them. Later: "Perhaps it was Harry's imagination, after all he'd heard about Slytherin, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot."

** Throughout the series, Harry's narration describes Pansy Parkinson, the AlphaBitch, as ugly. When Pansy is quoted in one of Rita Skeeter's articles, Rita calls her "pretty and vivacious". It's possible Rita was lying as she is prone to do, but it's also possible that Harry sees Pansy as ugly because he hates her. Or perhaps it's both and actually Pansy is just average-looking.
*** Also, Draco Malfoy seems to have a fling with Pansy (during their school years at least). With his typical arrogance, would he go for, and want to be seen with, an ugly girl? Or even a plain one?

* The reasoning behind the actions of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmet_Ali_A%C4%9Fca Mehmet Ali Ağca]], who shot Pope John Paul II in an extremely convoluted and complex assassination plot, remains a mystery in no small part due to Ağca's repeated inconsistent testimonies about who was behind the whole thing. He has claimed the involvement of everyone from the [[DirtyCommunists Bulgarian secret police]] to the CIA to Ayatollah Khomeini to [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking another Catholic archbishop]]. Talk about ''unreliable''...

* Alan Bennet's ''[[AlanBennettsTalkingHeads Talking Heads]]'' series of monologues is built on this trope. Each narrator tries to tell their story to their own advantage, but we can see through their facade to see the real story. For example, 'Her Big Chance' features Julie Walters as a woman who thinks she's a highly professional actress but we get enough hints to see that she is anything but (for example whenever she says a line, the director tells her it might be silent). She also appears to have no idea that she's acting in a soft-core porn movie for the German market.

* In three books of ''TheDresdenFiles'' so far, Harry's narration is made unreliable by various magical influences. The first is in ''Dead Beat,'' when [[spoiler:Lasciel's shadow in ''Dead Beat'' appears to him repeatedly in the form of "Sheila," a bookstore employee who doesn't actually exist]]. The second is in ''Small Favor'', in which [[spoiler:Mab takes his blasting rod (his weapon of choice in the series up to that point) and places a mental block which prevents him from even thinking about it or fire magic - only when another character draws attention to the blasting rod's absence does Harry (and the reader) realize something is wrong]]. The third instance is revealed in ''Ghost Story'': [[spoiler:in the previous novel, after deciding to become the Winter Knight, Harry set up his own assassination and then had Molly wipe his memory of doing so in order to keep Mab from becoming aware of it]].

* In three books of ''TheDresdenFiles'' so far, Harry's narration is made unreliable by various magical influences. The first is in ''Dead Beat,'' when [[spoiler:Lasciel's shadow in ''Dead Beat'' appears to him repeatedly in the form of "Sheila," a bookstore employee who doesn't actually exist]]. The second is in ''Small Favor'', in which [[spoiler:Mab takes his blasting rod (his weapon of choice in the series up to that point) and places a mental block which prevents him from even thinking about it or fire magic]]. The third instance is revealed in ''Ghost Story'': [[spoiler:in the previous novel, after deciding to become the Winter Knight, Harry set up his own assassination and then had Molly wipe his memory of doing so in order to keep Mab from becoming aware of it]].

** "Seven American Days" may be the height of this trope in Wolfe's oeuvre. First, the author of the travelogue that makes up the story states at one point that he altered the text for fear of it being read by the American secret police. Second, the author placed some hallucinogen into a candy egg, then mixed up the eggs so he wouldn't know which one was the real one. Then he ate a single egg every night. That means that at least one of his nights of experiences could have been a hallucination. And one of the eggs got stolen, so it was ''also'' possible the none of the nights were a hallucination. Finally, at the end of the story, [[spoiler: the author of the travelogue's mother, who had been the one reading it (along with his fiancee), calls into question the veracity of the handwriting. So it's possible the entire thing is a forgery, or at the very least important parts.]]

* Some members of the ''ForBetterOrForWorse'' {{Hatedom}} point out that a lot of events are communicated to the readers by having one character tell another, such that we get this information second or even third hand. This treatment is notably applied to Anthony's ex-wife, Therese - the audience sees very little of her, and almost everything we know about her is communicated by other characters when she's not present. As a result some question just how accurate the portrayal of Therese as an evil harpy really is.

* ''BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio And The Pirates'' is told by Evelyn and the Doctor. Evelyn gets many of the facts wrong and is caught making up names on the spot, such as "John Johnson" and "Tom Thompson". She even initially says the Doctor died mere minutes after saying he'll be around to tell more of the story. Parts are told out of order, and all the sailors have the same voice because she can't impersonate them well. The Doctor's version of events is much more accurate but suspiciously full of characters complementing his unorthodox wardrobe.

* WordOfGod states that Delios of ''ThreeHundred'' is an UnreliableNarrator; all of the supposed inconsistencies with actual history are actually bare-faced ''lies'', with Delios stretching the truth about who did what and how many there were. This naturally justifies the comic's explicit use of RuleOfCool and RefugeInAudacity.

* ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' fanfic ''FanFic/CicadasCaseOfTheEndlessDreamer'' is [[UnreliableNarrator Unreliable Narration]] '''[[UpToEleven HE]][[MindScrew LL]]!'''

* ''Film/BigFish'' has an unusual take on the UnreliableNarrator, in that [[spoiler:the flashback stories are assumed to be pure fiction for most of the movie and the twist is that the father may actually be more reliable than was thought. The appearance of the twins, Giant, and Ringmaster at the father's funeral clearly leaves the son reeling as he reassesses his father's stories for where exactly they diverged from the truth. The reality is only slightly skewed from his stories, i.e., the Siamese twins are actually just regular twins from Siam, the giant is a 7'6" man, and so on.]]

* ''MonsterAGoGo'' has the ultimate UnreliableNarrator. [[spoiler:Whaddaya mean there was no monster, beauzeau?]]

* The children's book ''Literature/TheStinkyCheeseMan and Other Fairly Stupid Tales'' combines an UnreliableNarrator with NoFourthWall: First, Jack the Narrator spoils the ending of "Little Red Running Shorts", prompting the characters from that story to quit in disgust. Then, Jack's narration of his own story, "Jack's Bean Problem" is immediately interrupted by the premature arrival of the Giant. When the Giant threatens to eat Jack if he can't tell a better story, Jack launches into a recursive story in which the Giant threatens to eat him if he can't tell a better story, so Jack launches into a recursive story in which the Giant threatens to eat him if he can't tell a better story. The giant also says that even if Jack tells a better story, he'll still eat him anyway (ho, ho, ho), leading to the looping story.

* ''Literature/AnInstanceOfTheFingerpost'' has several narrators, all of whom are various varieties of UnreliableNarrator. One is insane, one is a xenophobe who imputes his own nasty motives on to others, one is relatively accurate except where his own identity is concerned, and one is actually a nice guy, but whose perceptions are shaped by the prejudices of the time.

* Several times, Greg seems to be treated as a ButtMonkey in ''DiaryOfAWimpyKid''. However; numerous times, he's actually being a bit of a JerkAss himself. This is one of the examples in which the UnreliableNarrator is actually played for laughs.

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' is one UnreliableNarrator telling a story received from another UnreliableNarrator to the point that you simply can't know if any of the story really ever happened or is all just fantasy. It gets even funnier when you take into account the non-canon "sequel" that was written by a different author before Cervantes finished the second part.\\

* Creator/HPLovecraft's stories are usually narrated from a first-person point of view by said stories' main characters. The unreliability of the narrators may range from becoming increasingly maddened as the narration progresses to seemingly sane persons questioning their own sanity and the quality of their recollections as they recall a horrific experience they lived through. Lovecraft also had a penchant for having some of his stories' narrators narrating from mental asylums. In ''The Temple'', the narrator is a German submarine commander in WorldWarI, who steadfastly refuses to believe in anything supernatural, and instead he's sure that he went insane and became an UnreliableNarrator. Lovecraft loved (no pun intended) to play the Refuge In Insanity card when his characters faced an EldritchAbomination or related supernatural phenomenon. One could say that a lot of his stories can be a form of this Aesop: "If you ever see the Truth, run. For it has many tentacles."

** Heinlein could be said to be the UnreliableNarrator of his own life: for decades fans accepted, without question, his assertion that "Life-Line" was the first work of fiction he'd written ([[Literature/ForUsTheLivingAComedyOfCustoms it wasn't]]) and that he'd written it for a contest (he hadn't).

** And in the whole saga, were the Slytherin really mostly bad guys, or do they look like it because Harry is an UnreliableNarrator? The debate is far from over.

* In ''Gilligan's Wake'' (by Tom Carson), all the narrators have a trace of this, but the Professor takes the cake. For one thing, he commits [[spoiler:serial rape]] but his narcissism convinces him that this an act of generosity to his inferiors (who are, naturally, grateful). For another thing, he ends the story believing that [[spoiler:he, like every other American, is a {{kaiju}}]]: it is strongly implied that he is really [[spoiler:completely out of touch with reality, and living on the street]]. He is so confused and forgetful at this point that it retroactively turns the detailed, if slanted, nature of the preceding narrative into a very odd mixture of UnreliableNarrator and implausibly InfallibleNarrator.

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' started off occasionally playing with this, but has used the device increasingly often as it progressed. Unusually, it is not because Future Ted is lying ''per se'' (at least, not often - there are some instances of outright lies), but because of ordinary memory lapses (having a character named Blah Blah because he can't recall her name), subjective interpretation of ordinary events (showing Robin's forty-something date as elderly), or sanitizing the story for his children (using "I'm getting too old for this ''stuff''" instead of "shit".). The few times he tells us things that seem to defy reality (such as Lily and Marshall escaping their own party by jumping out the window, or having high school athletes and a ''Film/TeenWolf'' on a kindergarten basketball team), he {{Hand Wave}}s it by saying that's all he heard about it. In short, if there is a way to exploit the potential of an UnreliableNarrator for comedic purposes, it's been done on ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' at some point.

* About half of season 3 of ''RedVsBlue'' is about the time traveling adventures of Church as he repeatedly is thrown back in time by a bomb, teleports to Blood Gulch with the help of a friendly AI, and tries to avert his death, Tex's death, the bomb going off, and any number of other past problems. It's all to no avail, however, as he fails to achieve anything. Turns out Church was an unwitting UnreliableNarrator... he was never being thrown back in time, it was all a torture scenario run by the AI, who was himself an unreliable narrator, lying to Church (and the dirty shisnos in the audience) about everything from the timeline to his own origins.

* Reams of paper have been written on the narrative technique used in ''TheBrothersKaramazov'', which ostensibly makes the narrator out to be a resident of the town, even placing him physically at certain events. It's clear, however, that he knows more than an observer could possibly know, and there are disturbing stretches of the narrative in which the narrator is completely absent, dissolved into the perspective of the characters. This becomes a problem when one character starts [[TheDevil speaking with things that probably aren't there]], and the critical reader will start to wonder about other times this character supposedly heard things. The real kicker though? The points at which the narrator's reliability are questioned are ''[[MindScrew pivotal moments in the book]]'', moments that affect your understanding of everything that has happened up till then.

* Very well done in the ''VisualNovel/HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' manga-only arc ''Onisarashi-hen''. In the final chapter, it's revealed that the point-of-view character [[spoiler:is responsible for every murder in the story]].

** The narrator in ''VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi'' (or the camera, in the anime) is pretty much the queen of this trope. Pretty much anything the main character doesn't see with his own eyes is highly suspect, at best. Halfway in, and it's ''still'' unclear if the series is a genuine mystery or merely a massive MindScrew, since [[spoiler:Beatrice is narrating most of the third-person sections and writing the TIPS.]] This may only apply to what's happening on the game board, since [[spoiler: message bottles were found which depicted the events on the island of the first two episodes, but apparently didn't mention the metaworld segments.]]
** At the end of EP 8, we learn that the whole series (except possibly the first two episodes) [[MindScrew might consist of]] [[spoiler:stories that Battler wrote/collaborated on to help him regain his memories of that fateful weekend]]. Before that, however, Umineko was a MindScrew of ''epic'' proportions, largely because it had ''dueling'' unreliable narrators.

* All of the world background in White Wolf's OldWorldOfDarkness is presented in this way. This is most notable in the clanbooks/tribebooks etc. Each Vampire clan tells a different version of history in which their own clan is somehow older, smarter and generally more awesome than all the others.

* Indie storytelling game The Adventures of Baron Munchausen makes every player into an unreliable narrator, and has specific mechanics governing how players can challenge the veracity of each others' tales.

* The First and Early Second Edition Sourcebooks of the ''LegendOfTheFiveRings'' RPG were all written from the subjective in-universe point of view of the Clan or Faction that was the primary focus of the book. This was done both for flavor and to give the GM the freedom to decide what was true and what wasn't in his campaign. This approach was eventually abandoned during the Second Edition because WizardsOfTheCoast [[ViewersAreMorons thought it was too confusing]] for d20 players.
* Games and Sourcebooks from the Old World of Darkness games are like this. For example, the base rulebook on vampire and the Sabbat sourcebook both have contradictory representations of what is going on and the text of the rules represents both as The Truth. This continues with every book that is added. Werewolves, Mages, Changeling, Wraith, the various sourcebooks all present things as The Truth that can't all be true in the same world.

* ''BubbaHoTep''. The stories Elvis and JFK share about themselves and how they ended up in a Texas nursing home are VERY speculative and unreliable.

* Rather common in TheSlenderManMythos. Examples on the wiki include [[WebVideo/MarbleHornets J]] and [[Blog/DreamsInDarkness Damien]] [[spoiler:in no small part thanks to his multiple personalities]]. A possible example (via AlternativeCharacterInterpretation) would be [[spoiler:[[Blog/SeekingTruth Zeke Strahm]], according to the final entry in the blog.]]

* This trope is an excellent summary of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}''. Each of the various routes in the games (depicting different characters or even the same character experiencing similar, slightly altered events) are ''all canon'' simultaneously. The universe compendiums are written by a reporter who hasn't even heard of journalistic integrity, a historian relying almost entirely on conjecture and second-hand reports, and an insane thief. Even [[WordOfGod ZUN himself]] is prone to [[FlipFlopOfGod blatant contradictions]], [[TeasingCreator messing with the fans]] and [[LyingCreator outright lying]]. Inevitably, the {{Fanon}} is truly massive.

* RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'' is a (sort of) autobiography of immortal(?) Lazarus Long. Long himself states in the book that some of the details may or may not be true. A later book, ''Literature/ToSailBeyondTheSunset'', has the lead character state out right that Lazarus had lied all through the book.

Note: as this is often a particularly subversive [[TheReveal Reveal]], '''REALLY BIG spoilers''' ahead, especially in the Literature section. See also RashomonStyle, RashomonEpisode, TheMouthOfMadness and UnreliableVoiceover.

* The first half of Elizabeth Wein's WorldWarII novel ''CodeNameVerity'' is told entirely through the written confession of an Allied agent to her Nazi captors. Unsurprisingly, she's not giving them (or us) the full story...

* The first half of Elizabeth Wein's WorldWarII novel ''Codename: Verity'' is told entirely through the written confession of an Allied agent to her Nazi captors. Unsurprisingly, she's not giving them (or us) the full story...