unforum

[Kilo]

Is J an unreliable narrator?

[Clueless]

Well, if you can't trust what he says, how can you put faith in the videos? He is selecting what we see. That is more powerful than what he says in his commentary/twitter.

The fact he is posting this clip, and saying he doesn't remember it makes him more trustworthy, to a certain extent. While he might be losing his mind, he isn't hiding it. As for TTA, IDK. Interested to see/hear the response.

[astrofig]

Perhaps that implies that another of Slenderman's powers is to selectively alter--or entirely erase--memories of those he comes in contact with.

[TheAtroxious]

The way I see it, J is in fact, an unreliable narrator. Our job, as the viewers is to piece together the story from what he gives us, while taking what he says with a grain of salt.

After all, a lot of suspicions arise from J's actions. Why does he suddenly want to find Alex, when he paid little attention to the fact that he hadn't heard from him before? What involvement has he in the strange goings on of the project? It's pretty obvious TTA has something on him, which is perhaps the biggest clue we have to his status as an unreliable narrator. Also, he has a strange illness and blackouts, and, apparently, these blackouts started earlier than we suspected before. Certainly, something's amiss about him, something which is rather obscure to us, which leads me to believe that J is, in fact, an unreliable narrator.

[morscata12]

J may be investigating the tapes, but he is acting as an outsider to the story. He's acting like he randomly found a bag of tapes on his doorstop. His detachment makes me question his credibility in terms of the overall story. Entry 17 reveals his relationship with Team MH - casual but friendly. Alex was one of his best friends, and he seems to be getting along with Tim in the first scene of 17. If he doesn't remember anything from that entry - and I bet Tim doesn't remember either - what else doesn't he remember?

More importantly, what role did J play in this story three years ago? Maybe he's hiding something, maybe he's blocking something out, or maybe someone made him forget. Whatever it was, it was significant enough to require someone to put it out of his head.

His various symptoms and illnesses aren't helping his reliability either.

[dopeoplethink]

One of Slender Man's other power is to hypnotize those that are his prey. We have a slight idea of how powerful his mind erasing abilities are with the most current entry. What happens after the tape freezes. It could be Slender Man's way of covering up what really happened. I want to even throw out the idea that Slender Man had manufacture some of J's and/or Tim's memories. This is pure speculation but at this point I am expecting something to completely change the way we think about the story.

[madebz]

[chaos]

he didn't remember ep 17

question answered
¬_¬


EDIT:

[Two2teps]

Open and shut, yes he is unreliable. The simple fact he doesn't recall filming the footage in entry 17 proves it.

Being an unreliable narrator doesn't mean he's doing so purposefully. To steal from Wikipedia again:

[wellspg]

I don't trust J for one minute. In fact, I think he and Tim are trying to fool everyone.

I think Tim hired different actors to be the Slender Man to get revenge on Alex for stealing his woman, Sarah. You'll notice in Entry 7 Alex makes a cut before doing Brian's scene, and tells Brian not to say anything presumably about the previous conversation he just had to a girl either behind his vehicle or on the phone because it will "pick up on camera". He's trying to hide a secret relationship with Sarah from Tim. Also, for better speculation on this theory, look how defensive Tim looks when he asks Alex in Entry #17 who wrote the script when the lines are referring to a storyline where the character isn't "over" breaking up with Sarah.

You can't possibly tell me J did not notice "totheark" filming him from that close behind him. He would have heard at least something to indicate there was someone in the room with him. I think "totheark" is Tim, and they're in on this for revenge on Alex. I think Alex killed one of the Slender Man actors accidentally in the entry where "Slender Man" enters his room, and did not show it on camera. Knowing what he had done, he had to move away because right after he had murdered the actor, J and Tim stole all of the tapes, therefore not letting him have any evidence of harassment. So 3 years pass (or however long it was), and Alex finds valid evidence that he can prove he was being stalked. He calls Brian, and they formulate a plan, and go into hiding, but someone leaks info to J and Tim what they are planning, and they start editing the footage on the tapes to make it look like they are also victims of the "Slender Man". While making this look like a complete scandal, Tim and J are searching for Brian and Alex to prevent their devious acts of revenge from being caught red-handed. But the reason Alex is not then able to release his evidence of their harassment is because Brian betrays Alex in the end, and there is a stand-off between all of the characters after Tim and J find them. While a huge confrontation goes on in the final scene of this series with guns and death threats, the REAL Slender Man will appear and kill off all of them except J. He will run away, post the final video online, and then we will never hear from him again because Youtube will take down his account, and it will end in a cliffhanger. Somebody on these forums will be quick enough to save the final video on their PC, and upload it somewhere, and it will be a big internet legend. The End.

That is my prediction. But it's not going to happen like that.

[El Mono]

[wellspg]

Yeah, that would not be good.

But if this were some detective show or something, that is how it would play out, I think. Minus the "real slender man" showing up at the end.

[Kilo]

[chaos]

i figured entry 7, he was talkin to the girl, so she didn't ruin the scene, even though it was just a practice..

and if it were like that, why would they post the videos on the internet in the first place?

[blue5213]

I think you're all reading way too much into totheark's reply. He doesn't say J specifically can't be trusted; he said "human, therefore no," implying that no humans can be trusted. I think it was just a reference to the Slender Man's ability to make people forget things, not "J is hiding something."