I think one of the most significant details about Episode 2 of the Serial podcast is that the interviewed friends and family all seem to bring up the point that your memories can become altered, influenced, or colored by events that come later. It is particularly difficult for witnesses and friends to remember details naturally, and this proves to be especially critical for Adnan when he tries to prove why he is innocent. When Koenig asks Adnan about whether his breakups were calm, mutual, and not upsetting, Adnan starts his response by bringing up the point that he is describing a relationship that he had with a girl over 15 years prior, and that just as he can hardly remember the exact details of everything that happened, we should also take into consideration that anything anyone else could be influenced by the events that have occurred ever since the incident.
Additionally, I find it so suspicious that although most of Adnan’s friends claim he was a normal teenager with normal teenager hobbies and characteristics, the state twisted many of the arguments toward the favor of prosecuting Adnan. Every piece of evidence in this case is not only slightly unreliable (since bias seems to be such a heavy hand in determining the validity of someone’s statement against or for Adnan), but also extremely prone to being interpreted in numerous ways. By being an EMT, he was a nice, responsible, sweet kid who was working to gain money for his future. But on the other hand, he was also a possibly very morbid individual who wrote dark poetry and had the capability to strangle someone. I find what Koenig says about these “spins” of the truth or information to be very interesting: "The trouble with spin is that you can’t totally disregard it. Some tendril of it is true.”
What is really interesting is how much Hae truly loved Adnan it seems. When she got into a car accident, she called Adnan to help her, despite dating Don at the time. That either sounds like major friend-zoning, or more like Hae trusts Adnan still and can’t get him off her mind.
When it comes to keeping a diary, I find that most people never truly record everything they are thinking into their diary either because they don’t have time or they forget. In this case, though Hae’s diary provides a glimpse into how she was feeling with Adnan and her adventures with him, the additional fact that their relationship was a secret could have prevented her from putting even more revealing details in her diary entries that could lead to different conclusions about the murder. How reliable is her diary? In and out of context?
Is it ethical for the mom to be listening in on her son’s phone calls? For her to not take the advice of her family in terms of how to guide her son? Was Adnan sacrificing his values while being with Hae, or was he putting more importance on Hae rather than his religion, or splitting up his commitment to both?
(On a different note, check out this Serial parody that some USC people made called Cereal Podcast!)
You bring up a plethora of great points in your post! In your first point, you're really getting at something that might emerge as a theme of the Serial podcasts as a collective whole: the unreliability and the potential inherent bias of human memory. As Koenig repeatedly stated in the first episode, it’s hard for many of us to remember what we had for lunch a few days ago, let alone for us to try to reflect upon an incident that occurred several years ago. With the passage of time, our memory of what actually happened might be substituted with personal bias. Are we remembering the truth or are we merely remembering what we want to be the truth?
ReplyDeleteThis comes into play during Koenig’s conversations with Adnan’s friends about his post-breakup disposition. Many of them, with the exception of Jay, claimed that Adnan responded to the news with the typical amount of teenage angst and heartbreak, giving no indication of potentially murderous intentions. Yet, how could these friends possibly remember with total accuracy all that was said 15 years ago? Plus, Koenig focuses on friends of Adnan. Who’s to say they might not be revealing the entire truth in the hopes that his indictment might be overturned? On the flip side, people may also be prone to reviewing Adnan’s case with an increased sense of scrutiny, knowing that he is a convicted murderer.
You also make a wonderful point about the various “spins” of the truth that Koenig emphasizes. The idea that the prosecution treated Adnan’s experience as an EMT as support of their argument seems to be fringy at best. If anything, EMTs are more exposed to violence and distress, making them less likely to want to inflict harm upon others. Koenig’s bias may also be an issue in this matter. It’s likely that she’s giving us an oversimplification of the case in order to support her belief that she “doesn’t buy the motive for the murder” that the prosecution presents.
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