Who Narrates the POV(s)?

[Bael's Bastard]

Is each character to be understood to be the narrator of their POV?

[kissdbyfire]

Yes. IMO. Why you ask? I mean, what made you think about this?

[Bael's Bastard]

I've wondered before, but never put much thought into it. Would just like to see what people think. I tend to just assume it's essentially the POV character.

[kissdbyfire]

It’s not just an assumption, though, is it? I mean, we have their thoughts, for instance; we’re inside their heads...

[Isobel Harper]

You could get kinda meta with this.  Who narrates when the POVs are in 3rd person?  Is it the gods?  Individual thoughts for pop up (in italics) are those the POV's thoughts going to them?  I'm getting a little too deep with this maybe.

[Lollygag]

There's actually some debate about this and I've seen different interpretations, many of which I honestly don't really understand as lit isn't my wheelhouse. Here's something, though.

https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/a-clash-of-kings/analysis/narrator-point-of-view

Quote

Third-Person Limited Omniscient Narrator / Several Characters

To write A Clash of Kings, Martin continues to use the third-person limited omniscient technique from the first novel. Fair enough, but now let's break down what this means.

 

Those in the literature biz call the technique third-person because the narrator telling us the story isn't a part of the story. Rather, he's got a bird's-eye view of the action and looks over everybody's shoulder like a creeper in order to tell the reader what's going on. Consider this sample:

He had a moment to think how pretty it was before Ser Mandon blocked out the view. The knight was a white steel shadow, his eyes shining darkly behind his helm. Tyrion had no more strength than a rag doll. Ser Mandon put the point of his sword to the hollow of his throat and curled both hands around the hilt. (62.Tyrion.31)

Every image and detail is from Tyrion's perspective, but Tyrion is not the one relaying the information. If he was, then the above passage would read something like, "I had no more strength than a rag doll" (we would call this first-person). Instead, some other narrator is looking in on Tyrion's story, his perspective, and his thoughts and then telling us the story through him.

I can see where this would work better for the series than proper first person narration as GRRM very much wants to keep certain things under wraps in both plot and characterization. For example, despite 3 Lannister POVs, we know virtually nothing about Casterly Rock. No doubt they all think of it often, but that may not work for the plot or character at the moment. There's also characters like Sansa where we're not always sure what she's thinking or what she understands, but this doesn't work for a first person narrator.

[Bael's Bastard]

26 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

It’s not just an assumption, though, is it? I mean, we have their thoughts, for instance; we’re inside their heads...

I am specifically referring to the narration beside thoughts and dialogue. When the narrator refers to what "Ned/he did" or "Ned/he said," it doesn't mean Ned isn't essentially in some way the narrator just because it isn't first person, but just wondering what others think.

[Lord Lannister]

Roy Dotrice

[Lord Varys]

It would be the narrator of the story, the thing we guys in literature call 'the narrator' rather than 'the author'.

The narrator definitely is all-knowing, despite the fact that he doesn't tell us everything he knows (that's how the very subtle clues work - they are there for the reader, not the POV character who may never even realize what the narrator knows and passes on to the reader).

Also, the narrator clearly talks about/mentions less than the character actually knows or witnesses, whenever he obscures or ignores things he does not want to give away yet but which are things the POV character actually knows very intimately (e.g. Ned's knowledge about the true parentage of Jon Snow). But we also get the narrator gloss over, say, the skulls and names of the captain-generals of the Golden Company, the eye color of Septa Lemore, etc.

And then we also have weird diversions from the normal narrative as in 'The Iron Suitor' where the narrator leaves Victarion altogether and describes to us only how things look from the outside (although I don't recall any other such diversion from the rule).

Even when we jump to italic 'inner voices' of the characters the narrator limits those to the things he wants to give away, not using the technique whenever it might make sense to do so.

I'm not sure if there is much difference there between a first person narrator per POV character or the third person narrator thing George chose. If we had each POV talk about themselves and events in first person narrative, the chapters could look very much the same. The only difference would be that the kind of objective feeling descriptions of people and things we get via the third person narrator would be lacking - but that's pretty much an illusion, anyway, as we are to take those descriptions as filtered through the perception and memories of the POV characters in question (e.g. when the narrator gives us Sansa's wrong memory of Joff's original sword).

[Bael's Bastard]

Thanks, I appreciate the responses. 

[John Suburbs]

On 8/15/2020 at 7:56 PM, Bael's Bastard said:

Is each character to be understood to be the narrator of their POV?

No, these are not first-person narrations where, say, Sansa says I went here and I did this. It's still a disassociated third-person narrator relating events from the perspective of the PoV.

[John Suburbs]

On 8/15/2020 at 8:44 PM, Isobel Harper said:

You could get kinda meta with this.  Who narrates when the POVs are in 3rd person?  Is it the gods?  Individual thoughts for pop up (in italics) are those the POV's thoughts going to them?  I'm getting a little too deep with this maybe.

I read an intriguing theory a while ago that the narrator is actually future Bran relaying past events through the minds of the PoVs. This is why we get the names of PoVs that Bran knows by sight (Ned, Catelyn, Arya . . .) but then descriptions of people he might not know (The Wayward Bride, The Dragontamer . . .) I don't think it worked out perfectly, but it was an interesting idea.

[Walda]

On 8/16/2020 at 11:17 AM, Lord Varys said:

The narrator definitely is all-knowing

Hmm. Do you have any quotes that support the narrator knowing things that the PoV character doesn't/couldn't know?

Quote

The iron captain was not seen again that day, but as the hours passed the crew of his Iron Victory reported hearing the sound of wild laughter coming from the captain’s cabin,

While it is clear the narrator was not aware of what happened to Victarion at the time it happened, my question here is 'who do you think the crew are reporting to?'

The obvious answer is to their captain, after he regained concious awareness. We can infer from the nature of what was reported that one of the reporters was Maester Kerwin (who was able to identify the language as High Valyrian as opposed to a modern Valyrian varient), who was on hand for Victarion to point to, when he arrived on deck at sunset. Morroqo had reported seeing Daenerys' wedding sometime before the captain gave the order for Kerwin's throat to be cut.

There are things that happened that day that the PoV witnessed but the narrator did not, for example, Moqorro seeing Dany wed in the flames, Victarion's hand being cauterised. A narrator who has to rely on the hearsay of minor characters to know what happened to the ponit of view is not exactly omnificent.

Given what we have gathered earlier in the chapter of who in his crew was most likely to speak to their captain, Wulf One Ear and Longwater Pyke seem likely to have been the main reporters besides Kerwin, possibly aided by grunts of confirmation by Burton Humble. Coincidentally, these are (most probably) three of the four men most like to rid Victarian of his troublesome maester.

There is a parallel in this chapter with AGoT Ch 68 Daenerys IX, where Mirri Maz Durr uses blood and fire magic but in this chapter we remain with Dany in her fever dream while her child burns out of her womb. We become aware of Dany's losing and  regaining conciousness when she does, and hear the reports she receives as they are made to her. (As we do in ACoK Ch.67 Tyrion XV, when Tyrion is tended to unmagically by Maester Ballabar after the Siege of King's Landing).  In the Victarion chapter we learn that he did laugh at pain as he had promised he would, but through his recollection of a report made to him by his crew, after the event and the reporting of it. Still, it is Victarion's conciousness narrating what happened even if the narrative is not his direct observation of what happened to himself.

As the admiral of a fleet, Victarion depends on information he receives from reports quite as much as he depends on his own eyes and ears. He trusts his crews and his captains as he trusts his own senses. Others, like Kerwin and the masters of the vessels he commandeers (and the monkeys!) had better not play him false. So we can't be certain it was his own eyes that saw Grief's black sails against the sunrise, but we know it was his own consciousness that saw it as 54, his own mind that decided 53 must be enough, as certainly as it was his own mouth grumbling that 54 was not enough, to the dusky woman. We don't know that Victarion tasted the salt cod from Noble Lady, but we know he welcomed the addition to his stores. We don't know who said Velos was fair, but we know its drowning had made it the place Victarion chose to gather his fleet. Regarding reported information as the same as directly sensed information is a characteristic of Victarion's. As is his extremely compartmentalized conciousness, that can dissociate from pain so effectively it is like it happened to someone else. 

Just as the narrative of this chapter has a uniquely Victarion style, there are numerous times when the third-person narrator acts in ways that are characteristic of the Point of View character throughout the story. For example, at the Purple Wedding the narrator assumes Penny is male, just as Tyrion initally does at the Merchant's house. Name a chapter, any chapter except AFfC Ch.46, and I will find an example that shows you the narrator has the same blind spots, prejudices and ignorance as the point of view character. The way the narrator's information and observations vary from one chapter to another according to the knowledge and idiosyncrasies of the point of view character, is one of the finest aspects of GRRM's art; one I appreciate more on each re-read.

Or you could compare the narrative accounts of the same events in different chapters (eg. AFfC Ch.5 Sam I and ADwD Ch.7 Jon II; ASoS Ch.40 Bran III and ASoS Ch.41 Jon V) or recollections of the same events from different points of view (eg. Tommen and Bran training together at Winterfell, is partly observed in AGoT Ch.7 Arya I, and recollected later- AGoT Ch.53 Bran VI, AGoT Ch.66 Bran VII, ASoS Ch.59 Sansa IV, AFfC Ch.5 Sam I,  ADwD Ch.7 Jon II) Or places as viewed through the eyes of different characters (eg. Victarion, Quentyn and Tyrion's impressions of the docks of Volantis.) to see the pains GRRM has taken to ensure that the style of the narrative is always consistant with the mind of the point of view character. It is this that means that no narrative account can be taken as completely reliable at face value, especially when it is about the motives or private thoughts of any character but the point of view. And even the point of view character can be dishonest with themselves about their own thoughts and feelings. Like Jon, when we first meet him in Ch. 5 of Game of Thrones, deciding that he prefers being at the back of the feast hall where he can drink as much as he choses. Or Theon, deciding that he was a hostage and a prisoner in the ten years he grew up at Winterfell, that Ned Stark had been no father to him, that he owed Winterfell no gratitude or allegiance, when he declared himself Prince of Winterfell.

The narratives are in the third person but are at all times limited to what the PoV is capable of knowing and observing. That is, limited third person narratives of a first person point of view,  not an omnificent third person narrator of the kind that conducts the entire first chapter of the Tale of Two Cities without introducing a plot or a character, or provides a running satirical commentary that all the characters are oblivious to, in Northanger Abbey.  Compare with any novel with a third person omnificent narrator, and you can see the difference. Limited omniscience is a contradiction of terms.

[Free Northman Reborn]

On 8/16/2020 at 9:17 AM, Lord Varys said:

It would be the narrator of the story, the thing we guys in literature call 'the narrator' rather than 'the author'.

The narrator definitely is all-knowing, despite the fact that he doesn't tell us everything he knows (that's how the very subtle clues work - they are there for the reader, not the POV character who may never even realize what the narrator knows and passes on to the reader).

Also, the narrator clearly talks about/mentions less than the character actually knows or witnesses, whenever he obscures or ignores things he does not want to give away yet but which are things the POV character actually knows very intimately (e.g. Ned's knowledge about the true parentage of Jon Snow). But we also get the narrator gloss over, say, the skulls and names of the captain-generals of the Golden Company, the eye color of Septa Lemore, etc.

And then we also have weird diversions from the normal narrative as in 'The Iron Suitor' where the narrator leaves Victarion altogether and describes to us only how things look from the outside (although I don't recall any other such diversion from the rule).

Even when we jump to italic 'inner voices' of the characters the narrator limits those to the things he wants to give away, not using the technique whenever it might make sense to do so.

I'm not sure if there is much difference there between a first person narrator per POV character or the third person narrator thing George chose. If we had each POV talk about themselves and events in first person narrative, the chapters could look very much the same. The only difference would be that the kind of objective feeling descriptions of people and things we get via the third person narrator would be lacking - but that's pretty much an illusion, anyway, as we are to take those descriptions as filtered through the perception and memories of the POV characters in question (e.g. when the narrator gives us Sansa's wrong memory of Joff's original sword).

Curse you, Lord Varys.
 

I came into this thread for the sole purpose of highlighting the weird break from the strict viewpoint based approach in Victarrion’s roasted hand scene, only for you to beat me to it. Now I have no purpose here.

[Orm]

I/we do..

[Isobel Harper]

10 hours ago, Orm said:

I/we do..

The High Sparrow?