Saturday, 28 June 2025

POV Cop

Vault Of The Ages, Chapter 4.

Six Lann pursue three Dalesmen at night, both parties on horseback. This passage is definitely narrated from the point of view (pov) of the leading Dalesman, Carl. A metal object is:

"...cold in his hand..." (p. 46)

When he has used an ancient, hand-cranked flashlight to make the superstitious Lann flee:

"Carl sat for a minute, not daring to believe..." (p. 47)

However, during the pursuit, we are informed that:

"Owl's horse stumbled on a root and went rolling." (p. 46)

This information about the cause of the stumble is directly imparted by the omniscient narrator to his readers. Carl cannot have seen the horse's hoof hit a root. At most, he sees or hears the stumble and infers its cause. So a narrative entirely confined to Carl's pov might have included the sentence:

"Owl's horse stumbled, maybe on a root, and went rolling."

Most readers perhaps neither notice nor care whether a narrative steps outside its pov but I have been sensitized to such issues by years of reading and rereading a writer as careful and methodical as Poul Anderson whose texts always repay close analysis.

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