Third Person POV: Omniscient vs. Limited

What is the difference, really?

Omniscient vs. limited third-person point of view.

In the former, the narrator knows all. In the latter, the narrator sits on the shoulder of the character, only able to know what they know, but still refers to them in the third person.

But this distinction is a bit false, I think.

Because both distinctions are a form of omniscience. It’s just that, if choosing “limited,” the narrator is simply choosing to keep the reader close to the character(s), to keep certain information from the reader for the sake of the story, either because they are, in fact, omniscient, or because they are only privy to certain information. If the latter, you could think of the storyteller as a lesser god, like Hermes or Pan; if it’s the former, this is a capital letter God, like G-O-D.

Take a look at George R. R. Martin’s novel A Game of Thrones. The POV is third-person limited, where every chapter heading tells you which character the POV is limited to. One of the great things about this structure is that you have the same benefit of jumping around to different characters that omniscient offers, without having to transition points of view within a scene or chapter, like in Frank Herbert’s Dune. In Dune, the omniscient narrator knows everything and jumps into the heads of characters by italicizing their inner thoughts. It requires an incredibly dextrous writer to make sure that the reader doesn’t get confused, by losing track of whose thoughts are whose.

Thankfully, Frank Herbert and George R. R. Martin are both extremely talented writers. And not just because they have found narrative structures that enable their POV choices to flow naturally, but because those choices are intrinsically linked to the thematic questions at the hearts of their stories. Martin’s A Game of Thrones is largely a story about how the agendas of individuals blind them to the larger threats facing humanity at large. So this ability to hop from shoulder to shoulder with different characters allows the reader to see many perspectives, while still being close enough to each of them to see their point of view, to empathize with the reasonings that blind them. Dune, on the other hand, is largely a book about the tension between free will and fate. Big plans for the universe start with individuals who create ripples that spread across the galaxy. The omniscient narrator puts the reader into the eyes of this cosmic fate, watching the dominos fall from afar, then dipping into the minds of the individuals, raising the question: are these characters actually choosing their own paths, or is it all just part of the plan?

So, besides the structural differences in the third-person narration, what is the key difference between the omniscient narrator in Dune and the limited narrator in A Game of Thrones?

I would argue that the key difference lies in another question:

Who is the narrator?

In both cases, we don’t know. So, the de facto answer is the writer, right? Frank Herbert is the narrator of Dune. And George R. R. Martin is the narrator of A Game of Thrones. And the person they are both talking to is the reader. But isn’t this the case with every book? And in a way, yes. But in another way, no. While the writer is always the one doing the writing, the narration is a voice. And it need not always be the same voice as the writer.

This distinction is clearest when using first-person POV. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for example, is primarily what is called “fictionalized witness literature,” in which a first-person narrator is recounting what it was like to go through something. As such, the only extent to which the reader has to suspend their disbelief is to imagine that the book they are holding is, in fact, the publication of this fictional narrator’s account. Another example, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is epistolary fiction, in which the story is told through a collection of letters by a variety of characters. Both of these are in first-person, and both are very clear about who the narrator is because the narrators are characters in the story being told. In both A Game of Thrones and Dune, this is not the case, at least, as far as we the readers are aware.

I often wonder, while reading third person narration in which we are never explicitly told who the narrator is, does the writer have their own character in mind? Like in Dune, is the narrator some omniscient archivist in the Dune universe, telling the story for the sake of posterity? In A Game of Thrones, is it one of the New Gods? Or an omniscient bard? Or is the narrator is simply the writer, using the voice and point of view that is most effective at the time? When determining how far we are willing to suspend our disbelief, choosing the point of view best suited for the story plays a crucial part.

Both omniscient and limited third-person present their own unique challenges in this regard. But I think we can all agree that, whichever one the writer chooses, what matters is that it is the one that works best for their story. And all narrative points of view, whether first-person, second-person, or third-person (omniscient or limited), are just a voice. And whether the writer decides to tell the reader whose voice that is or not, they need to know whose it is, and know to whom the narrator is speaking.

What I’m Reading Now:

• Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola

• The Lady of the Lake by Andrzej Sapkowski

• Arch-conspirator by Veronica Roth