Re: Omniscient POV books

On Wed, 18 Apr 2007 11:52:20 -0700, David Friedman
Does it count as omni when both narrator and listener--"best
beloved"--are in effect characters?

"300" has a magnificent use of this

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Throughout "300" an omniscient voice over narrator explains what is
happening, explains in what way Spartan society differs from our own,
explains what people are doing, and why they are doing it. (In
addition from time to time characters look at the camera and explain
things, nominally for the benefit of persians or non spartan greeks. )

The omniscient narrator always speaks in the voice of someone shouting
from a long distance away, or loudly from a long distance away - thus
is someone quite distant from the action being commented on. As in a
fairy tale or history book, he also knows both the past and future of
the events depicted, how they came to happen, and what they are going
to lead to. The narrator speaks always from the point of view of a
Spartan warrior, contemptuous of the religious elements of Spartan
society, and none too respectful of the democratic elements.

Although the visuals are strictly sequential in time, the narrator
cuts back and forth from past to future of the video now. The
narrator's "now" is not the video "now", nor is it the viewer's "now".
It is some time shortly after the battle of Battle of Thermopylae.

Towards the end, King Leonidas orders one of the wounded to tell all
of Greece of the Spartan's victory and dismisses him from the battle.
We only see this character speaking in a quiet intimate voice, as he
speaks first to King Leonidas, and then gives a wrap up to the Queen.

Then voice over continues the wrap up in his distant shouting voice,
and we see a big army of greeks, and the camera zooms in and we *see*
the narrator, the soldier sent by King Leonidas, addressing the army -
revealing that the story we have seen is an envisaging of the story
told by the narrator on the battle field - which justifies the use of
fantastic elements in the film - the physical appearance of the
characters corresponds to their inward nature, rather than their
actual appearance, because this was what the narrator spoke. and
similarly the deviations from realism in the film correspond to the
narrator's use of hyperbole and metaphor.

The film ends with the narrator confidently predicting victory, but
for once he does not actually know the future. He is no longer
omniscient, simply one more soldier. The greeks then charge the
persians.

One major omission from the film is any explanation of why the persian
army shrank so much between the battle narrated, Thermopylae, and
battle that begins when the movie ends, Palatea.

What is not told is that the Persians destroyed Athens, but the
Athenian navy destroyed the persian navy, denying Xerxes the logistics
to feed his army, thus forcing him to withdraw ninety percent of his
troops.

The greeks could not have reduced to odds against them from thirty to
one to a mere three to one, except by the cleverness of those Athenian
philosophers that so irritates King Leonidas - on the other hand,
could they have won at odds of three to one without the discipline and
training of those brave Spartan warriors?

In the movie, spartans are shown cutting down persians like reaper
cutting wheat. In real life, three hundred spartans killed
approximately one hundred thousand persians.



--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
.

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