Switching P.O.V.

aka: Rotating Narrator

A switching Point of View is closely related to, but distinct from, Rotating Protagonist. Rather than an omniscient third-person narrator showing us Jack, then Sally, then Pauline, as we would with a Rotating Protagonist, we see the story from Jack's perspective, then Sally's, then Pauline's. Can be very useful if the POV is third-person limited or first-person, as this can give us information we otherwise wouldn't have — for instance, we could find out that Pauline's motivations are genuinely good or she really did kill that guy, something neither Jack nor Sally would know.

The most obvious way to do this is to switch from Jack being "I" to Sally being "I," as even if they're both in the scene, it's clear whom the focus is on. A book can also pull this off with third-person limited (you see both as "s/he", but you're only inside one's head at a time). Primarily a literature trope, but a duet or film can also work. You just need narration of some sort.

Switching from first person (I) to second (you) or third (s/he) would also work. Obviously, this is quite useful if one character falls unconscious or ill, or is simply not where the author needs the story to be. This technique is a staple of postmodern literature, illustrating the instability of narratives and possibly truth itself.

Switching point of view frequently is sometimes called "head hopping".

Sister Trope to "Rashomon"-Style, but the accounts do not need to disagree or even overlap, and also Rotating Protagonist, but rather than simply seeing different characters, we get their perspectives. Super-Trope to Scrapbook Story. See also Twisted Echo Cut. When all main characters get their POV represented except one, it's a Non P.O.V. Protagonist. Not to be confused with Camera Perspective Switch, where the camera's point of view changes, or Perspective Reversal, where characters change their beliefs so that each expresses ideas formerly associated with the other.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In the light novels of High School D×D, after Issei defeats Raiser, the light novels show that Lord Gremory and Lord Phenex discuss how the engagement party ended and that Lord Gremory cannot believe that his daughter was able to get the Welsh Dragon as her servant. In the anime, it shows the same events but from Sirzechs and Grayfia's point of view about why he lent Issei the griffon as a last resort and his thoughts on the Welsh Dragon joining. Grayfia then notes that Sirzechs seems to be enjoying it, probably reminding him of his and Grayfia's circumstances back then. In the main storyline, usually either Kiba or Azazel get to be the focus of the narration whenever Issei isn't around.
• While there are several moments in March Comes in Like a Lion where focus moves away from the protagonist and narrator Rei in order to listen in on conversations between other characters, Hina and Hayashida both hold the special distinction of momentarily taking over the role of narrator at least once, particularly when their thoughts are focused on Rei's life.
• Hakuouki did this with their OVA Sekkaroku with a different episode focusing on one character and their POV for the same story.
  • Okita is the one to suggest Chizuru to be an undercover geisha for the Shinsengumi. But since he is ordered to stay at headquarters due to his coughing, Okita misses a lot of what happened that night and only hears and sees snippets of the story, like seeing Hijikata returning to headquarters with the dressed up Chizuru in the middle of the night.
  • Saito and Yamazaki offer themselves as bodyguards for Chizuru and are involved in a lot of the fighting at the geisha house, starting with two lecherous men flirting with Chizuru.
  • Heisuke is worried about Chizuru's safety during the whole time, returns to base to urge Kondou and Hijikata to take Chizuru off the mission. Kondou agrees and Heisuke rushes back to the house, wonders where Chizuru has disappeared to and then joins the fighting with Yamazaki.
  • Hijikata, ordered by Kondou to check up on Chizuru, arrives at the geisha house in the middle of the fighting. Saito tells Hijikata to take Chizuru to safety. Unfortunately for him, bystanders mistakes him for eloping with a cute geisha girl.
  • Kazama arrives after Heisuke left the room, attempting to kiss Chizuru. Osen then arrives to rescue Chizuru and allows her to escape and rejoin with Saito and later Hijikata.
• Fairy Tail: Levy replaces Lucy as the narrator in Chapter 274. That's not a good sign.
  • This is actually because Future Lucy ends up returning to the past.
• In Sword Art Online, most of the story is told from Kirito's first-person POV, but occasionally, the perspective will shift to a third-person POV centered around another character, and Lisbeth has two first-person POV segments- one in her story in Volume 2, and a short scene in Volume 4.
• In the manga for Persona 4, the POV and first person narration occasionally switches around, most often focusing on Soji, but sometimes going to one of his friends.
• The Advent of Death's Daughter showcases multiple points of view chapters, not just how the main character, Maeda Naoko sees the world, but how other characters she interacts with see her, making their actions more understandable. Sometimes, this makes their actions more sympathetic, sometimes less so.

Comic Books

• Emmie And Friends: In all but one book, the chapters alternate between the main narrator seen on the cover and a secondary P.O.V. character.
• Firefly: The Sting: All four Serenity ladies take turns narrating. The part at the spa is told from Inara, then Kaylee, then Zoe's point of view as Saffron approaches them individually. The heist itself is told through different points of view as it progresses — first from Zoe's, then Inara's, then Kaylee's, then finally River's.
• Marvel Rising (2019): Each issue has a different character narrating. Issue #1 is Ms. Marvel, #2 is Inferno, #3 is Quake, #4 is Morgan, and #5 is Squirrel Girl.
• Spider-Man:
  • The caption narration of Kraven's Last Hunt alternates between the points of view of Spider-Man (yellow background, with a few exceptions for emphasis), Kraven (orange), Vermin (green) and Mary Jane Watson-Parker (lilac).
  • Gerry Conway's graphic novel Parallel Lives is narrated - a lot of the time in parallel - by Spider-Man and his wife Mary Jane.
• Vertigo Comics: Faker has each of its chapters narrated by another member of the core group.

Fan Works

• By the Sea: Most of the story is from Obi-Wan's perspective, and a good part of the plot centers around the mismatch between what Obi-Wan believes is between him and Cody, and how Cody sees the situation with his differing cultural context. We don't see anything of Cody's until the second installment, plus a few snippets from the perspective of some other characters, like Ahsoka, Cody's mother, or Cody's POV of some scenes from the first story. These really drive home just how deeply different merfolk and human culture are.
• Child of the Storm does this frequently, with most of its characters getting scenes from their point of view, including Harry Dresden's signature First-Person Smartass. Early on, this was something of a problem since it tended to shift perspective between paragraphs with little or no warning. Later, scene breaks were added and have been retroactively added to some of the earlier chapters.
• Most Dæmorphing fics have multiple narrators per chapter.
• Harry Potter and the Boiling Isles: Except for a few chapters that only follow the perspective of one character, after chapter three we get viewpoints from multiple characters in each chapter, but most frequently its either Harry's or Luz's perspective.
• My Immortal, although the issue is confused by bad writing. The POV character is usually Ebony, but one chapter starts with a note that this chapter is from "Darko"'s point of view. This rule is followed for a bit, but then one line starts with "Draco, Ebory and I", and after that it's back to Ebony's point of view.
• Deserving, in which you're lucky if any given paragraph ends in the same POV as it began and it often switches mid-sentence, is another bad example.
• Entropy: The Fate of the Hero System: The story switches between its cast of new hero students and its villains, as well as featuring news articles and social media posts where appropriate.
• Fuck The Jesus Beam, beginning in chapter nine.
• Kyon: Big Damn Hero, where the breaks are usually followed by a change of narrator.
• Luminosity's narrators to date have been Bella, Elspeth, and Addy when Elspeth is asleep/unconscious during an important part.
• Love Takes Flight changes points of view between Chance Furlong and Jake Clawson during their first sexual encounter. What is unique about this switching is that the sentences at changing points overlap, sharing a word (or group of words).
  • eg. Chance's POV: If that wasn't love then.... Jake's POV: What was it Chance saw in him? In this case Chance's full thought is "If that wasn't love then what was?"
• A Dark Knight over Sin City alternates between Batman's narration or the POVs of various Sin City characters every chapter.
• Winter War switches between about thirty POV characters (third person limited throughout). Most chapters stick with one person's POV, but several "ensemble" chapters juggle several. This allows many, many Ascended Extras a chance to shine.
  • Worth noting that in Hisagi's sections, his narration becomes increasingly vague and Kazeshini's interjections more frequent, which eventually leads to the zanpakuto spirit (briefly) possessing his wielder's body so that both of them can survive. At which point, Kazeshini is the narrator with Shuuhei not heard from for a chapter or so.
• Xanatos does this a few times, in third person from Light's point of view, and later with L's, and even having Matt narrate a couple of chapters.
• Used throughout With Strings Attached. The four get more or less equal time from their individual viewpoints, but there are also a few sections where other points of view are employed:
  • The short passage about the Brothers of Doom preparing to be attacked (and then getting attacked—in a totally unexpected way).
    It was a pity they'd never heard of the Maginot Line.
  • Several scenes with Bayanis.
  • A scene from the POV of the two guards confronting George outside the building where John is being kept in magical sleep.
  • The collective POV of the skahs who have finished off the monsters in Ehndris and are wondering what to do next.
• The stories in the Elemental Chess Trilogy have this, with the point of view changing in each chapter. The more central characters receive multiple chapters from their perspectives, but many of the supporting cast also each get a chapter.
• In Rotten Luck, the narration is in first-person from the perspective of the protagonist on the odd-numbered chapters while it becomes third-person on the even-numbered ones.
• Almost every character in The Movement narrates at least one chapter.
• Every fic in Lilo & Stitch: The Series fanfic series The Starlight Series features this, except for Alpha and Omega, which is told from the first-person perspective of Experiment 419.
• The Mike, Lu & Og fanfic When Mike Met Mike is told from a few different points of view.
• In Utopia Unmade, the focus switches between Tsubomi, Erika, Hibiki, Kanade, Love, and Eas every chapter.
• In Diaries of a Madman, Discord occasionally takes over the narration from Navarone. Rarity also briefly narrates during a "Freaky Friday" Flip.
• In Pottertalia fic Snakeskins the POV regularly switched between England and Italy, with the odd other POV (e.g. Draco Malfoy or Romano) added in on certain situations.
• Used every chapter in Wreckstuck, where the point of view switches to a different character every chapter.
  • The same formula is used in Alternian Nation Series and Cultstuck will sometimes shift to another character at a different time.
• The writer of Origin Story is pretty good about switching the POV of the story without making it seem awkward. Most of the story is told from Alex Harris's point of view, but other characters, including Tony Stark, Happy Hogan, Henry Peter Gyrich, and even Typhoid Mary get a chance to tell the tale from their perspective.
• Bad Future Crusaders uses a Switching P.O.V. to tell what could probably suffice as three or four different plots as one.
• The End of All Things occasionally switches between first and third person view to either show two sides to a single event or to show what two characters are doing in two different locations.
• Developments and Sisterhood both maintain the same first-person present tense narration as Katawa Shoujo'', but switch between various members of the cast narrating each individual chapter, rather than staying with Hisao.
• The Worm fanfiction Intrepid has the story switches between Taylor, Emma, Madison, and Sophia, with other characters getting interludes. No character has had two chapters told from the P.O.V twice in a row.
• Sudden Contact alternates between various characters from Mass Effect and StarCraft such as Adrien Victus, James Raynor, Alexei Stukov, Tassadar, Daggoth, and Liara T'soni. Sudden Supremacy adds Zaeed Massani, Tychus Findlay, Garrus Vakarian, Tali'Zorah, David Anderson, Valerian Mengsk, and Selendis.
• The Quiet Fox (a Naruto story) combines this with flashbacks since almost every other chapter is narrated by a different person. Oddly, Naruto himself doesn't get to narrate a chapter despite being the main character.
• In This Bites!, the entirety of the event with Baron Omatsuri is told through the perspectives of people around the world as they listen to the SBS and the horror in which the Straw Hats have found themselves.
• The Dragon Age: Inquisition story All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird does this, with most chapters having different points of view than those which immediately precede or follow them. A few chapters divide the point of view between the two main characters; a few others are presented as letters written by or to various members of the cast.
• One Year is told by first person narration, a role that various members of the Persona 4 cast and OCs take turns playing.
• Black Crayons rotates through numerous characters in the Transformers Film Series.
• A Chance Meeting of Two Moons: The story changes from Artemis to Luna's point of view (signaled by linebreaks) during the first five chapters. From chapter 6 on, there are two parallel versions of each chapter, one told from the POV of Artemis in Luna's world and the other from the POV of Luna in Artemis's world. Some of them even show the same sequence of events from the differing characters' point of view.
• The Pieces Lie Where They Fell: On a regular basis, as the first six chapters are told from the point of view of one of the main characters (Xvital, Night Blade, Page Turner, Wind Breaker, Vix-Lei and Rex, in that order), and then switch up over the course of the rest of the story as the situation calls for it, with occasional P.O.V. segments by various other characters. Incidentally, over the course of chapters 1-48 (and not counting omakes), each of the new Bearers gets exactly eighteen segments each... and all the other characters, put together, also get a total of eighteen segments. (The authors swear this last part was completely unintentional.) It continues in the sequel Picking Up the Pieces, though characters outside the new Bearers are getting more segments of their own this time around.
• Of State: So far, the POV has switched between Elsa, Hiccup, Snotlout, Anna, and Kristoff. All of whom are dealing with their own problems. Hiccup is trying to capture Mathantir and defeat the Northern Alliance. Snotlout is occupying Radvo and holding the entire city hostage in an attempt to rescue the Vikings that were kidnapped and Made a Slave there. Elsa is working with her ruling council to try and combat a potential Viking invasion. Finally, Anna and Kristoff are trying to deal with their relationship with each other and the people around them.
• Each chapter of What Tomorrow Brings is told from the perspective of a different character. At first, it seems like it'll go through the Animorphs in the same order as the books, but then Tom is introduced in chapter 6 and several supporting characters get to narrate from then on.
• You'll Get No Answers from the Blue Sea Star: The vast majority of the story is told by Jo, but Seteth takes over for the brief description of Jeralt's death.
• A handful of Law & Order: UK stories written by Airborne Girl based around a relationship between Alesha Philips and Matt Devlin are usually told from Alesha's point of view, but will often have a section from Matt's perspective. Sometimes to the point of Perspective Flip—we'll get both Alesha and Matt's version of a confrontation or conversation they had.
• After the first three chapters (which are strictly from Lilith's POV) of The Silver Raven, the POV starts switching back and forth. For example, chapter 4 switches between Lilith's POV and Nero's POV, while chapter 5 switches between Nero's POV and Emira's POV.
• The POV in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant shifts around from character-to-character within a chapter. For example, Chapter 20 starts from Glynda's perspective, then shifts to Ragna's, then Noel's, and finally Ozpin's. Some chapters are told entirely from one perspective however, with Chapter 32 being entirely from Ragna's perspective, Chapter 41 being entirely from Ironwood's perspective, and Chapter 45 being entirely from Glynda's perspective.
• Forever Captain: While most of this MCU series is told in third person limited to Steve Rogers, currently the one exception is The Favor, limited instead to Tony Stark. It’s clear that this choice is because the whole point of the story requires a particular dramatic irony— that the audience knows the true identity of Uncle Grant, but Tony doesn’t.
• The Second Most Important Person in the World, a Toy Story Sid/Andy fic focused on the human characters, switches between several different perspectives outside of Sid and Andy's throughout, including Molly, Andy's mother, Sid and Andy's adopted daughter, and Woody, in the final chapter.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: Most or all the narration is given from the perspective of the Westeros characters. The major exception is Akkarulf, one of the Wolf's marauders who serves as The Watson for anything Warhammer-related, which is itself a clue that he was better known as Theon Greyjoy.
• In What a Strange Little Colt, Rainbow Dash is the main Point of View, but there are many sections told from other characters’ perspectives.
• A Man of Iron, true to its Martin roots, switches character with every chapter, sometimes twice. Each chapter is titled after its P.O.V. character.
• Changing Gears constantly switches the P.O.V. character when describing events, to the point that there tends to be at least 3 different P.O.V.s per chapter. As Izuku is the main character, his P.O.V. is shown the most often, but Bakugou, Ochako, Iida, Momo, and All Might are also fairly common.
• True Love Is Never A Straight Path: The P.O.V. varies from chapter to chapter and even from scene to scene. Brittas, Laura, and Helen get the most POV screentime, but other characters, such as George, Julie and Carole, have managed to get a scene or two from their POV.

Films — Animation

• Between the end of The Incredibles and the introductory scene of Incredibles 2. Via flashback, the rise of the Underminer is seen not from the Parr family's viewpoint, but from Innocent Bystander Tony Rydinger's. It's a lot more unsettling to have a supervillain bursting through the ground with his giant drill vehicle, and having cars crashing down around when you don't have superpowers.
• The Lion King (1994): During the gorge scene, we briefly shift to the hyena's POV as they get the signal from Scar to start the wildebeest stampede; after that, it shifts to Simba's POV as he practices his roaring in the gorge, and the wildebeests start charging right for him after he pulls off a loud, impressive roar, making it seem like his roar frightened the wildebeests into the gorge which eventually led to the death of Mufasa.
• Turning Red: Almost the entire film is shown following Mei's point of view occasionally switching to Ming's. Toward the climax it switches to Jin's briefly and for one shot in the epilogue Grandma Wu's.
• Zootopia: Almost the entire film is shown following Judy's point of view. However, during the climax, for a few moments it shifts to Bellwether's perspective. Storywise this is done to shield the audience from the Batman Gambit Nick and Judy have set up so the audience gets the same sense of surprise as Bellwether when she discovers she's been hustled.

Films — Live-Action

• Asako I & II: Asako is the protagonist in the first part, in which she meets Baku. Then as she meets Ryohei, we are shown his point of view as she act in a very strange manner. When she finds out that Baku is around again, the POV is on her again and we no longer know what the men think.
• The Bridge Curse: The film focuses on two storylines, and shifts between them regularly. There's the students in 2016 who are haunted after a bravery test on "The Dead Female Bridge", and the Intrepid Reporter investigating their deaths in 2020.
• Exit Through the Gift Shop has a very peculiar take on this, largely based in the fact that this film is effectively a Documentary. While its subjects are ultimately of street art and Banksy, the documentary initially follows up-and-coming artist Thierry Guetta/Mr. Brainwash as he learns more of street art and finding Banksy, but halfway through the film, he begins to be framed much more unsympathetically, with focus instead shifting onto Banksy and Shepard Fairey trying to wrangle in the arrogant hack they helped indirectly create. This ended up raising real-world questions on whose project this documentary actually was, with a prevailing theory that it was all a staged bit of performance art by Banksy as his commentary on art culture and deliberately screwing with audiences.

Literature

• City of No End uses this aggressively in order to cover the multiple factions of its massive Ensemble Cast. The characters who get at least one POV scene in Book 1 are Welund, Ywain, Piyra, Aldrich, Quine, Beatrix, Roman, Yene, Setheus, Carston, Davion, Avitus, Lebbik, Saloth, Pa, Janus, Kavin, Leviticus, Odham, Maud, and Dakku.
• 4 Kids in 5E and 1 Crazy Year: Destiny, Max, Giovanni, and Willie take turns narrating several pages of each chapter.
• Dracula is composed of a collection of journals and letters that describe the story from the point of view of various characters. It slips up in one case, where Mrs. Harker refers to herself in third person in chapter XXVI (where she is writing a journal but mentions the others made details that she didn't hear.)
• Victorian mystery novelist Wilkie Collins did this more than once, most notably in his classics The Moonstone and The Woman in White. Each novel was divided up into several different first-person narratives, with occasional other sources like "The Narrative of the Tombstone".
• The Hardy Boys naturally utilizes this, having two main characters who, along with their friends, frequently divide and conquer to cover more ground. As such, the narrative will jump between the two brothers until they regroup. The early Casefiles books are also much more liberal with the narrative, briefly following the thoughts and opinions of several other characters besides the Hardys (including one-shot characters and Mooks).
  • The reboot Undercover Brothers and Adventures series are told in first-person with Frank and Joe alternating chapters, meaning that the books are constant POV switches between the two of them.
  • Very similarly, in the first Nancy Drew: Girl Detective (Nancy's counterpart series to Undercover Brothers) super special, "Where's Nancy?", Bess and George get this in a major Day in the Limelight for them. Usually, the GD series is narrated solely by Nancy in first-person, but since she's missing for most of the book, George and Bess alternate first-person chapters, with the last chapter finally switching back to Nancy.
  • The Nancy Drew / Hardy Boys Super Mysteries of the GD/UB rotate the first-person p.o.v. between all three of them (Nancy, Frank, and Joe).
• Murder for the Modern Girl: The novel switches between the first-person perspectives of its two protagonists, Ruby Newhouse and Guy Rosewood. The name of the character whose perspective is being followed is written on top of the first page of a chapter. After Guy's true name, Peter Buchanan, is revealed in chapter 21, all chapters told from his perspective have "Peter" written instead.
• The Silver Kiss, by Annette Curtis Klause, switches between Zoë and Simon. The switch is between third-person limited to one or the other, and their respective chapters are named after the proper protagonist.
• Oksa Pollock does this between the good characters, although the most parts are told by Oksa.
• Done so well by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Shaara in his novel The Killer Angels (the basis for the 1993 film Gettysburg) that his son Jeff Shaara has copied the technique in every one of his own novels.
• In The Migax Cycle,the story alternates between Summer and Leafsong's point of view, both in third person limited.
• Each chapter in The Innkeepers Song by Peter S. Beagle is told from a different character's perspective.
• Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen switches between romantic leads, and even the back cover takes this. One of them is upside-down, but which is a little bit up to the reader.
• The Poisonwood Bible switches between the four daughters' points of view, with their mother's point of view appearing at the beginning and in retrospect of each section of the book.
• Charles Dickens's Bleak House alternates chapters between the first-person perspective of Esther Summerson and the third-person perspective of an omniscient narrator.
• Jodi Picoult does this in pretty much all her novels, sometimes in first and sometimes third person.
• Something Like... Series: Each book in the series is from the point of view of a different character.
• Soon I Will Be Invincible: Alternates between Dr. Impossible and Fatale.
• Some William Faulkner novels alternate chapters among the first-person perspective of several narrators, often relating the same events. It switched narrators within the same sentence at least once. His books that follow this include:
  • Absalom, Absalom!
  • As I Lay Dying
  • The Sound and the Fury
• Laura by Vera Caspary is a murder mystery alternately narrated by the title character's acquaintances, the detective investigating her case, and eventually the "dead" woman herself.
• The Lover (Ha-Me'ahev), by Israeli novelist A. B. Yehoshua, which bears the influence of Faulkner's works, switches between the first-person perspectives of members of a Jewish family and an Arab teenager who works for and comes to live with them, each chapter.
• Lord of the Rings starts to do this in The Two Towers. The first half of the book is split between Aragorn's party and the Merry and Pippen hobbit duo. Second half of the book is Frodo, Sam, and Sméagol. Return of the King does a similar mid-way switch, with the two halves of each story taking place concurrently.
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Fey novels, where the viewpoint switches to a new character with each new chapter.
• Mrs. Dalloway alternates between following the title character and Shell-Shocked Veteran Septimus.
• This Is Where It Ends: The book is told through four different perspectives: Autumn, Sylv, Claire, and Thomás.
• Thursday Next books usually have someone else narrating the events Thursday wasn't there to witness.
  • In The Eyre Affair, Mycroft's adventure with the Prose Portal is described in third person.
  • In Something Rotten, Landen briefly picks up narration duties when Thursday gets shot.
  • First Among Sequels is the most confusing example of this, as the narration switches from the real Thursday Next to the written Thursday Next.
• Legend of the Galactic Heroes switches back and forth between the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance and their two protagonists, Reinhard von Lohengramm and Yang Wenli. Reinhard and his Empire is the more important side, however, making Yang Wenli the deuteragonist.
• George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. The viewpoint character changes every chapter and there have been 31 viewpoint characters through the first five books. This series is one of the more prominent examples due to the multitude of conflicting factions, almost all of which have at least one P.O.V. character representing them and sometimes multiple to represent different mindsets within each faction, fueling the Gray-and-Grey Morality the series is famous for. For example, the Battle of Blackwater is mostly depicted from the P.O.V.s of Tyrion and Davos, two sympathetic characters on opposite sides.
• Harry Potter:
  • We follow Harry's point of view throughout 90% of the series, with the exception of the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince (first two chapters), and Deathly Hallows, which have important establishing events that Harry's not present for (although in the case of Goblet of Fire, he sees them in a dream).
  • There is one other exception: during Harry's first Quidditch match in Philosopher's Stone, we are told what Hermione and Ron are doing and saying, even though Harry is not paying special attention to them and would not be able to hear them.
  • There is also, somewhat bizarrely, a couple of sentences from Ron's point of view as he knocks out the troll in Philosopher's Stone. Overall, point of view seems a little more flexible in book 1 than it is later in the series.
• The Everworld books rotate among the five main characters the role of the narrator.
• Animorphs, another series by the same author as Everworld, does the same thing. They rotate by book in a set order (also Ax and Tobias share the same slot (Getting half as many books as the others) and alternate when their shared slot pops up.) Also the Megamorph side stories alternate by chapter and at least once one of the heroes narrates from beyond the grave.The Hork-Bajir Chronicles rotates POV between Aldrea, Dak, and Esplin.
• The The Babysitters Club books feature rotating first-person protagonists.
• The Deep Water Black books were each written from the viewpoint of a new character.
• Emily Rodda's Teen Power Inc.. series rotates the role of narrator among the six members of the core cast.
• Anthony Price's thriller novels all feature the same group of intelligence officers, but each features a different member of the group as the key player and point-of-view character.
• Terry Pratchett likes to switch to the point-of-view of someone about to meet a tragic end.
• Emily Brightwell's Mrs Jeffries series has scenes begin from the victim's point of view, with enough detail to be interesting but not enough to act as a spoiler.
• Terry Goodkind does this a lot in Sword of Truth, especially noteworthy though is in the first book where the POV has been on the male main character most of the book (except one small part when he is unconscious) until around half of the book where the POV changes to the female main character. This is done to put more info on her personality and her secret and also to show that she also feels an attraction to him.
• Several of Kelley Armstrong's books (Haunted and Personal Demon, for example) switch between several narrators, with each chapter being told by a different one.
• The Wheel of Time regularly switches POV between around 10 main characters. The books will also regularly include POV chapters of side characters depending on how Robert Jordan wished to show extra information. Or hide it.
• The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis is narrated by several characters; all of the more important ones narrate at least one chapter.
• Pretty much everything ever written by Harry Turtledove runs on this trope. Most of his series have a minimum of 5 or 6 POV characters per volume, allowing him to describe various aspects of a large-scale event (like a war on multiple fronts, as seen by generals, soldiers, and civilians).
• The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie switches between the protagonist's narration and excerpts from a different character's journal, both in first person.
• Every book in the Wicked Lovely series switches between (usually three, although Fragile Eternity has four and stopping time has only two) different third person POVs.
• Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and its sequel, Porno, switch between characters (each with their own personal verbal tics and dialects) in each chapter.
• How NOT to Write a Novel has several examples of what can go wrong when a Switching P.O.V. is poorly executed or unintentional.
• The Knight and Rogue Series alternates between Michael and Fisk's perspective with each chapter.
• Starting from Warrior Cats: The New Prophecy, Warrior Cats has multiple protagonists, switching POV between them every few chapters.
• The chapters in Ibi Kaslik's The Angel Riots switch between a limited third-person narration centred on Rize, the titular rock band's drug-addled trombonist, and first-person narration by Jim, a violinist touring with the Riots.
• All the books in Jo Walton's Alternate History Small Change trilogy. Each of the novels is structured with alternating chapters from the point of view of Inspector Carmichael (3rd person), and a young woman writing in the 1st person: Lucy Kahn in Farthing, Viola Larkin in Ha'Penny, and Elvira Royston in Half a Crown.
• Each book in the Havemercy series by Jaida Jones and Danielle Bennett rotates first-person perspective through four protagonists.
• The books in Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus series switch between the formulaic Two Guys and a Girl in third-person from chapter-to-chapter.
  • The Lost Hero alternates with Jason, Piper, and Leo.
  • The Son of Neptune alternates with Percy, Hazel, and Frank.
  • The Mark of Athena alternates with Annabeth, Leo, Piper, and Percy.
  • The House of Hades alternates with all seven titular Heroes of Olympus; Percy and Annabeth narrate for their side of the story, while the other five narrate their own side.
  • The Blood of Olympus alternates with Jason, Piper, and Leo in one story arc, and Nico and Reyna for the other.
• Seems common for Riordan to do this, as he also does this in The Kane Chronicles, switching between Carter and Sadie. As they're both written in first person, they also switch between English dialects - American for Carter, British for Sadie.
• Each volume of Dirge for Prester John contains three books, and the frame narrative of Hiob, or his assistance Alaric.
• The two published volumes of Charles Stross' Halting State series do this. The narrative alternates between the perspectives of three people involved in the case (with the occasional interlude), all written in the second person.
• Brave New World begins with an Intro Dump courtesy of Thomas, the Director, and periodically switches to Bernard a few times before settling on the latter. After John's introduction about halfway through the book, Bernard is phased out in favor of him, at which point Thomas disappears completely after a startling revelation.
• The story of The Pillars of the Earth is told from the POV of 5 characters, one of them a villain.
• In Tunnel in the Sky, Caroline takes over for Rod as the POV character, via her diary, while he's scouting for a new colony site.
• Good Omens has point of view switch between many different characters, including, but not limited to, Crowley, Aziraphale, Newt Pulsifer, and Anathema Device.
• Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series loves this trope. For the first couple of books, our four points of view are Tavi, Amara, Fidelias, and Isana, although other characters will sometimes get sections in the prologue. Fidelias disappears for most of book 3, and Ehren takes his place as a point of view character. Fidelias (as Marcus) comes back for book 4, and the rest of the series mainly rotates POV between the five of them, with occasional diversions.
• Robert Silverberg's The Book Of Skulls has 4 PoVs, all first person. He's said that he found getting the voices right and distinct quite difficult. And it wasn't like he was new in the field at the time!
• Robert A. Heinlein does this in The Number of the Beast, with narration switching among the four principal characters (Lazarus Long also gets to narrate a chapter). The epilogue is told in the usual third person.
• Robin Hobb does this both in The LiveShip Traders and The Rain Wild Chronicles series.
• Of Fear and Faith is a first-person example of this, with all eight of the main characters getting a chance to be the viewpoint character, occasionally all in the same chapter.
• The Year of the Flood switches point of view between Ren and Toby. The two narrative eventually meet and continue on.
• In World War pretty much every chapter is a different character from either a different country or from the invading Race itself.
• Timeline-191, by the same author as Worldwar, follows a similar pattern of a different POV each chapter, replacing them when they die with other characters previously introduced as non-POV.
• In Star Carrier, the chapters switch between the Admiral in charge of the fleet, one of the Starhawk pilots, as well as the aliens humanity is at war with.
• Elisabet Nemert and Simona Ahrnstedt are two Swedish writers, who will use this all the time.
  • Elisabet Nemert will have a female protagonist, and the novel will be the story of her life. But over the course of the book, we also get to see the perspective of her family members, her friends, her future love interest and even her antagonists.
  • Simona Ahrnstedt will have two protagonists: A woman and a man, who are the central love couple. But just like Elisabet Nemert, Simona will show us the perspective of different family members, friends and even antagonists.
• First Light: Peter and Thea get alternating chapters.
• Young Wizards: Nita's POV is in every book, but in the third book, Dairine gets to share some POV. Kit gets to share POV starting in book five. In books seven and eight, the three share POVs. In the ninth book, it goes back to just Nita and Kit.
• The Demonata switches between the three main characters. Grubbs narrates the most books by far though.
• Edenborn has chapter breaks for Pandora, Haji, Penny, Halloween, and Deuce. The author also uses different writing styles for each.
• The Disney / Pixar film Cars does this for the first volume of the short-lived Cars Origins series, Struck by Lightning. The book's Framing Device where the Radiator Springs gang goes camping is told in a third-person narrative, while the chapters focusing on the flashbacks to Lightning McQueen's early racing days are told in first-person narrative by Lightning himself.
• Clocks that Don't Tick is written from the alternating perspectives of Gary, Martha, and Charlemagne. Gary's is the most casual and plebeian, featuring an abundance of contractions, and often times merely implying the subject of a sentence rather than writing it out (ie: Decided to approach him rather than I decided to approach him). Martha's perspective is a little better, though she tends to go on tangents, crazily talk to her imaginary friends, and features occasional grammatical mishaps such as Me and my three friends rather than My three friends and I. Charlemagne's perspective is written the most intelligently, using few contractions and having minimal grammatical errors.
• Stephen King's Christine. Book I is Dennis: Teenage Car-Songs, told from Dennis Guilder's First-Person Perspective. In Book II, Arnie: Teenage Love-Songs, King switches to an omniscient narrator, since Dennis is hospitalized at the time and unable to be where the action is to narrate it. Book III, Christine: Teenage Death-Songs, switches back to Dennis's first-person P.O.V.
• Veniss Underground is split into three sections. The first focuses on Nicholas and is written in first person; the second focuses on Nicola and is written in second person; and the third focuses on Shadrach and is written in third person.
• The book series The Phoenix Files switches between Luke, Peter and Jordan, each of them narrating two of the six books in the series.
• The official novelization of the Disney / Pixar film Inside Out, called Driven By Emotions, tells the events of the film from the perspective of all five of the emotions, starting with Joy, then Disgust, next Fear, then Anger and finally Sadness. This means that for certain events in the film, as many as five different takes are presented.
• Lorien Legacies does this regularly. From the second book (titled The Rise Of Six) the writer has been kind to show the switching narrator (between Marina and John) with different type fonts, and in the third book it properly announces which P.O.V it is, but from then the P.O.V still switches without it being shown.
• Run swaps between Bo's perspective in the present as she and Agnes run away, and Agnes' in the past as the two girls grow into best friends.
• Occurs in several of Freeman Wills Crofts' detective novels.
  • In The Cask, the first chapter is written from the point of view of the man who finds the body; the next two-thirds of the novel follow the police inspector investigating the crime and arresting the prime suspect; and in the last third, the protagonist is a private detective trying to disprove the police case.
  • In the first half of Golden Ashes, the viewpoint character is Betty Stanton, a young widow (and aspiring novelist) who finds work as a housekeeper. A mystery develops at the house she's looking after, and the second half follows Inspector French as he investigates.
• Many of David Levithan's collaborations with other writers exhibit this. Typically each writer takes on a character and the chapters alternate between their viewpoints.
  • Will Grayson, Will Grayson: John Green as Will Grayson #1, David Levithan as perpetually-lowercase will grayson #2.
  • You Know Me Well: Nina LaCour as Kate, David Levithan as Mark.
  • Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List: Aside from the two titular characters, it also features multiple side characters' POVs.
• The Raven Cycle, while narrated in third-person, nevertheless focuses on a specific character's experiences and inner thoughts each chapter. A given book may put more weight on a certain character, or less. For example, The Dream Thieves is a Ronan-heavy book while its sequel Blue Lily, Lily Blue is a Blue- (and Adam-)centric book with no Ronan chapters at all.
• Fate/Zero switches perspective between the seven master-servant pairs. The first three books mostly focuses on Saber and Irisviel, while Kiritsugu barely gets any spotlight at all until the fourth book.
• In The Star, a Short Story by H. G. Wells, the story is in omniscient third-person, describing how events play out from Earth's perspective. For the very last paragraph, however, the perspective shifts to Mars, explaining their perception of the recent events.
• Done frequently in Vic and Frank: Necromancers, as each chapter starts with a different point of view than the last. Some characters only get one chapter, while Vic, Frank, and the Reanimated Woman get multiple chapters.
• The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: The Notes is written in the form of diary-style entries over the course of several years, with the point of view alternating between each one of the seven boys. Each entry or "note" has the narrating character's name and the date on the title. Since this story deals with the group's separations and reunions (and one character's attempt to save and reunite them), this serves to show each one of the main characters' separate struggles and journey (starting with their childhoods), and to reveal various plot points that are only known by one or more characters.
• The second Xandri Corelel novel, Tone of Voice, alternates between Xandri and Diver's viewpoints.
• Isaac Asimov:
  • "C-Chute": Each of the six protagonists takes a turn narrating the events, starting with Colonel Windham, and cycling around until the story ends with Stuart's perspective.
  • "The Message": The Intro-Only Point of View changes to George, a college student time-travelling for original research on a paper.
  • "Spell My Name with an S": The story changes perspectives for every scene, but always remains in Third-Person Limited. Dr Zebatinsky/Sebatinsky, The Protagonist, is present for less than half of the narrative.
• Mary Higgins Clark will have intermittent chapters of her books told from the killers POV while still not identifying him, leaving the reader to continue to speculate as to his identity.
• Forbidden alternates chapters between Lochan and Maya’s first person POVs.
• The first eight chapters of The Grim Reaper's Apprentice are told from Jax's POV, but the ninth and final one is from the Grim Reaper's.
• The Novelization of Forbidden Planet switches between several characters as narrator, including Morbius at one point.
• In Witch World: The Crystal Gryphon by Andre Norton the odd chapters are told by Kerovan and even — by Joisan, two sides in an Arranged Marriage, which would turn out much better than anybody expected.
• One Of These Days Earthquake In Ligon by Kir Bulychev has a cast of ten somewhat unreliable narrators with different agendas. Alternating with fictious news articles, telegrams, dossiers, fragments from real and fictious books.
• Ungifted: The P.O.V. switches multiple times over the course of the book, from Donovan's, to the Daniels', to Chloe's, to Dr. Schultz's, to Noah's, etc.
  • The same with its sequel, Supergifted. The P.O.V. switches between Donovan, Noah, The Daniels, and Megan Mercury.
• In A Frozen Heart, the novel based on the Disney film Frozen, the narration is almost equally shared between Anna and Hans in third person limited, switching between chapters.
• Redeeming Love is written in third person limited, switching between Angel, Michael, and sometimes Paul between paragraphs.
• Treasure Island: Most of the story is narrated by main character Jim Hawkins. For practical reasons, Doctor Livesey picks up the narration when important events occur that Jim didn't witness.
• Full Disclosure: Every 4-10 pages, the story switches to a different character's third-person POV. No character has more than 6 POV scenes, and President Ericson doesn't get one of his own until the last 100 pages.
• Star Wars:
  • Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves is in third-person limited narration from Han Solo's point of view, except for Chapter 6. As Han searches for Rebel spy Scarlet Hark in the guise of an Imperial officer, every interaction he has with one of the locals is shown from the other's point of view, as they are intimidated, charmed, and/or exasperated by this oddly scruffy lieutenant. Scarlet's own POV is shown when he finally finds her.
  • Every Thrawn-centered chapter in the Thrawn and Thrawn Ascendancy trilogies is narrated from the POV of whoever is near Thrawn at the time, and never Thrawn himself.
• In Asperger Sunset, Russ and Misty take turns narrating in the third person limited.
• The Rudest Alien on Earth: Chapters alternate between Oluu and the human kids' points of view.
• The first three Seekers books rotate between the third-person limited perspectives of Kallik, Lusa, and Toklo each chapter; Ujurak gets focus chapters starting with the fourth book.
• InCryptid: Sarah takes over narration duties in Midnight Blue-Light Special for a few chapters after Verity is knocked unconscious and taken prisoner by the Covenant. Later on in Imaginary Numbers, Artie does the same for Sarah after she's kidnapped by the cuckoo hive. The series as a whole has Rotating Protagonists.
• Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating: The book's chapters alternate between Hani and Ishu's perspectives, shown from the first person in each case.
• The Shadowhunter Chronicles does this starting with the second book of The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes. The POV don't always change with each chapter, though, and the series keeps its focus on Clary most of the time. The same applies in its spin-off books, where the POV will occasionally drift from the main protagonist to other characters.
• Until We Meet Again: The story tends to switch between the P.O.V.s of Cassandra and Lawrence. At the beginning of each chapter is one of their names to indicate which one's narrating.
• The main gimmick of Voices in the Park, which shows one day in the park told from four different persepctives: a posh woman, her sheltered son, a depressed man, and his feisty daughter.
• The Cormoran Strike Novels give nearly equal time to Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott. Career of Evil also includes a few chapters from the point-of-view of the serial killer who is the subject of their investigation. The Ink Black Heart, meanwhile, features several chapters in a Log Fic format depicting the online conversations of the moderators of Drek's Game, the MMORPG that is an important component of the book's events.
• Strangers on a Train alternates between Guy's and Bruno's perspectives (and occasionally others) — mostly on a scene-by-scene or chapter-by-chapter basis, but there are a couple of scenes where the two perspectives keep alternating, unsignposted, within the same scene. The effect is to emphasize the increasing closeness between the two characters and the resulting damage to Guy's sense of self.
• This was the basic format of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, which, not counting the prequel novel, for the most part featured three perspectives, these being the djinni Bartimaeus, the magician Nathaniel / John Mandrake, and the resistance fighter Kitty Jones. Only Bartimaeus's was first-person and he was an Unreliable Narrator, which often made for humor when he would make some grandiose claim which would be put paid when the narration would switch to show more accurately what was really happening.
• Of Fire and Stars: The story is told alternately from the viewpoint of Dennaleia and Mare. Each chapter alternates between them. This gives insight to their perspectives, with different opinions and sometimes misunderstandings the pair have.
• Presidential: The book shows things alternately from Emily and Connie's views.
• The Burning Kingdoms: The books' chapters shift between the different characters' viewpoints, but Malini and Priya have the most.
• Mermaids of Eriana Kwai: Ice Massacre is only from Meela's perspective, but Ice Crypt alternates between her and Lysi, and Ice Kingdom adds another narrator, the Navy SEAL Ben Reeves.
• My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!: has a flipping narritive, which alternates chapters between Katarina's perspective and whoever she happened to be focused on at the time. The manga drops all non-Katarina P.O.Vs, which leaves the other characters less developed than they would have been otherwise, while the anime has them as voiced recaps released online.
• How to Fly with Broken Wings: Some chapters are narrated by Willem, and others by Sasha. Their chapters use different fonts.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: The books switch between Tasia's and Joslyn's viewpoints after the latter becomes a co-protagonist at first. In the third book, Megs, Linna and Akella join them as POV characters.
• Shatter the Sky: In the first book, protagonist Maren is the only POV character. We start seeing things from Sev's perspective in the second book though, with chapters alternating from her to him.
• The Change Room: The narrative is mostly shown from protagonist Eliza's point of view, but occasionally it's also shown from Andrew or Shar's perspectives.
• Both Can Be True: Ash and Daniel narrate alternate chapters.
• In Lily and Dunkin, both titular protagonists narrate in the first person.
• Are You Seeing Me?: Justine and her brother Perry each narrate several chapters at a time.
• Something to Talk About: The book switches between Jo and Emma's perspectives.
• Sweet & Bitter Magic: The chapters alternately show things from Tamsin and Wren's perspectives.
• Tales of Inthya:
  • The Queen of Ieflaria: Each chapter shows things from either Esofi or Adale's perspective.
  • Daughter of the Sun: The book shows things alternately from Aelia and Orsina's views, though Orsina has more POV segments.
• The Mermaid of Black Conch switches between an omniscient narrator, Aycayia's narration in free verse, and David's journal entries.
• Rubbernecker: Sam's chapters are in the first person and present tense. Other chapters are in the third person limited and past tense and follow a number of characters, mainly Patrick.
• The Vazula Chronicles: In the first book, Merletta narrates odd-numbered chapters and Heath narrates even-numbered chapters, both in the third person limited. In later books, they both narrate several chapters at once. Rekavidur also becomes a narrator in A Kingdom Restored, although he only narrates a handful of chapters.
• The Afterward: The chapters alternate, showing Olsa and Kalanthe's perspectives.
• In Dolphin Song, the main viewpoint characters are the human Melody and the dolphin Shara, but other narrators include Shara's son Speckle and various people in Melody's life. Chapters narrated by dolphins are in italics. All narration is in the third person limited.
• The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford: The book POV jumps around to focus on various characters, including Jesse James, his wife Zee, Robert Ford, and Dick Liddil.
• Area 51: Ubiquitous in the books. Mostly different main characters' viewpoints are shown, though a lot of minor characters' too to a lesser degree.
• Universal Monsters: The first chapter of each book starts with a civilian encountering the monster of the film before the second chapter switches to following the Power Trio of the series.
  • Book 1 starts with father and son duo Ralph and Todd Gentry, out for some late-night fishing, finding an abandoned ship that turns out to have been depopulated by a recently released from his movie Dracula.
  • Book 2 starts with Don Earl Abernathy and his girlfriend Gayle Braddock attending a carnival before Don gets attacked and bitten by a Wolf Man.
  • Book 3 starts with Herr Frankenstein and Fritz stealing a body from a graveyard, intending to use its hands for a new incarnation of the Frankenstein's Monster, while Detective Mike Turner investigates a different crime and ends up witnessing the duo speeding and then carrying their stolen coffin, whereupon he confronts them and ends up knocked out, with Herr Frankenstein planning (but never getting the chance, as later revealed) to harvest his hands.
  • Book 4 starts with Professor Angus Tovar and his student Karl Homer in their office at the San Tomas Inlet Convention Center, the Professor analyzing a recently-arrived strip of papyrus... and after Karl leaves, Professor Tovar suddenly gets attacked by the mummy of the priest he found with the queen who's the focus of the exhibit.
  • Book 5 starts with Trent and Skyler Crockett, out fishing in the middle of the night, only for Trent to get mauled by the Gill Man.
  • Book 6 starts the night before the last chapter of book 5, on a Saturday night when security guard Alvin Brown is doing his duty at the Universal Studios theme park and encounters Dr. Pretorius, who steals the still-functioning second projector and tells Brown to inform the three teens that he's returned for revenge.

Live-Action TV

• The Affair: The second season gradually moves away from "Rashomon"-Style to show differents parts of the events with rotating POV characters but without overlap or contradictory accounts.
• Over a longer period, Babylon 5 would do this, with various episodes or story arcs being done primarily from a particular character's point of view, oftentimes nowhere near the titular space station.
• Boomtown (2002) existed for this trope - we would see a crime happen from the perspectives of a number of different people ranging from police officers to victims, suspects and bystanders.
• CSI: "Rashomama" presents the investigation of the death of the mother of a groom from the point of view of four different investigators in turn: Sarah, Nick, Gil and Greg.
• The Season 8 premiere of ER was presented as being in "Rashomon"-Style, but was more like this—of the four characters featured, if one of them saw something from one angle, another saw it from another.
• In the TV series The Event, flashbacks are told from various POVs.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022):
  • In "...The Ruthless Pursuit of Blood with All a Child's Demanding", the Flashback scenes are from Claudia's perspective instead of Louis de Pointe du Lac's because Daniel Molloy reads passages from her diary. For the rest of Season 1, Daniel gets a combination of Louis and Claudia's viewpoints.
  • The extended Season 2 trailer confirms that Armand joins the interview, with Daniel stating to his audio recorder, "Session ten, the vampire Louis and the vampire Armand." The events of the late 18th century are narrated by Armand.
• The My Name Is Earl DVD Bonus Content episode "Bad Karma" (allegedly the first Pilot for the series) starts from Earl's POV, but after Earl dies, it becomes My name is Randy.
  • In one episode of the series proper, there's a sequence telling what happened to some stolen silverware, from the POV of Randy, Joy, Crab Man, and the librarian, each of whom get a "My name is X" line.

Music

• Hospice by The Antlers switches between the perspectives of the hospice worker and the cancer patient, most notably in the song "Thirteen".
• Disturbed:
  • Most of "Voices" is narrated by the internal voice driving a person to commit violent acts, and during the bridge, the sane part emerges trying to fight it.
  • "Prayer." The verses are narrated by Evil God talking to humans about how he enjoys making them suffer for no good reason. In the chorus and the bridge, in response, human dares God to try and break him.
• Evanescence's "Snow White Queen" is an Obsession Song that switches between the stalker's and the stalkee's point of view.
• Confusingly, the traditional ballad Reynardine shifts perspective from verse to verse between the title character, a bandit and possible member of The Fair Folk, and an omniscient third-person narrator.
• Ice Nine Kills: "Tess-Timony" is narrated partly by Tess herself, and partly by Angel (or perhaps an omniscient third-person narrator).
• In the "teenage love triangle" trilogy on Taylor Swift's Folklore, every character gets their turn in telling the story: "cardigan" is narrated by Betty, "betty" is James groveling to her, and "august" is James' unnamed mistress reminiscing about their past romance.

Radio

• X Minus One: In episode thirty-seven, an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's "C-Chute", this is Averted by simplifying the story into making Stuart the only Character Narrator.

Roleplay

• In There is no GATE; we did not fight there, multiple story posts and interludes often make use of the points of view of supporting characters. That isn't to say that Kytheus, the protagonist, doesn't get a lot of screentime, though.
• This is one of NoPixel's draws. It's possible to watch one character's POV through a livestream or VOD via Twitch or Facebook Gaming, then switch to another character's POV of the same event.

Video Games

• American Arcadia uses this as part of its gameplay when having the player switch between play styles. Trevor's sections all play from a 2½D perspective and his sections tend to have platformer elements. Angela's sections are all in First Person, regardless if she's looking through security cameras or moving around an area, and will have more puzzle elements. There are a few points where the player has to control both characters at the same time, which are usually done from Angela's perspective.
• The Call of Duty series is big on this trope, with most of the series' campaigns leaping back and forth between two or more (allied) groups. The groups do tend to be involved in separate theaters of war, however.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops features Switching POV in order to brief Mason on what happened in his absence. In addition to the switching between Mason and Hudson, there's a flashback mission from Reznov's POV. "Rebirth" is the series' most prominent application of the trope, as we get to see just how different the same event looked from the two main characters' perspectives.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops II does much the same Switching POV trickery, this time between father and son - the former in the 1980s witnessing the start of it all, the latter in 2025 resolving the conflict. In addition, there are parts of two levels where Menendez is playable, as well as a mission from Woods' perspective.
    ** The Modern Warfare series is also an example. The first game alternates between the SAS and Force Recon characters until their union in the endgame. Modern Warfare 2 switches between a squad of Rangers defending the US and Task Force 141 after the person in charge of the attacks. 3, aside from a few one-off characters for certain missions, mainly focuses on the remains of Task Force 141 and a team of Delta Force operators in turn.
• The FPS DUSK-12 have you in control of two characters, the Super-Soldier Gorin and Special Forces Operative Lieutenant Andrey. As the former you kick ass exclusively using your bare hands, can trigger your Super-Speed to move in Bullet Time and One-Hit Kill enemies, and have telekinetic abilities allowing you to Psychic Strangle foes for good measure, while as the latter you just shoot enemies like every other FPS ever made.
• The Fear Effect duology revolves around a mercenary team, and the game would constantly switch around characters, with the first game having players assume the roles of Hana, Glas, and Deke (the latter, an Awesome Aussie being the strongest of the trio, but also having the least amount of sections dedicated towards, since he's not introduced until the second disc and dies at the end of the third). The second game (a Stealth Prequel) throws in Hana's former partner, Rain, with the first disc having only these two ladies as playable characters and only introducing Glas and Deke in the second disc.
• Another FPS, Jonathan Kane: The Protector, allows player control of the titular hero, Jonathan, and his protectee, Jennifer. The game tends to randomly shift POV between the two, where if Jonathan is in play he gets to shoot terrorists left and right like every other FPS in existence, but if the player is in control of Jennifer then most of her stages are Stealth Based Missions instead.
• Ninja Combat have the players alternating between the available ninja characters at the end of each level. They start off as the heroes Joe and Hayabusa, but can later recruit allies on their side; some of those allies even starts off as bosses (like Princess Kagerou, who attacks the player at the end of one level but her fight turns out to be a Secret Test Of Character) before they're Promoted to Playable after their defeat.
• Space Debris starts off with the player in control of USAF pilot, Lieutenant James Bryant, in the first three missions, before introducing more partners for James, notably fellow USAF maverick Rip "Starfire" and the freelance mercenary Halo, where the game will give out levels alternating between the trio.
• Wild C.A.T.s (1995), the NES adaptation of the cartoon, has the players alternating between the three heroes, Spartan, Maul and Warblade, each of them taking up a segment of a stage before being switched over. The final stage, however, does allow the player to choose one of the trio to play as, right up to the Final Boss.

Visual Novels

• Narration (or rather, Blick Winkel's point of view) switches between Takeshi and the Kid in Ever17's prologue, before settling on one of them for the rest of the game. It starts switching again in Coco's route, and in Coco's epilogue it "visits" every character before changing to Blick Winkel's own narration.
• In Swan Song, the main characters take turns providing first-person narration. It's used to both provide different perspectives and focus on different cast constellations.
• Most of the beta version of Katawa Shoujo takes place from Hisao's POV. At the very end of Act 3 in Shizune's arc it switches to Misha's POV. It ends with Misha getting hit by a car.
• Noble Works does this rather frequently, though the majority of the story is still told through Takumi's eyes.
• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
  • Halfway through the first trial, when it becomes obvious that Kaede Akamatsu - the current POV character and protagonist - is the culprit, the player switches POV to Shuichi Saihara. The Class Trial UI changes from purple to blue to represent the switch.
  • During the final trial, the POV is switched to Keebo, Himiko, and Maki for brief segments. They get white, neon blue and red UI, respectively.
• Most games in the Ace Attorney series do this at some point, with the only exceptions being Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
  • Justice for All: Most of the game is shown from Phoenix Wright's perspective, but the POV switches to Maya Fey a few times in case 4 to show what she does while she is kidnapped.
  • Trials and Tribulations: The POV switches between three characters: Phoenix Wright in cases 2, 3, and most of 5, Mia Fey in cases 1 and 4, and Miles Edgeworth in part of case 5.
  • Apollo Justice: Most of the game is shown from Apollo Justice's perspective, but the POV switches to Phoenix Wright for a portion of case 4 to show how he lost his badge, and to a member of the jury at the very end to decide the case.
  • Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Most of the game is shown from Miles Edgeworth's perspective, but the POV switches to Gregory Edgeworth for about half of case 3 to show the case that led to his confrontation with Manfred von Karma.
  • Dual Destinies: The POV switches between three characters: Phoenix Wright in most of cases 1 and 4, all of case 5, and the DLC case, Apollo Justice in case 2 and part of case 4, and Athena Cykes in part of case 1 and all of case 3.
  • Spirit of Justice: The POV switches between three characters: Phoenix Wright in cases 1, 3, part of 5, and the DLC case, Apollo Justice in case 2 and most of case 5, and Athena Cykes in case 4.
• Fate/stay night told entirely in first person, primarily has Shirou's POV, but has various interludes that are from another character's POV, for events Shirou is not present for or to provide character back-stories. Fate route only has interludes from Saber's POV, while the other two routes have more interludes from the other characters.
• Heart of the Woods starts with the player assuming the perspective of Madison "Maddie" Raines, the manager for her best friend Tara's Vlog Series Taranormal, as she accompanies Tara on a trip to investigate supernatural phenomena in the town of Eysenfeld. Throughout the game, the player switches between Madison, Tara, Morgan(the young woman who invited them to Eysenfeld) and Abigail (a ghost Madison meets).
• Highway Blossoms: The plot of the main game is entirely from Amber's POV, but in Next Exit, Marina also gets POV segments, and there are a few times you can choose whether to see events from Amber or Marina's POV. "The Trio," a group of secondary characters, get some POV segments, but theirs have a third-person narrator.
• In Kindred Spirits on the Roof, while Yuna is the main character, the story alternates perspectives between most of the named characters, although Hina Komano and Fujii Ano don't get POV scenes until after the story, likely to avoid spoiling Hina's feelings for Yuna and Ano's ability to see the kindred spirits. On the calendar, scenes are marked with a chibified portrait of the character whose POV it's from, and when the POV switches, there's a brief eyecatcher. One post-game scene, "Charm," is unique in that it has a third-person narrator and shows the thoughts of multiple characters.

Webcomics

• Gunnerkrigg Court is predominately shown from Antimony's perspective, but for one particularly Mind Screwy chapter, it switched to Zimmy's perspective without any warning—just as Zimmy was in the middle of a bout of Identity Amnesia. In other words, Zimmy thought she was someone else, so the comic portrayed her as that other person.
• In Sluggy Freelance, POV switches frequently between characters and Cast Herds, sometimes between dimensions.
• Problem Sleuth keeps switching between the viewpoints of the three protagonists (and a few minor characters).
• Homestuck has tons of characters and pretty much all of them become the point of view at some point. Though the reader doesn't get to "be" everyone longer than a few pages - but still a significant portion of them.
• NEXT!!! Sound of the Future: While most of the story is told from Shine's perspective, there are sometimes glimpses into other characters' points of view.
  • At the end of chapter 4, there is a brief scene showing Tech after she had returned home thinking about a conversation she had with Shine.
  • In chapter 5, there are some insights into Gumiya's thoughts both during his flashback to his first meeting with Shine and again at the end of the chapter. This is mostly used as a way to show to the audience that he has a crush on her, since Shine is unaware.

Web Original

• Anathema follows the stories of Mascot, Dancer, and Radiant. The narration stays with one of the protagonists for a while (between 5 and eight chapters at a time), until it switches to another. Additionally, some of the interlude chapters are told from the point of view of other characters.
• And We Slipped Away, which is written from the point of view of a man and his murderer during the few seconds before he dies. The two inner monologues run together mid-sentence to form a continuous narrative.
• The titular character in Dragomir's Diary usually serves as the narrator, since it's, y'know, his diary. But he'll periodically be incapacitated or kidnapped or otherwise distracted from his writing, and someone else will have to take up the quill for a while. Past narrators have included Dragomir's wife, Dragomir's brother, the prince of Dragomir's home, the queen, a rat, a tarantula, and the diary itself.
• Oktober: each chapter is presented through each of the 4 characters' journals in turn.
• At the end of series 2 of Phaeton we switch perspectives to Teliha's, Word of God states we will see this happening more in series 3.
• In Unlikely Eden, the two protagonists take turns at narration.
• While Worm's main story is told from Taylor's first-person point of view, the interlude chapters/arcs and the epilogue are told from different characters' perspectives in third-person, giving backstory or filling in parts of the main story that Taylor wasn't present for.
• Season 3 of The Penumbra Podcast's Juno Steel storyline switches point of view to a different member of the Carte Blanche each episode (as opposed to the first two seasons, which were presented entirely from Juno's perspective).
• Galactiquest follows the crew of the Celestion-5. While some stories stick with one member's point of view, most switch between multiple chaacters.
• MoniRobo: Some stories tells the story from one person's POV and then switch the perspective to another person who is involved in the same story.

Web Videos

• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog focuses on Dr. Horrible/Billy, but "My Eyes" switches between Dr. Horrible narrating how he can't believe how horrible everything is turning, and Penny narrating how everything can get better.
• Unlike the main series, TekkitLive videos often have the perspective of multiple allied players edited together, swapping between them as needed. For example, Schlatt's videos also feature segments from Connor's streams, and Fitz's videos also feature segments from Kryoz's.

Western Animation

• Big City Greens: Most of the episode "Reckoning Ball" is from the perspective of the Big Bad Chip Whistler; however, during the living room scene, it briefly shifts to the Greens' perspective. This was probably done storywise to shield the audience from Chip's plan to use the Greens' kindness and trick them into thinking he changed his ways so he can take over Wholesome Foods, which he reveals in the last scene once his dad is out of the picture.

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