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KD
Since: May, 2009
6th Dec, 2020 07:00:33 AM
For "POV character passes out and they don't witness X", I'm not too sure. However, there are its effects:
Battle Discretion Shot: Fight happens; we don't see it.
Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Someone does an awesome thing; we don't see it.
Boring Return Journey: The trip back to the safety of home receives a fraction of ink compared to the trip into danger.
Is there a trope for when the POV character passes out right before or in the middle of the action, so the audience never actually sees what goes down? Like when Harry loses consciousness at the end of The Philosopher's Stone, so the audience never sees how he, Ron and Hermione got out of there and instead hears it from Dumbledore when he explains it to Harry later. Or the part in Mara: Daughter of the Nile where Mara passes out from blood loss right as the final battle begins and awakens just in time to see its aftermath, so all the real fighting happens offscreen while she's asleep. I'm sure there are other examples, but none that I can specifically remember right now. It seems to happen mostly in children's books, when showing the actual scenes would be too violent for the audience (like in Mara's case) or simply more easily told than shown (like in Harry Potter's case.)
I guess the TLDR is: is there a specific trope for when an author uses conveniently unconscious POV characters as an excuse to tell instead of show?
Edited by toastwithoutbutter