A Clash of Kings

What is the author's style in A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin?

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The novel is told from the point of view of several characters in turn, using a third-person limited point of view. Each character describes the events as they see them, and the reader is aware of things that certain characters are not. For example, the reader is aware that Bran and Rickon Stark survived the attack on Winterfell, but their mother, Catelyn Stark, thinks they are dead. Some of the events in each character's section overlap, and some characters give their accounts of the same events. For example, Ser Davos Seaworth and Tyrion Lannister each describe their parts in the same battle when Stannis Baratheon attacks King's Landing.

This method gives the reader a richer and broader experience of the world of the Seven Kingdoms. The events and their connections are not spelled out; instead, some of the implications of things that happen in the novel must be connected through the reader's mind. This also gives the narrators' some unreliability, as each only has so much information, and no one narrator is free to see the big picture. It also shows how events can be misconstrued by some narrators, and the misunderstanding of these events can be the catalyst for future events.

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