Point of View

The point of view of the novel is mostly first-person past with Alina as the narrator. However, in the prologue and epilogue, the point of view switches to a third-person past. The third-person narrator gives the story a fairytale frame, allowing the story to introduce and conclude itself like a traditional myth or legend: “The boy and the girl had once dreamed of ships, long ago, before they’d ever seen the True Sea. They were the vessels of stories, magic ships with masts hewn from sweet cedar and sails spun by maidens from thread of pure gold. Their crews were white mice who sang songs and scrubbed the decks with their pink tails” (272). Here, we see the distant narrator introduce Alina and Mal and their plight to leave Ravka from a distance.

Once the prologue ends and the novel begins in earnest, the point...