Onward and the Importance of POV

If you haven't watched Onward yet, please do. It's Pixar's latest (until Soul comes out whenever that may be). I know some people say it's as good as some of their other ones are, and maybe it isn't, but I love it. It's an urban fantasy, D&D inspired adventure that two brothers go on to have one last day with their father.

I've seen it a few times since it came out, and there's one big thing that stuck out to me. While both brothers are main characters, it's really Ian's story. Which makes me happy, because Ian is my new anxious spirit animal. (Funnily enough, my sister and I are practically Ian and Barley and now want to cosplay as them.) But today I want to look at how Onward used point of view to tell a powerful story.

Spoilers ahead!

Choose Your POV Character Wisely

There are loads of posts out there about importance of picking which characters will have a point of view in a book. It's one of the most important decisions you'll make when starting a new novel. You're going to be seeing everything through their eyes, their lens on the world, so you need to choose wisely.

In Onward, the filmmakers could have picked either of the brothers to tell the story, or even both. When you first watch it, you might not even notice that there is a point of view in the story. But look closer, and you'll see that it's really from Ian's.

The opening starts by showing Ian on the morning of his 16th birthday and from there we continue following him through most of the story. If we had followed Barley instead, it would have been a different story. And I don't think it would have been as good.

Your POV Character Presents Information

Every POV character has a certain set of information they bring to the page, or in this case, screen. Ian is a genius choice on one level for that exact reason. He's not big into Quests of Yore (basically D&D) like Barley is, so he has to learn all about magic and monsters, much like we, the viewer, does. This helps makes things more relatable to us.

He also doesn't know that much about his dad, and neither do we. Together we get to learn what his dad was like and experience the whole quest to bring him back. Also, of the two brothers, Ian is more relatable as the young, anxious high schooler, than Barley, the rebel young adult, does. (I've never chained myself to a fountain in protest, personally, but maybe one of you has.)

The Character That Changes

Another important thing is the that the POV character should be the one that changes the most over the story. Not in ever case, but in most. In the movie, we watch Ian go from someone too scared to merge into traffic, to a blossoming wizard able to make vans fly. That change comes slowly through the film, but the most important part is at the end of the climax. Whereas Barley doesn't change much throughout the film.

They finally find the piece to bring back their dad, only to trigger a protection spell that tries to stop them. In that moment, Ian chooses to sacrifice ever meeting his dad so that his brother can say his goodbyes. He does this because he realizes that in a way, Barley has been his father this whole time, and while he still wishes he could meet his dad, Barley having closure is more important.

That's why it's so much better when told from Ian's POV. If we had been following Barley, it would have been a simple quest to see his dad one last time. Touching, but not nearly as powerful as Ian giving up that chance. Through the story, he realizes that he has everything he needs, without meeting his dad.

I could probably go on about this movie for a long time, including a guess that Barley holds so tightly to old things because of his early childhood trauma of losing his dad, but I'll spare you my fangirling. I hope you learned something from this post and got what I was trying to say.

Have you seen Onward? What's a story you've read or watched that had great POV? Tell me in the comments.

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