Loss of a POV (Spoilers Extended)

Background

In this post, I thought it would be interesting to look into how a character stops being a POV (usually through death). With how GRRM wrote this series (from seeing each chapter through a individual character's POV, it gives the reader a sense of uneasiness knowing that while some characters possess plot armor that death could technically end any chapter.

If interested: Death of a POV: There is always another POV Character Around & Multiple POVs Present for the same Event

Prologues/Epilogues

"It's the viewpoint character who always dies. I like to break rules. Just when I get it established what the rule is, I like to break it. So maybe the viewpoint character will die in the prologue, and maybe they won't." -SSM, George R.R. Martin skipping 'Game of Thrones' for The Winds of Winter: 26 July 2014

• Will (killed by Waymar Royce who had turned into a wight)
• Cressen (dies via poison intended to kill both he/Melisandre)
• Chett (killed at the Fist, later turns into a wight)
• Pate (killed via a poisoned coin, with a FM now wearing his face)
• Varamyr (dies via a wound received from a wildling boy, currently living his second life inside One Eye)
• Kevan (killed via crossbow wound/daggers from Varys + Little Birds)

If interested: Prologue/Epilogue Characters: An Interesting Note & Adding an Epilogue to the Three Books Without One

AGoT: Eddard Stark (Death in another POV's Chapter)

I don't think many people were expecting Ned to die (the hero finds a way), so by killing Ned halfway through AGoT, GRRM set a tone for this series.

ACoK: Theon Greyjoy (Taken Hostage by Ramsay)

This is how Theon's arc ends in ACoK:

The Bastard’s backhand caught him square, and his cheekbone shattered with a sickening crunch beneath the lobstered steel. The world vanished in a red roar of pain.
Sometime later, Theon found himself on the ground. He rolled onto his stomach and swallowed a mouthful of blood. Close the gates! he tried to shout, but it was too late. The Dreadfort men had cut down Red Rolfe and Kenned, and more were pouring through, a river of mail and sharp swords. There was a ringing in his ears, and horror all around him. Black Lorren had his sword out, but there were already four of them pressing in on him. He saw Ulf go down with a crossbow bolt through the belly as he ran for the Great Hall. Maester Luwin was trying to reach him when a knight on a warhorse planted a spear between his shoulders, then swung back to ride over him. Another man whipped a torch round and round his head and then lofted it toward the thatched roof of the stables. “Save me the Freys,” the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, “and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all.”
The last thing Theon Greyjoy saw was Smiler, kicking free of the burning stables with his mane ablaze, screaming, rearing … -ACOK, Theon VI

which is left a bit open ended, which seems intentional:

Q: I heard the next book will not have a POV by Theon. Is this true? And does this mean that he is dead?
GRRM: It is true that his POV will not be present in STORM. This does not mean he's dead — but it doesn't mean he's alive either. -SSM, Event Horizon Chat

and:

Q: Oh, and would you be willing to reveal who will be the characters in ASOS? I remember we knew who the characters of ACOK would be well before the book came out.
GRRM: Well, mostly the same viewpoints as in CLASH, but I will be dropping Theon Greyjoy and adding Sam Tarly and <DELETED>. However, I'd rather you did not tell 'em about <DELETED>...-SSM, New Characters in ASOS: 1999

but we do find out in ASoS that Theon is indeed alive (although Im sure he wishes he wasnt):

“Did Ramsay mention Theon Greyjoy?” Robb demanded. “Was he slain as well, or did he flee?”

Roose Bolton removed a ragged strip of leather from the pouch at his belt. “My son sent this with his letter.”
Ser Wendel turned his fat face away. Robin Flint and Smalljon Umber exchanged a look, and the Greatjon snorted like a bull. “Is that … skin?” said Robb.
“The skin from the little finger of Theon Greyjoy’s left hand. My son is cruel, I confess it. And yet … what is a little skin, against the lives of two young princes? You were their mother, my lady. May I offer you this … small token of revenge?”
Part of Catelyn wanted to clutch the grisly trophy to her heart, but she made herself resist. “Put it away. Please.”
“Flaying Theon will not bring my brothers back,” Robb said. “I want his head, not his skin.”
“He is Balon Greyjoy’s only living son,” Lord Bolton said softly, as if they had forgotten, “and now rightful King of the Iron Islands. A captive king has great value as a hostage.” -ASOS, Catelyn VI

ASoS: Catelyn Stark (Death/Resurrected but does NOT return as POV)

While the Red Wedding was extremely shocking, GRRM does wonder if it would have been better to show it from Robb's POV:

Q: Do you regret not showing the point of view of any of the characters?
GRRM: Sometimes, yes. Although, I think that I have more than enough personal narratives (laughs). Perhaps even a little more than is needed at this stage, and I should kill a few characters. But I still most of all regret that I did not give Robb Stark to be the main character in the early books. His death, and so made a great impression, but it could have an even greater impact if all throughout history we saw a little more events through his eyes. Especially if they knew what happened to him in the Westerlands, where he led his army and where he was wounded in battle. He was leaving Jane Westerling, whom he eventually married - and this in turn launched a chain of events leading to the Red Wedding. Of course, I'm talking about a book here, in the series everything goes a little different. In the books we learn about Robb along with Caitlin Stark - in the chapters told on her behalf. Robb comes back and presents his new wife to his mother; we do not know what happened to them there, so for us it is like a bolt from the blue. And this is a very good scene, but if I gave Robb his own point of view, the text could be even better. Well, you understand. But I did not. -SSM, Russian Interviw: 2017 (link to a post with the article, reddit is weird about russian links recently)

that said when Cat died, it not only was still a shock but was even more shocking later:

Question: The introduction of a revived Cat in the epilogue caused some dispute on the board. (BTW, after a few awkward meanderings on what exactly to call this 'revenant', we've dubbed her 'UnCat'. Some thought it was fine, some thought it cheapens the plot to use this device. And some, like myself, would withhold judgement, until we see where you're going with this character. My question is whether Cat is exactly the same person now as she was just before her throat was cut (beyond the physical deterioration, I mean), or whether she has changed.
GRRM: Death does change a person. No, I do not think Catelyn is as she was, no more than Lord Beric...
And by the way, there will no Catelyn POVs in future volumes, which may tell you something. -SSM, UnCat: 23 August 2000

If interested: GRRM on Resurrected POV Characters

The Mega Prologue (~13 Chapters)

At one point, GRRM planned to have a massive prologue covering the Ironborn/Dornish chapters:

I have ripped apart the idea of my original 250-page prologue for the beginning of A Feast for Crows. I decided it didn’t work as the prologue, but I am not dropping any of it. I am just carrying all those characters through as new viewpoint characters. I needed to continue with those stories, and I thought it wasn’t working to have 250 pages before the reader got to any of the characters he liked from the preceding three books. So, those chapters are still there, but they are now mixed in and around other chapters. Since the Asha Greyjoy and Victarian Greyjoy chapters picked up practically in mid-sentence, I kept them together...Initially, when I began this a million years ago, there was just one chapter: Aeron Damphair at the Kingsmoot. We saw the Kingsmoot through his eyes. But, it expanded as you can see. There is stuff leading up to the Kingsmoot. I tell the Kingsmoot from three different viewpoints; similar in the Dornish thing. These are the kinds of things I am going back and forth about. Some of these things are making this book very difficult. I never intended these viewpoints to come on. They all began as prologue viewpoints, but its necessary; there’s stuff happening in Dorne and the Iron Islands that is going to have an impact on the book. I couldn’t figure out any logical way to get Sansa to Dorne or Bran to the Iron Islands to see what was going on. -SSM: GamePro Interview July 2003

If interested: Death of the Mega-Prologue POVs

The AFFC Long Prologue & Rosey Version

During this time GRRM was playing around with who to use as the Prologue and while it was always going to be Pate as compared to Varamyr, GRRM not only wrote a long version of the Prologue, but also had a version where Rosey was the POV as well (he didn't finish it but a placeholder has GRRM questioning whether to have Leo do it or introduce the hooded man).

If interested: AFFC, Long Prologue: Some Random Interesting Things & The AFFC Long Prologue: Some Extended Thoughts

The AFFC/ADWD Split

GRRM chose to split AFFC/ADWD by location (even though ADWD runs past the AFFC plot end). This caused numerous POV characters to not have chapters in one or the other.

If interested: The POVs Added in ADWD

Arys Oakheart (One Chapter Death)

Arys Oakheart was not originally going to die in Dorne (at least not initially) as GRRM was going to have Boros Blount die of congenial heart failure (if interested: What's "Eating" Boros Blount?) and have him surrender (if interested: "Eternal Shame": Thoughts on an Abandoned Plotline in Dorne), I think Arys' death was a casualty of GRRM POV needs:

Question: do you choose characters because they will provide you with a viewpoint or something characterful?
GRRM: Actually, no. I try to give each viewpoint character an arc of his own, and ideally I would like to think that you could pull the material out – in the early books I was able to pull out the Daenerys chapters and publish them separately as a novella, and I won a Hugo Award for that. It'd be great if I could pull out each [character-arc] and it would resemble a story. In some cases a character died and that was a very short story. My prologue and epilogue characters always die but even then I try to give them a story. -SSM, Redwood City Signing Interview with Dan Jones - "An Evening with GRRM": 8 Sept 2011

If interested: GRRM: Gardening/Shifting Deaths

Quentyn Martell (Short Tragic Story Arc)

Poor Quentyn. While some readers disagree (many claim to think his story is unnecessary to a pretty bloated series), I think GRRM was able to do so many valuable things for the story in Quentyn's short, beautiful storyline.

There are two kinds of characters – the viewpoint characters and the non-viewpoint characters. I have added some viewpoint characters, over the years, because I needed viewpoints in other places. None of my viewpoint characters were in the right place to observe a scene that I needed to be observed. But, I try to be careful about adding viewpoint characters because, when I add one, I don’t want just a reporter. I want to make that a fully-flushed character who has his own arc, even if it’s a short arc for a character who dies suddenly. -SSM, Collider Interview: 2014

If interested: The Meereenese Knot: The Three Arrivals of the Frog Prince

Victarion

Before he came up with the current storyline, GRRM had Victarion dying in his last AFFC chapter. Since Euron came along to Slaver's Bay in this version my guess is that Aeron would have been revealed to have been in the bowels of the Silence all along and The Forsaken would have taken place (in some form) outside of Meereen. Since GRRM has seemingly Split the Greyjoy Plotline, this has morphed into at least 3 more Victarion chapters, which could ultimately result in Victarion still dying in TWoW.

If interested: A Quick Look at Some Changes to Victarion's Plotline

Fakeouts

GRRM also does a really good job of faking deaths so the reader is even more confused, here are just a couple examples:

• Arya

She heard loud splashing and looked back to see Stranger pounding after her, sending up gouts of water with every stride. She saw the longaxe too, still wet with blood and brains. And Arya ran. Not for her brother now, not even for her mother, but for herself. She ran faster than she had ever run before, her head down and her feet churning up the river, she ran from him as Mycah must have run.
His axe took her in the back of the head. -ASOS, Arya XI

and:

"Did you hit her with an axe too?"
"I hit you with the flat of the axe, you stupid little bitch. If I'd hit you with the blade there'd still be chunks of your head floating down the Green Fork. Now shut your bloody mouth. If I had any sense I'd give you to the silent sisters. They cut the tongues out of girls who talk too much." -ASOS, Arya XII

• Jaime

They mean to scare me. The fool hopped on Jaime’s back, giggling, as the Dothraki swaggered toward him. The goat wants me to piss my breeches and beg his mercy, but he’ll never have that pleasure. He was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; no sellsword would make him scream.
Sunlight ran silver along the edge of the arakh as it came shivering down, almost too fast to see. And Jaime screamed. -ASOS, Jaime III

and:

His hand burned.
Still, still, long after they had snuffed out the torch they'd used to sear his bloody stump, days after, he could still feel the fire lancing up his arm, and his fingers twisting in the flames, the fingers he no longer had. -ASOS, Jaime IV

Jon Snow (Stabbed at Castle Black)

Jon will likely warg Ghost while his human body is "dead":

Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. -ADWD, Melisandre I

that said with what we know about Cat as a POV, the potential exists for Jon to stop being a POV (for a quite awhile at least) and at a minimum we should expect him to be different (detached and potentially hyper fixated on whatever his goals/tasks where before he died). That said him warging Ghost could make him a special case.

If interested: Dany and Jon as POV Characters

TLDR: A somewhat disjointed post discussing the fate of POV characters and how they are removed from the story.