PERCIVAL: Now, who is telling the story?
SEVERIN: The camera is telling the story. It's watching everything, and you can't lie to it, or it will know.
PERCIVAL: My girl is so clever! No, the camera witnesses the story and records it, but it is outside the story. Like a very tiny god with one big, dark eye.... Which of [the characters] is the authority? Who controls how the story is told? And who is the audience, for whom all these wonderful things are meant?
SEVERIN: They are all telling the story to me.

Catherynne M. Valente