Objective vs Subjective in 3rd person

We say that you’re either using one or the other, but it seems to me you use both and swap out between them as need dictates.

In close or subjective third apparently you can only write about what the MC knows or sees or thinks. But this seems a bit arbitrary and I kept thinking it isn’t necessarily true, and suddenly I realized why—because of movies. We’ve all seen way more movies than we’ve read stories (probably), so the way they work naturally influences us as writers. In movies the only way to really get subjective (inside a character’s thoughts and feelings) is through voiceover, and you have to be really careful with that. Gardner says it works best with an MC from a culture with a strong verbal tradition and a strong accent such as the American south, east coast yankees, inner city youth, etc, which explains why voiceover narrators tend to have those accents and the stories (movies) tend to be set in those locations. And why when I was trying to write my prologue for The Beastseekers I kept hearing it with a southern accent even though it takes place in Illinois and the characters aren’t from the south.

Gardner also has an obvious disdain for all POVs except for 3rd person Omniscient or the Eye of God as it’s called.

But what I really want to discuss is this: I realize now why my own writing, when it’s not in 1st person, tends to be 3rd objective. It’s partly because of movies, but the more pressing reason is that they weren’t ‘my’ stories, they were ‘ours’.

These Beastseeker stories were written about my friend (‘Eric’) and I, starting when we were 16, and looking back at them I can see there was no character differentiation—partly because we were 16 but also because we didn’t want to hurt the other’s feelings. If I were to make myself the MC or mention some trait of his that he doesn’t like he would have been offended or hurt. So 3rd objective was the natural choice even though I had never heard the term and knew little to nothing about POV aside from the difference between 1st and 3rd.

I also notice 2 of my biggest writing influences tend not to go into the heads of their characters. Keith Laumer’s writing tends to be in a Noir style or at least written as if it were. His tough-guy characters never reveal their thoughts or emotions. And Fritz Lieber in his Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series was writing Tales or at least writing in a very Tale-appropriate mode. Tales are like fables in that they don’t delve into detail or into the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. And of course eventually I discovered his characters were based on himself and his real-life friend.

My next-strongest influence Andre Norton was very different. She definitely included interiority. When I graduated from Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Adventure I discovered JG Ballard and Angela Carter (well ok, still sci-fi and fantasy, but much more challenging in certain ways). Ballard never went inside the heads of his characters that I can remember (I’d need to check) and Carter largely wrote in the tradition of Tales—in fact it was from her introduction to her collection Fireworks that I learned what makes for a good Tale in the Poe tradition.

Maybe I was attracted to these writers because they showed me how to continue writing without hurting ‘Eric’s’ feelings or elevating myself above him as the MC? In Ballard’s case I suspect he had a hard time understanding interiority—IIRC I think he was on the autism spectrum or something similar that dulled his understanding of what’s going on in other people’s heads and possibly his own as well. At least that was my impression.

In going through my draft and trying to insert some inward-oriented musings or reveal some thoughts or feelings I find often it would interrupt the flow of action or dialogue, so I see it needs to be done probably at the beginning or end of such an exchange, or possibly take the place of one.

I’m also curious about this; during a segment that’s done in 3rd Objective, with the POV floating externally some distance away from the characters, is it OK to write something the MC wouldn’t be able to see? Something happening behind him? I’m of 2 minds about it. My gut feeling is that these scenes are done externally, as if the ‘camera’ is an observer standing nearby, so it isn’t a problem. Just as in a movie we can see scenes taking place in distant locations that the MC can’t be seeing. But I need to try to wrap my head around it. Is there a difference between movies and stories in this regard? And if so is it just arbitrary tradition (“It’s always done this way because they say so in all the writing books”), or is it from some factor inherent to the form?

EDIT—I should add I'm talking about a story where my POV shifts from 3rd Objective to occasionally 3rd Subjective to show what the MC is thinking or feeling. Would it be OK in an Objective scene, which seems to be seen from a 'camera angle' some distance away, not inside the head of the character, to show something happening behind him? And I'm looking for the Why, not just assertion that something is or isn't OK.

Anyway, just some general thinking on the topic that I wanted to get down somewhere and this seemed like the place for such inward-directed musings on the topic of inward-directed musings.

2nd EDIT—it occurs to me the real question is this—do you really have to be locked in to objective or subjective in 3rd person (assuming it's not Omniscient)? Because I don't feel like you're really 'inside the MC's head' except during those parts where thoughts or feelings or inner knowledge are being expressed. Otherwise it feels like 3rd objective or an external viewpoint to me. I know I've heard many times that it has to be one or the other. What I'm asking is, is this really the case, and if so why?

Shaking my head at my tendency to cloud the waters by overcomplicating every question and writing way too much about everything.