Can you tell me the difference between “view point character” and “point of view”?

The author's voice is omnipresent and implicit. You probably couldn't find it in the text if you tried looking fr it, but it's the voice that drives everything, constructs everything...really, it's the only voice, as the other voices are only produced by the author's voice.
Ok, so take The Road. It's in third person limited. The focalised character is usually The Man, the narrator is unnamed and disembodied. There is no suggestion anywhere in the text, and no possible way of reading, that would make the narrator and The Man the same character.
Take The Secret History. The focalised character is Richard Papen, the narrator is a disembodied voice that is obviously and exclusively distinct from Richard. There is absolutely no way that you can read the narrator's voice as belonging to the character.
Take Mrs Dalloway. The focalised character is (for the most part) Clarissa Dalloway, the narrator is a disembodied voice, and again, reading the narrator and the character as one in the same makes no sense whatsoever.

To be honest, I really don't know what else to say. The way you are describing third person narration is, to be totally honest, ridiculous, and doesn't have any evidence I can think of to support it. In third person, there is quite simply no way that the narrator and the narrated character can be the same person. The narrated character is not telling their story, as they are in first person, their story is being told by someone observing them, and since they are not observing themselves from a distance, they cannot be the narrator.

The three distinct voices is more a theoretical conception than a practical one, although in a practical sense there will still be at least 2 distinct voices, that of the narrator and the characters, which can never be the same.

 

Architectus, are you talking about where the narrator (in the third) slides into the mind of a character? The voice manages to become the thoughts and opinions of the character (usually a bit-part) before pulling back out again or shifting back into description.

 

Rawne. This is what I mean. The narrator talks no differently than the POV character because they are the same.

He walked into the dirty store owned by those rats from down the street. God, he hated them. He only shopped there for convenience, to save gas money because it was close to his house. (Narrator is the POV character.)

He walked into the dirty shop owned by his neighbors. He hated them. He only shopped there for convenience, to save gas money because it was close to his house. (Narrator is not the POV character.)

 

No. Even in your first example, the narrator is not the narrated character. Sounding like them and being them are not the same thing.
'God, I hate them," he thought and "God, he hated them" are the same thing - the character thinking - narrated slightly differently. Confusing either for the narrator and the character merging is a mistake. They are two separate entities. The narrator is not thinking the thought, only relating it to readers, since they couldn't read it otherwise.

 

I have to agree with arch 100%. . .

arron, you ignored the first sentence: Those rats down the street vs. simply his neighbors.

If every sentence from the narrator is infused with the personality of the character--his thoughts, perceptions, language and so on--then the narrator is, for all intents and purposes, that character. I think you're just taking it too literally, and hence your confusion. . . But it is helpful for one who writes in restricted TPL to essentially become the character in one's own mind. . .

When I write in tight TPL, I am the character. . . and of course, I am the narrator. Sometimes I take more liberties with my narration and use more of the language and such that I'm naturally inclined to (less character influence), and it's still technically a form of TPL. . . just zoomed out a level or two. TPL does seem to have numerous "stages", which are all perfectly valid, and that seems to confuse people as well.

But if we're talking about the most restricted form, then yes, the narrator is essentially the character. First person in different words, with the option to easily expand.

 

No, the difference I'm pointing out is in the first example I am the POV character. Thus why I called them rats because that is what the POV character would say, not what I the writer would say or think.

Everything I write from discription to tag lines are as if I were the POV character. I narrate as if I were him. I am writing it as if I were another person telling my own story, but instead of typing in first person to do so, I am using third person.

Call it what you will when I do that, but I consider it as the POV character and narrator being one in the same thing. I prefer books written like this rather than the narrator sounding different than the POV character or becoming too objective.

The stupid room was dirty. (POV Character is the narrator.)
The room was dirty. (narrator is objective and not the POV character.)

The POV character is a teenage girl. I guess there is really nothing else to say on this particular point. We just see it differently and word our selves differently. Others will take from this what they will, and choose to see it one way or the other when they write. Hopefully, OX is not completely confused now, ha.

BTW, I understand why you see it the way you do. I just choose to see it in the way that makes sense to me.

 

KAS, correct. I could zoom out a bit and be more objective when I feel it is best for the scene. I can pull the camera back and view the character and scene, which I can't do in first person. In first person I have to keep the camera in the character's eyes.

When I do zoom out, I agree, the narrator is changing to me the author. I could also take up another personality for the narrator for when I zoom out. But when I am in tight, every sentence is influenced by the POV character.

I don't feel so crazy now because Kas gets what I'm saying.

 

I guess I've taken one too many narratology courses. There is simply no way that the narrator can be the narrated character. If you wrote an essay based on that argument, you'd be failed. Its fundamentally wrong. I guess for practical purposes, its easy to call the narrator the narrated character, but its not technically correct, nor can it be. The narrator is perhaps best seen as a function of the text, rather than an entity within it; they translate between the character and the reader, mediating in between. The character is not narrating their own story in third person. The character is not saying to the reader "this is what I think" or "this is what I am doing". If that was the case, it would be first person and something else entirely. In third person, the character is not narrating their own actions, therefore there is a need for a narrator, a literal 'third person'. The narrator has no agency themselves (unless they are embodied as a character narrating another character) and simply expresses the thoughts and actions of the narrated character so that they can be read. They do not have their own thoughts, they only tell us what is being thought by the narrated character. In doing this, the autor may choose to have the narrated character's thoughts and voice affect the voice of the narration, but as I said before, this cannot be confused with the narrator becoming the character. The narrator, strictly speaking, is doing nothing but rephrasing what is being said, thought and dne by the narrated character so that it can be read. The character is not becoming the narrator, or vice versa.

 

arch, I also prefer the character as narrator. George Martin writes that way, with around a dozen or so characters in his Ice and Fire series. When the view switches from a knight to a homeless little girl, everything about the narration changes. The sheer number of different, highly authentic "voices" is one of his greatest strengths, and one of the main attractions.

Since he is my favourite author, I guess it's inevitable that I mimic him in some ways. I write in close TPL mainly because I enjoy reading it and I have a great deal of admiration for the those who excel in the art.