Points of View Examples

This is a grab-bag of recognisable Points of View you can use when building characters for sketches, clown, improv, or written comedy.

When you pick one, you can:

Dial it up to the extreme — make it an obsession, a flaw, or an unstoppable worldview.
Place it into a strange or unlikely context — give “the eternal optimist” a job at a funeral home.
Mismatched combinations — give “the conspiracy theorist” the role of primary school lollipop person.

The magic is often in the clash between the POV and the situation.

Common & Playable POVs

The overly literal person — takes every statement at face value, no subtext allowed.
The eternal optimist — refuses to see the bad in anything.
The conspiracy theorist — connects unrelated dots to find “the truth”.
The doom-and-gloomer — finds disaster in every development.
The martyr — always suffering “for everyone else’s sake” (and wants you to know it).
The control freak — must have everything just so, even in chaos.
The people-pleaser — desperate to be liked, even by those they despise.
The pedant — corrects every minor inaccuracy.
The romanticiser — everything is a grand, poetic story, even the bin collection schedule.
The snob — judges everyone by arbitrary standards (wine, grammar, shoe brand).
The underdog fighter — assumes they’re battling an unfair system, always.
The proud underachiever — smug about their lack of effort.
The thrill-seeker — addicted to danger or novelty.
The know-it-all — has an answer for everything, no matter how wrong.
The rebel-without-a-cause — instinctively opposes authority, even when it’s sensible.
The over-sharer — gives you intimate details without invitation.
The miser — hoards money, time, or resources to absurd degrees.
The trend-chaser — instantly adopts every new fad without question.
The competitive one — turns everything into a contest, even friendship.
The mystic — finds spiritual meaning in the most mundane things.
The self-declared expert — speaks with absolute authority on things they’ve just learned.
The boundary-less helper — insists on “helping” in ways that cause more problems.
The selective listener — only hears what they want to hear.
The rules-are-everything type — values procedure above humanity.
The revenge-planner — keeps score and plots payback for the smallest slights.
The blissfully oblivious — unaware of chaos around them.
The over-empathiser — takes on everyone’s problems as their own.
The dreamer — lives in fantasy, struggles with reality.
The catastrophiser — imagines the worst possible outcome instantly.
The tough-love coach — believes harshness is kindness.
The nostalgia addict — insists everything was better “back in the day”.