Focalization was formulated in response to the weaknesses of earlier models which confused the categories of point of view and voice, either by calling the character from whose point of view the narrative was rendered a narrator or by presenting under point of view a model embracing the status of the narrator. Genette in fact explicitly aligned his new term with earlier models; all he insisted was that 'who sees?' was a separate question from 'who speaks?'. The new term he thought useful for what he oddly regarded as its less visual connotation.