Usually what makes the POV shift more smooth for me is if that particular chapter opens with said character being the focus. Since ch 9 started with Utgar that's what made it stick out to me. It's not bad per se, just a little jarring. It's like this one French show I was watching in my language class in college where suddenly gratuitous nudity was introduced a dozen episodes in. It's not a major turn off, I just wasn't expecting it because usually content is established consistently throughout a TV show. Or how literally anything I write always becomes extremely violent out of nowhere towards the end
Of course it may also be because the narration style had been distant as I noted earlier. I don't think we've been privy to inner thoughts dialogue for Utgar, as far as I can recall. That may have contributed as well.
~TAF