"Kate should hold the gun."

One of my goals for the summer is to keep a journal of sorts of things I watch and play. There is much to be learned from things that have already been made, right? Naturally, spoilers abound below.

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In Episode 3 of Lost, the audience and a few of the characters are aware that Kate has some kind of criminal background. Her escorting officer keeps telling Jack over and over again that she's dangerous and can't be trusted. But at that moment, she is in the mountains searching for signal.

Sawyer has a gun. Sayid has the clip. No one is happy. Tension is high. Eventually, someone says, "Kate should hold the gun."

An interesting thing was going on at this point in the scene. To the characters in the scene, the conflict was over. There was some tension in actually giving it to her, but, overall, it was a good solution. She seemed, to them, to be the most level-headed and unlikely to use it against the wishes of the group. Scene over, right?

This is one of the moments where the writers are using the knowledge the audience has to make a moment more tense than it is to the characters. For the characters, the tension arises from the interpersonal conflict and clash over what to do with the gun. But in the minds of the audience, we have a much higher conflict: we have now given a gun to a person with a criminal past who is probably very dangerous. Whereas the characters' tension is resolved, ours is just beginning.

Luckily, the scene still ends there. If it had gone on, I doubt the tension would last. Instead, it pushes another wedge of distrust into our minds and another variable that could change at any second in the character of Kate.

Again, this storytelling device may not work as well when it comes to game stories.

Most games are told from a single perspective: the player-character's. Sometimes they are a true character, sometimes only an avatar, but it is rare for the player's perspective to shift between multiple points of view in the same story-line. This means that usually, the player has the same information (sometimes less!) as the character.

Maybe that should change. Maybe let the player - at any point - shift between characters. I dunno. Just an idea.