- [Instructor] Hello, readers.
Today, I'd like to talk about differences
in point of view in literature.
When we analyze the perspectives of storytellers,
whether that's a point of view character,
an omniscient narrator, or a narrator that attaches closely
to multiple perspectives, we can understand the way
that an author is controlling the flow of information.
Who knows what, when, and what does that tell us?
A writer can control which characters have access
to information, and they can control what access you,
the reader, or the viewer, have to information to.
The information you have and the information
the characters have help develop our perspectives.
Within a story, conflict between characters
can come from a difference in perspective.
In "Avatar: The Last Airbender,"
the character of Prince Zuko is consumed
by his desire to capture the avatar,
as he feels that this will end his exile
and restore him to a place
of prominence at his father's side.
His uncle Iroh, however, understands based on many years
of hard experience, that Zuko's father
is a cruel man who never intended to take his son back.
Iroh only wants to keep his nephew safe.
This difference in perspective generates a lot
of conflict between the two of them.
The show slowly reveals Iroh's perspective over time.
Whereas we, as viewers, know what Zuko wants
and why almost immediately.
In fiction, that kind of information asymmetry between
the storyteller, the characters, and the audience,
leads to something called dramatic irony.
You're watching a play, or a TV show, or reading a book,
and you, the audience, the reader,
knows something that the characters don't.
This is possible because especially in a visual medium,
the audience has a different point
of view than the characters do.
We can see things they don't see.
This difference in point of view
is what allows tension, suspense, and jokes.
Remember, irony is just the difference
between expectation and result.
It can be leveraged to achieve anything
that uses the mechanism of surprise.
I don't wanna belabor how jokes work.
Literally nothing is more boring
or unfunny than explaining jokes.
So, let's use suspense as our example.
Imagine a very low stakes villain, The Cheeseler,
who goes around pranking people
by balancing buckets of cottage cheese on doorframes.
You go through the door, blam, you get cheesed.
I want you to imagine a scene in which we see
The Cheeseler booby trap the protagonist's door
with a bucket of cottage cheese.
Nobody else in the story is around to witness this.
After all, The Cheeseler stands alone.
And now, we see our hero in Tamika.
She's walking down the hall with such confidence,
blindly unaware of the cheesy threat
that awaits her when she opens that door.
We come back to the cheese.
It's still there, oh no, oh no Tamika.
Do you see what I'm doing here?
Do you see how this generates suspense?
You, the viewer, know something the character doesn't know.
The difference between her point of view
and your point of view generates tension.
This is something that writers do on purpose.
This tension, this dramatic irony,
draws us in because it's very satisfying to see it resolved.
We know that there's that possibility
of Tamika getting splatted with cottage cheese,
but what if Tamika, at the last moment, kicks open the door?
The cheese bucket drops, and Tamika catches it neatly.
Whoo, thank goodness.
She saw that the door was slightly ajar and put it together.
The tension is resolved as the gap closes
between what Tamika knows and what we know.
When characters resolve interpersonal differences,
it's through an alignment of their points of view.
That's what brings us to resolution.
The difference between two points of view can be reconciled,
and that too, is a way of relieving story tension.
Now, I'd like to counsel you against
making blanket statements about specific genres of work,
like sure, a first person story could limit
the flow of information because we're perceiving
a story through the senses of the point of view character.
But, in your analysis of that story,
be sure to get specific.
How does that specific character
in that particular situation see events?
Why does the author show us, the readers,
information that character doesn't get to see?
Asking yourself questions about those differences
in perspective between the narration and characters,
between two or more characters,
between the text and the reader,
will make it easy for you to analyze the impact
of those decisions that the author made.
And now, I'm going to go walk my dog.
I will see you all next time.
You can learn anything, David out.
All right.
(humming)
(metal clanking)
Oh, curse you Cheeseler!