I did in fact very much like this particular instance. It was emotionally disturbing, but the fact that found it intellectually fulfilling won this time (also, when the fourth season is taken into account it will also be emotionally fulfilling). I actually found to fit very well with the story of Prez that they were telling, but only if you look back to the first season, perhaps not if the third season would be judged on its own.

A somewhat similar example is the whole movie Requiem for a dream. I liked everything in that movie, acting, directing, script. The story I found smart and intellectually fulfilling. I liked everything except the movie itself.

In fact I resented it, because the smart heaping of unhappy resolutions of stories made it impossible for me to find any emotional connection to the characters.

Actually, this is a problem that might be hard to solve during actual play, I believe. I have never before thought about it in roleplaying terms, only about movies. This is interesting.

Just clicky on the “sockets” tag in the left hand bar.

Could I convince you to link up a socket theory reading list? That would be fabulous.

Fang Langford
Creator of the Scattershot Role-Playing Game

Is it how they present the scene (quick shots, jump to the aftermath; quite literally the mechanical elements of the scene) that cuts you off from the socket or is it the event itself?

If there had been more lead up to the shooting itself, and if it had occurred on-screen instead of off-screen, do you think that would have changed your reaction? Is that what felt withheld? Or is it something else or something more?

For example: Say they had followed Pryz from the beginning of the chase right through to when he pulled the trigger, letting you watch the chase and discover, with him, the person he had just shot, let you watch his face change from grim success to mute horror?

I’m think you’re on that it’s a dissonance issue, but I still think it’s socket related. Certainly dissonance on any level (mode, method, technique), can cause disconnection and can probably cause disconnection on a number of levels. In this one, the place where I experienced the disconnection was at socket level.

On some level, that disconnect seems like one way of still being connected to the character, a result of plugging into them. Maybe I’m just sensitized right now, but in the sort of moment Pryz is in, is he really connected to himself? Or, more likely, is he suddenly coldly distanced from his own sense of self?

In that moment, can Pryz empathize with (his idea of) himself?

When we experience those events, it’s simply awful–the sort of thing that makes you want to die, go mad, pretend it never happened, etc. As empathizing audience of a fictional story, we have an easier out, which is to redirect our attention to the fictionality of the setting, to focus on its unreality, treat the development as a narrative device…but it’s the same sort of reaction.