MC Unique Ability: Threat

questions
#1

Playing around with a storyform, I found the MC’s Unique Ability to fall under threat and am a little confused. Would this express boldness, or the ability to ignore possible negative repercussions. Would the expression, “Fools venture where angels fear to tread?” be a way to describe this?

In the story, the MC is an aspiring photographer who’s looking for a way to stand out from the crowd when he chances upon an execution late at night and takes pictures. Instead of handing the snap shots to the authorities, he publishes them on his site, ignoring his mentor’s warnings and inviting trouble for himself from both the law and the world of crime.

#2

To use Threat as your MC’s Unique Ability, I think your story will need to put its dilemma question in the area of whether or not the MC is sufficiently aware of the dangers coming from his web-posting actions, and if the “good” he has calculated will result form his postings can still be accomplished despite the dangerous jeopardy he is putting himself and his loved ones in.

That is, if the MC believes his mentor is wrong, and that “the authorities” won’t quickly enough take the needed actions to capture the murderer/executioner, then his Unique Ability of discerning and gauging threat could turn out to be the problem-solver.

Basically, I’m suggesting the MC calculates that his photographic web postings could make the executioner get nervous/careless — and perhaps even get him looking in the wrong place for retribution, because website addresses are a lot easier to fake than property addresses.

And (so long as yours is a Success-Good story), your Steadfast MC turns out to be right despite all the contrasting “wisdom” and close calls.

If so, I see such a story aligning well with other Dramatica Story Examples that have a Steadfast MC with the Unique Ability of Threat — like The Incredibles and Mr. Roberts. Both of these, I believe, come down to the MC properly gauging the power of the threat against the promise of the gamble.

Of course other Dramatica Story Examples with this same MC Unique Ability end in Steadfast-Failure-Bad (the MC of Double Indemnity did not properly use his Unique Ability)… or Change-Success-Good (the MC of Some Like It Hot did not properly use his Unique Ability of Threat until after he had Changed).

Does any of that help?

#3

Right, so he’s able to gauge the dangers, to learn who the criminals are and what they’re suspected of having done, but his Critical Flaw of Confidence (“I won’t get caught”) undermines his awareness. Only, when they come after him, he knows what he’s up against because he’s already done his research.

EDIT: So it’s not the unique ability of threat, it’s the critical flaw of confidence that would illustrate “fools venture where angels fear to tread.”

#4

Yup, I believe that’s right. Which means you’ll need other characters to question your MC’s Confidence and the accuracy of his sense of Threat — which eventually turns out to be just sufficient for the needs of this case.

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#5

Yes.

Unique Ability ties the Main Character into the Overall Story so you would need to know what the Overall Story Goal is, but yes, his ability to threaten other people, or the idea that he could be a threat or the idea that he is not threatened by others will be the kind of thing that will tie him into successfully achieving the Overall Story goal.

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