The new Star Wars trailer came out recently, official teaser #2, and it contains a rather brilliant example of the effective use of 2nd Person Point of View (PoV) I was talking about in an article a few weeks ago.* Check out the trailer below and you’ll see what I mean.
In part one of this series, which you can read here, I talked about the choice between First and Third Person Point of View (PoV), where First Person tends towards intimacy while Third Person can offer greater clarity. But it is far from a simple dichotomy. Choices regarding PoV and perspective are part of a nexus of alternative ways to embody the reader[i] in the text.
An easy way to demonstrate how PoV puts the reader inside the text is via the much maligned Second Person Perspective. In Second Person PoV you are the protagonist – “you said, you picked up the knife, you walked out of the room.” The following example is from a book that just about every geek of my age has read: (more…)
