I AM BACK

I collapsed under the overwhelming weight of updating and keeping the website current, and took it all down. I was so gratified by how many of you wrote to me about missing this resource. I know it’s controversial, but AI saved me. It automated processes that I couldn’t handle on my own. Never fear. The content and analysis are all mine.  etbscreenwriting.com is back with fresh content every few days. I am currently updating The Power of Truth book, so I am concentrating on those character examples. But all the previous eBooks are back online.

The Power of Truth Character Type

What is a Character Type? Character Type determines how a person views the world, sees his or her place in it, and develops a philosophy of life and love, Character Type creates innate strengths and weaknesses and determines the lessons to be learn over the arc of the story. An archetype is a job (mentor, wizard, trickster, etc.) Character Type determines how someone does their job in story and why they do it.

Power of Truth characters go where others fear to tread in whatever job they do. They poke and prod, never believing what’s on the surface of things. They fear being unable to distinguish truth from lies or being unable to spot or prove cover-ups, conspiracies, hidden pitfalls, or the secret agendas of others. They suspect and try to detect what someone’s real motives might be or what is hidden from an initial or superficial assessment of a situation.

The past three years have seen an explosion of Power of Truth characters across television and film, reflecting our cultural moment of institutional distrust, conspiracy awareness, and reality fragmentation.

These aren’t just detectives solving crimes—they’re investigators questioning the nature of truth itself in a world where everyone seems to have hidden agendas, where news might be fake, where surveillance is ubiquitous, and where even your own memories might be unreliable.

Television has given us particularly compelling Power of Truth characters who investigate week after week as their paranoia deepens with each revelation.

Charlie Cale in Peacock’s Poker Face may be the most literal Power of Truth character ever created—Natasha Lyonne plays an itinerant casino worker with the supernatural ability to detect when anyone is lying to her. This makes her the perfect investigator and the loneliest person alive. Read more HERE.

Netflix’s The Diplomat brings the Character Type into international politics. Keri Russell’s Ambassador Kate Wyler investigates a massive conspiracy while trying to determine whom she can trust within her own government, including even her husband. Read more HERE.

HBO’s The Penguin shows the darkest version of the Character Type in Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb. Cobb is a Gotham crime boss who trusts absolutely no one and strategically builds relationships he’s already planning to betray—the Power of Truth character fallen completely to the Dark Side, where paranoia and disloyalty become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Read more HERE.

Recent films have explored the Power of Truth Character Type through both epic and intimate lenses.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two transforms the Character Type into mythic tragedy. Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides investigates his own destiny through prescient visions that reveal countless possible futures—which end in betrayal and catastrophe. This creates the ultimate Power of Truth nightmare: having access to the truth about what’s coming and still being unable to prevent the worst of it. Read more HERE.

The horror film Longlegs features Maika Monroe as FBI agent Lee Harker investigating a serial killer, only to discover disturbing connections to her own past and the possibility that her investigative abilities might have a supernatural source. Read more HERE.

These characters proliferate because we’re living through an era that validates Power of Truth paranoia. Institutional betrayals have proven real (government surveillance, criminal cover-ups, political conspiracies), reality itself seems fragmented (deepfakes, misinformation, social media manipulation), and the question “What’s really happening?” has become a matter of survival rather than neurosis.

It’s good to be back.  I’ve missed you!

Get The Power of Truth eBook. HERE