La construction d’un personnage devrait se faire par une couche successive de petites touches de couleurs. Naturellement, cette formule demande du temps et de la patience de la part du lecteur et une volonté de ce dernier de souhaiter explorer le personnage. En reprenant des passages de l’analyse de Darren sur le film Zero Dark Thirty, voici ce que l’on retrouve sur l’un des personnages : « The “enhanced interrogation” in the film is mostly conducted by Dan, the CIA operative played by Jason Clarke. Clarke is not a low-level army officer. He’s a veteran CIA officer. He keeps (and feeds) monkeys. He has a PhD and is characterised as quite intelligent. He uses words like “tautology”, and it’s clear that he has some idea what he is doing. While he manipulates those people in his custody, he is consistently portrayed as level-headed and rational. He’s not an angry sadist lashing out some pent up frustration or aggression at a hapless victim. » Il ajoute : « He might be smart, and he might be educated, but it’s clear that he has been tainted by what he is doing. Mid-way through the film, he opts to get out of the torture unit. And he complains about the death of his monkeys. It’s a moment that exists to make his priorities clear. This is a man who routinely tortures and causes suffering to human beings. At the end of it all, however, the only sympathy he has is for a bunch of monkeys. » (« Who We Are In The Dark: Zero Dark Thirty & Torture… », Darren, them0vieblog.com,21 janvier 2013). Cette analyse est plutôt déductive, car il n’y a pas de grandes scènes explicatives où le personnage explique ses états d’âme, le spectateur doit y aller de ses propres interprétations.