The episode was written to humanize Sawyer and set up the love triangle between him, Kate and Jack. Kate was meant to look at Sawyer in a new way, and, according to Lindelof, think, "wow, this guy is not just a belligerent." The episode also shows the moral ambiguity of some characters by revealing more of their personalities, with the ones introduced as protagonists doing things that are generally not viewed as protagonist-like– an example being Jack beating Sawyer and eventually asking Sayid to torture him; and an antagonistic character, Sawyer, proving not to be solely antagonist-like– an example being his backstory and flashback, which show that he is not exclusively evil.