Strange use of であった in narrative


In the middle of the Famicom game Bucky O'Hare, a cutscene starts with this
text:

こうして ４人を きゅうしゅつした バッキーであったが・・・じつは それは バッキー オヘアを とらえる ために トードぐんが しくんだ わなだったのだ！！

The meaning of the sentence is obvious -- "Thus Bucky rescued the four, but
[etc., etc.]" -- but I can't quite grasp this use of であった. I realize it's from
である, but its role here doesn't seem to be a simple "was". What's going on
here?




"It was Bucky that...", by comparison with 救出{きゅうしゅつ}した **のは** バッキーであった, is an
easy trap to fall into, but I don't think it's right.

The sentence `こうしてバッキーは４人を救出した` describes events from an objective global
perspective, but the wording in the sentence in the question takes a small
amount of time to reflect on Bucky himself as he existed at that point in time
-- what he's thinking, feeling, etc.

であった asserts that Bucky was for a brief moment "Bucky, who in this manner had
(just) saved the four". We briefly reflect on what this change feels like /
means for him.

I'm finding this very hard to put into English phrasing, and this attempt
takes a wrong turn or two, but hopefully it gets there:

> "And so there was Bucky, having in this manner (just) saved the four--"

I think it would help to post a more powerfully emotive example, but I'm
having trouble finding one... >_>

