I think it’s important that I be transparent and say that I am not Catholic, at least not practicing, and I have a very complicated view of the religion. I will be writing about my view of Catholicism based on my own experiences, so my words can not be generalized. Now that I’ve said that, lets get into this:
Free will is a concept you get to know pretty well when you spend thirteen years in the Catholic school system. On a surface level, it is the idea that God (capital G, the Christian God of the Chicagoland area in this case, specifically [although I guess the Christian God of all Catholics, since the Pope is from Chicago, too]) created humans and gave them the gift of choice. Every choice a person makes is wholly and undeniably theirs.
But also, God has a plan for everyone. Everyone was born with specific gifts from God, gifts which they are meant to pursue as their vocation.
So how can you truly make choices if an omnipotent being has already mapped your life out?
There are three characters in The Stanley Parable (four, if you count the bucket; but I will not count the bucket): Stanley, The Narrator, and the second, hidden Narrator.
The Narrator, a disembodied voice with the power to change the game’s world on a whim—but who also finds himself trapped by the constructs of the game itself. He loses control of his creations (The Adventure Line, the Skip Button, etc) and he acknowledges that he is not does not have full control over the game—the developers do (his excitement to see the “New Content” in the Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, his disbelief and distress over The Confusion Ending, etc).
Stanley is the player’s character. He is a blank canvas who is shaped by the player’s actions.
The Narrator comes up with stories for Stanley to act out, and the player is led to assume that—before their taking control of Stanley—things played out exactly as The Narrator decreed every time.
After the player starts to control Stanley, The Narrator is faced with something he has not experienced before: defiance. It frustrates him at first. He sees Stanley as a lesser being, and tries to redirect him to follow the planned story. When the player choses again to defy him, The Narrator starts to get aggressive. He threatens Stanley. He makes endings where Stanley dies. He doesn’t know how to cope with Stanley’s sudden use of free will, because he has never had to confront the idea of Stanley as a person and not a character.
The Narrator knows that he is in a game, but doesn’t consider Stanley to be the player. To him, Stanley is just Stanley.
After a while, he accepts Stanley’s new opinionated nature. He tries to make peace with Stanley, to make the game engaging and to find ways for the two of them to co-exist.
The Hidden Narrator exists only in The Museum Ending. She comments on the futile nature of Stanley and The (main) Narrator’s dynamic and speaks directly to the player, pleading with them to turn off the game and end the cycle.
This is obviously very different to Catholicism, especially because the narrators are British and England wasn’t yet invented in Biblical times. Also because there aren’t different tiers of godhood in Christianity. There may be the Holy Trinity, but the Hidden Narrator is not God, the Main Narrator is not The Holy Spirit, and it is too blasphemous (even for me) to insinuate that Stanley is Jesus.
The parallel I find lies not with godhood at all, but rather with the idea of choosing to go against the narrative written for you.
I find it freeing to be defiant through Stanley.
I like exploring the dynamic between a creator and a creation who refuses to listen.
Its comforting to see that there is always an alternative for going against a predetermined path, and that that alternative is oftentimes more interesting and fulfilling.
The Stanley Parable reminds me of getting into debates with Priests and questioning my Religion homework, but in a low stakes environment.
In class we mentioned how playing games allows us to experience unease in a controlled environment, giving us further insight into our emotions without risk. I think that holds true here.
The Stanley Parable might not be full of jump scares or time crunches, but it makes you think—and theres nothing I appreciate more than media that fills me with a healthy amount of existential dread.
Very interesting take to connect the role of the narrator to the dictations of the church (if not the divine). I do wonder whether the constant renegotiations that the narrator makes with Stanley could parallel the various changes the Vatican has made to policy over time (e.g. acknowledging that the Jews were not as a people responsible for the death of Jesus…) and whether that’s had any bearing on the mutuality of believers’ relationship to the institution. The Chicago Pope is a telling image here, actually–a pope who more than any other wants to be seen as a person with a very secular history in addition to his religious one; we’ve yet to see whether, like the narrator, he genuinely wants to connect with people on their level, or if, like the unchanging architecture of the game itself, it’s a thematic but ultimately unsystemic gesture at player choice.
Also! There are more characters! An ending shows Stanley’s “wife” as a mannequin, there is an additional secret narrator if Stanley jumps off the building, and in that same ending, there is another office worker who sees his body, essentially goes, “Gosh, glad that’s not me,” and proceeds to have her life narrated with the same implications of hidden lack of free will.
Very interesting! I hadn’t even thought of a religious interpretation of this game when I played it. I was more focused on the Marxian “capitalism is a cycle where we are alienating ourselves through production/ commodification” reading that I hadn’t really thought about the ideas of free will and/or higher powers. This makes me curious about who/ what is “controlling” the narrator: is he just the Stanley of some greater narrator? is it his choice to punish/ toy with Stanley or he being forced to do it?
I really like this post! I also have a weird relationship to religion via schooling – I went to an elementary school that was very inspired by Mormon teachings and this led me to have a really deep fear of authority.
When I was playing the Stanley parable it felt like a really fun alternate reality where defiance could be more playful rather than scary, that there were fewer consequences and more discovery and fun to be had when you think outside of the box. In that way the game was really healing.
I love how you were able to take the game towards something so positive. I haven’t played the Deluxe version, and I feel like my interpretation of the original was a lot more depressing, so this is a really nice take on it. I wonder, would you consider the defiant routes also a predetermined path set by the developers? The developers have coded and written your defiance into the game, and I wonder how that could change how you feel about the freedom in The Stanley Parable. But I think one of the best things about this game is that everything is complicated. There’s no right answer to how agency is portrayed in this game; this game can be both freeing and also controlling.