I was quite taken aback on my first playthrough of the Stanley Parable in how it dismantled and criticised the typical dynamic present between narrator and player. The museum ending utilises a third female narrator commenting on the dynamics of the narrator and the player in describing the toxic push and shove taking place between the two parties.
“*laugh* Oh, look at these two. How they wish to destroy one another. How they wish to control one another. How they both wish to be free. Can you see? Can you see how much they need one another?”
The only way the vicious cycle can be stopped is if the player takes the initiative to stop playing the game, to “push escape and quit”. For as long as the player chooses to continue, they’ll be willingly subjecting themselves to this vicious cycle. I found this commentary to be really interesting as it reframes typical game dynamics and comments on how the player and the narrator give each other meaning and purpose. This can be briefly seen again in the Skip Button Ending where the Narrator is left without the player for extended periods of time and is shown to slowly lose his mind and his reliance on the player for purpose is shown further.
On the 5th skip:
That’s what I’m realizing now, Stanley. I’m realizing that I needed to know that someone was listening. I needed there to be a vessel through which my words were moving. It was the vessel I needed, Stanley. Not the outcomes, not the story, none of that matters anymore. […]
One single thing I need – and god I can see now that I need it more than anything – is to know that someone else is taking it in. These words that I’m saying, I need to know you can hear me!
Because maybe, Stanley, maybe – if you can hear me, then maybe it means I’m real. Maybe I’m not just a fiction. Was I scared of that all along? Perhaps, yes. Perhaps I’ve been scared this whole time that if I stop speaking, I’ll slip backwards into the silence and be consumed by it. I can’t be taken by it, Stanley. I can’t lose myself in the stretch of emptiness between you and me.
