All you really need to know from him is that you’re on a path in the woods and at the end of that path is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin is a princess. You’re here to slay her. If you don’t, it will be the end of the world
There's a certain line that I think is really telling of the Narrator's beliefs. If you tell him he's delusional at the end he responds with, "I'm only delusional if I'm wrong, and I'm...not wrong. I can't be."
@RequiemPoete Which shows how much of a fool he still was. When dealing with beings of infinity there is both infinite permutation and infinite distances between those permutations. A more holistic result where continuity was maintained but things were without suffering was always possible.
There is no delusion, just as one of protagonists voices says about shifting mound. "There is no arguing with that creature. She is right as long as she exist" The same thing can be said about narator.
So, I may actually be the Narrator's worst enemy. I went through the game far more enamored with the Princess and the Long Quiet, so I never asked any questions about what was outside the construct, and then I reached the loop ending. In the loop ending, if you have asked him about the world outside, an option comes up to make sure the Princess keeps the Narrator's world in existence during the reset, and she says that it is up to the player to make sure that happens. By entering the loop without knowing of the world outside of the construct, that world has ended while the construct continues without creating the next universe.
The question is about if the people in the world will continue dying, because of her existence and her answer basically is ,,I can change to whatever you imagine me to be, so imagine me helping them”, it’s not about whether the world will continue to exist, they are trapped in a vacuum outside of the world so it doesn’t yet end, that’s was to whole point, if you have chose the loop the world is stagnant until something happens, whether this is killing her or freeing her
@@jesse3525 when you are talking to the broken mirror, some questions are unlocked after you have asked specific ones, but you can save before the questions or watch a video with all of them
@@KiaV2 after ash veil lane ended I have been wandering TH-cam, keeping the greater internet informed about the trout population. Yes, The trout population is thriving.
Something I noted while doing the Nightmare route: if you attempt to walk off the edge of the stairs into the void below, and tell him you did so because you were scared of having to face the Princess, he actually reveals some hypocrisy in saying that anything would be better than an eternity spent in a void. And I'm not sure anyone needs a reminder of what his "reward" is if you do everything he tells you to exactly how he tells you to do it.
That kind of furthers my idea that that route is sort of the Narrator learning the error of his ways. Cause during the Moment of Clarity he learns just how horrific his stagnant future could be, and this bit you've described implies to me that, if he really does view the cabin as a reward, it's because the cabin is somewhere nice, in his opinion. So long as its nice, it should be fine. And for your inability to determine right from wrong and decision to simply keep the stalemate going in perpetuity to solve the dilemma you both get to learn the fastest way to spoil your pleasures.
This is especially hypocritical considering that the the Princess, among other things, is death. Essentially the Narrator tells the player that death is preferable to an an eternity in a void despite an unchanging world without death being the Narrator's entire goal.
actually i think it fits perfectly, anything is better than an empty void, but death is not anything, it is nothing, it is obvlivion, so it is worse. because nothing is worse than an empty void, and death is nothing.
My main problem with the narrator, as someone very analytical and skeptical, is the vaugeness with which he tries to frame his solution as the only solution. It just invites asking more questions, and due to the nature of the Princess and The Construct, means he already lost; the clean kill needed for the good ending was just never going to happen until after one vessel had already been collected.
The "Plan B" of having the fully awakened Hero kill the fully awakened Princess is riskier to his goal as it is the last chance. I think he's just trying to cynically maximize his chances here as he does tell you what's going on when the mirror shatters. Yet I still agree with you that he is too focused on "killing her" being the only option. I made a comment elsewhere her that I can totally see the Princess and the Hero creating a reincarnation cycle where the soul and perhaps even memory remains after death, the one thing that the Hero's power protect eternally.
@@BobMcBobJr That.... would be actually interesting. Like, the Princess and the Long Quiet are both parts of the circle of life while the Narrator represents the soul, memories and matter which dies and rebirths. That way, all 3 could have exist in harmony without hurting each other. On the other hand, I got the impression that you, as the Long Quiet, create already such an eternal circle of destruction and reincarnation if you decide to accept the princess. I mean, she said it herself. They are both opposing parts who will always conflict each other and so, create and destroy worlds over and over again. That way, you could actually say that you created indeed an reincarnation system where you play your part in it and work together. I even think that this is even the best end. The mortal end has some charm too, but I think the acceptance choice is the best one for both of them because I see it like a restoration of the natural order and cosmic balance.
@@BobMcBobJr The fully awakened hero wouldn't kill princess, he would save her, so instead of a high risk it's an instant failure, sadly he only wakes up a little bit, it was probably the Narrator's doing, he not only divided that infinite cosmic being into SM and LQ, he also took the liberty of cutting off Hero from us, trying to rig things to go in his favor and ruin chapter 1's meaning which is said in the title, "The Hero and The Princess". If we were how the narrator wants, we can even take a look at the music names, if we take the blade, the music isn't "The Princess" anymore, it becomes "The World-Ender", so the Narrator tries to shatter the natural order of chapter 1 at all costs, he fears the Hero's potential and most certainly knows he won't be controlled or deceived by him, and he isn't because we already see this in a dialogue: "Hero: I knew we had to question this situation, there's a reason I'm telling you this and there's a reason you listened" - Hero to us while doubting the Narrator's intentions while interrogating Princess no matter if we took the blade or not. So no matter if we were tainted a little by the initial fear that leads us to take the blade, Hero is still not buying it. If we're to mantain the ambience, and by the game's meaning, the perception of Long Quiet in relation to the chapter's title, then we would follow the Hero's first advice, we're supposed to save princesses, not slay them, so we don't take the blade and the music doesn't change, and we get to see the real Princess, then we save her, and with a developed Hero personality, Narrator won't be able to get in the way, we win, that's how things would've naturally gone if we look at all this. After that is a whole what if, we remember everything, yet our perception was guided by US, not by Narrator, and everything went well, this is a love story and we defeated Fear in chapter 1, which means that the story would pose Hero and Princess clearly against the Narrator from chapter 2 onwards. I guess Hero being just that, a Hero, would allow us to override Narrator very well, and overcome anything he tries to throw at us, doesn't mean we'll always win, which would spun different new voices in later chapters, but it's clear that the trust between us and princess will blossom from the beginning, and it won't be a story about killing each other, but to understand the truth so we can defeat the Narrator and be free together. And the only possible ending this time around I guess it's the be free as gods ending, we're not affected by Fear this time, and we will definitely fulfill our path with princess each chapter, so there's no leave the cabin endings (there's just hero and contrarian there, the only two who never got a link to princess, Hero because of what I just said, Contrarian because while being him the lead, we never meet the princess). Now on another topic, I like your idea of the malfunction in the loop ending and being able to remember, I think the same, rather, I feel like with that plot, we could do what I've just told you, be the True Hero in chapter 1 and save the Princess, we'd have a direct confrontation against Narrator and overcome everything until we break free with SM together. I imagine the OST of Apotheosis in the background whenever we as Hero face the doom of Narrator's machinations, what's cooler is that princess would help too and because she's what we perceive she could also fight very well on our side.
I mean the game was rigged so that either you die (like 99% of the time) the vessel gets absorbed into the shifting mound, or you kill yourself (spectre) and that 1(or 2) good ending i guess
all in all, he's a terrified man holding on to the old, but wouldn't you do that, saving the world from a world ending threat is considered heroic by most, so why do we judge him for trying to do it?
@@egekahraman8985 It makes him tragic in multiple ways--what's left of him is his dying whims set in stone that can feel and react but literally cannot change his opinion or stance any longer. Perhaps were he in the place of his fragments, the original man may have eventually felt pity, seen some error (of which there are many the Narrator encounters but overlooks), or thought of a more merciful solution, and thus relented to let Shifty and Quiet free. Huh, the Narrator's very existence is a rather compelling argument for saving Shifty now that I think about it--it's good to have strong principles but being truly unable to change your mind about anything is horrifying. Imagine if we were all stuck at our high school or college mentality and opinions. Or if once you formed a strong opinion about someone you were stuck with that forever, even if said person turns out to be a walking saint and you two just got off on the wrong foot, or worse you fell for a sociopath.
He literally gave birth to a creature (in this case a goddess) just to kill her, also split the fabric of birth and death into two beings and force one of them to kill the other, while not respecting none of them and even looking down upon them both, WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY?
I feel so many people hate Him but I can't help giving Him the benefit of the doubt. Since death is something I haven't experienced, then maybe he's right, and an eternity of nothing ever changing is better than dying. One of my favorite characters in media for sure!
How is an eternity of nothing changing better? You would literally go insane, not to mention most of the concept of change will die, so that means no growth, no new people, he even said constant forgetfulness, FOR EVERYONE
@@Stefano-b1z Again, without having experienced either of those options… we can’t really say for sure. All of our opinions on the matter are basically just.. headcanons.
What I find the most interesting about it is that… the game itself kind of makes you hate Him, considering how it’s written. You play as a god who cannot die, and therefore doesn’t understand why death can be terrifying. So by playing this game… you’re kind of forgetting what it feels like to be human and instead come to think of Him as horrible, selfish or even evil. When in actuality, He’s just as much a person as all of us. And I’m pretty sure everyone fears death to at least some extent. So everything He did is a perfectly normal human reaction, especially considering where he came from. Obviously, this still doesn’t really seem like the best “solution” but His intentions were purely selfless. And who *can* make good decisions when this desperate, anyway? At the end of the day… all I feel for Him is immense pity. He was doomed to fail from the start, and he might’ve even known it. 😢
@@Kayta-Lindawithout experiencing them? You would ABSOLUTELY go insane with no chance and sensation, this is literally a torture method And no, we hate him because he doesn’t exactly act like a good person, he doesn’t care about the Long Quiet, forcing him to do exactly what he says even killing him if necessary, he has no empathy for the Princess which he created just to kill, almost all his actions through the game pain him in a bad light, it’s almost ironic that the only human acts inhumane
@@Stefano-b1z without change there's quite literally no way of going insane. Changing from sane to insane is that, a change. Then again, even if it was possible to go insane in His desired world, still there's the posibility than an eternity of insanity is better than whatever death is, and nobody would know except for Him. And of course his actions paint Him in a bad light, He is an antagonist at the end of the day, but what I'm saying is that He is far more sympathetic than what I've seen some people treating Him.
Narrator and the two gods are some of the most tragic and touching characters I know by far. The stakes are insanely high and it took the Narrator everything in his humanity to create the game essentially. I always thought that the end of the world he was referring to was the natural heat death of the universe or an atomic war, something his people naturally had to face or brought to their selves. Glad to see someone also interprets it that way.
Is it just me who was severely disappointed by how little we learn about the Narrator other than his motivation? I want to know how a mortal was able to tear apart and entrap a deity. I wish that there was more emphasis on what he sacrificed and a better explanation of nature of what he became and how he connected to Long Quiet to the point where Shifty confused him with one of the Voices, more backstory and development as a whole. Especially given that he is the only one to provide a mortal's perspective to Long Quiet, right before a confrontation that will decide the fate of mortals. As it is, what could have been a great character became little more than a tool. Alternatively, maybe making him more vague and open to interpretation would have been beneficial
In the lovecraftian mythos humans where granter the ability to be dreamers truly awakened dreamers can create entire realities he envisioned change and death as a concept gave it a face and then split it maybe its the same concept
While what you suggest would be interesting--I think detailing the "how" would have detracted from the themes of the game and the fandom would have devolved into GameTheorying^tm the process rather than the philosophical themes and relationships between the three.
@@leahnzastrzelecki5217that and also whatever the explanation would be not everyone would be happy and it can even damage the story, alien technology, magic, mythology, what would be good for explaining how a mortal divided the fabric of life and death, created two gods and trapped them in the body of one of them, which is simultaneously a reality outside of time affecting time, it’s just too surreal
From how I see it... It's because that's all there is about the Narrator in Slay the Princess (not to be confused with the Narrator from the Stanley Parable). Because the Narrator here is just a being running on a single concept, to stop the end of the world. He is an underdeveloped character, because that is his purpose given by his creator, the one who built the construct. He is incapable of learning, and that is how he fails.
On my view with the Narrator, I like to headcanon that his fear of death and his desire to ultimately erase the concept of it was because of his past experiences that made him greatly fear and perhaps even hate it for most of his life since the moment he was born. As he lived like any other mortal, he slowly grew obsessed with it as he suffered many close calls with death (at least one that was nearly fatal to him) in his life along with losing many friends and families (and perhaps maybe a love of his own but who knows, really) that it greatly traumatized him. As he grew up and became a successful scientist/alchemist (whatever really with how ambiguous things are outside the Construct) through many tireless years studying and discovering new things of how the concept of the universe works and trying to find the absolute answer on how to finally destroy the concept of death, he kept gazing into the infinite depths of the old universe that is slowly dying during his career...... and as he recalled many his unpleasant experiences of his life that involved death, it eventually made him witness the depths of the universe had gaze back at him.
and at that moment he coming into contact with it directly he probably though on ending his own life immediatly because of the stakes and made everything we see in the game in split second thought focused only on that rather than the seeing his life flash through his eyes, thinking about killing the deity directly but couldnt, he thoguht to split the deity to be necessary, not being able to kill either of the sides, decided to trap part of it inside itself just to make sure it wont affect his world directly, somehow making them either forget or one side split into fractions as a way to gain time or actually just to make sure it poses the least ammount of immediate threat, he needed something to kill it for him, so the decided that the rest of the other not splited to be engraved with a guide of his own mind focused in only one thing, the consequences of not making it, and why he needed to make it happen, to make his objective of stopping everything from reaching true oblivion and aiming to reach stagnation because he couldnt directly kill the deity's main core and reason to why everything would reach its end, he focused in the last moments to make the echo and as he was right at his last breath, he couldnt not think selfishly about what he left behind and what he would have liked to become for the price he payed, a hero, and to save his beloved princess (metaphorically), which technically make the princess and hero's voice + echo, which would actually end up making him fail because of his last moments, he didnt have time enough to plan better and even if he had, he was doomed by just thinking about hero and princess, with morale aggainst him with just simple roles gatekeeping him from suceeding, all made by his own thoughts and engraved mixed between the one needed to kill and the victim
@@fabricios6384 I do like the last part of him subconsciously envisioning the Long Quiet as the Hero and the Shifting Mound as the Princess, respectively. It was that one moment that forever put a wrench in his plans where the Long Quiet would have the capability of questioning the Narrator and whenever if he should slay or save the Princess.
@ yeah, but after seeing the video of the construct i would change some stuff there, because he made a cage of belief trapping both of the halfs within themselves and making the last defense be exactly the one he would use to kill the other
My first playthrough I got tons of wholesome princess chapters like thorn and damsel. The narrator was about to explain what’s going on and I immediately smash the mirror and reunite with my beloved
Well. I never in my wildest dreams imagined this shitpost channel owner to be capable of such quality writing. Spectacular video essay - a bit short but that's good, straight to the point. Here's to it blowing up.
I was always fascinated by just how stagnant Narrator is. No matter what you say or do, he stays the same. Sure sometimes he decides that Quiet is lost cause and stops speaking resignated, but he never truly changes in the world that doesn't stay the same even for a moment. That is why Happily Ever After hit me so hard, the only time Narrator doubted himself and his vision. It is one of the reasons this is my favorite ending
The biggest mistake of the narrator was that he didn’t love us. Compare to the princess who wholeheartedly loved us from the beginning, the narrator never considered us like him. We felt pain, anger, happiness and sorrow but neither us or the princess were truly alive for him. Even if we were his creations, his children, for him we’re merely the reason of his despair. In some way, it help him to use us without any shackles but it also help us to fight for ourselves, our princess and our liberty. That’s was his mistake. From the moment he started seeing us as different from the living, we no longer gave the same importance to his abstract world. He didn’t have the same importance anymore.
In many ways I understand it. First of all, the version of him we're talking to is just an Echo. It isn't really him and it isn't capable of changing or growing or doing anything else. It is stagnant in the state of despair and desperation he was in at the moment of death. In that state, I doubt he did love them. All he knew was that he was terrified of them and what they represented for his world, which is understandable. He was faced with the death of everything and everyone he ever loved, and not just their death but the complete destruction of even their memory, of the evidence that his kind had ever existed at all. Of course he would be desperate, of course he'd hate the god that condemned his kind to this fate, and of course upon splitting it and ending himself to keep the cycle going, he probably held no love for them in his heart. I suppose it's a test to the Long Quiet's capacity to change that even in spite of all the narrator does to him, he is capable of understanding the narrator's position and choosing to oppose the Shifting Mound on behalf of those mortals who were so desperate to assert their right to live that they challenged a god. It is thanks to the narrator that our character can even find a middle road.
@@ahmadazem4167 I don't think that's what they're saying at all. Because the narrator doesn't care about you, you can't trust him. I've seen a lot of people play this game and almost all of them start not trusting him although they can't tell why. And it's this lack of caring for the protagonist that drives it. Any worry and doubt you have is treated very diissively. Which makes the player curious what he is hiding and distrustful. Meanwhile while the princess may be prickly she's very honest with you, so people tend to trust her more. And why shouldn't she be? Kindness towards you is her default. Her rage and aggression is retaliatory and she will end up forgiving you anyways. Her kindness is unconditional. The narrators kindness is entirely conditional. Even so people dont make their final decisions off of that love. When players find the truth they usually decide themselves what they believe on a philosophical level. I haven't seen anyone choose the princesses side just because they loved her. But it's notable that the writers do have a clear message that the narrator is wrong. Which is probably why the princess is more naturally sympathetic than the narrator. Whether the player agrees is another matter. They do give you the chance to disagree with them though so kudos for that.
It seems so fitting to me that the same man who voiced Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives also voices a character who so feared and hated death that he literally tore reality in half to stop it.
The narrator describes life without the Princess as a cycle of forgetting and rediscovering things. He himself is proof of why that doesn't work, as his greatest flaw is that he never gets to bond with the player, because he keeps forgetting them, and so he does not stand a chance compared to the combined Princess who you meet between cycles. I'm really glad that Pristine Cut humanized him further, because for all of his folly, he is a tragic figure.
ngl I still bonded with him, is a lot more sad than with the princess, she's always the same one while the narrator dies each time or at least a version of him is left behind. He also is kind of funny sometimes I like the approach that the contrarian has to him which is that it was fun to mess around with him
The fact the 2 beings have a little of each other in themselves shows that they don’t work without each other so their escape is inevitable even if they go through every ending. Though in personifying them he might have save the world or at least ensured that in giving them self recognition in a form of self he can understand, the next world to come into existence would be one that he would have been able to comprehensible to his definition of mortals.
While I don't disagree with anything here, I think the more interesting question is what the "good" ending of the game would actually entail for the universe. While it's easy to linger on him trapping and potentially even manifesting gods in his own creation, in my opinion the single most important thing is that it wasn't a clean tear. The Long Quiet and Shifting Mound aren't gods of change and stillness, they're what *_should_* be gods of change and stillness, but not quite. This is why the player can change slightly between runs, getting new voices, forming new memories, etc. and is likely why the Shifting Mound can grow to have any vague sense of sentience at all. Both of them are, primarily, gods of either change or stillness, but through the game the Shifting Mound gets more threads of connection and perspectives to define themselves by and the Long Quiet splinters to get more unique fragments to guide themselves by. So while they both start as 49% one aspect and 1% of the other, that 1% grows over the course of the game with The Long Quiet achieving a greater atunement to change and The Shifting Mound achieving a greater ability to remain unchanged. (this is corroborated by the secret ending, the original form is twisted and mangled with multiple heads because the player chose to never engage or think about the princess, leaving The Shifting Mound only capable of percieving themselves which, given they were constantly changing and ill-defined to start with, meant that both the form and the perception of that form were caught in a constant state of non-definition. However, at the end of the game when The Shifting Mound has gained more perspectives and capacity for "stillness", that same multi-headed form is stable, because The Shifting Mound is capable of percieving itself without redefining itself to fit it's own constantly changing perception) In the "good" ending of the game where they exit the cabin together, it essentially means that The Narrator ripped a core fabric of reality out, cut it into two pieces, and left those pieces apart, only for them to literally grow back together, resulting in more total material than was there originally. This could mean any number of things such as it being a brand new creation myth where The Narrator was correct and them exiting the cabin *_does_* wipe out the universe, but it's also a creation myth as it spawns an entirely new universe where the concepts of change and unchange aren't a thing and "heat death" isn't even a concept that makes sense. It could also mean that his original tear is undone and his universe *_is_* saved, as the newly unified concepts of change and unchange do literally prevent his universe from dying. It could also mean that they literally do both become manifested gods, deities capable of reshaping reality given both a sense of self and a physical form to act. Whatever the case, it goes without saying that when you rip a fundamental aspect of reality out, cut it in half, and then those two halves start to grow and evolve (a fact only made possible by the fact that it wasn't a clean cut) your left in an incomprehensibly different place than you started. What the fuck does it mean when the concept/god of change now has the ability to just, not? What the fuck does it mean when the concept of stillness can just sorta decide it wants to do something else actually? What the hell do those princesses and voices do? Are they left there in The Narrator's construct for an eternity? Does that mean that 99.999999...% of The Shifting Mound and The Long Quiet are still stuck in the construct, and neither the Princess nor the Bird Man actually even are gods when they leave? What if The Construct broke then? The jagged-tear is, at least to me, the most interesting part of the entire story because it is the catalyst for the very concepts/gods of change and unchange to grow into more than they were originally, more than they should actually be.
Another thing that’s very interesting about the jagged tear is HOW the change/stillness ratio affects the two of them. The Shifting Mound’s form IS still very malleable but she can stabilize it as long as she keeps a consistent perspective of herself. The Long Quiet, on the other hand, splinters in order to change. He’s not capable of extreme physical change but he can externalize his own perspective so it can act upon itself. This fact is honestly what I find most fascinating about these two. They’re fundamentally paired just by the nature of being half of something, but simultaneously those halves can’t work as a single being. Although only The Shifting Mound is referred to as a being of perception, The Long Quiet is one too. She’s the Perceived, he’s the Perceiver. The Spectre called the Voices “shards of broken glass” for a reason, the Voices are the only way for The Long Quiet to really perceive himself and thus the only way for him to Change. He can’t be changed by the Princesses’ perceptions of him because she would always view him the way he views himself because she’s built on his perception of her, so he NEEDS to be able to perceive himself (as the Echoes also can’t give much perspective due to their nature). In this context, it’s no wonder that he’s represented by mirrors. I think that’s also why the Voices disappear when you look in the mirror, since this is a situation where The Long Quiet can truly perceive himself in his entirety (however briefly), the fragmenting perspectives become unnecessary and can be resolved into one singular perspective. This is also why I think the two of them only gain sentience after they’re split, as before that moment they couldn’t perceive themselves. Like I said before, The Princess’ (or in this case, The Shifting Mound’s) perspective of The Long Quiet will always match how he perceives himself. Since he can see her and see she’s a Being, then if she’s looking at him then he must also be a Being that can be seen. He doesn’t really know what he looks like though, he knows he has hands (he can hold things) and probably feet (he apparently walked here) and that he definitely has eyes (because how else would he see?) and that he’s supposed to be the opposite of her (which might as well extend to coloration) but has no idea about the rest of the details so they just,, Don’t Exist. (Sorry this just became a Long Quiet ramble, I have a Lot of thoughts about the silly vaguely-bird-shaped-shadow-creature and a lot of the corresponding Shifting Mound ramble was already covered either in game or in your comment.
I had a thought after a couple of playthroughs. The “real” narrator did change the nature of reality forever; dividing a single, pantheistic being into two separate entities. But more than that he created two beings who learned about mortality and feared death like he did. It was likely unintentional on the Narrator’s part, but my head canon is that the cruel situation he created for the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound made them appreciate the promise and perils of mortality. The Long Quiet and the Princess / Shifting Mound was once a likely pantheistic being. A being which couldn’t understand mortality as they were above such things. Now there are two (or one) new beings watching over existence that now recognize what mortal beings know all too well. Would they become angry gods? I like to imagine that the life and death struggle they endured would make the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound quite the opposite.
@@desadograisedrobot515 The Gentle Princess: “Look I apologized already didn’t I? It’s not like I had stabbing practice before we met you know!”*pouts*
This is exactly my position and honestly, it's what makes the Narrator a hero in spite of his misguided end-goal. His actions ultimately have the capacity of saving humanity in many of the endings, an option that wasn't ever possible while the two gods were one. He split them, gave them (perhaps unintentionally) individuality, and then brought them down to the level of mortals to feel what they would potentially inflict upon creation. They can choose to ignore that and embrace their godhood-- or they can choose to do the opposite, which is what happens in every ending where they meet back in the cabin after their awakening and grand standoff. And for them to even have a standoff where they argue about what they are and what their actions will do to the rest of the world-- that alone is a victory all its own, as I doubt the united entity they were before would have even been able to care; and yet here we are, two gods who know mortality, who love each other, grappling with whether they should kill each other or come together, all for the GOOD of the universe. The Long Quiet will argue against the destruction and rebirth of the universe on behalf of those still alive and the Shifting Mound will argue against the hell an endless stagnation would be to those same living beings. It's remarkable and whether either god would ever acknowledge it, what he did ultimately put humanity (or... whatever sentient bird kind his people may have been) on even ground with them.
@@Maphisto86Long Quiet:Sweety I love you but you have some issues to solve like the sword form and dragon form.Seriously what were these? Princess:I WAS GOING THROUGH PHASES.
The Narrator should've just found the Eye of the Universe smh Non joke comment: it's very fitting that the achievement for asking the narrator all of the questions is "Death of the Author", the concept that stories take on a life of their own once released, and the author's interpretation becomes just one of many interpretations.
Yeah he should have just dumped all his memories into the eye and died while the universe resets, it would have been much simpler even with out all the time travel and probe cannon shenanigans (Glad to find another outer wilds fan I love that game so much)
DUDE i was going crazy thinking about just how similar the two stories are, especially with the echoes of the eye DLC. The Stranger's inhabitants literally sealed away the eye for the same reason as the narrator.
Tricking silence into killing death is a gigachad move. Its only hubris if it fails 6:40 in my headcanon the world created by killing the shifting mound is the game Rainworld. Its a cyclical world without death. 12:20 if you think about it, he kinda wins in that scenario, at least on the level of not forgetting. Two eternal gods know he existed and spoke to him, in a way their memmory is his immortality.
OMG Someone mentioned Rain World! And yeah, me and my friend had similar thoughts while playing Even before we got an ending, she said "so this is what life in Rain World looks like, huh?"
I've always been a fan of stories where conflict is born through identical morals and mindsets, but applied to different people or groups. I feel this applies to the slayer and the narrator, because if you take his mindset and simply apply it to the slayer, it would mean he should save the princess, because that would save her from oblivion and yourself from eternal torment at having ended the only other thing in existence like you with your own hands, and you'd be doing it at the cost of an outside world where nothing is truly like you and her and where nothing ever really ends, just changes form. This is an easy mirror to the narrators reasoning behind his choice, choosing to subject you two infinite beings to torture just to save his own world from oblivion. It is simply the willingness to subject an utterly alien outsider to misery, albeit in a manner that doesn't ever truly kill them, so that you and everything you care for may never truly die. This mindset describes both the narrator is his actions to rid the world of death, and the slayer in his condemnation of an infinity of universes to life and death so that he and the princess may always be together. This can also be seen as the reason why it doesn't matter if you leave with Shifty or with the Princess as they both mean the same thing, though they can change your interactions with each other. Though I'd always leave with Shifty because, if you saw absolutely everything with your beloved other half would you suddenly stop loving them? Of course not, I'm happy to dance again with her, and if she makes me forget that is part of the flow. Semi related, i love how similar the relationship of slayer/princess is to the Hero/greatest enemy and lover from Marathon. It's how I like to imagine their dynamic after the game ends, their bodies die but they return again and again to dance and clash and rage anew.
Oh, and a little piece on the whole "there's a piece of what should be her in you, so things won't end but they won't be the same" this plan only works in the event you follow his word to the letter and get the "good" ending. If Shifty is ever made whole you can see she literally erupts out of the long quiet, out of you. It's clear that piece of her in you gathered perspectives and nerves until gravity brought them all together again and that little piece of what should've been her has now become all of her, and it has emerged out of you, so if you kill her now that piece of what should've been her that stopped things from staying the same will be gone. The moment Shifty is "complete" and you have to kill the piece of her in you the narrator's plan has catastrophically failed.
super based analysis. he's just a terrified shadow of a man trying to do every he thinks is the best for his loved ones. i Will absolutely still let Contrarian bully him tho
7:02 I think you got that wrong, if you ask the Echo if stagnation won’t be worse that death, he basically responds with ,,Anything is better than oblivion” so he knows that everything will stuck in one place Even in your own video at 6:41 he says that everyone will be in a constant state of forgetfulness Furthermore when you ,,fight” the Shifting mount she multiple times depending of your routes comments that without change and struggle there would be no growth, so it’s possible that this not only include progression, but also literal growth as in people will stop growing and multiply And even with the argument that the Narrator preserved a tiny portion of change within you, when you kill the Princess, the Hero ask you how your feeling and you respond that it feels like part of you have died, the Hero responds with ,,Literally or figuratively” implying that it may be literally and the part of you that died was the change, because you literally killed change in her entirety, this is very speculative, but it’s weird that he says it like this (because in normal circumstances it’s obvious that it’s figuratively) and it will further put the nail in the coffin that the Narrator’s philosophy is not only wrong, but his plan wasn’t going to work in the first place And also the dying star, you know, the star in the process of dying, it’s not only a prove that the world is in stagnation, but also can you imagine how unbearably HOT it will be to live in a world in which its star is in a brink of death, these people will WISH death was still a concept
It's more likely they are living around a red dwarf (which would explain why they seem to be so close to it since they are rather cold) those dont heat up the last star in the universe will not explode into a supernova it will grow dimmer and colder until it shines no more Edit: the dialogue about a part of You dying comes from the fact that TLQ has a small part of SM inside of him and the SM has a small part of TLQ inside her so by killing her you kill that part of you
@@ashadeofblue6815 Yes, you kill that part of you, that's my theory that you kill the part of her in you and with that the entire existence of change as a concept, that is literal and not emotional, also in the files it says dying star so I think it's stuck in the process of dying
@@Stefano-b1z i kinda disagree on that since from my viewpoint the Narrator put a piece of her in TLQ so that change becomes crippled and limited after her death instead of it truly dying
@@ashadeofblue6815 and then after you say that it felt like part of you died when you killed her, the hero suspiciously asked if you mean symbolically or literally (as if it’s normal to say that literally), so I think you really did kill change entirely and his plan was doomed from the start, I could be wrong tho
A lot of this feels like a literalization of the concept of "death of author". You can never actually interact with the author of a story when you are experiencing it. It is at most a memory; an echo of the author at the time they were writing it. And of the course the author was alone, most are when they are writing their stories.
Funnily enough, the only reason why the voices are neutral at best towards The Narrator is because we chose to disobey him ourselves. If we simply do what He wants, we will be "eternally happy" till the end of our conscience and will get the you know what ending. However, once we decide to not follow Him, everything goes against His plan, so of course He gets hostile and of course we respond to hostility with hostility of our own due to the fact that He cant even make a convincing reason for us to kill the princess. Also i just realized that the supposed "good ending" where we leave the cabin with the princess is the worst one because we meet the said oblivion. Honestly living as a god with hot goddess gf seems more appealing now. Wait, doesn't that mean that all He needed to do was to convince us convince her to stop the world from ending? Welp, time to have my mind torn apart by these thoughts for another week or so. Edit: some grammar mistakes were made, whoops!
When he says ‘the world will end if she is not slain’ he is being massively overdramatic. ‘HIS WORLD’ will end, meaning the coming years will continue. Time will march forward, things will change, nature and man’s creations will forever ebb back and forth, things will never be the same as they were in the past. He is fighting to keep his world forever and eternal, that it may never grow, but never shrink. (Besides the point that by killing himself (or just dying, ether or) he has already forever irreparably ‘destroyed’ that world.) So no, there’s no oblivion when mortal Hero and moral Princess step out from the cabin. We only stay in the hut because we, the spirit who has been the hero, agree that wherever they go next, it is only for the Hero and Princess.
@@Noriniano, reality itself will die, entropy will claw at the universe until nothing is left but drifting photons, the narrator wasnt exaggerating, it will be the end of absolutely everything
@@technus147 Both half-right. It will be the end of absolutely everything that currently exists, but (as the Princess states at her apex), that absolute Nothingness will then trigger the birth of a new reality. That is the cycle - the birth of reality, the death and total erasure of that reality, and the birth of reality again. Everything lost from before, but always something new in the future.
@toxdz_quack8466 You can in general break down the narrarators lies to come to the conclusion that what he truly fears is a lack of continuity of existence. He shorthands this to death sometimes but what he really fears is that reset without a continuation of awareness. Amd instead of trying to shape Shifty to facilitate such given her infinite permutations he is instead tried to destroy her(in a flawed manner, what he wants only truly happens if you never interface with the narrarive) because he is scared and wants control. Technically it's fully possible that he could have make a narrative to facilitate specifically the incorporation of continuity and a lack of suffering into her changes but his awareness of his own arrogance and the totality of existence are both so low he goes for the least useful option for mitigating suffering where the illusion of being trapped has them stay in their cage.
@@DBArtsCreators thats not how our reality works, and the narrator probably thought his reality would die forever too, since there was little reason to think it would be reborn. Only shifty knew it was a cycle since she was a god, but the narrator only knew nothing would ever happen again
To be entirely honest I was expecting this to be a saxophone witch setup, but this was really, really good! I don't see much speculation about the Narrator, just Quiet and Shifty, so this was a much welcome breath of fresh air
The more I played the game the more I liked the narrator, he can get so silly when we don't do what he wants , and the one ending where he had to describe our passionate kiss with the princess was hilarious. But even more so , he is a tragic character a human who imprisoned two gods and defeated death by sacrificing himself all so he could save the little he had left , on top of that the guy has literal echoes of himself scattered around bcz of how resilient he is I love him 💕
Amazing video! Its very cool to see someone give the narrator the benifit of the doubt rather then painting him as a straight up evil villian. Personally I side with the narrator, which is what makes the story so much more tragic and amazing for me. Emotionally, I want to save the princess and have the happy ending of being together and no longer being alone. But the more utilitarian side of me believes/knows that the right thing to do is to plunge the dagger. I don't think any other game has had me so divided on a choice and had me thinking about it for so long.
The Writhing Mound tries to threaten you if you don’t bring back a new perspective, and eventually turns to begging when she realizes that she needs you to free herself. The Narrator will lie and cheat to get his way, and he treats you like a stumbling fool. Then so quickly leaves you to waste away in a cabin forever if you “succeed.” Neither actually care about you, only what you can do for them, which is depressing. The only people who “care” about you are your own voices. In the end, the only people who care about you are yourselves.
But aren't the anger and grief turns into acceptance? It's understandable why she's mad cause that for her what she believes to be the best for you both and in the end she finally accepts your decision and says the words "I love you" until you both are faced with oblivion. (Or whatever happened at that ending)
This is so beautifully written it's almost indistinguishable from the story itself, like it's written with the story's narrative language. And it was beautifully done and you nailed it. It is not only poetry, but the absolute truth of the story, and told by painting a picture. Thank you for this.
because he stops them from kissing their waifu. seriously, as a narrator enjoyer, there's PLENTY to criticize about him and his logic, but half the time people just whine that he stops them from kissing their favorite princess lmao
I think the reason he keeps his narration so limited is because of the princess's natue, and why he is so stubborn about her just being a powerless princess no matter what, even as she is a giant lioness. During chapter 1, if you even hesitate about your ability, that hesitation leads to her being able to take you down. If you are unsure about her dying, then she comes back to life to stab you. If you lock her in, as she talks about how she's going to get out, that much is enough for her to turn into a terrifying spectre and break out to kill you by her mere presence just because you wee scared. The narrator needs to set the scene such that you will kill the shifting mound without shifting mound escaping. Shifting mound needs to take a form that is weak and can not fight back, but important and with a reason to kill without that reason making her strong. "She is a weak princess who, if let out, will magically end the world, but she cant do that while she is locked away because she is a simple princess whom you can kill with a blade, she is nothing more, nothing less" It doesnt matter if she is a giant goddess, a lioness, a doom boss, an evil spirit or a giant sword monstrosity. The second the narrator stops calling her "just a princess", things escalate. Thats why he so stubbornly sticks to the script. Which is what leads to him appearing untrustworthy as the voices keep asking him whats going on and he keeps replying "its best if you dont know anything, Im saying all I can"
The fact that the narrator is only an echo makes me kinda sad bcs on the Epilogue "Happily Ever After" he actually changes his opinions on his reward and that's not the only route where he can learn about his mistakes! But everything he discovered, every newly growth tree, just got cut off when you restart because he isn't able to change anymore so we will never actually realize his own mistakes nor acept the reality
I was wondering why the long quiet is depicted as a bird like monster. I think it is because after the narrator died and created the echo that would serve as the guide to the player. The newly created Long Quite inhabited the narrator’s former body. This is supported by the form the narrator takes in the mirror. He is a crow an animal similar in appearance to what he was in life, and literally a reflection of the long quiet.
I absolutely agree with you, and if I may add, I think he sacrificed his body and himself to devote a consciousness that could understand mortals to the god he made. We know that even if we and the princess do not control ourselves (for example, the cage), our bodies, our natures continue to do what they are supposed to do. It was probably like this before Narrator intervened, but thanks to him, we have now gained consciousness, and this consciousness probably comes from Narrator himself, he added himself while making us. We are the divine being state of Narrator integrated with a concept. Of course, we probably have no other similarity than our appearance, because we, as the Player, control him with a consciousness that even he cannot guess, perhaps originating from Long Quiet's divinity. As you know, there is a Decider in the game and we, the Player, control him. Decider may be Narrator's consciousness that has merged with us and has become dull, although we are newly created, we have general information about life in the game, maybe this is information provided by Decider. And as the Player, we connect to LQ from an unknown place and direct it with our own ideas of life, maybe we do this thanks to the little SM inside us. It is really fun to think about this game.
I don't think I fully realised this during my playthrough, but the Narrator really played a perfect foil to the way that I approached the theme of love. I collected all the vessels because I cared about the character of the Princess. The more the princess and the protagonist knew about each other and accepted the best and the worst about each other, the more it felt like a genuine relationship between the two. My favourite ending is Strange Beginnings, it feels like the best love story ending to me. By contrast the Narrator is incapable to access that type of love. He refuses to share anything about himself, so he cannot be known, and he forgets everything between chapters and runs, so he cannot learn about other people. Thus he will never be able to form a genuine connection.
Coming back to this video post pristine makes it even better. The Narrator in one of the chapters finally can see the horror of what he wants. We see that he wasnt guided by hubris, but actual fear of death itself. And when he truly sees his end in all of it's "Glory". The fear of eternity is able to scare him more than death, and that truly shows us how he wasnt doing this for malicious intent.
At the end of the day, the narrator simply wanted to hello John, apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself. I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen. Now, shall we turn the page and try again?
The Narrator attempts to make The Long Quiet percieve The Princess in an extremely specific way. But, by being cut from the same cloth, The Long Quiet is able to think, to change, and thus is able to percieve the princess in his own way, that is the mistake the narrator made, giving the cut off piece of The Long Quiet the ability to think But it may have been an inevitability, The Long Quiet in its whole is change, you can't seperate it from what it is no matter how fragmented you make it. But you also can't make it die without it being the catalyst to destroy itself, since only it can cause change. The very nature of The Long Quiet needing to cause its own change was the Narrator's plan and downfall.
As a person deeply afraid of death and what comes after, I agree with The Narrator, but even I know a world without most of change is a world without meaning. But that begs the question, is meaning really all that important in the first place? To live in a world without change is to live in a world without fear and loneliness.
This was amazing! Beautiful, even. The Narrator is such an interesting character and I'm glad to see people appreciate Him despite his flaws. The writing was exquisite and the narrator of the video has a nice voice. I love your vids hehe ♥🌹
I like to think if the "glass shards" can exist as seperate entities, and The Princess can repair the construct and piece the Echo back together, then I'd like to the TLQ can also pull the Echo back together and then give it its own existence.
Personally I think that Spectre description of the Narrator as "memory" is closest to truth. The loop ending happend countles times and as Shifting Mound proposed - she recreated the echo from Long Quit memory him. The iteration set has been reseting from always. This is from where comes "Echo" nature of the Narrator, he is like echo of previous echo
Well in my opinion they should give the narrator a happing ending in form of a "rebirth/reincarnation". A compromise from the shifting mount and the long quiet. In one of the endings, the “long silence” misses the narrator, who is also missed by the hero's voice. In my eyes this should be an ending. So that the end of the world is not final but itself shifting and with that a compromise has been made in honor of the narrator for opening the eyes of both gods. (if you reach the ending where the long quiet and the princess plays a "eternal" game) Maybe this could be a secret ending if you unlock all possible endings in the game, where the narrator gets his second chance and with it, his world also.
Specte: Is this what you are? All those shards of broken glass? Voice of the Hero: Wait. If I am "shard of broken glass" then what is he? Voice of the Cold: Im me. Hero: Im talking about HIM
My dude, idk if anyone else has pointed it out, but the use of "The Man Who Sold The World" was absolutely genius. The vibe it gave during the video was good, and the subject of the song was wildly fitting. Really clever there!
Oh, I think I knew the world outside the construct is old, and that the game is somewhat in the future, but in the grandure of it all, you quickly pass by that subtle fact while playing. I certainly forgot about it and continued to view death through my own lens. No matter if the time were different and the entire universe was truly dying, the way the Narrator speaks about the situations outside the construct also made me doubt. Because even in our modern times, people face 'oblivion' every day. To be human is to face death one way or another. I'm glad I watched this video, it pointed out some aspects of the Narrator I had forgotten about during my 100%ting of the game. And the Echo is so single-minded, which makes it so tough to side with him most times. Like Euro Brady pointed out, the Echo doesn't think and change the way a human does. Echo hasn't been human in a long time.
Great essay. Also, throughly enjoyed the cover of ‘the man who sold the world’ at the end. I found it fitting and pleasing to listen to. I shall have to go hunt that down.
I think it's interesting that in one route, in the "Happily ever after" route, after you had spent the eternity with the princess eating the most delicious banquets over and over until you end up tasting nothing at all, playing the most fun and exciting games slightly changing the rules and adding new pieces every now and then to add more thrill to the game until the game was so boring and repetitive that it didn't bring any joy, and just spending all the time in the world next to the one you love until it's company doesn't make you feel anything at all. The narrator doesn't oppose to the idea of freeing the princess and ending the world, just saying "I'm tired" when he is questioned by the voice of the hero about why he isn't complaining about the freedom of the princess and the end of the world. I think that small version of the narrator that got to live and enjoy the world he wanted, learned that he was wrong
That echo was already in some ways influenced by smitten and the princess, it's not the same as for example the wild narrator that would try to reset everything just so the concepts wouldn't fuse and lesve the construct and doom everyone. The last narrator afterall did say that the echoes are diffrent by designe, even if they seem the same, and echo of an echo of an echo starts to become distorted, a memory of someone before death is not in the best mindset, as you can see, the Echo is incapable of feeling happiness
It's a shame this came out before Pristine Cut, which has a route where The Narrator sees a world just like what he wants and just how horrible it is, him giving up and even suggesting you save the princess. When you reach him at the end of the game after that, you can even tell him about how one of his selfs admits he's wrong, and he calls him delusional, just so good
Damn god damn, I never thought a 13 minutes video about a weird bird guy from one of my favorite games would make me cry, but here I am, drawing fan art to cope with the existential nature of death o7
On my original playthrough of Slay the Princess I had the choice of slaying her or not and I actually chose to slay her, reasoning that the narrator had made it clear that some form of change would exist, it would just be death that was gone, and the Princess's callousness at the end of the world disturbed me. After playing through again I wouldn't choose that option again. Though the narrator says "some form" of change will exist, I think the so-called "good ending" tells us a lot about what the narrator envisions as an optimal outcome. Just existing in a void, but don't worry, because you're happy, even if nothing else happens. Any change such as there is any is imperceptibly slow and you're just...in bliss. That's the world narrator sees as good, and I wouldn't want to create it. But there are maybe other options the narrator didn't foresee.
True but what kinds of change would remain? Would ones who have lost their lives due to illness or lost of blood just stay as they are? Weakness and in pain never to obtain release? What about the elderly who had lost family or just that one love they lost years ago they would forever loss that chance to reunite with them death isn't just an end it a release.
@@rashanmcrae9166 That's why I said I would not go with that ending if given another chance. The narrator seems to see his absolute ideal world as something like the "good" ending.
I feel the Damsel route is the one route where the Narrator gets a taste of his “perfect world” outside of the construct. It’s hard to explain, but essentially the route shows the Narrator a glimpse of the suffering he has inflicted upon his own world, because the situation you and the Damsel are stuck in. When the Damsel and you stay in the cabin instead of leaving, it causes the construct to become a homely but stagnant place, where you eat amazing foods only for them to turn stale and disgusting over time, and you play intricate board games with the Princess till she runs out of ideas for the game, then eternal damnation and boredom sets in. And when the Narrator attempts to point out how boring and pointless it all is, he basically shuts himself mid-sentence and realizes that the entire situation you and the Princess are in is likely what has happened to his world because of him trapping the both of you in the construct. Eternal stagnation and degradation, with no chance of growth or rejuvenation to heal or be replaced, nor any chance of death or destruction to end the pain. He wanted his world to never change, for his universe to live forever in stasis, for his people to never live in fear of death or destruction, and yet he had essentially locked his world into a state of eternal suffering and pain that will never cease, never heal, and never be truly free. No choices, no decisions, no alterations to the current order, just the same old thing spread over eternity. By the end of the route, when you leave hand in hand with the Damsel finally, he just lets you go without so much of a single protest.
Ultimately his biggest mistake was trying to begin with, an echo cannot learn or change, and thus cannot guide the gods to the right conclusion. Also, maybe they would've listen to him if he wasn't an absolute jerk..
I think it was due to him being so sure of himself that this was the only way to end death that there was no need to have the echo learn as the man who made him saw it as an absolute true that the death of people the destruction of a whole world was nothing short of horrible the only thing he couldn't and wouldn't except is that was the nature of things.
The Pristine Cut includes an ending where the Narrator sees what his goal will bring and asks the player NOT to kill the Princess beceause he realizes endless misery IS worse than oblivion.
What's wrong with getting rid of death because of arrogance? Trying to direct the story is not a mistake. This is a fairly logical course of action. Stories don't live on their own
The original man could be called the writer, perhaps? As unless shown otherwise, it's usually assumed that the narrator is the author directly speaking to the reader
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my lifelong special interest in fairytales: There’s *always* a price. Tricking Death (or at least, trying to get out of dying) is a pretty common story type in old folklore, and one that I am particularly fond of. Hell, my personal favorite fairytale of all time is Godfather Death, which is a prime example of this. But no matter what story, there’s never a happy ending for our hero, AKA the one who is trying to bargain with/trick/escape Death. They either die anyway or are cursed with some kind of horrific immortality. Even if they get what they want it’s not good. Every hero is determined, certain with getting what they want. They are willing to go to insane lengths to get there. But Death, whether personified or not, is a force of not just nature, but the universe. It operates in tandem with Life, not in opposition. So to tear them apart is just asking for trouble. It can’t be controlled no matter how hard one tries. What’s that? You’re convinced you’ve got a foolproof way out? That the advancements your world has made make it not only possible, but certain? Isn’t that what every other protagonist in these stories has thought? Alright fine, go ahead and try your pointless endeavor that seems like way more trouble than it’s worth, but both Death and Life aren’t going to make it easy. Neither are willing to go without a fight first. I guess he didn’t learn the lesson.
The fact that so many people in the comments section are debating the nature of the Narrator shows he was a well written character. Far more complex than just hero or villain.
I remember the point when the Narrator become my obsession, after some attempts to accomplish the mission (his mission). But I always followed his instructions, despite every different possibilities. I tried my best, I tried hard, my only will was to slay the princess and save the world from The End.
Righty! Time for some speculation! Here's a point (before watching the video) of speculation that I feel are note worthy: A. The 'Narrator' is Humanity's perceived *God.* A piece of speculation that may be a bit far flung, however, it makes sense when we look at the clues. - The Characters are specifically human / humaniod. Only straying from this detail when our view is altered of them. - The Long Quiet is humaniod in form yet carries aspects of an unknown creature (assumedly a Crow or Raven. It is implied they are a part or fragment of the Narrator, which is why they can only hear them). - The Princess (Shifting Mound) is shown to be a Human (though, it is revealed to be of her own choosing based on our perception, implying we know what a human is. And the Narrator is the creator of 'The Long Quiet', leading to concepts being inherented). - The environment is natural in appearance, aside from the cabin. Appearing more Earth-like then anything else (Though it may be to prevent the possibility of straying and or raising questions about other people). - The Narrator's reason for wanting to 'removed' The Shifting Mound (Also the physical embodiment of change) was to preserve humanity. Their own creation, in theory. The main point that ties it together is... - The Fear of Change", or best describe as the "Fear of the Unknown" which is reflected in the perceived God that is the Narrator. If we view the Narrator being depicted as a Raven, it may symbolize a number of things but primarily, an Omen. A warning of what's to come or simply change in a negative light. While viewing them as a Crow, could be reference to Destiny. An inevitably.
You justify The Narrator's humanity pretty well, but you don't justify his supposed divinity. Additionally, he directly calls himself "a mortal" in game.
@@boxlessone1046 Valid point, which is why I stated it to be speculation. Since some details tend to get overlooked. But, the majority of the points made do simply point towards the mortality of the Narrator and their intentional (or unintentional) design decisions.
I think everything in this game, including The Narrator, has a higher, undefinable meaning. Everything is nebulous, surreal. If you told me this whole thing was a dying man's dream I'd believe you. If you told me it was literally about the death and rebirth of universes, I'd wager you just as correct.
The narrator when looking at the story as a game, it feels like he is insane for wanting to permanently end all death, but if you were near the end of the universe like him, you would also do what he did given the opportunity.
the youtube video essayist germ is spreading but anyways great video. you clearly did your research and didnt misrepresent the nuanced nature of the narrator. he is neither a saint nor evil. he is just a terrified human doing its best to survive and make the world better
I think the narrators' actions speak for themselves. He said he did all of it because anything is better than oblivion. Yet to do it he had to face oblivion himself. He was a hypocrite from the beginning because the truth is he knew there were worse things than oblivion. He preferred oblivion to being helpless and to losing everything, yet that is the exact fate he condemns his world to if he succeeds. Helplessly losing yourself for all of eternity, no merciful death or end, just eternal cycling out of all your control.
All you really need to know from him is that you’re on a path in the woods and at the end of that path is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin is a princess. You’re here to slay her. If you don’t, it will be the end of the world
that's exactly what the narrator would say
@@reubensalter8125Why? Are you a monarchist? I certainly hope not.
@@reubensalter8125 Personally I think the princess is an innocent soul who must be saved from her imprisonment as she can do no wrong!
@@Ixarus6713OK smitten
Sometimes we need something simple like that, not worrying about anything else. Just the task given to us, better to be happy than free
There's a certain line that I think is really telling of the Narrator's beliefs. If you tell him he's delusional at the end he responds with, "I'm only delusional if I'm wrong, and I'm...not wrong. I can't be."
Well at that point he's invested too much. He has no choice but to be right, cause if he's not, everything he sacrificed is for nothing.
@RequiemPoete Which shows how much of a fool he still was. When dealing with beings of infinity there is both infinite permutation and infinite distances between those permutations. A more holistic result where continuity was maintained but things were without suffering was always possible.
@@travislyonsgary He's suffering from "The Sunken Cost Fallacy."
There is no delusion, just as one of protagonists voices says about shifting mound. "There is no arguing with that creature. She is right as long as she exist" The same thing can be said about narator.
@borisbando6726 Isn't he just a guy though? All his tricks only work so long as you aren't aware you could choose differently
So, I may actually be the Narrator's worst enemy. I went through the game far more enamored with the Princess and the Long Quiet, so I never asked any questions about what was outside the construct, and then I reached the loop ending. In the loop ending, if you have asked him about the world outside, an option comes up to make sure the Princess keeps the Narrator's world in existence during the reset, and she says that it is up to the player to make sure that happens. By entering the loop without knowing of the world outside of the construct, that world has ended while the construct continues without creating the next universe.
The question is about if the people in the world will continue dying, because of her existence and her answer basically is ,,I can change to whatever you imagine me to be, so imagine me helping them”, it’s not about whether the world will continue to exist, they are trapped in a vacuum outside of the world so it doesn’t yet end, that’s was to whole point, if you have chose the loop the world is stagnant until something happens, whether this is killing her or freeing her
When are you able to ask the Narrator questions about outside the construct? I want to see the dialogue for this myself
@@jesse3525 when you are talking to the broken mirror, some questions are unlocked after you have asked specific ones, but you can save before the questions or watch a video with all of them
loop ending is just a loop tho, it don't progress the world
@@thechosenone5421 it is a loop, but I'm pretty sure it is not a time loop.
The narrator has no ties to the trout population.
The narrator controls the lobsters
So this is where you went after the Ash-Veil Lane arg, hopefully the trout population is still thriving
@@KiaV2 after ash veil lane ended I have been wandering TH-cam, keeping the greater internet informed about the trout population.
Yes, The trout population is thriving.
@@draconian3905Soon they will stake their claim to the lands
The Narrator IS the Trout population. Weren't you paying attention?
Something I noted while doing the Nightmare route: if you attempt to walk off the edge of the stairs into the void below, and tell him you did so because you were scared of having to face the Princess, he actually reveals some hypocrisy in saying that anything would be better than an eternity spent in a void. And I'm not sure anyone needs a reminder of what his "reward" is if you do everything he tells you to exactly how he tells you to do it.
That kind of furthers my idea that that route is sort of the Narrator learning the error of his ways. Cause during the Moment of Clarity he learns just how horrific his stagnant future could be, and this bit you've described implies to me that, if he really does view the cabin as a reward, it's because the cabin is somewhere nice, in his opinion. So long as its nice, it should be fine. And for your inability to determine right from wrong and decision to simply keep the stalemate going in perpetuity to solve the dilemma you both get to learn the fastest way to spoil your pleasures.
This is especially hypocritical considering that the the Princess, among other things, is death. Essentially the Narrator tells the player that death is preferable to an an eternity in a void despite an unchanging world without death being the Narrator's entire goal.
Princess is change, not only death.
@@onebilliontacos3405
He just says whatever needs to be said, for you to do what he wants
actually i think it fits perfectly, anything is better than an empty void, but death is not anything, it is nothing, it is obvlivion, so it is worse. because nothing is worse than an empty void, and death is nothing.
My main problem with the narrator, as someone very analytical and skeptical, is the vaugeness with which he tries to frame his solution as the only solution. It just invites asking more questions, and due to the nature of the Princess and The Construct, means he already lost; the clean kill needed for the good ending was just never going to happen until after one vessel had already been collected.
The "Plan B" of having the fully awakened Hero kill the fully awakened Princess is riskier to his goal as it is the last chance. I think he's just trying to cynically maximize his chances here as he does tell you what's going on when the mirror shatters. Yet I still agree with you that he is too focused on "killing her" being the only option. I made a comment elsewhere her that I can totally see the Princess and the Hero creating a reincarnation cycle where the soul and perhaps even memory remains after death, the one thing that the Hero's power protect eternally.
@@BobMcBobJr
That.... would be actually interesting.
Like, the Princess and the Long Quiet are both parts of the circle of life while the Narrator represents the soul, memories and matter which dies and rebirths.
That way, all 3 could have exist in harmony without hurting each other.
On the other hand, I got the impression that you, as the Long Quiet, create already such an eternal circle of destruction and reincarnation if you decide to accept the princess.
I mean, she said it herself.
They are both opposing parts who will always conflict each other and so, create and destroy worlds over and over again.
That way, you could actually say that you created indeed an reincarnation system where you play your part in it and work together.
I even think that this is even the best end.
The mortal end has some charm too, but I think the acceptance choice is the best one for both of them because I see it like a restoration of the natural order and cosmic balance.
@@BobMcBobJr The fully awakened hero wouldn't kill princess, he would save her, so instead of a high risk it's an instant failure, sadly he only wakes up a little bit, it was probably the Narrator's doing, he not only divided that infinite cosmic being into SM and LQ, he also took the liberty of cutting off Hero from us, trying to rig things to go in his favor and ruin chapter 1's meaning which is said in the title, "The Hero and The Princess".
If we were how the narrator wants, we can even take a look at the music names, if we take the blade, the music isn't "The Princess" anymore, it becomes "The World-Ender", so the Narrator tries to shatter the natural order of chapter 1 at all costs, he fears the Hero's potential and most certainly knows he won't be controlled or deceived by him, and he isn't because we already see this in a dialogue:
"Hero: I knew we had to question this situation, there's a reason I'm telling you this and there's a reason you listened" - Hero to us while doubting the Narrator's intentions while interrogating Princess no matter if we took the blade or not. So no matter if we were tainted a little by the initial fear that leads us to take the blade, Hero is still not buying it.
If we're to mantain the ambience, and by the game's meaning, the perception of Long Quiet in relation to the chapter's title, then we would follow the Hero's first advice, we're supposed to save princesses, not slay them, so we don't take the blade and the music doesn't change, and we get to see the real Princess, then we save her, and with a developed Hero personality, Narrator won't be able to get in the way, we win, that's how things would've naturally gone if we look at all this.
After that is a whole what if, we remember everything, yet our perception was guided by US, not by Narrator, and everything went well, this is a love story and we defeated Fear in chapter 1, which means that the story would pose Hero and Princess clearly against the Narrator from chapter 2 onwards. I guess Hero being just that, a Hero, would allow us to override Narrator very well, and overcome anything he tries to throw at us, doesn't mean we'll always win, which would spun different new voices in later chapters, but it's clear that the trust between us and princess will blossom from the beginning, and it won't be a story about killing each other, but to understand the truth so we can defeat the Narrator and be free together. And the only possible ending this time around I guess it's the be free as gods ending, we're not affected by Fear this time, and we will definitely fulfill our path with princess each chapter, so there's no leave the cabin endings (there's just hero and contrarian there, the only two who never got a link to princess, Hero because of what I just said, Contrarian because while being him the lead, we never meet the princess).
Now on another topic, I like your idea of the malfunction in the loop ending and being able to remember, I think the same, rather, I feel like with that plot, we could do what I've just told you, be the True Hero in chapter 1 and save the Princess, we'd have a direct confrontation against Narrator and overcome everything until we break free with SM together. I imagine the OST of Apotheosis in the background whenever we as Hero face the doom of Narrator's machinations, what's cooler is that princess would help too and because she's what we perceive she could also fight very well on our side.
I mean the game was rigged so that either you die (like 99% of the time) the vessel gets absorbed into the shifting mound, or you kill yourself (spectre)
and that 1(or 2) good ending i guess
all in all, he's a terrified man holding on to the old, but wouldn't you do that, saving the world from a world ending threat is considered heroic by most, so why do we judge him for trying to do it?
the guy literally imprisoned two gods and killed himself to end death
@@egekahraman8985 It makes him tragic in multiple ways--what's left of him is his dying whims set in stone that can feel and react but literally cannot change his opinion or stance any longer. Perhaps were he in the place of his fragments, the original man may have eventually felt pity, seen some error (of which there are many the Narrator encounters but overlooks), or thought of a more merciful solution, and thus relented to let Shifty and Quiet free. Huh, the Narrator's very existence is a rather compelling argument for saving Shifty now that I think about it--it's good to have strong principles but being truly unable to change your mind about anything is horrifying. Imagine if we were all stuck at our high school or college mentality and opinions. Or if once you formed a strong opinion about someone you were stuck with that forever, even if said person turns out to be a walking saint and you two just got off on the wrong foot, or worse you fell for a sociopath.
He literally gave birth to a creature (in this case a goddess) just to kill her, also split the fabric of birth and death into two beings and force one of them to kill the other, while not respecting none of them and even looking down upon them both, WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHY?
@@Stefano-b1zthey aren't his children and one of them will literally end life as he knows it, which is something he very clearly was trying to stop.
@@egekahraman8985Well he split a god into two, imprisoned one, and had the other half try and kill the first half
I feel so many people hate Him but I can't help giving Him the benefit of the doubt. Since death is something I haven't experienced, then maybe he's right, and an eternity of nothing ever changing is better than dying. One of my favorite characters in media for sure!
How is an eternity of nothing changing better? You would literally go insane, not to mention most of the concept of change will die, so that means no growth, no new people, he even said constant forgetfulness, FOR EVERYONE
@@Stefano-b1z
Again, without having experienced either of those options… we can’t really say for sure. All of our opinions on the matter are basically just.. headcanons.
What I find the most interesting about it is that… the game itself kind of makes you hate Him, considering how it’s written. You play as a god who cannot die, and therefore doesn’t understand why death can be terrifying. So by playing this game… you’re kind of forgetting what it feels like to be human and instead come to think of Him as horrible, selfish or even evil. When in actuality, He’s just as much a person as all of us. And I’m pretty sure everyone fears death to at least some extent. So everything He did is a perfectly normal human reaction, especially considering where he came from. Obviously, this still doesn’t really seem like the best “solution” but His intentions were purely selfless. And who *can* make good decisions when this desperate, anyway?
At the end of the day… all I feel for Him is immense pity. He was doomed to fail from the start, and he might’ve even known it. 😢
@@Kayta-Lindawithout experiencing them? You would ABSOLUTELY go insane with no chance and sensation, this is literally a torture method
And no, we hate him because he doesn’t exactly act like a good person, he doesn’t care about the Long Quiet, forcing him to do exactly what he says even killing him if necessary, he has no empathy for the Princess which he created just to kill, almost all his actions through the game pain him in a bad light, it’s almost ironic that the only human acts inhumane
@@Stefano-b1z without change there's quite literally no way of going insane. Changing from sane to insane is that, a change.
Then again, even if it was possible to go insane in His desired world, still there's the posibility than an eternity of insanity is better than whatever death is, and nobody would know except for Him.
And of course his actions paint Him in a bad light, He is an antagonist at the end of the day, but what I'm saying is that He is far more sympathetic than what I've seen some people treating Him.
Narrator and the two gods are some of the most tragic and touching characters I know by far. The stakes are insanely high and it took the Narrator everything in his humanity to create the game essentially.
I always thought that the end of the world he was referring to was the natural heat death of the universe or an atomic war, something his people naturally had to face or brought to their selves. Glad to see someone also interprets it that way.
if it was an atomic war, he wouldn't say 'the bones of this universe are old' and there wouldn't be the file of 'dying star' on the game
Is it just me who was severely disappointed by how little we learn about the Narrator other than his motivation? I want to know how a mortal was able to tear apart and entrap a deity. I wish that there was more emphasis on what he sacrificed and a better explanation of nature of what he became and how he connected to Long Quiet to the point where Shifty confused him with one of the Voices, more backstory and development as a whole. Especially given that he is the only one to provide a mortal's perspective to Long Quiet, right before a confrontation that will decide the fate of mortals. As it is, what could have been a great character became little more than a tool. Alternatively, maybe making him more vague and open to interpretation would have been beneficial
In the lovecraftian mythos humans where granter the ability to be dreamers truly awakened dreamers can create entire realities he envisioned change and death as a concept gave it a face and then split it maybe its the same concept
While what you suggest would be interesting--I think detailing the "how" would have detracted from the themes of the game and the fandom would have devolved into GameTheorying^tm the process rather than the philosophical themes and relationships between the three.
@@leahnzastrzelecki5217that and also whatever the explanation would be not everyone would be happy and it can even damage the story, alien technology, magic, mythology, what would be good for explaining how a mortal divided the fabric of life and death, created two gods and trapped them in the body of one of them, which is simultaneously a reality outside of time affecting time, it’s just too surreal
The problem is that the answer is never as fascinating as the question itself.
From how I see it... It's because that's all there is about the Narrator in Slay the Princess (not to be confused with the Narrator from the Stanley Parable).
Because the Narrator here is just a being running on a single concept, to stop the end of the world. He is an underdeveloped character, because that is his purpose given by his creator, the one who built the construct. He is incapable of learning, and that is how he fails.
On my view with the Narrator, I like to headcanon that his fear of death and his desire to ultimately erase the concept of it was because of his past experiences that made him greatly fear and perhaps even hate it for most of his life since the moment he was born. As he lived like any other mortal, he slowly grew obsessed with it as he suffered many close calls with death (at least one that was nearly fatal to him) in his life along with losing many friends and families (and perhaps maybe a love of his own but who knows, really) that it greatly traumatized him.
As he grew up and became a successful scientist/alchemist (whatever really with how ambiguous things are outside the Construct) through many tireless years studying and discovering new things of how the concept of the universe works and trying to find the absolute answer on how to finally destroy the concept of death, he kept gazing into the infinite depths of the old universe that is slowly dying during his career...... and as he recalled many his unpleasant experiences of his life that involved death, it eventually made him witness the depths of the universe had gaze back at him.
and at that moment he coming into contact with it directly he probably though on ending his own life immediatly because of the stakes and made everything we see in the game in split second thought focused only on that rather than the seeing his life flash through his eyes, thinking about killing the deity directly but couldnt, he thoguht to split the deity to be necessary, not being able to kill either of the sides, decided to trap part of it inside itself just to make sure it wont affect his world directly, somehow making them either forget or one side split into fractions as a way to gain time or actually just to make sure it poses the least ammount of immediate threat, he needed something to kill it for him, so the decided that the rest of the other not splited to be engraved with a guide of his own mind focused in only one thing, the consequences of not making it, and why he needed to make it happen, to make his objective of stopping everything from reaching true oblivion and aiming to reach stagnation because he couldnt directly kill the deity's main core and reason to why everything would reach its end, he focused in the last moments to make the echo and as he was right at his last breath, he couldnt not think selfishly about what he left behind and what he would have liked to become for the price he payed, a hero, and to save his beloved princess (metaphorically), which technically make the princess and hero's voice + echo, which would actually end up making him fail because of his last moments, he didnt have time enough to plan better and even if he had, he was doomed by just thinking about hero and princess, with morale aggainst him with just simple roles gatekeeping him from suceeding, all made by his own thoughts and engraved mixed between the one needed to kill and the victim
@@fabricios6384 I do like the last part of him subconsciously envisioning the Long Quiet as the Hero and the Shifting Mound as the Princess, respectively. It was that one moment that forever put a wrench in his plans where the Long Quiet would have the capability of questioning the Narrator and whenever if he should slay or save the Princess.
@ yeah, but after seeing the video of the construct i would change some stuff there, because he made a cage of belief trapping both of the halfs within themselves and making the last defense be exactly the one he would use to kill the other
My first playthrough I got tons of wholesome princess chapters like thorn and damsel. The narrator was about to explain what’s going on and I immediately smash the mirror and reunite with my beloved
we've finally found smitten's account..
Well. I never in my wildest dreams imagined this shitpost channel owner to be capable of such quality writing. Spectacular video essay - a bit short but that's good, straight to the point.
Here's to it blowing up.
Inside me love a Witch and a Prisoner.
I was always fascinated by just how stagnant Narrator is. No matter what you say or do, he stays the same. Sure sometimes he decides that Quiet is lost cause and stops speaking resignated, but he never truly changes in the world that doesn't stay the same even for a moment.
That is why Happily Ever After hit me so hard, the only time Narrator doubted himself and his vision. It is one of the reasons this is my favorite ending
The biggest mistake of the narrator was that he didn’t love us. Compare to the princess who wholeheartedly loved us from the beginning, the narrator never considered us like him. We felt pain, anger, happiness and sorrow but neither us or the princess were truly alive for him. Even if we were his creations, his children, for him we’re merely the reason of his despair. In some way, it help him to use us without any shackles but it also help us to fight for ourselves, our princess and our liberty. That’s was his mistake. From the moment he started seeing us as different from the living, we no longer gave the same importance to his abstract world. He didn’t have the same importance anymore.
lol, people really woudl doom everything in existences for love(or lust, because if the princess wasnt cute the players wouldnt act the same)
In many ways I understand it. First of all, the version of him we're talking to is just an Echo. It isn't really him and it isn't capable of changing or growing or doing anything else. It is stagnant in the state of despair and desperation he was in at the moment of death. In that state, I doubt he did love them. All he knew was that he was terrified of them and what they represented for his world, which is understandable. He was faced with the death of everything and everyone he ever loved, and not just their death but the complete destruction of even their memory, of the evidence that his kind had ever existed at all. Of course he would be desperate, of course he'd hate the god that condemned his kind to this fate, and of course upon splitting it and ending himself to keep the cycle going, he probably held no love for them in his heart.
I suppose it's a test to the Long Quiet's capacity to change that even in spite of all the narrator does to him, he is capable of understanding the narrator's position and choosing to oppose the Shifting Mound on behalf of those mortals who were so desperate to assert their right to live that they challenged a god. It is thanks to the narrator that our character can even find a middle road.
@@ahmadazem4167 I don't think that's what they're saying at all. Because the narrator doesn't care about you, you can't trust him. I've seen a lot of people play this game and almost all of them start not trusting him although they can't tell why. And it's this lack of caring for the protagonist that drives it. Any worry and doubt you have is treated very diissively. Which makes the player curious what he is hiding and distrustful.
Meanwhile while the princess may be prickly she's very honest with you, so people tend to trust her more. And why shouldn't she be? Kindness towards you is her default. Her rage and aggression is retaliatory and she will end up forgiving you anyways. Her kindness is unconditional. The narrators kindness is entirely conditional.
Even so people dont make their final decisions off of that love. When players find the truth they usually decide themselves what they believe on a philosophical level. I haven't seen anyone choose the princesses side just because they loved her. But it's notable that the writers do have a clear message that the narrator is wrong. Which is probably why the princess is more naturally sympathetic than the narrator. Whether the player agrees is another matter. They do give you the chance to disagree with them though so kudos for that.
@@ahmadazem4167 And yet people still adore a creature literally made out of knives.
@@Hectonkhyresshe's the perfect woman after all
It seems so fitting to me that the same man who voiced Jonathan Sims from The Magnus Archives also voices a character who so feared and hated death that he literally tore reality in half to stop it.
Thats intentional! The creators of the game hired him because they were fans of tma and his work on it!
He fears Oblivion for the world, not himself, he literally ended himself just to have a chance to save the world.
The narrator describes life without the Princess as a cycle of forgetting and rediscovering things. He himself is proof of why that doesn't work, as his greatest flaw is that he never gets to bond with the player, because he keeps forgetting them, and so he does not stand a chance compared to the combined Princess who you meet between cycles. I'm really glad that Pristine Cut humanized him further, because for all of his folly, he is a tragic figure.
ngl I still bonded with him, is a lot more sad than with the princess, she's always the same one while the narrator dies each time or at least a version of him is left behind. He also is kind of funny sometimes I like the approach that the contrarian has to him which is that it was fun to mess around with him
The fact the 2 beings have a little of each other in themselves shows that they don’t work without each other so their escape is inevitable even if they go through every ending.
Though in personifying them he might have save the world or at least ensured that in giving them self recognition in a form of self he can understand, the next world to come into existence would be one that he would have been able to comprehensible to his definition of mortals.
While I don't disagree with anything here, I think the more interesting question is what the "good" ending of the game would actually entail for the universe. While it's easy to linger on him trapping and potentially even manifesting gods in his own creation, in my opinion the single most important thing is that it wasn't a clean tear. The Long Quiet and Shifting Mound aren't gods of change and stillness, they're what *_should_* be gods of change and stillness, but not quite. This is why the player can change slightly between runs, getting new voices, forming new memories, etc. and is likely why the Shifting Mound can grow to have any vague sense of sentience at all. Both of them are, primarily, gods of either change or stillness, but through the game the Shifting Mound gets more threads of connection and perspectives to define themselves by and the Long Quiet splinters to get more unique fragments to guide themselves by. So while they both start as 49% one aspect and 1% of the other, that 1% grows over the course of the game with The Long Quiet achieving a greater atunement to change and The Shifting Mound achieving a greater ability to remain unchanged. (this is corroborated by the secret ending, the original form is twisted and mangled with multiple heads because the player chose to never engage or think about the princess, leaving The Shifting Mound only capable of percieving themselves which, given they were constantly changing and ill-defined to start with, meant that both the form and the perception of that form were caught in a constant state of non-definition. However, at the end of the game when The Shifting Mound has gained more perspectives and capacity for "stillness", that same multi-headed form is stable, because The Shifting Mound is capable of percieving itself without redefining itself to fit it's own constantly changing perception)
In the "good" ending of the game where they exit the cabin together, it essentially means that The Narrator ripped a core fabric of reality out, cut it into two pieces, and left those pieces apart, only for them to literally grow back together, resulting in more total material than was there originally. This could mean any number of things such as it being a brand new creation myth where The Narrator was correct and them exiting the cabin *_does_* wipe out the universe, but it's also a creation myth as it spawns an entirely new universe where the concepts of change and unchange aren't a thing and "heat death" isn't even a concept that makes sense. It could also mean that his original tear is undone and his universe *_is_* saved, as the newly unified concepts of change and unchange do literally prevent his universe from dying. It could also mean that they literally do both become manifested gods, deities capable of reshaping reality given both a sense of self and a physical form to act.
Whatever the case, it goes without saying that when you rip a fundamental aspect of reality out, cut it in half, and then those two halves start to grow and evolve (a fact only made possible by the fact that it wasn't a clean cut) your left in an incomprehensibly different place than you started. What the fuck does it mean when the concept/god of change now has the ability to just, not? What the fuck does it mean when the concept of stillness can just sorta decide it wants to do something else actually? What the hell do those princesses and voices do? Are they left there in The Narrator's construct for an eternity? Does that mean that 99.999999...% of The Shifting Mound and The Long Quiet are still stuck in the construct, and neither the Princess nor the Bird Man actually even are gods when they leave? What if The Construct broke then?
The jagged-tear is, at least to me, the most interesting part of the entire story because it is the catalyst for the very concepts/gods of change and unchange to grow into more than they were originally, more than they should actually be.
Thankful for this comment. I needed this perspective.
Another thing that’s very interesting about the jagged tear is HOW the change/stillness ratio affects the two of them. The Shifting Mound’s form IS still very malleable but she can stabilize it as long as she keeps a consistent perspective of herself. The Long Quiet, on the other hand, splinters in order to change. He’s not capable of extreme physical change but he can externalize his own perspective so it can act upon itself.
This fact is honestly what I find most fascinating about these two. They’re fundamentally paired just by the nature of being half of something, but simultaneously those halves can’t work as a single being. Although only The Shifting Mound is referred to as a being of perception, The Long Quiet is one too. She’s the Perceived, he’s the Perceiver. The Spectre called the Voices “shards of broken glass” for a reason, the Voices are the only way for The Long Quiet to really perceive himself and thus the only way for him to Change. He can’t be changed by the Princesses’ perceptions of him because she would always view him the way he views himself because she’s built on his perception of her, so he NEEDS to be able to perceive himself (as the Echoes also can’t give much perspective due to their nature). In this context, it’s no wonder that he’s represented by mirrors. I think that’s also why the Voices disappear when you look in the mirror, since this is a situation where The Long Quiet can truly perceive himself in his entirety (however briefly), the fragmenting perspectives become unnecessary and can be resolved into one singular perspective.
This is also why I think the two of them only gain sentience after they’re split, as before that moment they couldn’t perceive themselves. Like I said before, The Princess’ (or in this case, The Shifting Mound’s) perspective of The Long Quiet will always match how he perceives himself. Since he can see her and see she’s a Being, then if she’s looking at him then he must also be a Being that can be seen. He doesn’t really know what he looks like though, he knows he has hands (he can hold things) and probably feet (he apparently walked here) and that he definitely has eyes (because how else would he see?) and that he’s supposed to be the opposite of her (which might as well extend to coloration) but has no idea about the rest of the details so they just,, Don’t Exist.
(Sorry this just became a Long Quiet ramble, I have a Lot of thoughts about the silly vaguely-bird-shaped-shadow-creature and a lot of the corresponding Shifting Mound ramble was already covered either in game or in your comment.
I had a thought after a couple of playthroughs. The “real” narrator did change the nature of reality forever; dividing a single, pantheistic being into two separate entities. But more than that he created two beings who learned about mortality and feared death like he did.
It was likely unintentional on the Narrator’s part, but my head canon is that the cruel situation he created for the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound made them appreciate the promise and perils of mortality.
The Long Quiet and the Princess / Shifting Mound was once a likely pantheistic being. A being which couldn’t understand mortality as they were above such things. Now there are two (or one) new beings watching over existence that now recognize what mortal beings know all too well.
Would they become angry gods? I like to imagine that the life and death struggle they endured would make the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound quite the opposite.
I always considered it quite ironic how the voices feared the mirror, which was to them death.
SM : Holy shit, I died... many times.
TLQ smacks her in the head and shows his chest which he made have abs and scars: 28 stab wounds!
@@desadograisedrobot515 The Gentle Princess: “Look I apologized already didn’t I? It’s not like I had stabbing practice before we met you know!”*pouts*
This is exactly my position and honestly, it's what makes the Narrator a hero in spite of his misguided end-goal. His actions ultimately have the capacity of saving humanity in many of the endings, an option that wasn't ever possible while the two gods were one. He split them, gave them (perhaps unintentionally) individuality, and then brought them down to the level of mortals to feel what they would potentially inflict upon creation. They can choose to ignore that and embrace their godhood-- or they can choose to do the opposite, which is what happens in every ending where they meet back in the cabin after their awakening and grand standoff.
And for them to even have a standoff where they argue about what they are and what their actions will do to the rest of the world-- that alone is a victory all its own, as I doubt the united entity they were before would have even been able to care; and yet here we are, two gods who know mortality, who love each other, grappling with whether they should kill each other or come together, all for the GOOD of the universe. The Long Quiet will argue against the destruction and rebirth of the universe on behalf of those still alive and the Shifting Mound will argue against the hell an endless stagnation would be to those same living beings. It's remarkable and whether either god would ever acknowledge it, what he did ultimately put humanity (or... whatever sentient bird kind his people may have been) on even ground with them.
@@Maphisto86Long Quiet:Sweety I love you but you have some issues to solve like the sword form and dragon form.Seriously what were these?
Princess:I WAS GOING THROUGH PHASES.
The Narrator should've just found the Eye of the Universe smh
Non joke comment: it's very fitting that the achievement for asking the narrator all of the questions is "Death of the Author", the concept that stories take on a life of their own once released, and the author's interpretation becomes just one of many interpretations.
Yeah he should have just dumped all his memories into the eye and died while the universe resets, it would have been much simpler even with out all the time travel and probe cannon shenanigans
(Glad to find another outer wilds fan I love that game so much)
"eye of universe" yeah uhm so theres this podcast-
DUDE i was going crazy thinking about just how similar the two stories are, especially with the echoes of the eye DLC. The Stranger's inhabitants literally sealed away the eye for the same reason as the narrator.
@@outerwildsmybeloved4127 and theyre both bird people too!!!!
"i think you know what i am." Yeah, you're the eyes specialest little boy
I would have democratically elected this bird as Narrator for a fateful god.
Tricking silence into killing death is a gigachad move.
Its only hubris if it fails
6:40 in my headcanon the world created by killing the shifting mound is the game Rainworld. Its a cyclical world without death.
12:20 if you think about it, he kinda wins in that scenario, at least on the level of not forgetting. Two eternal gods know he existed and spoke to him, in a way their memmory is his immortality.
OMG Someone mentioned Rain World!
And yeah, me and my friend had similar thoughts while playing
Even before we got an ending, she said "so this is what life in Rain World looks like, huh?"
@@dans_animart10 Great minds think alike.
And then the ancients proceed to decide that oblivion is better than endless stagnation.
RAIN WORLD!! rain world moment!!
@@infinityc2859 and in doing so, by forefiting existance they doom lesser creatures to misery in their ruined world.
I've always been a fan of stories where conflict is born through identical morals and mindsets, but applied to different people or groups. I feel this applies to the slayer and the narrator, because if you take his mindset and simply apply it to the slayer, it would mean he should save the princess, because that would save her from oblivion and yourself from eternal torment at having ended the only other thing in existence like you with your own hands, and you'd be doing it at the cost of an outside world where nothing is truly like you and her and where nothing ever really ends, just changes form. This is an easy mirror to the narrators reasoning behind his choice, choosing to subject you two infinite beings to torture just to save his own world from oblivion.
It is simply the willingness to subject an utterly alien outsider to misery, albeit in a manner that doesn't ever truly kill them, so that you and everything you care for may never truly die. This mindset describes both the narrator is his actions to rid the world of death, and the slayer in his condemnation of an infinity of universes to life and death so that he and the princess may always be together.
This can also be seen as the reason why it doesn't matter if you leave with Shifty or with the Princess as they both mean the same thing, though they can change your interactions with each other. Though I'd always leave with Shifty because, if you saw absolutely everything with your beloved other half would you suddenly stop loving them? Of course not, I'm happy to dance again with her, and if she makes me forget that is part of the flow.
Semi related, i love how similar the relationship of slayer/princess is to the Hero/greatest enemy and lover from Marathon. It's how I like to imagine their dynamic after the game ends, their bodies die but they return again and again to dance and clash and rage anew.
Oh, and a little piece on the whole "there's a piece of what should be her in you, so things won't end but they won't be the same" this plan only works in the event you follow his word to the letter and get the "good" ending. If Shifty is ever made whole you can see she literally erupts out of the long quiet, out of you. It's clear that piece of her in you gathered perspectives and nerves until gravity brought them all together again and that little piece of what should've been her has now become all of her, and it has emerged out of you, so if you kill her now that piece of what should've been her that stopped things from staying the same will be gone. The moment Shifty is "complete" and you have to kill the piece of her in you the narrator's plan has catastrophically failed.
super based analysis. he's just a terrified shadow of a man trying to do every he thinks is the best for his loved ones.
i Will absolutely still let Contrarian bully him tho
Oh my god! 2 months in the making. this already starts out with firelink music. this is already a master peice.
7:02 I think you got that wrong, if you ask the Echo if stagnation won’t be worse that death, he basically responds with ,,Anything is better than oblivion” so he knows that everything will stuck in one place
Even in your own video at 6:41 he says that everyone will be in a constant state of forgetfulness
Furthermore when you ,,fight” the Shifting mount she multiple times depending of your routes comments that without change and struggle there would be no growth, so it’s possible that this not only include progression, but also literal growth as in people will stop growing and multiply
And even with the argument that the Narrator preserved a tiny portion of change within you, when you kill the Princess, the Hero ask you how your feeling and you respond that it feels like part of you have died, the Hero responds with ,,Literally or figuratively” implying that it may be literally and the part of you that died was the change, because you literally killed change in her entirety, this is very speculative, but it’s weird that he says it like this (because in normal circumstances it’s obvious that it’s figuratively) and it will further put the nail in the coffin that the Narrator’s philosophy is not only wrong, but his plan wasn’t going to work in the first place
And also the dying star, you know, the star in the process of dying, it’s not only a prove that the world is in stagnation, but also can you imagine how unbearably HOT it will be to live in a world in which its star is in a brink of death, these people will WISH death was still a concept
It's more likely they are living around a red dwarf (which would explain why they seem to be so close to it since they are rather cold) those dont heat up the last star in the universe will not explode into a supernova it will grow dimmer and colder until it shines no more
Edit: the dialogue about a part of You dying comes from the fact that TLQ has a small part of SM inside of him and the SM has a small part of TLQ inside her so by killing her you kill that part of you
@@ashadeofblue6815 Yes, you kill that part of you, that's my theory that you kill the part of her in you and with that the entire existence of change as a concept, that is literal and not emotional, also in the files it says dying star so I think it's stuck in the process of dying
@@Stefano-b1z i kinda disagree on that since from my viewpoint the Narrator put a piece of her in TLQ so that change becomes crippled and limited after her death instead of it truly dying
@@ashadeofblue6815 and then after you say that it felt like part of you died when you killed her, the hero suspiciously asked if you mean symbolically or literally (as if it’s normal to say that literally), so I think you really did kill change entirely and his plan was doomed from the start, I could be wrong tho
@@Stefano-b1z My understanding is you're feeling the part of you that's in her die. Not the part of her that's in you. If that makes sense.
A lot of this feels like a literalization of the concept of "death of author". You can never actually interact with the author of a story when you are experiencing it. It is at most a memory; an echo of the author at the time they were writing it. And of the course the author was alone, most are when they are writing their stories.
Funnily enough, the only reason why the voices are neutral at best towards The Narrator is because we chose to disobey him ourselves. If we simply do what He wants, we will be "eternally happy" till the end of our conscience and will get the you know what ending. However, once we decide to not follow Him, everything goes against His plan, so of course He gets hostile and of course we respond to hostility with hostility of our own due to the fact that He cant even make a convincing reason for us to kill the princess.
Also i just realized that the supposed "good ending" where we leave the cabin with the princess is the worst one because we meet the said oblivion. Honestly living as a god with hot goddess gf seems more appealing now. Wait, doesn't that mean that all He needed to do was to convince us convince her to stop the world from ending? Welp, time to have my mind torn apart by these thoughts for another week or so.
Edit: some grammar mistakes were made, whoops!
When he says ‘the world will end if she is not slain’ he is being massively overdramatic.
‘HIS WORLD’ will end, meaning the coming years will continue. Time will march forward, things will change, nature and man’s creations will forever ebb back and forth, things will never be the same as they were in the past.
He is fighting to keep his world forever and eternal, that it may never grow, but never shrink. (Besides the point that by killing himself (or just dying, ether or) he has already forever irreparably ‘destroyed’ that world.)
So no, there’s no oblivion when mortal Hero and moral Princess step out from the cabin. We only stay in the hut because we, the spirit who has been the hero, agree that wherever they go next, it is only for the Hero and Princess.
@@Noriniano, reality itself will die, entropy will claw at the universe until nothing is left but drifting photons, the narrator wasnt exaggerating, it will be the end of absolutely everything
@@technus147
Both half-right.
It will be the end of absolutely everything that currently exists, but (as the Princess states at her apex), that absolute Nothingness will then trigger the birth of a new reality.
That is the cycle - the birth of reality, the death and total erasure of that reality, and the birth of reality again. Everything lost from before, but always something new in the future.
@toxdz_quack8466 You can in general break down the narrarators lies to come to the conclusion that what he truly fears is a lack of continuity of existence. He shorthands this to death sometimes but what he really fears is that reset without a continuation of awareness. Amd instead of trying to shape Shifty to facilitate such given her infinite permutations he is instead tried to destroy her(in a flawed manner, what he wants only truly happens if you never interface with the narrarive) because he is scared and wants control. Technically it's fully possible that he could have make a narrative to facilitate specifically the incorporation of continuity and a lack of suffering into her changes but his awareness of his own arrogance and the totality of existence are both so low he goes for the least useful option for mitigating suffering where the illusion of being trapped has them stay in their cage.
@@DBArtsCreators thats not how our reality works, and the narrator probably thought his reality would die forever too, since there was little reason to think it would be reborn. Only shifty knew it was a cycle since she was a god, but the narrator only knew nothing would ever happen again
To be entirely honest I was expecting this to be a saxophone witch setup, but this was really, really good! I don't see much speculation about the Narrator, just Quiet and Shifty, so this was a much welcome breath of fresh air
I got to keep my audience on their toes!
@@Princess-Pointless-Dump Shaking and crying but also thoroughly enjoying the yummy content in all its variety
A what setup?
The more I played the game the more I liked the narrator, he can get so silly when we don't do what he wants , and the one ending where he had to describe our passionate kiss with the princess was hilarious.
But even more so , he is a tragic character a human who imprisoned two gods and defeated death by sacrificing himself all so he could save the little he had left , on top of that the guy has literal echoes of himself scattered around bcz of how resilient he is I love him 💕
Amazing video! Its very cool to see someone give the narrator the benifit of the doubt rather then painting him as a straight up evil villian. Personally I side with the narrator, which is what makes the story so much more tragic and amazing for me. Emotionally, I want to save the princess and have the happy ending of being together and no longer being alone. But the more utilitarian side of me believes/knows that the right thing to do is to plunge the dagger. I don't think any other game has had me so divided on a choice and had me thinking about it for so long.
Análise perfeita. Como o narrador diz, TUDO é melhor que a morte do universo, mesmo que outro nascesse em seguida.
The Writhing Mound tries to threaten you if you don’t bring back a new perspective, and eventually turns to begging when she realizes that she needs you to free herself.
The Narrator will lie and cheat to get his way, and he treats you like a stumbling fool. Then so quickly leaves you to waste away in a cabin forever if you “succeed.”
Neither actually care about you, only what you can do for them, which is depressing. The only people who “care” about you are your own voices. In the end, the only people who care about you are yourselves.
But aren't the anger and grief turns into acceptance?
It's understandable why she's mad cause that for her what she believes to be the best for you both and in the end she finally accepts your decision and says the words "I love you" until you both are faced with oblivion. (Or whatever happened at that ending)
This is so beautifully written it's almost indistinguishable from the story itself, like it's written with the story's narrative language. And it was beautifully done and you nailed it. It is not only poetry, but the absolute truth of the story, and told by painting a picture.
Thank you for this.
Ahh, thanks so much!
I never understood why he got so much hate, everyone says they wanna kill god until it’s time to actually kill god.
its because god is a cute girl
because he stops them from kissing their waifu.
seriously, as a narrator enjoyer, there's PLENTY to criticize about him and his logic, but half the time people just whine that he stops them from kissing their favorite princess lmao
He's mean to me
I think the reason he keeps his narration so limited is because of the princess's natue, and why he is so stubborn about her just being a powerless princess no matter what, even as she is a giant lioness.
During chapter 1, if you even hesitate about your ability, that hesitation leads to her being able to take you down. If you are unsure about her dying, then she comes back to life to stab you. If you lock her in, as she talks about how she's going to get out, that much is enough for her to turn into a terrifying spectre and break out to kill you by her mere presence just because you wee scared.
The narrator needs to set the scene such that you will kill the shifting mound without shifting mound escaping. Shifting mound needs to take a form that is weak and can not fight back, but important and with a reason to kill without that reason making her strong.
"She is a weak princess who, if let out, will magically end the world, but she cant do that while she is locked away because she is a simple princess whom you can kill with a blade, she is nothing more, nothing less"
It doesnt matter if she is a giant goddess, a lioness, a doom boss, an evil spirit or a giant sword monstrosity. The second the narrator stops calling her "just a princess", things escalate. Thats why he so stubbornly sticks to the script.
Which is what leads to him appearing untrustworthy as the voices keep asking him whats going on and he keeps replying "its best if you dont know anything, Im saying all I can"
The fact that the narrator is only an echo makes me kinda sad bcs on the Epilogue "Happily Ever After" he actually changes his opinions on his reward and that's not the only route where he can learn about his mistakes! But everything he discovered, every newly growth tree, just got cut off when you restart because he isn't able to change anymore so we will never actually realize his own mistakes nor acept the reality
I was wondering why the long quiet is depicted as a bird like monster.
I think it is because after the narrator died and created the echo that would serve as the guide to the player.
The newly created Long Quite inhabited the narrator’s former body.
This is supported by the form the narrator takes in the mirror. He is a crow an animal similar in appearance to what he was in life, and literally a reflection of the long quiet.
Could be the inverse. The Narrator appears to be a corvid because the long quiet resembles one
I absolutely agree with you, and if I may add, I think he sacrificed his body and himself to devote a consciousness that could understand mortals to the god he made. We know that even if we and the princess do not control ourselves (for example, the cage), our bodies, our natures continue to do what they are supposed to do. It was probably like this before Narrator intervened, but thanks to him, we have now gained consciousness, and this consciousness probably comes from Narrator himself, he added himself while making us. We are the divine being state of Narrator integrated with a concept. Of course, we probably have no other similarity than our appearance, because we, as the Player, control him with a consciousness that even he cannot guess, perhaps originating from Long Quiet's divinity. As you know, there is a Decider in the game and we, the Player, control him. Decider may be Narrator's consciousness that has merged with us and has become dull, although we are newly created, we have general information about life in the game, maybe this is information provided by Decider. And as the Player, we connect to LQ from an unknown place and direct it with our own ideas of life, maybe we do this thanks to the little SM inside us. It is really fun to think about this game.
I don't think I fully realised this during my playthrough, but the Narrator really played a perfect foil to the way that I approached the theme of love.
I collected all the vessels because I cared about the character of the Princess. The more the princess and the protagonist knew about each other and accepted the best and the worst about each other, the more it felt like a genuine relationship between the two. My favourite ending is Strange Beginnings, it feels like the best love story ending to me.
By contrast the Narrator is incapable to access that type of love. He refuses to share anything about himself, so he cannot be known, and he forgets everything between chapters and runs, so he cannot learn about other people. Thus he will never be able to form a genuine connection.
The piano rendition of The Man who Sold the World was an excellent way to end that narration. Fantastic video my dude.
I knew I had to end on that song, glad you picked it up
Coming back to this video post pristine makes it even better. The Narrator in one of the chapters finally can see the horror of what he wants. We see that he wasnt guided by hubris, but actual fear of death itself. And when he truly sees his end in all of it's "Glory".
The fear of eternity is able to scare him more than death, and that truly shows us how he wasnt doing this for malicious intent.
I love how the devs created deep stories to justify useful mechanics (like the narrator never changing)
At the end of the day, the narrator simply wanted to hello John, apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started reading, so I thought it best not to announce myself.
I’m assuming you’re alone; you always did prefer to read your statements in private. I wouldn’t try too hard to stop reading; there’s every likelihood you’ll just hurt yourself. So just listen.
Now, shall we turn the page and try again?
ARe you part of the Web?
The Narrator attempts to make The Long Quiet percieve The Princess in an extremely specific way. But, by being cut from the same cloth, The Long Quiet is able to think, to change, and thus is able to percieve the princess in his own way, that is the mistake the narrator made, giving the cut off piece of The Long Quiet the ability to think
But it may have been an inevitability, The Long Quiet in its whole is change, you can't seperate it from what it is no matter how fragmented you make it. But you also can't make it die without it being the catalyst to destroy itself, since only it can cause change.
The very nature of The Long Quiet needing to cause its own change was the Narrator's plan and downfall.
I think is was to keep that part of change that would still remain after shift was gone.
I wanted a video about The Narrator and out of nowhere, the meme channel does it, and its good. Great video.
As a person deeply afraid of death and what comes after, I agree with The Narrator, but even I know a world without most of change is a world without meaning. But that begs the question, is meaning really all that important in the first place? To live in a world without change is to live in a world without fear and loneliness.
I like to call this game a "Lovecraftian Love Story." I think it fits.
This was amazing! Beautiful, even. The Narrator is such an interesting character and I'm glad to see people appreciate Him despite his flaws. The writing was exquisite and the narrator of the video has a nice voice. I love your vids hehe ♥🌹
Thank you so much!
Wait I just realized something about the narrator, he’s literally pulling a Sisyphus.
I like to think if the "glass shards" can exist as seperate entities, and The Princess can repair the construct and piece the Echo back together, then I'd like to the TLQ can also pull the Echo back together and then give it its own existence.
Nice lore vid cant wait for the constructs slightly deeper speculation
Personally I think that Spectre description of the Narrator as "memory" is closest to truth. The loop ending happend countles times and as Shifting Mound proposed - she recreated the echo from Long Quit memory him. The iteration set has been reseting from always. This is from where comes "Echo" nature of the Narrator, he is like echo of previous echo
No f***ing way! You started making video essays?! LET'S GOOO!
The Man Who Sold The World represents The Narrator really well, great choice.
“The future is always built on the past, even if we don’t get to see it”
Well in my opinion they should give the narrator a happing ending in form of a "rebirth/reincarnation". A compromise from the shifting mount and the long quiet.
In one of the endings, the “long silence” misses the narrator, who is also missed by the hero's voice.
In my eyes this should be an ending. So that the end of the world is not final but itself shifting and with that a compromise has been made in honor of the narrator for opening the eyes of both gods. (if you reach the ending where the long quiet and the princess plays a "eternal" game)
Maybe this could be a secret ending if you unlock all possible endings in the game, where the narrator gets his second chance and with it, his world also.
I love the aesthetic that this game shows, nice video!
Specte: Is this what you are? All those shards of broken glass?
Voice of the Hero: Wait. If I am "shard of broken glass" then what is he?
Voice of the Cold: Im me.
Hero: Im talking about HIM
The narrator was my favorite character of the entire game, im so glad to see more attention brought to him! Great video!
My dude, idk if anyone else has pointed it out, but the use of "The Man Who Sold The World" was absolutely genius. The vibe it gave during the video was good, and the subject of the song was wildly fitting. Really clever there!
It's such a great song
Oh, I think I knew the world outside the construct is old, and that the game is somewhat in the future, but in the grandure of it all, you quickly pass by that subtle fact while playing. I certainly forgot about it and continued to view death through my own lens. No matter if the time were different and the entire universe was truly dying, the way the Narrator speaks about the situations outside the construct also made me doubt. Because even in our modern times, people face 'oblivion' every day. To be human is to face death one way or another.
I'm glad I watched this video, it pointed out some aspects of the Narrator I had forgotten about during my 100%ting of the game.
And the Echo is so single-minded, which makes it so tough to side with him most times. Like Euro Brady pointed out, the Echo doesn't think and change the way a human does. Echo hasn't been human in a long time.
I like to think that Jonathan Sims (the va for the Narrator) plays himself again, like in the Magnus Archive. But as his echo this time lol
Great essay.
Also, throughly enjoyed the cover of ‘the man who sold the world’ at the end. I found it fitting and pleasing to listen to. I shall have to go hunt that down.
I think it's interesting that in one route, in the "Happily ever after" route, after you had spent the eternity with the princess eating the most delicious banquets over and over until you end up tasting nothing at all, playing the most fun and exciting games slightly changing the rules and adding new pieces every now and then to add more thrill to the game until the game was so boring and repetitive that it didn't bring any joy, and just spending all the time in the world next to the one you love until it's company doesn't make you feel anything at all. The narrator doesn't oppose to the idea of freeing the princess and ending the world, just saying "I'm tired" when he is questioned by the voice of the hero about why he isn't complaining about the freedom of the princess and the end of the world. I think that small version of the narrator that got to live and enjoy the world he wanted, learned that he was wrong
That echo was already in some ways influenced by smitten and the princess, it's not the same as for example the wild narrator that would try to reset everything just so the concepts wouldn't fuse and lesve the construct and doom everyone. The last narrator afterall did say that the echoes are diffrent by designe, even if they seem the same, and echo of an echo of an echo starts to become distorted, a memory of someone before death is not in the best mindset, as you can see, the Echo is incapable of feeling happiness
It's a shame this came out before Pristine Cut, which has a route where The Narrator sees a world just like what he wants and just how horrible it is, him giving up and even suggesting you save the princess. When you reach him at the end of the game after that, you can even tell him about how one of his selfs admits he's wrong, and he calls him delusional, just so good
Quite an insightful video on the lore of the video. I hope there is more content like this
Damn god damn, I never thought a 13 minutes video about a weird bird guy from one of my favorite games would make me cry, but here I am, drawing fan art to cope with the existential nature of death o7
"Firelink Shrine" playing over the opening lines. *chef's kiss* Excellent!
This is a fascinating watch, even more so now that the pristine cut is out
On my original playthrough of Slay the Princess I had the choice of slaying her or not and I actually chose to slay her, reasoning that the narrator had made it clear that some form of change would exist, it would just be death that was gone, and the Princess's callousness at the end of the world disturbed me.
After playing through again I wouldn't choose that option again. Though the narrator says "some form" of change will exist, I think the so-called "good ending" tells us a lot about what the narrator envisions as an optimal outcome. Just existing in a void, but don't worry, because you're happy, even if nothing else happens. Any change such as there is any is imperceptibly slow and you're just...in bliss.
That's the world narrator sees as good, and I wouldn't want to create it. But there are maybe other options the narrator didn't foresee.
True but what kinds of change would remain? Would ones who have lost their lives due to illness or lost of blood just stay as they are? Weakness and in pain never to obtain release? What about the elderly who had lost family or just that one love they lost years ago they would forever loss that chance to reunite with them death isn't just an end it a release.
@@rashanmcrae9166 That's why I said I would not go with that ending if given another chance. The narrator seems to see his absolute ideal world as something like the "good" ending.
I feel the Damsel route is the one route where the Narrator gets a taste of his “perfect world” outside of the construct. It’s hard to explain, but essentially the route shows the Narrator a glimpse of the suffering he has inflicted upon his own world, because the situation you and the Damsel are stuck in.
When the Damsel and you stay in the cabin instead of leaving, it causes the construct to become a homely but stagnant place, where you eat amazing foods only for them to turn stale and disgusting over time, and you play intricate board games with the Princess till she runs out of ideas for the game, then eternal damnation and boredom sets in. And when the Narrator attempts to point out how boring and pointless it all is, he basically shuts himself mid-sentence and realizes that the entire situation you and the Princess are in is likely what has happened to his world because of him trapping the both of you in the construct. Eternal stagnation and degradation, with no chance of growth or rejuvenation to heal or be replaced, nor any chance of death or destruction to end the pain.
He wanted his world to never change, for his universe to live forever in stasis, for his people to never live in fear of death or destruction, and yet he had essentially locked his world into a state of eternal suffering and pain that will never cease, never heal, and never be truly free. No choices, no decisions, no alterations to the current order, just the same old thing spread over eternity. By the end of the route, when you leave hand in hand with the Damsel finally, he just lets you go without so much of a single protest.
Ultimately his biggest mistake was trying to begin with, an echo cannot learn or change, and thus cannot guide the gods to the right conclusion.
Also, maybe they would've listen to him if he wasn't an absolute jerk..
I think it was due to him being so sure of himself that this was the only way to end death that there was no need to have the echo learn as the man who made him saw it as an absolute true that the death of people the destruction of a whole world was nothing short of horrible the only thing he couldn't and wouldn't except is that was the nature of things.
The Pristine Cut includes an ending where the Narrator sees what his goal will bring and asks the player NOT to kill the Princess beceause he realizes endless misery IS worse than oblivion.
What's wrong with getting rid of death because of arrogance?
Trying to direct the story is not a mistake. This is a fairly logical course of action. Stories don't live on their own
Incredible video, please continue to make more ❤️
The original man could be called the writer, perhaps? As unless shown otherwise, it's usually assumed that the narrator is the author directly speaking to the reader
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my lifelong special interest in fairytales: There’s *always* a price.
Tricking Death (or at least, trying to get out of dying) is a pretty common story type in old folklore, and one that I am particularly fond of. Hell, my personal favorite fairytale of all time is Godfather Death, which is a prime example of this. But no matter what story, there’s never a happy ending for our hero, AKA the one who is trying to bargain with/trick/escape Death. They either die anyway or are cursed with some kind of horrific immortality. Even if they get what they want it’s not good.
Every hero is determined, certain with getting what they want. They are willing to go to insane lengths to get there. But Death, whether personified or not, is a force of not just nature, but the universe. It operates in tandem with Life, not in opposition. So to tear them apart is just asking for trouble. It can’t be controlled no matter how hard one tries.
What’s that? You’re convinced you’ve got a foolproof way out? That the advancements your world has made make it not only possible, but certain? Isn’t that what every other protagonist in these stories has thought? Alright fine, go ahead and try your pointless endeavor that seems like way more trouble than it’s worth, but both Death and Life aren’t going to make it easy. Neither are willing to go without a fight first.
I guess he didn’t learn the lesson.
The princess archives to talk about the Narrator, voiced by Jonathan Sims, from The Magnus archives! So smart!
finally did the all the vessals (without looking it up) so now i can finally watch all the slay the princess content ive been purposely avoiding
10:55 That's not true. He tells a story about Himself exactly once:
"The narrator ignored that."
(From Falling Forever)
The fact that so many people in the comments section are debating the nature of the Narrator shows he was a well written character. Far more complex than just hero or villain.
I remember the point when the Narrator become my obsession, after some attempts to accomplish the mission (his mission). But I always followed his instructions, despite every different possibilities. I tried my best, I tried hard, my only will was to slay the princess and save the world from The End.
Righty! Time for some speculation!
Here's a point (before watching the video) of speculation that I feel are note worthy:
A. The 'Narrator' is Humanity's perceived *God.*
A piece of speculation that may be a bit far flung, however, it makes sense when we look at the clues.
- The Characters are specifically human / humaniod. Only straying from this detail when our view is altered of them.
- The Long Quiet is humaniod in form yet carries aspects of an unknown creature (assumedly a Crow or Raven. It is implied they are a part or fragment of the Narrator, which is why they can only hear them).
- The Princess (Shifting Mound) is shown to be a Human (though, it is revealed to be of her own choosing based on our perception, implying we know what a human is. And the Narrator is the creator of 'The Long Quiet', leading to concepts being inherented).
- The environment is natural in appearance, aside from the cabin. Appearing more Earth-like then anything else (Though it may be to prevent the possibility of straying and or raising questions about other people).
- The Narrator's reason for wanting to 'removed' The Shifting Mound (Also the physical embodiment of change) was to preserve humanity. Their own creation, in theory.
The main point that ties it together is...
- The Fear of Change", or best describe as the "Fear of the Unknown" which is reflected in the perceived God that is the Narrator. If we view the Narrator being depicted as a Raven, it may symbolize a number of things but primarily, an Omen. A warning of what's to come or simply change in a negative light.
While viewing them as a Crow, could be reference to Destiny. An inevitably.
You justify The Narrator's humanity pretty well, but you don't justify his supposed divinity.
Additionally, he directly calls himself "a mortal" in game.
@@boxlessone1046
Valid point, which is why I stated it to be speculation. Since some details tend to get overlooked.
But, the majority of the points made do simply point towards the mortality of the Narrator and their intentional (or unintentional) design decisions.
8:12 This hits different after Happily Ever After.
I think everything in this game, including The Narrator, has a higher, undefinable meaning. Everything is nebulous, surreal. If you told me this whole thing was a dying man's dream I'd believe you. If you told me it was literally about the death and rebirth of universes, I'd wager you just as correct.
Quiet is also a echo, a memory of a person, when the princess said it I'm convinced it was more about our actual identity as Quiet
bro the narrator is goated bro almost destroyed death you cant get cooler than that
The narrator when looking at the story as a game, it feels like he is insane for wanting to permanently end all death, but if you were near the end of the universe like him, you would also do what he did given the opportunity.
The irony of wanting to escape death just for it to become a form of death in itself. Very reminiscent of Gwyn from Dark Souls.
Thanks for making an analysis for him!
idk, i call him living 'the architect' fits with the naming scheme of the game, and he was the one who 'built' the construct. just feels fitting to me
12:12 is that a piano cover of Kurt Cobain's MTV performance of *The Man Who Sold The World, or of David Bowie's original version?*
Piano cover, the video is linked in the description
@@Princess-Pointless-Dump oh hey, you’re alive
"...I never looost control."
the youtube video essayist germ is spreading
but anyways great video. you clearly did your research and didnt misrepresent the nuanced nature of the narrator. he is neither a saint nor evil. he is just a terrified human doing its best to survive and make the world better
Glad I wasn't the only one to see the similarities between the Narrator and Gwyn based off the intro's music
This takes some skill I just wish it could've been like a compilation with commentary on how hard these jumps were and some more context.
What jumps do you mean?
A fun watch. The music mixing at the end of the script obscures the ending though.
I think the narrators' actions speak for themselves. He said he did all of it because anything is better than oblivion. Yet to do it he had to face oblivion himself. He was a hypocrite from the beginning because the truth is he knew there were worse things than oblivion. He preferred oblivion to being helpless and to losing everything, yet that is the exact fate he condemns his world to if he succeeds. Helplessly losing yourself for all of eternity, no merciful death or end, just eternal cycling out of all your control.
I don't know how people can at all dislike it (I have far more bias than humanly possible simply because he is voiced by Jonathan Sims. . .)
Holy shit this is an amazing deep dive! Awesome job Captain C: o7
o7