BPD Traits In The Narrator
The Narrator is the player’s guide in The Stanley Parable and The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. His personality and mood tends to vary depending on the ending the player takes. The Narrator exhibits several traits associated with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), particularly through his dialogue and reactions in various endings. Using the DSM-5 criteria as a framework, this study will go into depth about how his fear of abandonment, emotional instability, and unstable relationship behaviors manifest throughout the game.
There are nine criteria for BPD in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), but one only needs to cover at least five to qualify for diagnosis, the list being fear of abandonment, pattern of unstable relationships, identity disturbance, self-damaging impulsivity, self-mutilating behavior, mood instability, feelings of emptiness, difficulty controlling anger, and paranoid ideation. I will only be going over the ones the Narrator appears to cover.
Starting with criterion one, “frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment”. Many of these symptoms take place in the “Skip Button Ending”. In this ending, Stanley is led to a skip button that allows him to skip through the Narrator's monologues. There are eighteen skips in total that gradually drag Narrator to the depths of desperation and loneliness. After the third skip, the Narrator starts to panic over how much time has passed. The end of the dialogue in the fourth skip shows Narrator’s fear of Stanley leaving him alone again with him saying, “Just your decision as to exactly when you're going to make me suffer, to leave me all alone. Surely you will, I don't doubt it. Surely you'll press that button again, leaving me here. And surely you'll put your own desire to see what's next ahead of my need for company, for companionship. Surely you'll not be so moved by my howls of fitful anxiety that you sit with me and just stay here. Oh no, no, no, I know you too well. You'll be leaving me again soon, I can feel it.”
Onto criterion two, “a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation”. This comes off as one of the most recurring symptoms the Narrator expresses throughout the game. A good ending to point out is the "Not Stanley" ending, where he gets worried when Stanley isn't moving. Before that, he also gets mad at the player for "ruining his game", saying "It was the only thing in the world that was mine, and you've run it into the ground." There’s also the “Cold Feet” ending, where the Narrator says things like “I’m sure you’ll survive the jump!”, “Don’t tell me you’re scared; that’s not the Stanley I know!”, and telling Stanley to “do it” over and over again. Once Stanley jumps and falls to his death, the Narrator says “Oops! Looks like I was wrong. How clumsy of me.” Adding on, there is a line the Curator says in the “Museum” ending, which can show his unstable relationships: "Oh, look at these two. How they wish to destroy one another. How they wish to control one another. How they both wish to be free. Can you see? Can you see how much they need one another?"
Criterion three is depicted as “identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self”. This is shown in the fifth skip, where Narrator says “Because maybe, Stanley, maybe - if you can hear me, then maybe it means I'm real. Maybe I'm not just a fiction.” Though not consistent, this line still shows the Narrator questioning his reality and sense of self.
Criterion six is “affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood”. An example of his mood swings is in the "Skip Button" ending, before the skips, where he gets offended at being called "preachy" and then tells Stanley "I feel... like a failure. Like I let these people down." Then not long after that, he's quick and eager to give what the people want. At the fourth skip, the Narrator says "I'm fixating on every tiny negative thing that anyone ever says about me. The merest mention of one of my imperfections and I become as impetulant as a child. Wild and impulsive; I can't help myself. I can't stop myself from lashing out with a vengeful fury, to alter and to change and to break anything unbroken, if only it pleases this one person who made a single negative comment."
Criterion seven is described as chronic feelings of emptiness. While his emptiness may not be ‘chronic’ in the traditional BPD sense, the game makes it clear that in the ‘Skip Button Ending,’ each skip lasts longer than the last, potentially leading to emotional numbness. The ending shows the Narrator talking less and less, sounding almost tired at the end of the sixth skip. At skip seven and eight, Narrator is silent, coming back at skip nine, where Narrator just rambles about the reviews of The Stanley Parable, going silent again until the eleventh skip, where he repeats in an empty monotone voice, “the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never”, which this phrase seems to be a recurring line across the game, implying that The Stanley Parable has no point where it actually ends, as it has infinite playthroughs without an actual goal.
In conclusion, the Narrator from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe shows multiple traits associated with Borderline Personality Disorder, such as unstable identity, intense emotional reactions, and a fear of abandonment. While a fictional character can't be formally diagnosed, his behaviors closely mirror real-world experiences of those with the disorder.
