#stp character analysis

[insert-random-account-name]

Slay the Princess Character Analysis Masterpost!

I've done so many of these, there's a masterpost now. I still have a lot more I'm planning to do, so feel free to check here for updates. I'm just going to start linking this to my analysis posts for convenience.

Update: This has consumed so much of my life that it is now my pinned post. If you clicked on my account for any of my other interests, too bad. You get my hyper-fixation.

VOICES:

Broken Skeptic Cold Paranoid Stubborn Contrarian

Smitten Opportunist Cheated Hunted Hero

The Narrator

Chapter 2 Princesses:

Razor Stranger Damsel Prisoner Tower Witch Spectre Nightmare Beast Adversary

Chapter 3 Princesses:

The Moment of Clarity The Thorn The Cage The Eye of the Needle The Happily Ever After [In progress]

[insert-random-account-name]

Analyze the Princess- The Eye of the Needle

It's been a while since I've done one of these. This gave me so much trouble for no reason. I hope y'all enjoy!

The Eye of the Needle is the Chapter 3 associated with the Adversary. Of all the Chapter 3s, she most resembles her original vessel, the only differences being a slight size increase, more draconic features, and a more intricate hairstyle. Her personality is almost identical to the Adversary’s. Her cabin is more of a cave, the walls tight and the slope steep. There is no room for dodging or maneuvering, the only path forward being straight into her clutch. This is not a time for dancing around her or attempting to strike at her chains. You’ll either fight her on her terms, or change the battleground. You can have Hunted or Stubborn as your secondary voice, and each one has their own ending. More on that later.

You get the Eye of the Needle in one of three ways. You can attempt to flee the Adversary with the blade in your hand, fight the Adversary without going for her heart, or attempt to free the Adversary. This results in a Princess who craves more. She remembers the ecstatic feelings from your first clash, and craves them. But you failed to fill the void left by your absence. You cowered, you fled, you flinched. She becomes overcome with frustration by your pathetic attempts to evade her. The only purpose she’s ever known is written in your blood, and it’s no good if you aren’t trying to split her heart open with your blade. The Eye of the Needle isn’t waiting for you to strike first anymore. She will get the fight she wants, if she has to grind you into feathers and paste hundreds of times. She will chase you to the end of the world, and then some. 

When you enter her cabin, you are suffocated. The walls press against your sides, with there being no way to go but forwards. Her voice echoes through the chamber, eager and impatient. You don’t get to talk this time, you’ve kept her waiting long enough. Now the only question needed is whether you will give her the fight she deserves, or, once again, deny her.

The Eye of the Needle has two different voices associated with it; Hunted and Skeptic. You get Skeptic by attempting to free the Adversary, resulting in painful death. You get Hunted by either fleeing with the blade, retrieving the blade but remaining upstairs, or fighting her using strategy rather than strength. Depending on which of these two voices you have, the endings you’ll get will have their differences. The separation of leading a fellow sufferer to freedom versus luring an opponent into a trap. Two ways to end a rivalry.

1. Failing while fighting.

Despite your better judgements (a voice in your head telling you to run, NOW!), you fight the Eye of the Needle in the basement. While you make a good attempt, and she’s initially thrilled, you’re hopelessly outmatched. For every scratch you give her, she hits you with a devastating blow. There’s no room to dodge or maneuver, and you’ve taken too many hits. Before the Eye of the Needle can finish you off, the Shifting Mound takes her away. 

In this ending, the Eye of the Needle remains unsatiated. All she wants is a good fight, a rekindling of the flames you sparked a long time ago, but you can no longer keep up. She’s become so much more than you ever were, and you can’t fill the hole you left. Ecstasy fades into boredom, and boredom blooms into anger. How could you be reduced to this, after all that has happened between the two of you? How dare you punish her so, by giving her the fight she thought she wanted? In that moment, as the Eye of the Needle realizes that the spark has died completely, she feels a betrayal worse than if you had just run away. The realization that you can’t make her feel the same way again is worse than you refusing to. Who is she, without a rival? What is her worth, if it isn’t in beating you with her bare hands? Her final act is one fueled by fury, by desperation, by a final grab at the last straws of hope.

2. Failing while fleeing.

In this ending, you attempt to lead the Eye of the Needle out of the cabin, but fail. If you have the Skeptic, you fail if you choose to [Die] when the Narrator makes the door stick, or if you enter the basement without the blade, but then stop to retrieve it when you leave. In both cases, the Eye of the Needle catches up to you, grabs your arm to force you to fight her, and the Shifting Mound takes her away. With Hunted, you fail if you try to run out the door without the blade. In a single furious moment, the Eye of the Needle grabs it and hurls it at you, hitting you square in the back. The scene then continues the same way as the other two. 

Frustration is too tame of an emotion to describe what the Eye of the Needle is feeling about your pathetic display. She is furious. Are you mocking her? Taunting her with what could've been before running away? Do you think that this is some kind of joke? A game? Do you even understand how important this is to her? Fighting you is all she lives for, and you aren’t even taking it seriously. The Eye of the Needle sees you running as blatant disrespect for her feelings. She despises you, someone who would rather die a coward’s death than face her. In her eyes, you are perfectly capable of fighting her, you just don’t want to. Whether it’s out of fear, amusement, or spite doesn’t matter. You refuse to give her what she wants, what she needs, and she hates you.

3. A Wide Open Field.

This ending is exclusive to the Voice of the Hunted. Once you reach the basement, you goad the Eye of the Needle into chasing you. She follows, desperate for a rematch, and you lead her out of the cabin, into the night. There, the two of you finally clash. With Stubborn providing a brute force and Hunted guiding your movements, her strength proves to be ineffective against strategy. After a heated fight, with both of you throwing everything you have into each blow, you start to gain an edge. Finally, you manage to give her a mortal wound. She knocks you to the ground, but it isn’t enough. You’re still alive, and she’s bleeding out. In her last moments, she laughs, realizing that you outplayed her.

This ending is, in my opinion, the best ending you can get. After all that waiting, the Eye of the Needle finally gets the fight she wanted. You not only kept up with her, but you surpassed her. You proved that despite all the growth the Eye of the Needle has done, there is always more.  Her last moments are filled with fading adrenaline, manic glee, and a wistful sadness. As good as the fight was, it had to end. She isn’t upset about you killing her, since she literally asked you to try, she’s upset that the fight could only happen once. She’s reclaimed the spark you ignited, but at what cost? Was it worth bleeding out in the grass? Once all is said and done, was it worth her life? She’s not entirely sure, but it’s too late for regret. You’ve won, fair and square. 

4. The Blind Leading the Blind

While you can technically get this ending with Hunted, I prefer it with Skeptic, so if my description doesn’t match up with what you see in game, that’s probably why.

You get this ending by attempting to free the Eye of the Needle. When she starts chasing you, you lead her outside of the cabin. There, you tell her that she’s free now. She reacts very poorly, yelling that this is just another place, then asking if all you wanted was for her to see this, and if so, she’s seen it now, and can you please start fighting? 

This is the saddest ending (IN MY OPINION) that you can get. Neither of you are able to understand what the other is feeling. You can’t grasp that not everyone wants to be freed, that the Eye of the Needle doesn’t find happiness or purpose in anything besides fighting. The Eye of the Needle doesn’t comprehend what freedom means, having wanted nothing outside of what you could offer her. She doesn’t view leaving the cabin as breaking the cycle of violence, but as just another place. Somewhere she’s being put whether she likes it or not. You’re so wrapped up with how things should be that you neglect her feelings. She is angry, confused, and betrayed by your attempt. The blind lead the blind.

The Eye of the Needle is about self-destruction in the name of desire. Both you and the Eye of the Needle willingly barrel towards your own doom. Almost every ending ends in death, and the only one that doesn’t leaves her empty. Violence is the language she speaks, words waste time and don’t properly communicate the feelings she wants you to understand. In her eagerness to fight, she blindly chases you, with no regard for where you might be headed, which can lead to her demise. Her desires are harmful by nature, to both of you. The only way to give her the fight she wants is to plunge the blade into her heart. She’s only satiated in death. Any attempt to break the painful cycle she’s trapped herself in only ends in disappointment. Freedom is empty, since it was only you who wanted her to be free. Unlike many of the other chapters, the Eye of the Needle has no healing, no self-realization. The only “happy” ending is to play her game, and win it. Fires always burn out, in the end.

“This one remembers a spark lost in time, and she would stop at nothing to reclaim it. She will make for a burning heart.”

Hey! Did you know this is a series? You can find my other Princess analyses under #Analyze the Princess and all of my analyses (Including the Voices and the Narrator) here

[insert-random-account-name]

Analyze the Princess- The Moment of Clarity

Ooooh boy, we started on the Chapter Threes. Expect less frequent additions as I find a way to include every possible voice combination and every different way of finding them...

I’m starting with one of the shortest chapter 3’s. The Moment of Clarity is what some players may call a “walking simulator”, since the only real choice you can make is to either go to the cabin or call it quits. After that, no actual choice is offered, the player instead being forced to click one option, all the others being grayed-out text that aren’t even actions, but their own story. I understand those who may be disappointed with the lack of player choice in the game about player choice. However, I completely disagree. The execution of the Moment of Clarity is the perfect finale to the story you’d been building that entire time. One in which you continuously fight for a middle ground where there is none, ignoring your survival instincts, the Narrator telling you to end her NOW, and the Princess trying to convince you to free her. Due to the nature of this chapter, my analysis will be a lot more chronological and ordered than my usual.

You get the Moment of Clarity by either fleeing the Nightmare or telling her to do her worst, since you won’t free or slay her. This enrages the Nightmare, she calls you a coward, and, for the first time, pulls down her mask to reveal what’s underneath. Before the darkness envelops you, you briefly see two wide, terrified, and miserable eyes, one of which has a tear dripping from it, and an toothy grin, punctuating the frozen sadness in her gaze. Then you enter one of the coolest scenes in the whole game, in which the Narrator describes the agonizing repetition the Nightmare has experienced, punctuated by the Nightmare telling, demanding, SCREAMING at you to “Let. Me. Out!” This goes on until even the Narrator can no longer bear the weight of the words he is saying, and he gives up. The Nightmare, with her usual cadence returned, mockingly says that she’s broken you, and tells you that when you return, you’ll know what to do.

And then you’re back, but something has changed. The Moment of Clarity is one of three chapters that break the traditional title screen format. At first you see Chapter III, but then consecutive chapters start appearing, Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI, until the entire screen is covered in text, the numbers only ever growing. Finally, black text appears across the senseless jumble. THE MOMENT OF CLARITY.

This scene shows how broken everything is, especially you. How many times have you been here? How many choices did you make? How many ways did you die? Were you even there? Did someone else make the decisions for you? Did you simply forget, your own mind being too shattered to recall the horrors you’ve witnessed? You’ll never know.

When the chapter begins, the Narrator can’t even get through his first sentence before Paranoid freaks out. This again references the past chapters you can’t remember. Soon, you realize that every single voice is there.

The opening scene is so incredibly powerful. The trees are hanging in midair, roots suspended above an infinite void. Turning around and leaving isn’t an option. Not only does this represent the construct breaking down as the thread is pulled taut, or the disintegration of your very self, but the options that have been taken away from you. You can’t run away. There is only one path to follow; the one that leads to Her.

You approach the cabin. But there is no cabin. No, there’s always a cabin. Don’t ask about the mirror. You walk up the hill and face the mirror. You proceed. The where doesn’t matter. You take the blade. You’ve tried every other option before, remember? (Side note: Using the greyed out options to add additional storytelling is brilliant) But the blade sinks into the ground, out of sight. You look into the abyss left behind, and She’s there. Her mask is barely held together, pulsing in and out of place. Countless arms pull her up to the surface. There is no other ending. You take her hand and set her free.

The message that the Moment of Clarity delivers is one of failed compromise. You ran away from choice, leaving her in the basement to suffer, and then tossing your blade (or running) in a foolish attempt to avoid making a choice. But you lost your control a long time ago. By putting off your choice, you rob yourself of the ability to make one. By refusing to pick a side, your side is picked for you. You aren’t morally superior by staying neutral; you’re just a coward. And now, you’re nothing but a puppet. A tool. Pulled along by your strings until you fulfill a purpose given to you by someone that hates your very existence. Sound familiar?

In this chapter, you get to feel what the Princess feels. You get a glimpse of existence itself as you’re pulled into its spiral. The neverending cycle of birth and death, the fleeting nature of success and happiness, the monotonous emptiness of a basement filled with chains. You see the ugliness of change, the part of the Shifting Mound the Narrator wishes to destroy. And it breaks you.

The Moment of Clarity’s mask is broken. It floats around her head in shattered pieces, until you take her hand, when it fully disappears. This represents how she is no longer hiding herself, how she’s opened every part of her heart to you. Now that you’ve seen into her soul, the mask doesn’t work anymore. It’s transparent, cracked, flimsy. When you take her hand, she stops trying to keep it up. It falls away, revealing darkness underneath. A beautiful, deep, darkness, but still darkness. There is nothing to hide between the two of you. She knows what she is, and she knows that you will always be a coward.

When the Moment of Clarity talks to you, it is quite reminiscent of the Nightmare, with the two having the same cadence and general attitude. Again, the Moment of Clarity has shown you her heart. There is no change that needs to happen to her. The only one who needs to become something else is you.

Finally, when you let the Moment of Clarity out, she is taken by the Shifting Mound. Before that, however, she makes the usual remark of being cold, but adds something else. “I didn’t think I’d be so tired.” In that moment, her voice loses the effects put on it, making her sound small. Now that she's free, now that she’s won, she doesn’t know what to do. The emptiness of all the Moment of Clarity had to do to get there finally sets in.

The Moment of Clarity is one of the most psychological routes of the game. It takes you through the twisted maze of one’s own heart, and the suffocating darkness that lies behind. 

“This one is a waiting maw. An inevitable destination where all roads end. She will make for a wise heart.”

Btw, I have breached 45 pages, 15,000 words, and 62,000 characters (not including spaces). This project has permanently changed me as a human being.

Guess who finally caved and made a masterpost? Me! You can find links to all of my character analysis posts there!

Slay the Princess Character Analysis Masterpost

[insert-random-account-name]

Analyze the Princess: The Thorn

Before you start reading, I would highly recommend checking out the analysis for the Witch! It's not required to understand this, but it provides helpful context for how I view the Witch, which then ties into how I view the Thorn. That's all!

I do not have a survey of the game in front of me as I write this, but if I had to guess the fandom’s favorite Princess, I would guess the Thorn. The Thorn is one of the most explicitly romantic routes, provided you have the Smitten. While there is also the Damsel, the romance shown in that route is unhealthy and flat. The Thorn is unusual in the sense that it is, at first glance, so different from its companion Chapter 2. The Thorn has none of the cocky attitude of the Witch, looks so much more sad and vulnerable, and, instead of pulling dozens of schemes from behind her back, is defeated. When you appear to her, she tiredly asks if you came to laugh at what she’s become.

You get the Thorn by offering the blade to the Witch as a sign of trust. She takes it from you, and immediately points it towards your heart. You have a final chance to say something to her, determining what voice you get in the Thorn. No matter what you tell the Witch, she stabs you anyway, gleeful in her revenge. However, it doesn’t take long before doubt creeps into her heart. She stares at you with fear and sadness, tears creeping into her eyes, as she realizes that you let her do this. As I mentioned in the Witch’s analysis, she finds herself no longer able to hate you, now that you’re even. And what does she have without hate? Who are you to her, without hate? Who is she, without hate? This results in a Princess with serious trust issues. She is lost, without a purpose, tangled in the thorns of her lingering distrust. What game were you playing? Whatever it was, she appears to have lost. She clings to the blade, the only control she has over this situation. When she hears your footsteps on the path once again, she doesn’t know what to do. Will you be mad? Upset? Will you just stare in silence? For once, she has no idea what your reaction will be, but knowing herself, and how she behaved, you probably won’t be all that friendly, so she resigns herself to her fate.

When you come down the stairs, the Thorn doesn’t know what to expect. Here she is, sitting in a bed of thorns, her pain and misery on display, and you look exactly the same as you always have. She warps and changes but you remain the same. Quiet, shadowy, and staring. No matter what she does to rid herself of you, you always come back, as if you were never gone in the first place, and that scares her. Not because you’ve hurt her, but because she has hurt you, and she doesn’t know how you’ll react.

There are three endings to the Thorn. My plan is to analyze them all separately, and then discuss all of them at the end.

1. Slay the Thorn.

I’ve slayed the Princess many times throughout this game. Many of those times didn’t feel particularly good, but the Thorn was by far the worst. You don’t get to just charge her with the knife. You have to sit with her, slowly gaining her trust until she reluctantly hands you the blade so you can free her. You then immediately confirm her worst fears and try to plunge it into her heart. The story then ends with the two of you struggling against each other, tangled in the thorns, neither of you caring about the blood streaking down your arms, only your revenge. A dreadful, but fitting, conclusion.

The Thorn reacts almost instinctively to your betrayal. What was she expecting, after all? The two of you are but wretched creatures, bound together for eternity. When she speaks, she sounds a lot more like the Witch, putting up her mask once she sees that redemption is no longer an option. The Thorn is defensive, and quick to hide her vulnerable side once you try to hurt her again.

2. Leave the Thorn to wither.

Leaving the Thorn doesn’t do much different from killing her. What I want to draw attention to is abandoning her without getting the blade from her first. When you reach the basement stairs, you find that the thorns have covered the exit. The Thorn also notices this, and in a spiteful bid for revenge, takes the blade and swallows it, leaving the two of you trapped forever. Again, this mimics the Witch’s self-destructive spite, showing that the Thorn hasn’t changed as much as shifted. A single push could take her towards redemption, or back to who she was before.

3. Freeing the Thorn.

Freeing the Thorn is not the outcome she expected. How could she expect kindness from the one who hurt her so much? How could she expect it from the one she hurt? But you’re patient, and wait until she’s ready to hand over the blade. And she does. Maybe it’s a bad idea, but she’s just so tired of all of the hatred and scheming and spite. You made the first move by handing her the blade. Now it’s her turn. And you free her.

When you cut through the final vines keeping her trapped, the Thorn collapses into your arms. After everything the two of you have been through, it was just that simple. Difficult, but simple. In that moment, the two of you have seen each other’s most vulnerable sides, and you embrace them. If you have the Voice of the Smitten with you, you’ll be given the option (much to the annoyance of the Narrator) to kiss the Thorn. Something important to know is that this is the only time you are given this option. No other point in the game lets you do this. 

After that scene, the two of you rush to the stairs, only to find them blocked. The Thorn then says that you won’t be held back by a bunch of pointy sticks. She’s had to face the thorns digging into her skin, pulling her apart inch by inch. They can’t hurt her anymore. They move out of the way. You step into the night sky, finally free.

The Thorn is all about healing, or twisting the knife. Both of you have hurt each other in the past, but you can change. She can change. You’re so much more than the vines that hold you in place. You’re so much more than a fool throwing your blade at someone you shouldn’t trust. The two of you can finally talk as equals, not enemies, and really listen to one another. And if the two of you trust each other enough, you can leave behind the pain and the thorns and the bleeding and search for a new beginning together. 

But sometimes the cycle can’t be broken. If you refuse to help the Thorn, she responds in kind. She’s played these games before, and if she has any say in it, you won’t ever win. The thorns close in as you both engage in your dance once more. This time, she’ll finally beat you. This time, she’ll get even. This time, she’ll show you just how much it hurts to be betrayed. 

The Thorn herself is wounded. She doesn’t really know what to think about you. You’ve both hurt each other, but you tried to make things right before she killed you. Unless it was a trick to get her to lower her guard. She doesn’t want to get hurt again, but she also doesn’t want this bloody cycle to continue, so she waits for you to move first. The Thorn knows that she has no way out without you, so she lets you talk. And if you free her, she slowly starts to heal. Blood dries on closed wounds, thorns are picked out of skin, and she can see the stars from outside of the basement. It’s never too late for redemption.

“This one yearns for connections she feels she doesn't deserve. Even when shown compassion, she hid herself away. She will make for a cautious heart.”

Want more of this? Check out my other character analyses in the Slay the Princess Character Analysis Masterpost!

[insert-random-account-name]

Analyze the Princess: The Cage

Buckle up, because this one is long. It is nearly 6 pages on my Google doc. For reference, all my voice analyses are 1 1/2 pages, about. My Chapter 2 Princesses are all about 2 pages, and the previous two Chapter 3's have been 4 pages.

The Cage is one of the three new Chapter 3s added with the Pristine Cut, adding a perspective unique to the Prisoner. Fun fact: The Cage (and how the Voice of the Skeptic acted during it) is what inspired me to start this series. I was so enthralled by the psychology within this chapter that I couldn’t stop rambling about it, until my family finally had enough, and I started a character analysis doc. The Cage is one of the Chapter 3s that manipulates the location of the pristine blade; you start the chapter with it in your hand. If you have Paranoid as your third voice, that is where it remains, but if you have Cheated or Broken, you can toss it into the woods. This separates the Cage into two different sides; blade and no blade. More on that later.

You get the Cage by giving the Prisoner your knife, letting her cut off her own head, and then leaving it in the basement. After that, you try to leave the cabin, but nothing is outside. You then kill yourself. How your life ends then determines which voice you get. If you willfully cut your own throat, you get Paranoid. If you let the Voice of the Skeptic do it for you, you get Broken. If you try to claim your reward, Skeptic will stop your heart, and you’ll get Cheated. Whatever choice you make results in a Princess who’s seen it all before. Everything that’s happened is following the same old pattern, and whatever you do, it will always end the same. She wakes up in chains, you enter the cabin, you give her your blade, and she cuts herself “free”, but no matter how many cuts she makes, she will never truly escape. The Cage is so numb to the repetitive torture she believes the two of you to be trapped in that she simply stops feeling. Her immense dissociation is symbolized by the disconnection of her head from her body. So beyond pain that she believes it’s happening to another being, that she can’t even do anything about it. That she’s only a set of eyes and ears, unable to control her own body. The chains the room is filled with represent the fear and disappointment locking the two of you in place, each new cycle adding a shackle around your neck.

You don’t get the chance to walk down the stairs in the Cage, since the floor is made up of chains and you simply fall through. You end up getting caught by chains, which wrap around your arms and neck. The Cage steps out of the shadows, chains trailing behind, holding her own severed head in a cage. She isn’t afraid of you, since she already knows how this ends. The Cage has faith in your reasoning, and assumes that you also know the part that you play. All that’s left is to fall into the rhythm once more.

The Cage has four endings, and two different major paths, so, like I did with the Thorn, I’ll go over them separately, and then sum them all up at the end.

Blade:

1. No exit (continue the pattern)

In this path, you decide to keep the blade. What voice you have doesn’t matter. When the Cage appears before you, you either try to reason with her, make an effort to break free, or remain silent as you figure out your approach. With every step the Princess takes, your chains tighten. Your blade drops out of your hands, falling at the Cage’s feet. She picks it up. Only one more step to go. At that moment, the pressure around your neck becomes too much for your body to handle, and your head is severed. You fall on the ground, next to the Cage’s head. The Cage’s body reaches for you, but then, without you controlling it, your body lunges forward with the blade, engaging her in battle. The two of you watch until the Shifting Mound takes her, leaving only numbness. A fitting ending for sure.

In this end, the Cage is vindicated in her beliefs. It’s clear that the pattern has continued, and she watches, knowing the outcome before it happens. She is fascinated by the gruesome beauty of your bodies locked in combat, mere feet away, but entirely out of reach. This ending represents the loss of control the two of you have, throwing your beliefs into a pattern until it has no choice but to become real. As Paranoid puts it, by imagining the walls closing in, you breathe them into existence. If you point out the things that have changed in this iteration, the Cage simply states that the pattern must be wrong, then. She doesn’t feel relief or joy or distress in being wrong, just mild surprise. If this pattern was wrong, then it must be something else. It couldn’t be either of your decisions that keep bringing the two of you back, that’s too simple. Not logical enough. No, it’s something else. She just needs to find out what.

2. Riddle of Steel (almost break the pattern, but in like, a bad way)

In this path, you have the Voice of the Paranoid. When you get caught in the chains, you instantly start sawing through them. By believing that they’re rusty and fragile, you’re able to free yourself. The Cage continues her monologue, as if you’re doing nothing. As you rush towards her, she reaches the part where you give her your implement. In that moment you know what you have to do. There might have been a choice, at some point, but that was before the chains started to tighten. The pattern is never wrong. Shouldn’t the writers follow their own script? You give her your implement, and slay the Princess. Her severed head tumbles out of the cage. A bittersweet end, but one you chose long ago.

Again, the Cage feels like she’s right. Even if it was in a different way than the previous times, you gave her the implement, and now she’s free. This is the best way it could’ve turned out. At least the change might be enough to form a new pattern, one that might end a little less tragically. It’s not likely, though. 

No blade:

1. Allegory of the Cage (Where you actually break the pattern)

In this ending, you throw away your blade in the woods. What good has it done, except getting the both of you killed? When you fall into the basement, the Cage is unprepared for this outcome. In fact, she doesn’t even acknowledge it at first, continuing on with her speech as if nothing has changed. When she reaches the part about coming to her, blade in hand, you feel the need to correct her. You have no blade. The Cage stops in her tracks. She doesn’t know why. Why would her body stop all of a sudden? Because she wanted it to. She was always in control, she just didn’t realize. You’re freed from the chains. The cage opens, and you take her head. The exit is far above, but you have help. You hang onto the chains with the Cage’s head while her body hoists the two of you up. She apologizes for making it harder than it had to be, and the two of you escape into the fresh air. As she beholds the sky, the Cage smiles for the first time. There was never a pattern after all.

In this ending, the Cage realizes that she was wrong, and that denying her control over the situation didn’t make her any less responsible. She takes responsibility, and with that, control. She leaves with you, getting the only truly happy ending. And when you both look up at the night sky, bruised and bloodied and battered, she laughs at how easy it was that entire time. The answer was right in front of her the whole time, but she was too busy puzzling and rationalizing and calculating every possibility and risk in order to see it. The Cage smiles because, despite everything she’s lost, it’s finally over.

2. Free Will (In which you shoot at least a three-pointer)

This starts the same as the Allegory of the Cage, but when you reach the door, you make a comment on how despite this being a whole “Oh wait, we can change the narrative” moment, you feel like you’ve just locked yourself into this choice instead. The Cage then jokingly remarks that you could throw her head back into the basement, then clarifies that it was a joke, and to please not do that actually. You decide that to properly exert your free will in this situation, you need to drop her head. As the Cage tumbles back down into the prison she worked so hard to escape, she only has one final statement, which is something along the lines of, “All of that, just to take it all away? That’s cold.” 

The Cage thought she could see the light at the end of the tunnel, that she could finally escape the place she was bound to, but it was ripped away from her the second it was in reach. All of her suffering, all of her hopelessness, all of her sacrifice, none of it matters, since you valued free will over her life. The Cage falls, not only literally, but metaphorically, as the hope drains from her voice, her cadence returning to her prior apathy. Pain is only bearable when you pretend not to feel it.

The Cage is about free will, or the lack of it. Or maybe there was no lack of free will. Maybe you both thought it was easier if everything was predetermined. That if you aren’t in control of the narrative, you aren’t responsible for your mistakes. Of course, this only dooms the two of you to tragedy. The pattern must be broken before you can heal, but the Cage is too afraid of the unknown to do it herself. Or maybe she isn’t afraid. Maybe she’s just numb. Maybe after all of the things she’s been through, she has to think that she isn’t in control. That you aren’t in control. That she’s just an observer, watching the pain and suffering, and not feeling it. If you break the cycle, the Cage realizes that maybe there is a chance for freedom, even if it means confronting her past actions. Mistakes might be permanent, but healing is still possible. Even a decapitated head can look at the stars. If you continue the cycle, the Cage accepts her role in this twisted script. The pattern is unbreakable, might as well play the part.

When it comes down to it, the Cage is deeply traumatized. She is pulled along in a dissociative state, not believing she is in control of her own actions. But you can still pull her out of this state, to show her that there is no pattern, there is always a choice, and that the walls of her cage were only ever as real as you thought them to be. Free will is never an illusion.

“This one is a body that convinced herself she was only a set of eyes. She will make for a watchful heart.”

“This one is a locked door to which you held the key. She will make for an open heart, if you let her.”

I always sound like an infomercial when I mention the masterpost, so I'm keeping it simple. Like? Want more? Slay the Princess Character Analysis Masterpost!

[insert-random-account-name]

Analyze the Princess- The Spectre

The Spectre is one of the most fascinating routes in the entire game. It’s the only one where you do not interact with the base Princess. The Spectre was quite underrated before the Pristine Cut, simply because there was more interesting content in the other nine Chapter 2s. Since the Pristine Cut, a lot more interest has been drawn in the form of the Princess and the Dragon. The new chapter has since garnered more appreciation for the Spectre, and how interesting her chapter is by itself. Her chapter mirrors the base Princess, having a gentle form and a harsh form. I will do my best to give both of these versions justice.

You get the Spectre by entering the basement armed in Chapter 1, not talking or interacting with the Princess at all, and then slaying her at the first opportunity. After she’s dead, you have to attempt to leave, and then kill yourself. This results in a dead Princess. You watched her body decay into dust and bone, heck, you pulled the knife out of her skeletal ribcage. There is simply no way that she can be alive. And yet, she’s still there. Not what she was before, but certainly moving, and certainly conscious. She doesn’t know what to think about you. Yes, you ran a blade through her heart, but you didn’t say a word to her beforehand. Maybe you’re just that cold, but maybe if she got the chance to talk with you, it would’ve ended differently. The Spectre is willing to hold off all judgements until the two of you can have a good talk. However, she still remembers what you’ve done, and isn’t hesitant to return the favor. She decides to let you make the first move, and that decides how she acts towards you. 

If you let the Spectre drift around you without attempting to kill or grab at her, she realizes that you might be more willing to talk. She doesn’t know what happened after she died, but maybe you had a change of heart. Since all the Spectre really wants is to leave, she’s ready to be more open and conversational. Her voice is lighter, she sounds more teasing than malicious, and only uses her “scary” face when you really push her. In this form, the Spectre seems more willing to forgive and forget, and while she is still quite upset about her untimely demise, she is more understanding of your position. If you decide to let her possess you in this form, once she’s in your mind, the Spectre takes a surprisingly sympathetic tone towards the voices and the Narrator, even suggesting that the Narrator might even like her. If you betray the Spectre and stab yourself, she sounds upset and bewildered.

If you lash out at the Spectre on your first meeting, she knows that you haven’t changed one bit. The only reason you’re talking is because stabbing is out of the question. Her tone is far more aggressive, and she acts meaner towards you. Her “scary” face appears more often in this form, and her voice is less wispy, taking on sharper tones instead. The Spectre’s sympathy died with her, and she is holding no judgments on her murderer. If you let her possess you in this form, she is surprised, but makes it clear that she’s in charge now. Her tone is a lot harsher with the voices, and she tells the Narrator to shut up. If you betray the harsh Spectre, she reacts with anger at your audacity to kill her twice.

If you leave with the Spectre, regardless of the form, she thanks you for freeing her, and leaves your body. If you have the gentle form, she thanks you repeatedly, and says that you’re forgiven. If you have the harsh form, she is far more reserved, but notes that you do seem to be trying to make it up to her. She then escapes your body so she doesn’t have to be stuck with you for eternity.

However, if you attempt to leave her in the basement, smash her bones, or repeatedly attempt to slay her, the Spectre will run out of patience. She tried to be nice, to show you that maybe slaying her isn’t the best option, but you aren’t listening. Even after seeing with your own eyes that death doesn’t apply to her, you kept trying to find a way to rid yourself of her. There is clearly no way to get through to someone so set on destruction, so the Spectre decides she’ll send you a message in the only language you understand. Violence. She takes all of her hatred, all of her fear, all of her languishing alone with no hope or help, and drives it into your chest, ripping out your heart with what can only be described as raw fury. The Spectre lets her revenge twist her into something that can match your evil, but that goes more into the Wraith, so I’ll stop there.

What does the Spectre represent? Second chances, and forgiveness. Despite everything that happens, the Spectre is willing to put aside your murderous past for a chance at a better future for herself. The best ending with the Spectre is the one where you both put aside your differences and leave together. But she’s not the only one who gives second chances. You have to put aside everything you’ve been told about the Princess, the potential fate of the world, and your own fear of any vengeful feelings she may have. Only when you are willing to actually talk to the Princess, and ask her about what she really wants, can you make it out alive. If you aren’t willing to give her a second chance, the Spectre will match your energy, and ghosts can’t die twice, unlike you.

In the end, the Spectre is simply someone who was wronged in the past, but trying to move on from her loss in search of true freedom. Her nature and body is vaporous, just like her heart.

Other parts:

The Razor The Stranger The Damsel The Prisoner The Tower The Witch The Spectre

(If you like my yapping, check out my other analyses. There's ones for all the voices here and my one for the narrator here)

[insert-random-account-name]

Mediocre Character Analysis

Recently, I did a character analysis for all 11 voices in STP (link here), and I thought that once I finished the last voice, that would be it.

I was wrong

Now presenting: THE NARRATOR!

The Narrator is much more difficult to understand than the voices, who state their thoughts quite often. His opening lines to you almost always provoke suspicion, and his dialogue all throughout the first chapter is vague, unhelpful, and dismissive of objections. The Narrator does not earn your trust, in fact, he constantly betrays it, from locking you in a basement to taking away your autonomy, he always manages to find new ways to get you angry at him. Even worse, if you do exactly what he says, he still locks you in a happiness void for the rest of time! He is so untrustworthy that even when he tells the truth about not remembering the looping, most people assume he’s lying. The Narrator is also not a very pleasant person. He has an air of superiority that rarely does him well, a blatant refusal to hear out anything that doesn’t perfectly align with what he thinks should happen, and a lack of understanding about how to convince someone to do something. When you complete the game, you learn his true motivations: He is an Echo, the memory of the person who made this place, and the reason he wants you to slay the Princess is because she contains death, which he wants to rid a dying universe of. This is a bad plan for a number of reasons, mainly, the Princess also contains change, meaning a world without her would likely be devoid of growth or meaning.

Why does the Narrator do this? What does he represent? In this game, everything represents something. The Shifting Mound is change (and death), the Long Quiet is stagnation (and life), and the voices are the piece of change remaining in the Long Quiet. The Narrator is dread, or fear of the unknown. He is scared of what happens after the end. He is scared of being forgotten, being brushed away like disturbed sand on a beach. He longs for the joys of life while still having the security of stagnation, not realizing that there is no joy to be found in stale air. If this is true, and he feared oblivion so much, why did he end his own life? The Narrator’s fear was so great, it turned into an obsessive hatred. While the Narrator’s motives may seem selfless, if flawed, they aren’t. He was so drowned in delusion that he was willing to sacrifice himself to “save” everyone else from death, not bothering to think that maybe they don’t want to be saved. Is it truly “selfless” if he’s going against the wishes of everyone else? Almost every single person who plays the game for the first time chooses not to slay the Princess, and agrees that the world is better off with death. The Narrator is pushed forwards by his own selfish desires, not by what is best for everyone.

Finally, the Narrator, despite his proclaimed “importance”, is no better than the voices. He’s a single-minded fragment of a greater whole, who is unable to relate to those that can see beyond his selfish motivations. No matter what new horizons lie beyond, they are forever out of his reach. He’s not made to exist outside of the construct, and when the story ends, when he has no tale left to tell, his life peters out like the drying ink of a pen. He is only meant to describe, not to live. After all, the Narrator is only an echo, and echoes always fade away.