okay scramble’s gonna get a lil unhinged with this one. But I already wrote it out for a server and all I gotta do is copy and paste SO:
About the Narrator and his Fears
[Putting it under a cut because it is. REALLY long as in like 700+ words long]
The Narrator is usually really good at keeping his composure when it comes to negative emotions, I feel like. He expresses happiness and excitement often enough, but the only times he cries (as in, voice audibly breaking) are the Zending and the Real Person ending.
So he’s shown to be distraught before. But panic? Full-on panic? There’s also only two instances where this happens, and that’s in the Skip Button Ending, and interestingly, the second time you go to the expo.
Now, the skip button ending is completely understandable. He’s being faced with the idea of being completely and utterly isolated for the foreseeable future, over and over and over again, getting longer and longer each time. Anyone would be afraid if they were in that position. At its surface, it’s a completely rational fear from the get-go.
But the expo? It’s… odd. He goes into the achievement room prepared to pop off with his whole ‘it doesn’t work YET’ thing, and then it does.
In the expo, it’s different. It’s not a high stakes situation, not by any means. But when the achievement machine works against all of the Narrator’s expectations, he panics. But not just in like an ‘ah uhm this is definitely what I meant to happen aha!’ way.
It takes him a moment to realize, but he verbalizes his train of thought, so we know exactly when he does.
The machine didn’t work before —> the Narrator didn’t do anything to it to fix it (implying that he didn’t have any sort of solution for it yet) —> it’s fixed anyways and he doesn’t know how —> someone else might have that knowledge —> there’s someone else here.
And that is the moment where he starts to panic. He sounds almost faint when he talks next, and he has to verbally tell himself to keep his composure— something we’ve never, ever heard him do before.
His breathing gets audibly strangled as he tries to finish his whole pitch, telling Stanley that everything is working as intended to cover up the anxiety he’s feeling. But he stumbles through it, and he finishes it with telling himself to breathe, to regulate the panic.
He straight up has like. A whole anxiety attack in front of us. It’s so UNLIKE him to be that afraid, and that REALLY makes it a moment that stands out.
There IS something that links the Skip Button and the Achievement Machine together— and that is CONTROL. Or, rather, lack thereof.
In the Skip Button Ending, yes, he’s scared of being alone. He makes many discoveries about his thought processes and how he works in that solitude, and realizes that talking isn’t his main purpose— it’s telling a story. Telling a story TO someone. He doesn’t feel like he has a purpose otherwise. And that’s the big root of the isolation part.
But otherwise? He spends the first few skips desperately looking for a way out. He panics when he can’t touch the room around him, when he realizes he’s trapped, and that he can’t do anything about it. He’s lost his control.
And it’s the same thing with the achievement machine. He THINKS he has complete control over the Parable and its contents. He really does. And then, something— or someone— fixes the machine for him. And all at once, his perception of what he can control comes absolutely crashing down on him. In that moment, he’s having a LOT of huge realizations:
He doesn’t have the control he thinks he does
He doesn’t know how much control he actually HAS, and it could be NONE
He and Stanley are not alone in the Parable, and are being watched
Whatever being is watching them has more power than he does, and could very well strip all of his control away from him
These realizations— that last one especially— are fucking terrifying to him!
The Narrator is obsessive about maintaining control over the events that transpire in HIS PARABLE, and the only times he shows negative emotions are when he cannot control a situation. It most often presents itself in annoyance at the very least, or a complete breakdown at its worst. And it’s all because he needs that control. He’s fearful of the idea that he can’t control a situation, because it makes him feel helpless and weak. He’s USED to having control, and when it’s taken away from him, he has no idea what to do.
He’s desperately trying to keep up this facade of ‘this is all fine and working as intended’ in front of Stanley after Stanley gets the achievement, even though it’s clear that he’s barely holding it together. His entire perception of his own control has collapsed in on itself, and has given in to one of his worst fears. And he’s really, really shaken up by it.
The Narrator’s greatest fear has been shown to be a lack of control. It’s quickly followed by the fear of isolation, obviously, but the fear of helplessness/weakness is present all through the games.
And THAT, folks, is why the Narrator freaks out in one (1) ending that nobody ever talks about!
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