The Narrator (The Stanley Parable)

The Narrator
The Stanley Parable character
First appearance	The Stanley Parable (2013)
Created by	Davey Wreden William Pugh
Voiced by	Kevan Brighting

The Narrator is a fictional narrator who first appeared in the 2013 video game The Stanley Parable. The game follows The Narrator attempting to narrate and guide the player character, Stanley, to the end of the story of Stanley's missing co-workers. However, the player can deviate from what The Narrator wants them to do, which will cause the story to diverge greatly from its original plot in ways The Narrator tries to dissuade the player from taking.

The Narrator has received a positive response from both players and critics alike. His role in the narrative of The Stanley Parable has additionally been met with significant analysis in regards to both The Narrator's own free will in the story as well as his relationship with Stanley and the player.

Appearances

The Narrator acts as a disembodied voice who guides the player character, Stanley, in The Stanley Parable. He will instruct the player to perform certain actions, reading them off akin to a narrator reading a story, in order to get Stanley to a specific ending. The player can choose to ignore The Narrator's direction, however, and explore different paths. The Narrator will attempt to correct this and send the player back on the right path, but repeatedly ignoring The Narrator's advice will cause him to grow frustrated with the player. If the player completes a path, The Narrator will restart Stanley's path back at the start to get the desired path. The Narrator's role differs between paths, with some implying him to be the world's creator, while others imply him to be as lost and trapped in the game's world as the player is. This leads to different interactions between The Narrator and Stanley throughout the game's routes. Additional routes imply The Narrator is aware of the player's control over Stanley.

The Narrator later appeared in Dota 2, where his voice can replace the usual announcer's in-game voice by purchasing a downloadable expansion.

Conception and design

William Pugh, one of the creators of the game, stated that the first scene where the player can make a choice—in which The Narrator states Stanley went through the left door while the player can elect to also choose the right door—was designed carefully to make sure players did not see anything wrong with the moment, wanting the choice to be made by the player of their own agency and thinking. Pugh additionally noted The Narrator's bias in constructing a story played a role in the game's development in terms of the office's visual appearance, stating that the lack of various usual office-based objects was a result of this thinking. Another one of the creators of The Stanley Parable, Davey Wreden, stated that the game was about the relationship between the player and The Narrator, with Wreden stating that "I don't think it's a power struggle between you and me, but I also don't think it's really a power struggle between Stanley and the narrator. Ultimately, these things are trying to understand one another, but they're having great difficulty doing so." He additionally noted that the potential for reconciliation between the player and The Narrator was always there, but entirely dependent on how players choose to play the game. According to Wreden, the split between those who elect to follow The Narrator's advice and those who do not was around a "fifty-fifty split."

Wreden and Pugh collaborated on The Narrator's script, with one of them adding an element that would then be tweaked and expanded upon by the other. One would also make changes to the environment, which another would then use to flesh out The Narrator's personality. The Narrator was portrayed by actor Kevan Brighting, who reprised the role in The Narrator's Dota 2 appearance.

Reception

The Narrator describes Stanley's arrival at a choice between two doors, the first point in the game where the player can choose to disobey The Narrator's decisions. The Narrator's manner of speaking and adaptation to the narrative have been significantly analyzed.

The Narrator has proven to be a popular fixture of The Stanley Parable, with fans of the game reacting to the character positively. Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer responded positively to The Narrator's role, stating that "Most games put the player in the role of a listener, sitting cross-legged on the rug while the developer spins them a yarn... The Stanley Parable, however, is more like playing improv theater with a robot comedian who was programmed to be much, much funnier than you."

The Narrator has additionally been the subject of analysis. Scott Donaldson, as part of the book 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, analyzed The Narrator's role in the story of The Stanley Parable, noting how The Narrator's constantly shifting role shifted from being a background element to the primary focus of the game as the player progressed. Donaldson analyzes the game's "Broom Closet Ending," likening The Narrator's response to the player in that scene as helping to emphasize The Narrator recognizing his own futility in the story and The Narrator's own status of just being pre-recorded voice lines for the player to follow to progress the game's narrative. Another ending, in which The Narrator reacts to Stanley discovering a wall listing every line of dialogue uttered by The Narrator in a playthrough, was analyzed for how The Narrator attempted to reclaim control of his narrative after discovering his own lack of freedom in the story of the game. They noted that despite The Narrator himself not being a "real" person, it helped highlight the game's themes of agency and how The Narrator began to think about his own role in the video game.

The book Time and Space in Video Games: A Cognitive-Formalist Approach believed the Narrator to be the main crux of The Stanley Parable's main message, which was the relation between the player and the game. It emphasized that The Narrator's frustration, combined with his British accent and formal way of speaking even when frustrated, encouraged players to want to disobey The Narrator in order to see what would happen. Fictionality, Factuality, and Reflexivity Across Discourses and Media additionally analyzed how The Narrator was a homodiegetic narrator who posed as a heterodiegetic one, stating The Narrator's unique presence played with players' assumptions about how narrators functioned. The Narrator's speech was stated to help "establish the game's self-reflexivity" and its own self-awareness in regards to its story. Players of the game noted that The Narrator's novel-like way of describing what was going on led to greater player immersion in the game and the metafictional narrative emphasized via The Narrator. Additionally, The Narrator's type of speaking created a sense of disappointment in the player, which allowed for later dialogue from The Narrator to not come as a surprise to the player. The Narrator's unreliability was also noted for its lack of an ability to sway the player to what he wants them to do. The Narrator's role was compared to that of a God, having total control over a world of his creation, noting how the player was put into opposition against this "God" to triumph against the opposing side.