The Narrator (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theendisnevertheend) wrote2014-02-24 05:56 pm
theendisnevertheend) wrote2014-02-24 05:56 pm
APPLICATION
Name: Your name or nickname
Contact Info: Email, plurk, IM... as long as there's a way to contact you, it's fine!
Other Characters Played:
Keats
Cheriour
Yomiel
Requested apartment: N/A
Character Name: The Narrator
Canon: The Stanley Parable
Canon Point: THIS IS A...COMPLICATED QUESTION. The Stanley Parable isn't exactly a linear story (more like one story with a bunch of different branches that lead to different endings), therefore there really is no canon "point" one could take him from. For reference's sake, I'll just say that he'll come right after the Confusion ending, where his memories have been wiped of that ending.
Background/History: Here you go.
Personality:
It sounds like nothing more than a question you ask as part of a party game to hear the hilarious answers your friends will give - what if, one day, you woke up, and your whole life was narrated, like it was nothing more than a story?
It's amusing to think about, you might say, as you run through the mental image of such a strange occurrence. The narrator would discuss your morning routine, what you were thinking as you looked in the mirror to groan at your bedraggled bed hair, what breakfast foods you were having, and whatnot. Still rather amusing to think about. Let's keep going. You go out, ready to start the day, when suddenly a good friend you have known for many years runs up to you to say hello.
And you then punch your dearest friend in the face, the narrator says.
Of course, this would make you pause. Why should you punch your friend? They did nothing wrong. But the narrator repeats it again. You punch your friend in the face. As you stand there, confused, the narrator speaks again, but this time, asking you why you aren't doing what you were narrated to do. This is a story, after all - why are you going to go against it? Why, he has plans for you. You're the hero of this story, and this needs to happen...or are you going to go back to your boring little life?
...Suddenly, having a narrator doesn't seem so funny anymore.
The Narrator is a literal embodiment of that idea, a being who only exists to bring the story he's worked so hard on into existence. He is the narrator of a story who can and will talk back if you don't go along with his story. Oh, he'll narrate, but if you even decide to take the wrong choice, he will snark at you, snap at you, get frustrated with you, and generally do anything in the hopes that you will listen to reason and follow his narration like he planned.
The Narrator doesn't understand free will, after all. It boggles his mind to try to understand why human beings are so contradictory, so frustratingly oblivious to the fact that their own choices can actually lead them into the worst situations imaginable. After all, the ending that occurs if you follow the Narrator's narration exactly is undoubtedly the happiest one for the protagonist of the game, in which he escapes his office building, now free of his boss' mind control. The other endings are...less happy. The more the player tries to wriggle out of the Narrator's control, the worse the endings get, from an ending where Stanley dies to an ending where the entire game glitches and restarts itself because it can't handle the choices the player makes. Does one choose an ending where one can make choices they want to, even if it means their horrible end, or an ending where all "choice" is chosen for you ahead of time, which leads to a peaceful, happy ending? The Narrator certainly thinks the latter, and he will do anything, and that means anything, to get the ending he feels he deserves to see.
For the Narrator is just not all bark and no bite. Yes, he'll snark and insult the player (or any other person, really) if they don't do what he wants, but if he's tipped to a breaking point...well, then things get decidedly more vicious. The Narrator has no qualms in literally destroying people, whether by forcing Stanley to essentially kill himself or whether by destroying him by exploding him and the entire building. In the latter scenario, The Narrator happily admits that he's done things like letting Stanley die alone, erased his coworkers from existence, and let the entire building sink into the ground. He even goes as far to make the player think they have a chance at stopping him (by adding time to the countdown), all before pulling the metaphorical rug underneath their feet to show them that no, they're nothing, they can do nothing, and in the end, their attempts at controlling the story only led them to an early grave.
It's easy to say that the Narrator is the antagonist of this story. Of course he is - he wants you to give up free will, he destroys you, he insults you and generally makes your life miserable...until you consider the fact that the Narrator is just as trapped by the game as Stanley, the protagonist is. In a few endings, it's made clear that part of the Narrator is the opposite of happy about the fact that he has to repeat this story, over and over, even if the player makes the "right" choices. The story can't exist without him, but he can't exist without his story. Because what is a Narrator without nothing to narrate? And even then, there's something pitiful about that when you realize that the Narrator is completely conflicted about his existence. When the player discovers a strange room with glowing lights, the Narrator marvels in it, before being extraordinarily upset when Stanley leaves - it was his only chance to finally escape from his Groundhog Day-like existence, even if it meant standing in a room full of lights and never leaving. In another ending, the game plays him just like he plays with the player, outlining things about how the Narrator loses his memories of some endings, and how he's just as much of a pawn as Stanley is. Another ending removes the player entirely, and one can hear the Narrator pleading with Stanley, now an unmovable pawn, to continue his story, because without it, he doesn't know what to do. The Narrator is a selfish almost-god who could care less about human life, but he's constricted by the fact that he's nothing but a game construct forced to play the game over and over and over and over and over and over... Although his need to break free is buried deep down, and he'll still go at his job with as much relish as he can muster up, perhaps, if things change, he'll realize that free will is all that it's cracked up to be.
Abilities/Powers: The Narrator is a disembodied voice. Literally. You never see him and you never get a sense that he's a physical entity, as the way he influences Stanley and his environment rely on no physical movements. The way he talks about people (calling them humans) suggests that he isn't human himself, if he's distancing himself from them. Since he needs to have a physical presence in Haven, I'll choose something as close to his original incarnation as possible - an invisible, vaguely humanoid spirit form. Conventional weapons will mostly go through him (even if they will hurt a bit), but he can still be killed by things like magic and electricity. He can pick up things and touch things with this new body, but will still be invisible (if a character can see invisible objects, he'll just come up as a humanoid haze of sorts).
The Narrator does lean and break through and even jump back and forth through the hole in the fourth wall several times during the game: talking to the player controlling Stanley, remarking about achievements and endings the player is trying to get, and sometimes remarking about ways the player tries to break the game (if the player cheats in a certain way, the Narrator takes notice of that and locks them up in a room to "think about their actions".) In Haven, he'll probably think that the setting is a video game, though his powers of forth-wall breaking will be limited to just that. He'll call death "respawning", Kite an NPC, and so on and so forth. He'll make vague references to other games if he feels like it, though he doesn't have a very thorough knowledge of them to begin with. For example, Pokemon might be referred to as "that game where you use monsters to fight against each other", but even these will be far and in between, as the Narrator has been mostly restricted to his own game for the majority of his existence. Therefore, he won't recognize characters, he'll just behave as if the setting is a video game and the other characters are the "protagonists" he needs to narrate for. (I'd like, with your permission, of course, for him to recognize Pyramid Head as a copyright violation, as in his sample down below - he won't know the name of the game Pyramid Head is from, but will just know that this is NOT the horror game Pyramid Head belongs to.)
The Narrator was practically a god when it came to his own game - he could manipulate the environment how he saw fit (if it wasn't manipulating him) - he could make Stanley appear in different places, start a countdown for a bomb going off just because he felt like it, and overall had control over everything (except for Stanley, of course, though even this is debatable as there is an ending where the Narrator induces Stanley to perform suicide). In Haven, this reality-warping power will be diminished, as Haven isn't his "game". He'll still be able to do minor things such as bring in random small things such as office supplies (the writing utensils will not work, of course), change the color of things, and maybe make things appear where they shouldn't. He may even have some power over the layout of buildings, but these will be minor and probably not even noticeable in the long run. This power will probably grow the more he uses it (as he gets acquainted with his new "game"), but it will never reach the power he had before.
If you have any questions/concerns/want me to change anything, just tell me!
.
Items/Weapons:
Absolutely nothing at all, considering that he is nothing more than a voice who has no need for material objects of any kind.
Sample Entry: In which The Narrator complains about Haven.
Sample Entry Two:
What nonsense. What perfect nonsense.
The Narrator sniffs as he looks down below at the creature trudging about on the streets from the window of his apartment, wincing at the sound of the large sword grating on the ground behind it. Is he upset that it's a bloodthirsty monster ready to tear him apart? Is he worried about the danger it will pose? Is he concerned about the safety of all the rest of the inhabitants who will be so unlikely to survive if they meet it face to face?
Actually, he's feeling none of those things right now. The only emotion that's welling up in his non-existent chest?
Annoyance.
"You're a copyright violation, you idiotic monster! What in the world were these developers thinking, putting you in here? Were they drunk the night they decided what enemies to put in this place?" He lets out an exasperated groan. Oh, he's seen things, he really has, but this really takes the cake. "You are practically a walking lawsuit, you know! Great, just what I needed, to be put in charge of a mediocre horror game and then have you walking around as if you own the place."
The monster turns, groaning as its large head swivels in the direction of The Narrator's voice.
"That's right, you big lunk! Go back to your own game or...something, I don't know! You hear me? I have over a hundred protagonists to deal with, and you are not helping with anything."
Honestly, what did it take to get some originality around here?
Contact Info: Email, plurk, IM... as long as there's a way to contact you, it's fine!
Other Characters Played:
Keats
Cheriour
Yomiel
Requested apartment: N/A
Character Name: The Narrator
Canon: The Stanley Parable
Canon Point: THIS IS A...COMPLICATED QUESTION. The Stanley Parable isn't exactly a linear story (more like one story with a bunch of different branches that lead to different endings), therefore there really is no canon "point" one could take him from. For reference's sake, I'll just say that he'll come right after the Confusion ending, where his memories have been wiped of that ending.
Background/History: Here you go.
Personality:
It sounds like nothing more than a question you ask as part of a party game to hear the hilarious answers your friends will give - what if, one day, you woke up, and your whole life was narrated, like it was nothing more than a story?
It's amusing to think about, you might say, as you run through the mental image of such a strange occurrence. The narrator would discuss your morning routine, what you were thinking as you looked in the mirror to groan at your bedraggled bed hair, what breakfast foods you were having, and whatnot. Still rather amusing to think about. Let's keep going. You go out, ready to start the day, when suddenly a good friend you have known for many years runs up to you to say hello.
And you then punch your dearest friend in the face, the narrator says.
Of course, this would make you pause. Why should you punch your friend? They did nothing wrong. But the narrator repeats it again. You punch your friend in the face. As you stand there, confused, the narrator speaks again, but this time, asking you why you aren't doing what you were narrated to do. This is a story, after all - why are you going to go against it? Why, he has plans for you. You're the hero of this story, and this needs to happen...or are you going to go back to your boring little life?
...Suddenly, having a narrator doesn't seem so funny anymore.
The Narrator is a literal embodiment of that idea, a being who only exists to bring the story he's worked so hard on into existence. He is the narrator of a story who can and will talk back if you don't go along with his story. Oh, he'll narrate, but if you even decide to take the wrong choice, he will snark at you, snap at you, get frustrated with you, and generally do anything in the hopes that you will listen to reason and follow his narration like he planned.
The Narrator doesn't understand free will, after all. It boggles his mind to try to understand why human beings are so contradictory, so frustratingly oblivious to the fact that their own choices can actually lead them into the worst situations imaginable. After all, the ending that occurs if you follow the Narrator's narration exactly is undoubtedly the happiest one for the protagonist of the game, in which he escapes his office building, now free of his boss' mind control. The other endings are...less happy. The more the player tries to wriggle out of the Narrator's control, the worse the endings get, from an ending where Stanley dies to an ending where the entire game glitches and restarts itself because it can't handle the choices the player makes. Does one choose an ending where one can make choices they want to, even if it means their horrible end, or an ending where all "choice" is chosen for you ahead of time, which leads to a peaceful, happy ending? The Narrator certainly thinks the latter, and he will do anything, and that means anything, to get the ending he feels he deserves to see.
For the Narrator is just not all bark and no bite. Yes, he'll snark and insult the player (or any other person, really) if they don't do what he wants, but if he's tipped to a breaking point...well, then things get decidedly more vicious. The Narrator has no qualms in literally destroying people, whether by forcing Stanley to essentially kill himself or whether by destroying him by exploding him and the entire building. In the latter scenario, The Narrator happily admits that he's done things like letting Stanley die alone, erased his coworkers from existence, and let the entire building sink into the ground. He even goes as far to make the player think they have a chance at stopping him (by adding time to the countdown), all before pulling the metaphorical rug underneath their feet to show them that no, they're nothing, they can do nothing, and in the end, their attempts at controlling the story only led them to an early grave.
It's easy to say that the Narrator is the antagonist of this story. Of course he is - he wants you to give up free will, he destroys you, he insults you and generally makes your life miserable...until you consider the fact that the Narrator is just as trapped by the game as Stanley, the protagonist is. In a few endings, it's made clear that part of the Narrator is the opposite of happy about the fact that he has to repeat this story, over and over, even if the player makes the "right" choices. The story can't exist without him, but he can't exist without his story. Because what is a Narrator without nothing to narrate? And even then, there's something pitiful about that when you realize that the Narrator is completely conflicted about his existence. When the player discovers a strange room with glowing lights, the Narrator marvels in it, before being extraordinarily upset when Stanley leaves - it was his only chance to finally escape from his Groundhog Day-like existence, even if it meant standing in a room full of lights and never leaving. In another ending, the game plays him just like he plays with the player, outlining things about how the Narrator loses his memories of some endings, and how he's just as much of a pawn as Stanley is. Another ending removes the player entirely, and one can hear the Narrator pleading with Stanley, now an unmovable pawn, to continue his story, because without it, he doesn't know what to do. The Narrator is a selfish almost-god who could care less about human life, but he's constricted by the fact that he's nothing but a game construct forced to play the game over and over and over and over and over and over... Although his need to break free is buried deep down, and he'll still go at his job with as much relish as he can muster up, perhaps, if things change, he'll realize that free will is all that it's cracked up to be.
Abilities/Powers: The Narrator is a disembodied voice. Literally. You never see him and you never get a sense that he's a physical entity, as the way he influences Stanley and his environment rely on no physical movements. The way he talks about people (calling them humans) suggests that he isn't human himself, if he's distancing himself from them. Since he needs to have a physical presence in Haven, I'll choose something as close to his original incarnation as possible - an invisible, vaguely humanoid spirit form. Conventional weapons will mostly go through him (even if they will hurt a bit), but he can still be killed by things like magic and electricity. He can pick up things and touch things with this new body, but will still be invisible (if a character can see invisible objects, he'll just come up as a humanoid haze of sorts).
The Narrator does lean and break through and even jump back and forth through the hole in the fourth wall several times during the game: talking to the player controlling Stanley, remarking about achievements and endings the player is trying to get, and sometimes remarking about ways the player tries to break the game (if the player cheats in a certain way, the Narrator takes notice of that and locks them up in a room to "think about their actions".) In Haven, he'll probably think that the setting is a video game, though his powers of forth-wall breaking will be limited to just that. He'll call death "respawning", Kite an NPC, and so on and so forth. He'll make vague references to other games if he feels like it, though he doesn't have a very thorough knowledge of them to begin with. For example, Pokemon might be referred to as "that game where you use monsters to fight against each other", but even these will be far and in between, as the Narrator has been mostly restricted to his own game for the majority of his existence. Therefore, he won't recognize characters, he'll just behave as if the setting is a video game and the other characters are the "protagonists" he needs to narrate for. (I'd like, with your permission, of course, for him to recognize Pyramid Head as a copyright violation, as in his sample down below - he won't know the name of the game Pyramid Head is from, but will just know that this is NOT the horror game Pyramid Head belongs to.)
The Narrator was practically a god when it came to his own game - he could manipulate the environment how he saw fit (if it wasn't manipulating him) - he could make Stanley appear in different places, start a countdown for a bomb going off just because he felt like it, and overall had control over everything (except for Stanley, of course, though even this is debatable as there is an ending where the Narrator induces Stanley to perform suicide). In Haven, this reality-warping power will be diminished, as Haven isn't his "game". He'll still be able to do minor things such as bring in random small things such as office supplies (the writing utensils will not work, of course), change the color of things, and maybe make things appear where they shouldn't. He may even have some power over the layout of buildings, but these will be minor and probably not even noticeable in the long run. This power will probably grow the more he uses it (as he gets acquainted with his new "game"), but it will never reach the power he had before.
If you have any questions/concerns/want me to change anything, just tell me!
.
Items/Weapons:
Absolutely nothing at all, considering that he is nothing more than a voice who has no need for material objects of any kind.
Sample Entry: In which The Narrator complains about Haven.
Sample Entry Two:
What nonsense. What perfect nonsense.
The Narrator sniffs as he looks down below at the creature trudging about on the streets from the window of his apartment, wincing at the sound of the large sword grating on the ground behind it. Is he upset that it's a bloodthirsty monster ready to tear him apart? Is he worried about the danger it will pose? Is he concerned about the safety of all the rest of the inhabitants who will be so unlikely to survive if they meet it face to face?
Actually, he's feeling none of those things right now. The only emotion that's welling up in his non-existent chest?
Annoyance.
"You're a copyright violation, you idiotic monster! What in the world were these developers thinking, putting you in here? Were they drunk the night they decided what enemies to put in this place?" He lets out an exasperated groan. Oh, he's seen things, he really has, but this really takes the cake. "You are practically a walking lawsuit, you know! Great, just what I needed, to be put in charge of a mediocre horror game and then have you walking around as if you own the place."
The monster turns, groaning as its large head swivels in the direction of The Narrator's voice.
"That's right, you big lunk! Go back to your own game or...something, I don't know! You hear me? I have over a hundred protagonists to deal with, and you are not helping with anything."
Honestly, what did it take to get some originality around here?