#I love the contradictory nature of this fucking game ohh my god

[squuote]

You ever think about how the epilogue and escape pod ending are directly tied to one another? How these two endings criticise the idea of freedom within the game in different yet similar ways?

You ever think about how the escape pod ending, normally, is just another instance of the game dangling freedom in front of the player's face, and how it directly speaks to the way that you must go against The Narrator's wishes in accessing it. Freedom is such a fascinating thing in TSP, because it is literally impossible for Stanley to have, and yet it is something that he so desperately wants--this is, perhaps, one of the only few things we know about him for sure. The only way to supposedly obtain it, is for either the player to give up their own agency to The Narrator and heed his words, or for the player to take Stanley's agency away from him. He's supposedly set free from being under someone else's control--but he wasn't, really. Just under new management. The escape pod ending is, presumably, supposed to be played with The Narrator accompanying Stanley, and yet the only way to access it is to leave him behind. To go back to the start, and have all other endings and branching paths completely torn away from you, regardless of whether or not you want to go somewhere else.

You ever think about how Stanley, in a moment finally outside of the player's control, in the bucket version of the escape pod ending, gives up his freedom? He finally has autonomy away form The Narrator, and from the player, and in this moment he makes the deliberate decision to forfeit his own freedom, to value the bucket's over his own?

You ever think about how the epilogue does away with the idea of freedom entirely, and actively encourages you, the player, to continuously reuse this game, over and over, to keep those gears turning, to set the wheel in motion, and to never, ever let it stop?

GOD YES. YES THIS. YOU GET IT YOU GET IT. LITERALLY THINK ABOUT THIS SO MUCH…

and then I also can’t help but think of the dialogue in the museum ending. how she says that the only way to free stanley is to just… not play, to give back his agency and to stop the game altogether. That Stanley was already dead from the moment he hit start. That no matter what our choice is, freedom is still out of reach. Only for this to be pushed away entirely by the epilogue’s desire to go on forever….

LIKE. LIKE IT ALL MAKES ME SO ILL.