✋ Deferring Narrative Authority - Agency Against Unreliable Narration in Game Narratives as a New Form of Writing
One of the first papers I had to write as part of my research masters. We were becoming familiarised with a lot of core theorists at the time, and I thought it would be interesting to take some concepts from Derrida and apply them to games. There was a lot more I wanted to say here, but didn't have the word count or the time then to say it. Will probably return to some of the concepts explored here in future papers.
Deferring Narrative Authority | Agency Against Unreliable Narration in Game Narratives as a New Form of Writing
Through continued emerging ruptures within the medium of game narratives, player agency has become a core device which has progressively challenged traditional narrative structures in contemporary texts. Through the usage of unreliable narrators, and the agency allocated to players to defer against them, certain texts have allowed a new approach to consuming narrative structures that enable meaning to be derived from their own interactions and responses to the narrative, rather than one predetermined by the text’s author. This emerging mode of player agency is a rupture within the genre that has naturally developed alongside the medium itself, standing as a core element of what defines game narratives as texts while differentiating them from comparable mediums such as film. This distinction of the medium is highlighted by Habel and Kooyman, who compare the ‘single sitting’, ‘semi-public’ consumption of horror films to the ‘uniquely participative dimension’ to agency based horror games (4). This participative dimension has allowed for narratives of increasingly varied scales as technical limitations of games as a medium have expanded. This has led to narratives becoming more expected from the medium, with player agency becoming an integral aspect of this. Due to this, player agency as a rupture has developed alongside the limitations of the medium, and as such, agency in many cases has become tied to the narrative design of the texts themselves, as I will explore in this essay.
The dynamics and implications of this emerging narrative style embody many ideas proposed by Jacques Derrida in his essay “The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing” (1976). Within this essay, Derrida reveals much of his critiques of Western philosophical tradition, and the foundational understanding of concepts such as meaning and truth. Particularly relevant to the discussions within this essay, Derrida explores the process of différance, which sees the finding of meaning in things as a process which is always deferred and lacking in closure. He relates this to our traditional consumption of texts, where meaning is fixated by authors’ intentions, and as such are self-contained and finite. Critiquing this, he argues this approach is not viable, and opens the floor to a new interpretation of writing, where we consider writing as play, where meaning is in flux with our interpretations of texts. This approach negates the notions of fixed meaning of things, and the logocentric idea of authorship’s control over a text's meaning.
With Derrida’s proposed consideration of writing, I wish to analyze this emergent rupture of agency based narratives in games. Particularly through a subset of game narratives which allow the player to engage with unreliable narrators as internal figures of authority, and as such, invite the deferral of definitive meaning within the text as a mechanic to explore the narrative. I aim to explore this mechanic of narrative interpretation, and examine how through fragmentary storytelling, it allows for the resistance of closure and rejection of authorial intention which Derrida advocates for. In doing so, this demonstrates how these narratives offer a unique approach to narrative consumption which denies traditional approaches to our consumption of texts which Derrida examines. To highlight this, I shall be conducting an analysis of The Stanley Parable (2013) and Slay the Princess (2023). I will be examining the presence of the unreliable narrator in each of these titles, and particularly how the players interpretations of these narrators directly correspond to the routes taken to the games’ various endings. This pursuit and defining of the narrative end, and therefore the intended meaning of the text, will be the focus of my textual analysis, and it is through this analysis that I aim to propose these texts as a new, emergent narrative style. In understanding this new narrative style through the lens of Derrida’s critiques of traditional textual consumption, I hope to gain insights into the capabilities of new media as a literary form, how game narratives challenge the traditional consumption of texts, and therefore revolutionize how we engage with texts through an evolving medium.
To analyze the medium in this way, I first need to define how Derrida’s concept of différance is relevant to the discussion of this narrative form. At the core of différance, is the deferral of meaning, and Derrida introduces this notion by approaching Heidegger’s concepts of being in relation to the ‘ontic’ and ‘ontological’ - the exploration of meaning behind ‘entity’ and ‘being’ and the constant differences and deferrals which are integral in defining this meaning (Derrida 221). In this way, différance stands as a fundamental process of pursuing meaning by accepting the constant deferrals of meaning as integral to the process of understanding. In embracing différance as a concept, we reject traditional metaphysical notions of fixed truths, and in respect to writing, différance allows us to view writing not as an appendage or representative of a fixed idea or narrative, but as a means to engage with deferral and produce new meaning as a result.
As such, différance is an integral concept in understanding and exploring new game narratives, and the player's role in defining the meaning of the narrative. Derrida’s concept of différance allows us to view writing as play, and this is present in game narratives through the literal means in which the player interacts with the narrative. The player is given agency, and a means to directly interact and engage with the story, therefore becoming part of the writing of the text. The extent of this differs from text to text, with some narratives offering consequences to player actions and others not, however even within set narratives, the player still occupies an active role in the text and is therefore integral to how meaning is transcribed and consumed. The effect of this can be further understood through the lens of Derek Attridge who in The Singularity of Literature (2004), highlights how ‘perceiving, responding’ and ‘behaving’ in response to a text is part of the process of discovering meaning, arguing that ‘“meaning” and “feeling”...should be understood as verbs, not nouns’ (108). He proposes treating works as ‘act-events’, ‘a process that is essentially temporal taking place in the performance of the reader’ (108). This approach to a text is the quite literal means of engaging with a game narrative, with the player's role as the player acting as the ‘form’ and their responses, engagement and actions as the ‘meaning’ derived from it (108). In respect to the texts discussed in this essay, they expose complex relation with player agency and the meaning of the text, when the form; the player's role, is met with the antagonism of an unreliable narrator.
Both The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess develop a relationship between the player and the narrator which challenges both their roles in the text and the authorial intention behind said roles. Both these texts resist closure and finality by allowing the pursuit of multiple narrative ends in accordance with the player's response to the narrator's instructions. These texts also allow the player to replay and pursue as many endings as they wish, resisting closure further through this fragmentary enabling of narrative progression. Through these elements, the players assume an active role in the form of the text and become co-authors alongside the developers. These narratives are designed with player intervention and autonomy in mind, and therefore through conception, the text is denied the finality of meaning through the author, and instead, allows the exploration and deferral of meaning by the player. In taking a closer look at the mechanics and narratives of these texts, I’ll explore these elements and highlight to what extent is deferral present as an element of these texts, and as such how différance supports the consideration of these texts as new narrative forms.
Uri Margolin defines the narrator as ‘the inner-textual, highest-level speech position from which the current narrative discourse as a whole originates’ (646). Within the context of The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess, this position is continually questioned and undermined, hence my referral to them as unreliable narrators. The narrative discourse at first appears to originate from these sources, however as the player engages and defects against the discourse as presented, the meta-narrative revealed undermines this ‘highest-level speech position’ against the personified narrator’s will (Margolin 646). The ‘axes’ which justify the reliability of these narrators are the ‘interpretations, judgements and evaluations’ of the ‘‘facts and events of the narrated domain (Margolin 654). While the narrators in the texts chosen appear to retain factual control of the events as narrated, the one exception to this is the autonomy of the player, which the narrator is unable to control. Therefore, their reliability is subject to the agency of the player. This raises an interesting question of the players position in the hierarchy of speech within the textuality of the game, and as such questions the integrity of authorial intention within the text.
The narrative of The Stanley Parable revolves around the interplay of autonomy exhibited between player, player character, narrator, and author. It acts as an experimental narrative, where the player is placed into ‘the story of a man named Stanley’, and is prompted to continue this story - following the direction of the narrator's dialogue in guiding Stanley throughout his office building to discover why the orders on his monitor has ceased (The Stanley Parable, Introduction). The player is assumed into the role of Stanley, and is prompted to adhere to the narration provided to allow the narrative to continue forming. While the player can continue to follow the narrators guidance promptly, they are also granted the agency to defer the narrative being proposed. A defining moment which affirms this is when the player is met with two doors, and informed that ‘Stanley came to a set of two doors, [and] entered the door on his left’ (TSP, Two Doors Room). The player can instead choose to enter the right door, in a moment which fragments the narrative and undermines the narrator's role of authority within it. Despite the narrator's best efforts to keep the narrative on track, the player can always act as they please and defer the narrative in many different ways. This system of narrative deferral quickly overwrites the seemingly intended narrative presented by the narrator, and invites the player to question and redefine the narrative end, and as such their role as the protagonist. In this way, the text becomes co-authored by both parties.
Similar to The Stanley Parable, Slay the Princess has the player take on a role in the form of a nameless hero, who is instructed to ‘slay [the princess]’, and ‘if [they] don’t, it will be the end of the world’ (Slay the Princess, Ch.I). Unlike The Stanley Parable, the player is granted the ability to converse with the narrator with a series of dialogue prompts. These prompts allow the player to immediately question the role they have been assigned, with options to question why ‘can’t someone else do this?’ Or noting that ‘killing a princess seems kind of bad, though, doesn’t it?’ (STP, Ch.I). Additionally, the form of the princess actively changes throughout the narrative in response to player action - if the player proceeds with caution, assuming the princess to be the threat the narrator suggests, she will actively distort and become a dangerous monster. If the player acts unassumingly and approaches without care, she will retain the form of a damsel. In this way, the continuity of the narrative is in constant flux with the interpretations and resulting decisions of the player, regardless of the narrator's interference. Like The Stanley Parable, the player’s agency allows for the deference of the narrator’s narrative. As such, the narrative end is redefined through the autonomy of the player and the text co-authored as a result.
Both The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess hinge their narrative progression based on the player's curiosity and the questioning of the story being presented to them by the narrator. This would identify their narratives as ‘epistemic’, one of the ‘three plots’ which Marie-Laure Ryan identifies core to interactive narratives (1-4). She identifies ‘curiosity, surprise and suspense’ as the three elements which adhere to the ‘temporal immersion’ within these interactive narratives, and within The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess, the drive of curiosity is essential to the pursuit of the narrative end (Ryan 3-4). Each text’s narrator allocates the player a simple role to guide them toward a narrative end, however, in each of these texts the player is granted agency to defect against this proposed narrative, whether it is questioning the guidance of the narrator, or disobeying them entirely. In this respect, the initial pursuit of a narrative end is deferred in favor of a new one; discovering the truth and limits behind the narrative prescribed by the narrator, and as such, the player and narrator form a co-authorship in the pursuit of this new end.
In The Stanley Parable, this comes in the form of the player's deviation from the narrative being prompted by the narrator, and the narrator’s attempts to justify said deviation, keeping the player actions in line with their proposed continuity. If the player disobeys the narrator and goes through the right door mentioned previously, the narrator will suggest that Stanley ‘wanted to stop by the employee lounge first, just to admire it’ (TSP, Right Door Dialogue). The more the player continues to defer the narrators proposed narrative, the more increasingly undermined and then frustrated the narrator becomes. The player threatens to revoke the narrator from their ‘highest-level speech position’ through this process of deferral and resultantly redefines their role in the text, and their own position within the hierarchy of speech (Margolin 646). This comes directly into question in one of the game's proposed endings, where after learning that the office Stanley inhabits is a mind controlling facility, the narrator proposes shutting down the facility as the narrative end. If the player instead decides to power the facility up, the narrator directly questions their deferral of the narrative end as a means to assert control within the narrative;
‘You didn’t just activate the controls, did you?...is that what you wanted? Control?...if
you wanted to throw my story off track, you’re going to have to do much better than
that. I’m afraid you don’t have nearly the power you think you do’ (TSP, Countdown Ending).
This antagonism adds to the ‘suspense’ of the ‘epistemic plot’ of the interactive narrative, and in breaking the fourth wall, it also adds to the ‘surprise’ being rewarded for the players 'curiosity’ (Ryan 1-4). A similar scene plays out in Slay the Princess which displays the same elements. If the player disobeys the narrator and begins a new run of the game, the now aware narrator scolds the player, asserting his importance within the narrative continuity;
‘If you’re back here…[it’s] because you didn’t listen to me…you’re making the rather
dangerous assumption that your actions last time around didn’t have any
consequences…that begs the question of how you got back here. Did ‘time’ simply rewind itself, or were you instead transported to a different world entirely?’ (STP, Ch. II).
This undermining of the player's role within the text again reveals the narrator's disdain with being undermined himself, and encourages the player to defer further narrative intentions, assuming their curiosity will be rewarded with increasing narrative deviations. This raises an interesting aspect of these games which Jesper Juul explores in detail in Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Rules (2011), where they explore the choice of the player in ‘imagining the world of the game and seeing the representation as a mere placeholder for information about the rules of the game’ (2). In The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess, these moments of confrontation with the narrator take the player out of the imagined world of the game and remind them of the ‘real event’ that is; playing the game (Juul 1).
In this way, the unreliable narrator bridges an understanding between player and author in the derived meaning of the text. In Attridge’s introduction to Acts of Literature (2017), he reflects on Derrida’s understanding of literary texts, and highlights the important awareness of the “serious” and “staged” ‘performance’ as ‘acts of writing [and] reading’ (Attridge 2). The former suggests the authentic pursuit of a text's true meaning, and the latter the open-ended acknowledgement of the lack of a definitive truth and the broader examination of ideas through exploration. Within the context of The Stanley Parable and Slay the Princess, the “serious” performance may entail the direct engagement with the unreliable narrator and the narrative being proposed, while the “staged” performance is the deferral of this narrative and the engagement with broader ideas of meaning prompted by the developer (Attridge 2). The staged performance within these texts is held between unreliable narrator and player, prompted by the serious performance, but revealed through its deferral. Such performances are prompted in the narrative of The Stanley Parable, such as when the narrator reveals that Stanley has been victim to a mind control facility, and encourages him to reject it and shut it down as the narrative end to the text;
‘It was too horrible to believe…had Stanley really been under someone’s control all
this time?...He couldn’t accept it…he knew it was his duty, his obligation, to put an
end to this horrible place and to everything it stood for’ (TSP, Mind Control Facility).
This in-game narrative mirrors the player’s relation to the narrator and the text, and in prompting the player as Stanley to regain their free will and autonomy, they are encouraged to regain their own as the player in deferring the narrators instructions. This rejects the serious performance prompted by the narrator in favor of the staged one being offered by the developer. Slay the Princess too invites the deferral of the in-game narrative, as the player's autonomy continuously allows the princess’ form, and as such the narrative, to shift. In doing so, the responses of the player character’s and narrator’s voice shift in tandem with this, meaning there is a constant deferral of fixed meaning in the text as a direct result of player interference. This much is addressed later in the game, during a segment where the player is confronted by a strange entity which resembles a distorted amalgamation of the princess. The entity’s appearance and dialogue changes in accordance to the collection of player actions towards the princess throughout their playthrough, revealing that the entity is aware of the simulative nature of the text and the role of the princess within it;
‘I am a growing chorus of contradictions. A mass of tides ebbing and flowing all at
once in more directions than my attention can bear to hold. To look at any one is to
shift them all into something new, and to look away is to reshape them yet again. All
of me is changing, and yet the rest of me is still the same’ (STP, Ch. Long Quiet).
The princess here acknowledges how her form is ever shaped by the countless playthroughs of the game, in flux with how the player perceives her. It is impossible for her to have a set form or meaning, like the text itself, as they’re entirely shaped by the response of the player and their deferral of the narrative as presented by the narrator. This text once again, supposes a serious performance in the quest to slay the princess and obey the narrator, but offers a staged performance in the exploration of possibilities, meaning, and the paradoxical nature of definitive form in a narrative which is in constant flux.
The ideas explored both narratively and mechanically within these texts tie directly to Derrida’s ideas surrounding writing. He explores how writing ‘comprehends language’ and as such highlights the ‘accidental doubling’ which arises through writing (Derrida 209). This suggests the complex reinterpretations of meaning through language, the overlap of meanings and resultantly, contradictions. In these texts, this is made apparent and explored through the dissonance between the narrator's exclamation of truth, and what actually plays out as a result of the player's autonomy. There is never a fixed, stable truth in either of these texts as the narrative is dependent on the player, regardless of the narrator's instructions. Slay the Princess conveys this accidental doubling throughout its narrative, as each decision by the player creates a different resulting form of the princess, response of the narrator, and ultimately an alternate narrative path. There is an active destruction of the idea of a fixed truth, as the narrator's warnings of the princess being dangerous may be right in one playthrough but incorrect in another, entirely dependent on the player's approach. The Stanley Parable does the same, with the narrator continuously attempting to justify the player's supposed wrong actions as Stanley, until a limit is reached and he begins to interfere directly with the game world, destabilizing any idea of fixed truth within the text.
In destabilizing truth like this, the idea of any central authority within the text too is destabilized, and the player is given new agency, not just in control of the player character, but in designating the form and trajectory of the narrative. While these performances are allowed for and designed by the developer, the fragmentary and inconclusive design behind the games’ narratives denies a set meaning to either text. While The Stanley Parable challenges traditional notions of autonomy and free will, and Slay the Princess explores designation of form and meaning, the extent to which these ideas are explored are entirely dependent on the player's response and intended progression. In this way, they don’t just negate the narrator and author’s authority within the text, but allow for dynamic and varied interpretations through play and response. These texts each allow the player to question and redefine the pursued narrative end, and as a result deny any set closure or finalized truth.
These texts therefore exemplify a new approach to narrative engagement which fundamentally redefines the roles of player and author, and resultantly authorship within the text. Through the narrative and mechanical framing of the unreliable narrator as a device, player agency is utilized both as a tool and motivator in narrative deferral and exploration. This relationship and assignment of roles between player and narrator, reflect the players relation to both the text and the author, and allow a unique approach to narrative consumption which embodies many of Derrida’s ideas surrounding différance. These texts by definition resist closure and embrace explorative interpretation and experimentation, shaped by unique interactions and allowing the co-authorship of narrative through the interplay of player agency and narrative design. This allows for an entirely unique approach to deriving meaning from a text, in an emergent style which reflects many of the ideas prompted by Derrida in ways which traditional texts cannot directly. The fragmentary nature of these games are not only compelling as a game mechanic, but as a means to explore meanings within text. These texts invite a new form of literary exploration and analysis which expand on Derrida’s ideas through textual and mechanical means exclusive to this medium and genre. As a new and evolving form of literature, I believe the integrity of these ideas within these texts is telling of the potential of such a medium, and may offer increasingly unique methods of approach to literary understanding of meaning through further examination, exploration and reflection on the textual capabilities of the medium of interactive game narratives.
Works Cited
Attridge, Derek. The Singularity of Literature. Routledge, 2004,
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203420447.
Derrida, Jacques, and Derek Attridge. Acts of Literature. First edition, Taylor and Francis, 2017,
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203873540.
Derrida, Jacques. “The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing” in Truth : Engagements
across Philosophical Traditions edited by Jose Medina and David Wood. John Wiley &
Sons, 2007.
Habel, Chad, and Ben Kooyman. "Agency mechanics: gameplay design in survival horror video
games." Digital Creativity 25.1 (2014): 1-14.
Juul, Jesper. Half-real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. MIT press, 2011.
Margolin, Uri. 2014. “Narrator.” Edited by Peter Huhn, Jan Christoph Meister, John Pier,
and Wolf Schmid. The Living Handbook of Narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg
University. http://www.lhn.uni-hamburg.de/article/narrator
Ryan, Marie-Laure. "Interactive narrative, plot types, and interpersonal relations." Interactive
Storytelling: First Joint International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling,
ICIDS 2008 Erfurt, Germany, November 26-29, 2008 Proceedings 1. Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2008.
Slay the Princess. Directed by Tony Howard-Arias, Black Tabby Games, 2023.
The Stanley Parable. Directed by Davey Wreden and William Pugh, Galactic Cafe, 2013.
TSP:UD All Dialogue. Created by user PrincexAlex, Reddit, 2024. Accessed 31 October 2024.
https://www.reddit.com/r/stanleyparable/comments/1erqshn/the_stanley_parable_ultra_de