(SPOILERS) Coming back to this sequence after learning about The Narrator makes this add up. This is *HIS* nightmare. (Possibily through her eyes from the line "Your existence hurts them".) Hes afraid of death and wants to get rid of it by having The Long Quiet _slay the princess_ as thats what she represents. (Because of The Shifting Mound, and shes all about change.)
So the Nightmare is basically making the Narrator suffer by pouring her own existence into his mind to break him... but in "The Moment of Clarity," the backlash of that caused all the other Voices to appear as a sort of self-defense mechanism from that mental assault. Am I making sense?
Honestly i assumed the nightmare was projecting her own trauma onto us since she states that she's in a constant state of life and death and the nightmare was simply showcasing the slow horror of that state and why she wants to get out.
Something I noticed: If, indeed, this is actually the Narrator's nightmare, and not the Long Quiet's.. that means that the Princess is actually talking to the Narrator when she's apparently telling the LQ to let her out. This is further evidenced by the fact that she comments on the fact that she "broke you" when _he's_ unable to carry on. And considering that, after this sequence, Quiet can mention the fact that someone else had to have been in control while he wasn't since he didn't remember anything that transpired.. that means the Narrator might've been the one in the driver's seat for a while.
"Your existence hurts them" is such a beautiful line. It's not only pristine, it's a double-edged blade: both Narrator -> Princess for all he believes she represents to the world, and Mound -> Narrator for the endless suffering his construct brings upon both gods. Hence the distorted Mound leitmotif in the background of the scene. Gives me shivers every time. Truly, even if given a choice I'd ALWAYS free her.
Oh shit I think I actually understand this sequence now. For a while I thought it was all about making the Narrator feel bad enough about his actions, but the idea struck me while I was reading your comment. The Narrator was forced to make himself a part of all the never-ending mutation that characterizes the construct he made, and the endless cycle of death that he caused despite trying to rid the world of it. Basically, he created an eternal triumph of his own nightmare. So yes, there is guilt and there is mockery, but neither is the point. In his own words, the Narrator's mission was fueled by his fear of the *finality* of death, but the Princess made him look at what death looks like without finality, and he saw that it was infinitely more terrible. That's why he said he couldn't go on and died, she stripped him of his purpose. In fact, later in The moment of clarity, she says that it's futile to resist because she's already "taken our will". The "will" she refers to is the Narrator's, even if she doesn't know it, and with him unable to influence us the only choice is to free her simply because there is literally no reason left to slay her. This game is a masterpiece
The Narrator’s perspective becomes clear. Under change, sadness always comes, whether you live in compounding misery, die and lose your happiness, or forget and live in dread With change, all these are possible, all this change can hurt, can make someone suffer, can make everyone suffer No wonder The Shifting Mound’s motif plays here, it’s the embodiment of change, the embodiment of The Narrator’s nightmare
I remember getting this when trying to save the nightmare the first time i met her. Lets just say,this bit haunted me and chilled me to the core. Something about a situation like that feels like a living hell. And that pained smile while being surrounded by loved ones hit too close to home.
Especially the image on 1:28 . The idea of isolating yourself, and growing old alone, hoping that that this misery will end.... Only to awaken once again, in the same room again, reliving everything again. Those tears pull at my heartstring.
Funny 0:41 everything that comes after reminds me of metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The human live that keeps going on, getting destroyed, relived, destroyed until your mind soon remembers the life before, becoming lunatic, destroying all feelings, reliving them, only to find demise once again. That in itself is truth.
In my opinion this game's greatest message is one about the dizzying nature of entropy, and how it paralyses people This is best exemplified by the stranger, in which every possibility is laid before you, however the contrarian says it best, "there's nothing here to be clever about, what's the point in asking a question if all you get is a million answers?", the thing about entropy is that before you make a choice, the weight of not only the choice you take now sits on your shoulders, but of every branch which comes after every choice This is why the cabin ending is my favourite, because only by making a choice can you lessen the weight of entropy, even with the knowledge of all the possibility which lays before you
@@Nuclearburrit0 I think they've meant "Refuse to Ascend, Deny the Shifting Mounds and leave the Cabin with the First Princess". As in basically instead of choosing "All Possibilities" and becoming a God - Long Quiet chose to be with First Princess - "Lessening the weight of Entropy" - choosing small happiness and uncertainty instead of everything and omnipotence..
People are saying this is the Narrator’s nightmare, but I’ve always thought it was a mix. 1: The Narrator’s nightmare The possibility that everything he does will only hurt others. The idea that no matter what he does, suffering will still exist, even without Her. He’s afraid everything he’s worked for will mean nothing. 2: The Princess’ nightmare The possibility that she’ll never escape, that even when her body or mind decay into nothing, even when death frees her, she’ll just end up trapped again. On a larger extent, it’s The Shifting Mound’s fear that The Long Quiet won’t leave with her, and that he’ll keep them trapped. She’s afraid of stillness. 3: The Long Quiet’s nightmare That every one of these paths has to end, and often before he’s ready for them to. More specifically to this iteration, that he’s going to die. Paranoid and LQ are both very afraid of death and danger in this route, and Hero isn’t far behind. He’s afraid of change. 4: The player and Black Tabby Games’ nightmare That there’s no point to making or playing this game, and that it’ll eventually be forgotten. That the time put into making or playing it is worthless and meaningless, and that putting any thought into it won’t mean anything in the end. More specifically to the player, that every path ends the same way, and that there’s nothing new to learn or experience. They’re afraid of the same thing the Narrator is. Existential nihilism. But those’re just my interpretations
The tear going down her face after she takes off her mask, I wonder if that was because of the fact she loves the protagonist and feels bad “killing” him in that moment.
Actually I think that tear is just repressed emotions. After all that's what the point of the- Anyway, even if this princess loves him (she does, pretty much _all_ the vessels do in their own way), escape is her highest priority, she still needs him to leave, so him once again putting off a choice yet again is frustrating for her and makes it easier for her to "break" him into freeing her. Also she's not "killing" him in any way shape or form; his body died of natural causes but his consciousness lived on in the next body and the next and so on until he has no choice but to free her. At least that's how I see it.
She tears up because she bared her true self to another and was "rejected", hence why as The Moment of Clarity, the princess wears her mask again despite how fractured it's become
Which, there is. The Princess is all of the change that happens through existence; life, death, disease, love, etc. The Long Quiet is stasis by contrast. But the Princess is also an individual who has to comprehend feeling literally everything at once. That's the entire point. This is a taste of everything she feels.
@@JacobNintendoNerd99 Yeah I get it but I meant that I thought this was a peak of her *personal backstory, since in that point I still wasn't aware that the Princess is not a real person
@@doogaminyu well, I think that description ultimately misses the point of the """"true""""" ending (the Leave ending) and thus the plot as a whole. They are genuine people, or genuine consciousnesses. It's part of why you're even able to appeal to her humanity in the climax. Both the Hero and Princess are and are not real people just because of the nature of what they are, until the Leave ending where they decide to fully and totally become real static mortals rather than the sum of all living things, which is subtextually implied to be a change brought about by their love for each other burgeoning into them having individual consciousness. Debatably, this sequence is one of the earliest points this really starts to truly show, as it seems to be the Princess reflecting her actual feelings of living and dying without being simply a projection of the Hero's thoughts.
@@doogaminyu also as an addendum; aside from the final encounter, the "truest" forms can be said to be The Stranger and the Apotheosis (at least at first). This is why starting with The Stranger heavily expands all aspects of the endings; the Princess isn't necessarily changed by perception, but rather perception *dictates* what the Princess is allowed to be; the Princess is in truth most similar to The Apotheosis but with the mechanics of how this works, perception can essentially completely shackle Her will to the extent of the Damsel not even having free will at all. It's kind of like (and this is a deep cut) how the Djinn in the Wishmaster series mention "Having infinite power and only being able to use it when some worm bids it of us"; i.e., they can only use their almighty power if they get a mortal to wish them to do something. It's a similar principle but with perception. The actual change towards becoming a mortal for true seems to instead come about from an aspect of humanity burgeoning within The Princess as a result of her connection to The Hero. It's probably no coincidence that The Apotheosis is one of the three routes specifically earmarked as getting a major expansion in The Pristine Cut and of those has been insinuated to get the largest amount of content (when all three were already said to be large expansions). I frankly wouldn't be surprised if Pristine Cut Apotheosis drops a lot of explanation on the fine details of how things work or how The Narrator created the Princess and Hero.
@@JacobNintendoNerd99 slr I just did something, but yeah I understand that they can be both the concepts of Change & Stasis; and also their own individuals as well. I was just stating that I saw that Moment of clarity scene without knowing about the true nature of the two (Quiet & Princess) and assumed that the Princess genuinely had a backstory. Sure you said that it technically is her backstory but I meant a real backstory of the Princess with real parents and a kingdom and stuff, basically the Princess as a princess only; without all the Shifting Mound stuff
With other perceptions you can draw similarities and metaphors for relationships, the boy first approach to a girl and what comes after, the good, the bad and the ugly, but this one... this one only has one meaning, its a message that i whole heartedly hate and its why i would just free her, she is trapped there, we get the easy way out of the cycle, she does not, for us is mere seconds, for her is entire decades... this game is peculiar in that that it is unique, because even if she is DEFINETELY a negative route... the shifting mound refers to her as someone who seeks nothing more than companionship, but can only hurt what surrounds her.
this game is so much more than it seems. and this scene, that can be accessed so easily early game proves that. it has something so important to say about humans, death, entropy, and nature. honestly such a remarkable scene and makes this one of my favorite games ive ever come across
She was never a person? What are you talking about, did you play the game? She's the embodiment of change while we, the player character are the embodiment of stasis. She is a princess because that's what we chose for her to be, since she becomes what others perceive her to be
that is such an unusual and uncommon opinion that I have to ask what do you find wrong with it no offense intended, you have the right to think that, I'm genuinely curious, because IMO this game is voiced exceptionally, and people seem to agree
@@gachispy yea thats the only complaint I could possibly see being valid as the voice filter makes it sound like the voice is coming out of a bad mic and imo the actress could've been a bit more intense, maybe even frantic yelling, I feel like the actress was holding herself back on this route compared to some of the others
(SPOILERS)
Coming back to this sequence after learning about The Narrator makes this add up.
This is *HIS* nightmare.
(Possibily through her eyes from the line "Your existence hurts them".)
Hes afraid of death and wants to get rid of it by having The Long Quiet _slay the princess_ as thats what she represents. (Because of The Shifting Mound, and shes all about change.)
So the Nightmare is basically making the Narrator suffer by pouring her own existence into his mind to break him... but in "The Moment of Clarity," the backlash of that caused all the other Voices to appear as a sort of self-defense mechanism from that mental assault. Am I making sense?
@@sebastienbusque2312
I think so-
"Your existence hurts them"
I resemble that remark.
Honestly i assumed the nightmare was projecting her own trauma onto us since she states that she's in a constant state of life and death and the nightmare was simply showcasing the slow horror of that state and why she wants to get out.
@@YassineFarah2423 Makes sense. While the Voice of the Paranoid fears her, it's hard to not feel at least a bit of sympathy towards her plight.
Something I noticed: If, indeed, this is actually the Narrator's nightmare, and not the Long Quiet's.. that means that the Princess is actually talking to the Narrator when she's apparently telling the LQ to let her out. This is further evidenced by the fact that she comments on the fact that she "broke you" when _he's_ unable to carry on.
And considering that, after this sequence, Quiet can mention the fact that someone else had to have been in control while he wasn't since he didn't remember anything that transpired.. that means the Narrator might've been the one in the driver's seat for a while.
That's very cool!
The Narrator on the driver's seat... And still he wasn't able to succeed...
That's a fantastic reading, great observation
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Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves
Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nervesHeart lungs liver nerves😊
Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves
Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves Heart lungs liver nerves
"Your existence hurts them" is such a beautiful line. It's not only pristine, it's a double-edged blade: both Narrator -> Princess for all he believes she represents to the world, and Mound -> Narrator for the endless suffering his construct brings upon both gods. Hence the distorted Mound leitmotif in the background of the scene. Gives me shivers every time.
Truly, even if given a choice I'd ALWAYS free her.
Wow, that's a brilliant observation
Oh shit I think I actually understand this sequence now. For a while I thought it was all about making the Narrator feel bad enough about his actions, but the idea struck me while I was reading your comment.
The Narrator was forced to make himself a part of all the never-ending mutation that characterizes the construct he made, and the endless cycle of death that he caused despite trying to rid the world of it. Basically, he created an eternal triumph of his own nightmare. So yes, there is guilt and there is mockery, but neither is the point. In his own words, the Narrator's mission was fueled by his fear of the *finality* of death, but the Princess made him look at what death looks like without finality, and he saw that it was infinitely more terrible. That's why he said he couldn't go on and died, she stripped him of his purpose. In fact, later in The moment of clarity, she says that it's futile to resist because she's already "taken our will". The "will" she refers to is the Narrator's, even if she doesn't know it, and with him unable to influence us the only choice is to free her simply because there is literally no reason left to slay her.
This game is a masterpiece
@@danilopecchioli8203Fr
The Narrator’s perspective becomes clear.
Under change, sadness always comes, whether you live in compounding misery, die and lose your happiness, or forget and live in dread
With change, all these are possible, all this change can hurt, can make someone suffer, can make everyone suffer
No wonder The Shifting Mound’s motif plays here, it’s the embodiment of change, the embodiment of The Narrator’s nightmare
I remember getting this when trying to save the nightmare the first time i met her.
Lets just say,this bit haunted me and chilled me to the core.
Something about a situation like that feels like a living hell.
And that pained smile while being surrounded by loved ones hit too close to home.
Especially the image on 1:28 .
The idea of isolating yourself, and growing old alone, hoping that that this misery will end....
Only to awaken once again, in the same room again, reliving everything again.
Those tears pull at my heartstring.
i love the distorted shifting mound theme in the background, such a nice touch
Funny 0:41 everything that comes after reminds me of metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The human live that keeps going on, getting destroyed, relived, destroyed until your mind soon remembers the life before, becoming lunatic, destroying all feelings, reliving them, only to find demise once again. That in itself is truth.
In my opinion this game's greatest message is one about the dizzying nature of entropy, and how it paralyses people
This is best exemplified by the stranger, in which every possibility is laid before you, however the contrarian says it best, "there's nothing here to be clever about, what's the point in asking a question if all you get is a million answers?", the thing about entropy is that before you make a choice, the weight of not only the choice you take now sits on your shoulders, but of every branch which comes after every choice
This is why the cabin ending is my favourite, because only by making a choice can you lessen the weight of entropy, even with the knowledge of all the possibility which lays before you
The... cabin ending? Which ending are you referring to? Almost all of them involve the cabin
@@Nuclearburrit0 I think they've meant "Refuse to Ascend, Deny the Shifting Mounds and leave the Cabin with the First Princess".
As in basically instead of choosing "All Possibilities" and becoming a God - Long Quiet chose to be with First Princess - "Lessening the weight of Entropy" - choosing small happiness and uncertainty instead of everything and omnipotence..
@@Ghostel3591 right but that's like 3 completely different endings. Which one is he referring to as "the cabin ending".
i had no clue Johnathan Sims was the Narrator in this game but i would recognize that creepy hushed voice anywhere
He also plays all voices in your head
"The worms have found their orifice" Whoops, seems we have a misfiled statment in here.
After this route my new mantra became: heart, lungs, liver, nerves.
I showed this scene to my mythology teacher and said this was poetry
People are saying this is the Narrator’s nightmare, but I’ve always thought it was a mix.
1: The Narrator’s nightmare
The possibility that everything he does will only hurt others. The idea that no matter what he does, suffering will still exist, even without Her. He’s afraid everything he’s worked for will mean nothing.
2: The Princess’ nightmare
The possibility that she’ll never escape, that even when her body or mind decay into nothing, even when death frees her, she’ll just end up trapped again. On a larger extent, it’s The Shifting Mound’s fear that The Long Quiet won’t leave with her, and that he’ll keep them trapped. She’s afraid of stillness.
3: The Long Quiet’s nightmare
That every one of these paths has to end, and often before he’s ready for them to. More specifically to this iteration, that he’s going to die. Paranoid and LQ are both very afraid of death and danger in this route, and Hero isn’t far behind. He’s afraid of change.
4: The player and Black Tabby Games’ nightmare
That there’s no point to making or playing this game, and that it’ll eventually be forgotten. That the time put into making or playing it is worthless and meaningless, and that putting any thought into it won’t mean anything in the end. More specifically to the player, that every path ends the same way, and that there’s nothing new to learn or experience. They’re afraid of the same thing the Narrator is. Existential nihilism.
But those’re just my interpretations
The tear going down her face after she takes off her mask, I wonder if that was because of the fact she loves the protagonist and feels bad “killing” him in that moment.
Actually I think that tear is just repressed emotions. After all that's what the point of the-
Anyway, even if this princess loves him (she does, pretty much _all_ the vessels do in their own way), escape is her highest priority, she still needs him to leave, so him once again putting off a choice yet again is frustrating for her and makes it easier for her to "break" him into freeing her.
Also she's not "killing" him in any way shape or form; his body died of natural causes but his consciousness lived on in the next body and the next and so on until he has no choice but to free her. At least that's how I see it.
She tears up because she bared her true self to another and was "rejected", hence why as The Moment of Clarity, the princess wears her mask again despite how fractured it's become
@@one-wingedangel5107 Isn't that a light spoiler for people who are out of the loop?
This is the part in the game where I genuinely believed there was gonna be a backstory for the princess
Which, there is. The Princess is all of the change that happens through existence; life, death, disease, love, etc. The Long Quiet is stasis by contrast. But the Princess is also an individual who has to comprehend feeling literally everything at once. That's the entire point. This is a taste of everything she feels.
@@JacobNintendoNerd99 Yeah I get it but I meant that I thought this was a peak of her *personal backstory, since in that point I still wasn't aware that the Princess is not a real person
@@doogaminyu well, I think that description ultimately misses the point of the """"true""""" ending (the Leave ending) and thus the plot as a whole. They are genuine people, or genuine consciousnesses. It's part of why you're even able to appeal to her humanity in the climax. Both the Hero and Princess are and are not real people just because of the nature of what they are, until the Leave ending where they decide to fully and totally become real static mortals rather than the sum of all living things, which is subtextually implied to be a change brought about by their love for each other burgeoning into them having individual consciousness.
Debatably, this sequence is one of the earliest points this really starts to truly show, as it seems to be the Princess reflecting her actual feelings of living and dying without being simply a projection of the Hero's thoughts.
@@doogaminyu also as an addendum; aside from the final encounter, the "truest" forms can be said to be The Stranger and the Apotheosis (at least at first). This is why starting with The Stranger heavily expands all aspects of the endings; the Princess isn't necessarily changed by perception, but rather perception *dictates* what the Princess is allowed to be; the Princess is in truth most similar to The Apotheosis but with the mechanics of how this works, perception can essentially completely shackle Her will to the extent of the Damsel not even having free will at all. It's kind of like (and this is a deep cut) how the Djinn in the Wishmaster series mention "Having infinite power and only being able to use it when some worm bids it of us"; i.e., they can only use their almighty power if they get a mortal to wish them to do something. It's a similar principle but with perception.
The actual change towards becoming a mortal for true seems to instead come about from an aspect of humanity burgeoning within The Princess as a result of her connection to The Hero.
It's probably no coincidence that The Apotheosis is one of the three routes specifically earmarked as getting a major expansion in The Pristine Cut and of those has been insinuated to get the largest amount of content (when all three were already said to be large expansions). I frankly wouldn't be surprised if Pristine Cut Apotheosis drops a lot of explanation on the fine details of how things work or how The Narrator created the Princess and Hero.
@@JacobNintendoNerd99 slr I just did something, but yeah I understand that they can be both the concepts of Change & Stasis; and also their own individuals as well. I was just stating that I saw that Moment of clarity scene without knowing about the true nature of the two (Quiet & Princess) and assumed that the Princess genuinely had a backstory. Sure you said that it technically is her backstory but I meant a real backstory of the Princess with real parents and a kingdom and stuff, basically the Princess as a princess only; without all the Shifting Mound stuff
With other perceptions you can draw similarities and metaphors for relationships, the boy first approach to a girl and what comes after, the good, the bad and the ugly, but this one... this one only has one meaning, its a message that i whole heartedly hate and its why i would just free her, she is trapped there, we get the easy way out of the cycle, she does not, for us is mere seconds, for her is entire decades... this game is peculiar in that that it is unique, because even if she is DEFINETELY a negative route... the shifting mound refers to her as someone who seeks nothing more than companionship, but can only hurt what surrounds her.
“this is a love story” my ass /j
this game is so much more than it seems. and this scene, that can be accessed so easily early game proves that. it has something so important to say about humans, death, entropy, and nature. honestly such a remarkable scene and makes this one of my favorite games ive ever come across
yoo another romanian who knows about slay the princess? glad im not the only one :)
My nightmare
I want to comment. This might relate to 2 Nephi 2:26-27.
explain pls?
@@bti4232 The Messiah or Mediator is Jesus Christ. I testify that he lives and loves us dearly, he gives us strength to overcome all challenges.
What if this was the Princess' life before she became The Shifting Mound?
She was never a person? What are you talking about, did you play the game? She's the embodiment of change while we, the player character are the embodiment of stasis.
She is a princess because that's what we chose for her to be, since she becomes what others perceive her to be
it's such a cool concept and the writing is really good, I just can't stand the princess' voice. It makes it so corny.
meh.
not a fan of the voice acting
that is such an unusual and uncommon opinion that I have to ask what do you find wrong with it
no offense intended, you have the right to think that, I'm genuinely curious, because IMO this game is voiced exceptionally, and people seem to agree
@@user-zl9vh2xr6b Dont like it.
Simple as.
@@user-zl9vh2xr6btbf when she screams "let me out" the sound clipping is through the roof which is ear jarring. But the acting is fine
@@gachispy yea thats the only complaint I could possibly see being valid as the voice filter makes it sound like the voice is coming out of a bad mic and imo the actress could've been a bit more intense, maybe even frantic yelling, I feel like the actress was holding herself back on this route compared to some of the others
I really like the narrator's voice but the princess is too flat