The Stanley Parable is a short walking simulator with multiple ending. You control Stanley as your choices and decisions are narrated by a strange Narrator.
Just yesterday, I published a Review for The Stanley Parable with as minimal spoilers as possible. In this article, I'll talk about a few endings I got, and their impact on how I see the game.
This Article Contains Major #Spoilers
Even the images are spoilers by nature, be warned!
The Stanley Parable
As I wrote in my Review: The Narrator isn't a trustworthy person, but it's the only entity in this game that you have the option to trust. The Narrator tells you what Stanley is about to do, and for the first few minutes of the game, doing what he tells you is the sanest thing to do and he has the right to mock you when you disobey him.
Then as you walk more into the game, things start becoming bizarre. Stanley becomes increasingly paranoid and the narrator takes joy in describing this. You the player will realize how helpless you are, at least I did. It's like The Stanley Parable is a vessel for the narrator to let the player think philosophical questions. Existential questions!
I reached four endings out of the 19 ones in The Stanley Parable, and as I give them some names I'll talk about the impression each of them left on me.
At some point as I was writing this article I found the common names given to the endings by fans in the wiki. I will still use the names I came up with because why not?
The "Escape(?)" Ending
It's the first ending I achieved in this game. At some point, Stanley comes across a sign called Escape. I walked its way instead of the more eye-catching "Mind Control Facility" (see, the other ending below.) The Narrator said that Stanley went through that hallway despite it leading to his death. The hallway is too long and the more I went in, the more the narrator states how stupid Stanley is to continue walking toward his death.
"At this point, Stanley was making a conscious, concerted effort to walk forward, and willingly confront his death." -- The Narrator
After reaching the place where Stanley will die. And as he was about to be crushed by metal jaws, the narrator had a fun monologue about Stanley's death... Farewell Stanley.
Then, he died!
Then I started playing as a woman? or maybe I'm still Stanley. (I don't know, I can't see my legs if I looked down to see if s/he has male of female shoes.)
The woman is narrating the game now, while I explored a museum as her. (Or as Stanley, I'm still not sure.) She talked about how death is meaningless when all the paths are created long in the advance. W
"Do you see now? Do you see that Stanley was already dead from the moment he hit start?" -- Female Narrator
This ending got me thinking about the role of the narrator... The museum has all the assets used to make this game, and there are some credits. It's nice and creepy at the same time now I think about it.
Achieving this ending as the first one, changed how I viewed the narrator for the rest of the endings. Maybe I shouldn't trust him?
The "Mind Control(?)" Ending
If you went to the "Mind Control Facility" instead of escaping. Stanley finds a place with 600+ monitors. All the rooms of the building he works at are watchable from there. (It looks like a reverse Panopticon.) Stanley gets fed up with getting controlled and the narrator enjoys telling us his thought pattern.
I found the "Mind Control" control room. The main device was in "idle" mode, and below it, there are two buttons. On & Off. (Oddly convenient.)
When I pressed "Off" Stanley was finally free from the mind control, and he went to enjoy his life in a pasture of greens and trees, and a small shack that appears in the distance. The view was so random and pretty for a game like this, that it left an impression on me.
See? Imagine walking here from a pitch black factory room...
This ending didn't impact me itself... It's the narration leading up to it. Stanley thought that he was only enjoying his boring job because he was mind-controlled to like it... I don't know why but I kind of see parallels with real-life here.
"And Stanley was happy." -- The Narrator.
The "Self Destruct(?)" Ending
Do you remember in the ending above, when Stanley found the "On/Off" buttons for the mind control device? It turns out the On button activates the "Self Destruct System!"
"Oh Stanley, you didn't just activate the controls, did you?" -- The Narrator
Disappointed, the Narrator tells Stanley that he only has two minutes to live. I tried to click on everything and find an escape only for the narrator to mock me for trying. (Well, I wasn't, I just wanted to see where the story goes.) He then starts to enjoy my panic and even increased the time until the detonation out of amusement!
"I have to say this, though, this version of events has been rather amusing. Watching you try to make sense of everything and take back the control wrested away from you...it's quite rich. I almost hate to see it go!" -- The Narrator
This ending was too funny for me. The narrator enjoyed my stupidity and I enjoyed his amusement of it. There was nothing to do except waiting for the death to come, and the Narrator just increased the time for suffering.
He even said that if you think this game can be beaten then you're in for a disappointment! 10/10 Ending of the year~
The "Dreaming(?)" Ending
This ending is different, because instead of going upstairs to the Manager's Office early in the game. Stanley goes the stairs down. Basically, he runs from the mystery...
Once Stanley reaches the underground car park, Stanley starts to question if his coworkers have really vanished. He's not crazy, is he? He then starts having an existential crisis, he starts to notice things! How he can't see his legs when he looks down? How there's a voice narrating everything he does and he's now narrating himself narrating himself?
Stanley must be dreaming! Yay! Mystery solved~
Since Stanley is dreaming, he can fly and go to space (image above.) But why he couldn't wake up? The narrator avoided the answer for a while but then declared: Stanley is not dreaming!
"Please someone wake me up! My name is Stanley! I have a boss! I have an office! I am real! Please just someone tell me I'm real! I must be real! I must be! Can anyone hear my voice?! Who am I? Who am I?!" -- Stanley as narrated by The Narrator
Then everything went black...
This is the story of a woman named Mariella. She's an average woman who is going to a meeting. She finds the body of a man, who screamed and dropped on the street's sidewalk. She calls an ambulance and considers the man for a bit. Satisfied she's a sane woman and is in control of her life, she went to her meeting, not wanting to be late.
...What?!
What is this ending? Stanley is dead? Did he die because of thinking about being in a dream, or was he dead all along? This is confusing. Still quite the experience, but mostly confusing...
What do you make of all this?
As you see, all of these endings have different implications about who The Narrator is, what he's capable of and what is happening to Stanley. I found it interesting that no ending thus far implied any solution to the mystery. I expect all the other endings on The Stanley Parable to be similar in that regard.
As for who Stanley is, or what he's supposed to represent I have two theories thus far... He's already dead! Or he's just a game character and nothing more, and the narrator likes to play with game characters. As I said in my Review, The Stanley Parable and Doki Doki Literature Club give me similar vibes, so if you liked one, you might want to try the other.
I don't know if I'll go for endings hunt or just uninstall The Stanley Parable and watch the rest on a Lets Play. If I decided to do the former, prepare for a sequel article to this one. Please tell me if you want to read it, as you might influence my choice. But for now, I'll leave you with this article and hope I provoked some thoughts in you.