The New Pristine Cut Announcement Trailer Is So Cool... I've Watched It At Least A Dozen Times At This

The new Pristine Cut announcement trailer is so cool... I've watched it at least a dozen times at this point. But there's this one part I can't get out of my head: that final line from the Narrator.

"I—I refuse to let her get the last word in."

Banger voice acting and accompanying music aside, it's also an interesting character beat for the Narrator imo. He's framing the situation like a debate that the Princess is getting the last word in, and not as a situation with a single correct answer (Slay the Princess) the way He usually does.

I think it shows a little more self-awareness from Him than usual: a moment of hesitation and a quiet admission of His lack of control over your opinions and actions. If He really was able to convince you, it wouldn't matter if she got the final words, because you'd choose to slay her regardless.

It's also such an specific thing for him to focus on... He's not just stopping you from freeing her or stopping her from ending the world, He's stopping her from getting the last word in. Because that's usually what happens, right?

The game starts with His narration, His perspective. You need to slay her, or it will be the end of the world. But then you get her perspective, and as the game progresses, inevitably the Narrator falls behind as you and the Princess go through more and more loops that He can't remember and can't meaningfully respond to. You and She build a vastly sprawling dialogue across a network of lives, and meanwhile He's struggling to get his first words in.

And even when you discover your true identity and talk with him openly through the mirror, He inevitably shatters, and moments after that you talk to Shifty, who has much more space to argue her position. The Princess always gets the last word in.

...except for in this trailer. The sentimental moment with the base princess cuts abruptly to the Narrator. Usually when He talks about stopping you in-game, you have the power to resist or outright ignore Him, but here? The video just ends. He gets the last word in.

I just wonder, what does this mean for the Pristine Cut? Will there be a point where the Narrator really does get the last word?

lq with just arms and a kind of face has my heart

Telemachus complains about a headache and Athena flips her shit because God damn it she's already trying to make sure this kid's dad gets home in one piece she CANNOT try to guide him through a teen pregnancy on top of that

This is why I don't animate the serious songs btw

recently been thinking about a post I saw pointing out that the primary theme of the nightmare is neglect. she's been left alone down there and told she's a monster and can do nothing but internalize that.

but anyways it's interesting how the two ways to get the moment of clarity are by either running or staying with her.

In running, you come face to face with the damage you have done, and in rejection or denial of your culpability you turn tail and refuse to reap what you sown. It makes her lash out and you are swallowed by her pain for refusing to acknowledge it or your responsibility in it as you reinforce once again that she is a thing to be escaped from.

In staying, however, you recognize what you have done. You see that you hurt her, and seek to remedy it by remaining down here to keep her company- but in your attempt to heal her, you miscalculate just exactly how great her suffering was, and in thinking that it was a thing that you could fix or even bear, you unknowingly dove into the depths with her. You thought her sadness was a shallow creek, and jumped into an ocean of her loneliness and drowned in it.

Either way, you are mocked for your misunderstanding of what it means to be abandoned and to ache as the princess does, and you are forced to realize the entirety of your transgressions the hard way.

rip hero