Lady12maiden - I Did It! I Finally Beat You, Log-in Wall!

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?

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

ok sorry i dont care anymore. yes, i support palestine, but im tired of yall called zionists nazis. thats an insane thing to say to someone, especially a largely jewish community. yes, i agree what theyre doing is wrong, but calling them nazis is disrespectful to all jewish people. please find better ways to word your frustrations, this quite honestly disgusts me.

It’s interesting how both the Smitten and the Skeptic kill you.

If you kill the Princess, they both visit the same fate upon you, overriding your input. However, their respective motivations are very different.

The Smitten does it out of distraught, furious bereavement; he kills us as much out of rage and revenge as he does grief. The Skeptic, meanwhile, kills us when the Narrator traps us (the way he does in the good ending). However, the Skeptic is not like the Hero; he does not let us decide when he recognizes the circumstances we have found ourselves in.

One of the most generous ways to read the Smitten/Damsel relationship is that it represents the honeymoon phase. Smitten and Damsel have just met, think the world of each other, will do anything for each other, want to make each other happy, and dismiss each other's flaws when the Hero or the Narrator voices them. They are driven not by what they know but by their initial impressions and emotions.

This perspective leaves them both oblivious or apathetic to the Narrator’s machinations; they can ignore or overpower him. The shackle slips right off the Damsel's wrist. The locked door swings open. Even murdering the Damsel is not enough to dampen her love for you; all that does is turn it murderous again via the Burned Grey.

On the other hand, information drives the Skeptic and the Prisoner. They do not know each other. You took the blade when you went to meet her, and she killed you. These two can’t trust each other. Not completely. Because neither trusts without verifying first. And because, besides all that, there’s another factor in play: the Narrator.

Both the Skeptic and the Prisoner are aware of the Narrator. Both know that no matter what they want or do, something outside of them has the power to interfere. And their weapon of choice against him is information. The Prisoner plays dumb unless you “-give away the game,” and even then, she doesn’t reveal her plan. Not even to you. Instead, she hopes you take the hint and figure out what she wants you to do. Likewise, when you try to give her the knife to enact the plan, the Narrator tries to stop you as he did before, and the Skeptic thwarts him by pointing out how well that went the last time.

In contrast to the Damsel/Smitten pair, these two have one of the least emotionally charged dynamics of any Shifty/Quiet duo but have mutual respect and an understated sense of partnership that few other pairs start out with. Though the Drowned Grey’s motivation is not the explicit love of her counterpart, she’s still dressed like a widow to parallel the Burned Grey’s wedding dress.

And speaking of the Greys, they bring home the contrasting yet parallel dynamics between these Princesses and their Voices: one is fire, one is water. One has a passionate affect, the other a flat affect. One leaves behind only bones, the other a fleshy corpse. One is a bride, the other is a widow. Killing the Princess you defied the Narrator to save results in a Grey, a ghost dressed for marriage (future or past), that leads you to the basement of a dilapidated cabin that serves as your gruesome tomb.

The Damsel/Prisoner/Greys have many superficial differences that highlight how similar they are once you look beyond them. If played straight, the Damsel/Prisoner is a route where you continue to defy the narrator. The Damsel wants to leave? Pull off her chain and escort her out. The Prisoner wants to escape her chains? Give her the knife and take her head with you. Both are routes where you've established the best report with the Princess you could; you've literally died to protect her. Following this, you can take advantage of that goodwill and use it against the Narrator.

And in the case of the Greys, while the details are different (rain/desert, widow/bride, bones/corpse, drowning/burning) in both cases you're lead to your doom by a betrayed ghost of a Princess in a neglected cabin.

Various Voices and Princesses serve as foils and mirrors to each other (Rivalry and Submission, Terror and Longing, etc.), but none more closely than the Damsel/Prisoner Smitten/Skeptic. It makes them especially interesting and I'm excited to see what their future third chapters have in store.

ALL THE SLAY THE PRINCESS ANALYSIS-ISH POSTS IVE FOUND ON HERE SO FAR

As someone who can never really grasp meanings in media beyond surface level, analyses like these are always lovely to read. Here are all the ones I’ve gathered during my short time in the fanbase so far, this is mainly for myself, but maybe it would be useful to someone else!! Also. If anyone knows of any more, please please send them to me!! I will add more as I go too.

I don’t think these all count as analyses, but they all made me go “oooh :0” so yeah

https://www.tumblr.com/momentomori24/735278091386126336/i-just-had-an-epiphany-about-the-cold-that-i-never

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735000176332259328/the-pristine-blade

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/735270452740734976/id-like-to-point-out-that-in-the-wild-if-you

https://www.tumblr.com/dapperrokyuu/735178155760992257/alright-now-that-ive-seen-the-end-slay-the

https://www.tumblr.com/momentomori24/735068416032047104/something-i-really-love-about-the-smitten-is-how

https://www.tumblr.com/geebeeskoos/735078530884534272/the-nightmare-the-moment-of-clarity-might-be-the

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/734951196420358144/id-like-to-point-out-that-while-the-tower-and-the

https://www.tumblr.com/bpdwwx/734705488874422272/insane-over-slay-the-princess-imagine-death

https://www.tumblr.com/satellite-slickers/734633384872132608/slay-the-princess-is-really-cool-because-learning

https://www.tumblr.com/satellite-slickers/734573430353117184/i-just-realized-that-even-though-our-protagonist

https://www.tumblr.com/satellite-slickers/734558408577073153/i-like-how-the-twist-in-slay-the-princess-isnt

https://www.tumblr.com/golvio/734492024048369664/it-was-a-bit-of-whiplash-going-from-the-damsel-to

https://www.tumblr.com/three-lesbians-of-the-apocalypse/734467272705490944/theres-something-so-chilling-about-asking-the

https://www.tumblr.com/in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene/734463751524319232/the-more-i-think-about-it-the-more-not-exactly

https://www.tumblr.com/honeyfizzly/734464645923045376/i-think-the-horror-of-deconstructed-damsel-comes

https://www.tumblr.com/colorful-noircuts/733183847545683968/rambling-about-something-i-realised-in-slay-the hello my lovely mutual!!

https://www.tumblr.com/k20spock/734344272686481408/i-feel-like-i-havent-seen-as-much-discussion-of

https://www.tumblr.com/nerdlordofnerds/734384189011607552/man-dont-you-hate-it-when-you-try-to-rid-the-world

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735338029994115072/oh-for-the-stp-questions-what-do-you-think-of

https://www.tumblr.com/honeyfizzly/735336172257198080/i-really-adore-the-witch-wild-route-because

https://www.tumblr.com/supervillainies/735028943239921664/ive-mentioned-it-before-but-voice-of-the-cold

https://www.tumblr.com/lots-of-little-pink-clouds/734249738756620288/follow-up-thought-tsm-says-when-you-meet-he-gave

https://www.tumblr.com/angelofthemornings/734527183265185792/one-thing-i-like-about-slay-the-princess-is-that?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/metanarrates/734373760026705920/if-you-choose-to-chain-yourself-next-to-the?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/satellite-slickers/734216961853095936/durring-slay-the-princess-our-leads-have-the-only?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/golvio/734035911415857152/tried-the-damsel-route-today-this-shot-and-the?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/733870455536173056/say-what-you-want-about-the-smitten-but-the-man?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/733801315338190848/the-way-the-skeptic-implicitly-trusts-the?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/733269659334426624/the-way-the-shifting-mound-ends-every-ending-by

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/733333027972907008/the-way-the-princess-has-no-name-but-at-the-same

https://www.tumblr.com/justsalpals/733475592170848256/the-spectre-really-had-no-idea-what-she-was-doing

https://www.tumblr.com/electronicdelusionstarlight/733630301609295872/the-way-you-can-only-kill-the-princess-with-the

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735453678374469632/also-what-do-you-think-of-the-adversary-i-like

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735448991864635392/oh-oh-another-question-what-do-you-think-is-up

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735538031989293056/oh-what-do-you-think-of-the-spectre-and-prisoner

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735509320346812416/what-do-you-think-of-nightmare-and-spectre

https://www.tumblr.com/minotaur-asterion/735506279592787968/might-be-a-weird-question-but-what-do-you-think this one isn’t an analysis at all but I thought it was funny

https://www.tumblr.com/birdmitosis/735586819735961601/this-honestly-really-fascinates-me-because-it

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735614693262196736/ohhhh-and-what-about-the-narrator

https://www.tumblr.com/elieclowngamer/735849806204960768/okay-but-like-spoilers-for-slay-the-princess

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735902648917721088/what-do-you-think-about-the-beast-in-stp

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/736242037895168000/what-do-you-think-about-the-fury-and-the

https://www.tumblr.com/k20spock/736789844699807744/birds-and-trees-in-slay-the-princess

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/735509712935829504/what-do-you-think-of-nightmare-and-spectre

https://www.tumblr.com/lipstickchainsaw/736243685245730816/what-do-you-think-about-the-fury-and-the

https://www.tumblr.com/fierce-little-miana/736431035990016000/strange-beginnings-ending

https://www.tumblr.com/chi-the-idiot/736610535159873536/ok-but-we-need-to-adress-how-slay-the-princess