{"id":1640,"date":"2026-10-28T15:45:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T19:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/?p=1640"},"modified":"2026-10-28T15:45:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T19:45:42","slug":"to-the-left-or-to-the-right-the-stanley-parable-sontag-and-the-limits-of-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/to-the-left-or-to-the-right-the-stanley-parable-sontag-and-the-limits-of-form\/","title":{"rendered":"To The Left or To The Right: The Stanley Parable, Sontag, and the Limits of Form"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A decision lies ahead – left or right door? A voice from above (or is it coming from below?) tells you to go through the left door. The corporate lighting casts shadows upon the two doors – the two decisions. Welcome to The Stanley Parable<\/em>, a video game following Stanley, an office worker whose actions are narrated by an unknown Narrator. The player plays as Stanley, and whilst the Narrator attempts to steer the storyline by \u2018narrating\u2019 what Stanley should do, the player gets to choose whether or not to follow. The varying decisions that the player can make culminate into various endings that can be achieved in the game. Through the portrayal of the Narrator, the Stanley Parable<\/em> illustrates the rigid authoritarian style interpretation that Susan Sontag explains in her essay \u2018Against Interpretation\u2019. However, it also criticizes \u2018form\u2019 and suggests that the solution to imposed interpretation is not increased attention to \u2018form\u2019, as form in itself can be a trap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The portrayal of the Narrator in the Stanley Parable<\/em> represents Susan Sontag\u2019s\u2018 interpreter\u2019. Sontag describes what she is against as the type of interpretation that sets \u201ccertain \u2018rules\u2019 of interpretation\u2026 plucking a set of elements\u2026 from the whole work\u201d (3).  In the Stanley Parable<\/em>, the player plays \u2018Stanley\u2019, and the Narrator tries to dictate the player\u2019s choices, reflecting how interpretations try to dictate what art means and what it should be. The Narrator\u2019s role in the game is to try and force a narrative onto the player, something introduced in the first decision the player has to make: whether to go through the left or right door. The Narrator explains how Stanley goes through the left door, and if the player goes through the right one instead, the Narrator continues by telling the player to turn around and go back through the left door. Similarly, Sontag describes the way interpreters set rules of interpretation that must be followed. The Narrator in the game tries his best to limit how much the player can defy his words, and the only \u2018happy\u2019 ending in the game occurs when one follows all of the Narrator\u2019s directions. Thus, in order to get the \u2018correct\u2019 ending, the player is limited to follow the Narrator\u2019s interpretation, just as how Sontag argues interpretation limits a work to a singular meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stanley Parable<\/em> is extremely well aware of its position as a video game, and anticipates that players try to find meaning in everything. For example, the game includes a secret \u2018disco room\u2019 that players can find only by pressing every single button in a room, waiting thirty seconds for a gate to open behind them, and then pressing another specific button. Little Easter eggs such as these are hidden throughout the game that can only be revealed through excessive interpretation of the game from the player\u2019s end. Sontag denounces how the modern interpretation style \u201cdigs \u2018behind\u2019 the text, to find a sub-text which is the true one\u201d (4), similar to how players dig through games to try and find hidden secrets. In this way, the player also acts as a type of interpreter in The Stanley Parable<\/em>. However, unlike the Narrator that acts as a representation of interpretation, the player is a \u2018compulsive\u2019 interpreter that tries to interpret every little detail within the game, dissecting it in a way such as Sontag denounces. Sontag would likely argue that players look for Easter eggs due to a sense of dissatisfaction with the game, needing to find \u2018more\u2019 within it (6). Motions such as pushing a button multiple times to try and get an Easter egg also get actively mocked by the Narrator. The game, via the Narrator\u2019s commentary, emphasizes the meaninglessness of such actions, thus aligning with Sontag by criticizing the actions of dissecting a piece of media. The pleasures of a video game, as the Stanley Parable<\/em> claims, is within playing it and enjoying the \u201cerotics of art\u201d (10) rather than the act of dissecting every game file.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the game\u2019s endings, the Stanley Parable<\/em> conveys the message that you have to look outside of the boundaries of the game, and thus past the \u2018form\u2019. The Stanley Parable<\/em> has multiple endings. The only ending that seems to be \u2018perfect\u2019 occurs when one follows all the rules of the Narrator, however there\u2019s no actual \u2018perfect\u2019 ending. The message it sends is that the only way to get the perfect, satisfactory ending is to quit the game entirely, as it\u2019s impossible to find it within the limits of the game. While Sontag argues that there is a need for \u201cmore attention to form\u201d (8), the Stanley Parable<\/em> argues that it\u2019s necessary to go beyond it in order to not get trapped within the boundaries of form. The Stanley Parable<\/em> cares less about interpretation and focuses more on the way that video games provide a false sense of freedom to players and the limits of such games.  Rather than becoming used to having a finite number of choices laid out by the video game, the Stanley Parable<\/em> reminds players that there is an endless world of possibilities beyond the limits of the \u2018form\u2019 of video games. Sontag speaks much of how mediums such as film have many scopes of \u2018form\u2019 (8), and whilst the same goes for video games, the Stanley Parable<\/em> instead emphasizes the limits that form still has. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Stanley Parable<\/em> and Susan Sontag\u2019s \u2018Against Interpretation\u2019 both convey a similar message; it\u2019s important to engage with things consciously and be aware of the choices you make in how you interpret what you consume. The game, however, goes further. Through its interactivity as a video game, it shows that form can be limiting too when offering choices that were designed in advance and a \u2018good\u2019 ending that simply follows a prewritten script. Thus, Sontag\u2019s proposed solution of emphasizing form over content is incomplete; it\u2019s also necessary to identify what form allows us to notice\/do and what it\u2019s silently ruling out. In an era with algorithms that diminish the options that are presented and thus the choices that one has, the Stanley Parable<\/em>\u2019s warning reaches well beyond video games. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A decision lies ahead – left or right door? A voice from above (or is it coming from below?) tells you to go through the…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingTo The Left or To The Right: The Stanley Parable, Sontag, and the Limits of Form<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9085,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-study-fa26","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1641,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1640\/revisions\/1641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/wrt118\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}