Monsters of the Mirror (RWP)

“He who fights with monsters should look to see that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” -Nietzsche¹

I typically avoid quoting Nietzsche, particularly their more famous quotes, but while playing Slay the Princess (StP) and simultaneously considering Parkin’s stance on evil in videogames, I couldn’t help but return to this one. While the latter half is often quoted in isolation, it’s the former that resonates with me here. In StP, the Hero is of monstrous appearance: talons are seen when holding the knife, references to feathers appear early, and after concluding Chapter III, the player witnesses as their appearance is shown in a mirror.

While the narrator describes the Princess as a world-ending monster, physical appearances suggest that the Hero might be a monster themselves. The beauty of StP is that—in every sense but physically—that determination of monstrosity is reflective of player influence. StP doesn’t attempt to obfuscate mirrors’ significance: mirrors conclude each Chapter III loop as the Hero approaches, sees themselves degraded, and restarts. But the less obvious mirrors gazing back are the Hero and Princess themselves; the Hero’s shattered voices and the Princess’s multitudes of personalities reactively respond to player choices immediately. By having both characters shift dependent on the player’s violent choices, StP reveals to the player the extent to which the monsters experienced and the evils witnessed are purely reflective of the player’s enacted nature.

Parkin believes that video games have “a unique capacity to inveigle, and even implicate, its audience through its interactivity.”² That is, games’ ability to force players to make choices, and see the resulting consequences, allows for reflection upon their actions. In StP, while reflection is possible by players mentally, the Hero and the Princess act as physical manifestations reflecting the player’s actions and chosen natures. The first consequential choice—taking the knife in chapter I—results in an immediately antagonistic-voiced Princess, whereas going without results in a softer, kinder-voiced Princess. The player’s collectable internal voices represent how the player acted earlier: choose to silently kill the princess, and the Voice of The Cold accompanies you thereafter, for example. However, the Princess reflects too: choose violence, Slay the Princess, and the Princess will subsequently become violent… and all parties suffer.

This resultant suffering reflects Parkin’s idea of the designer’s “responsibility to engineer the victim’s reaction in order to communicate something of the pain and damage inflicted” within videogames. Worth noting, however, is that suffering is unavoidable: in every route, at least one of the Princess and the Hero suffer, either physically or mentally, depending on player choice. ³ This supports Stang’s idea that “the sense of agency that videogame players experience is illusory”: regardless of choice, a similarly painstaking result follows, challenging Barthes’s notions discussed in The Death of the Author⁴(challenges I agree with but won’t explore due to discussing prior). However, StP shatters the illusion through the explicit reinforcement of looping and exploration: StP integrates the knowledge that exploration of different paths is seemingly inconsequential in the overall narrative, allowing players to explore differing levels of violence or evil and see how the world responds. This affords the player a fuller picture of their actions’ consequences—of the pain they inflict upon the Hero and the Princess.

In questioning evil and violence, Kryzwinska (via Stang) states that the “pleasure of playing lies, often, in a particular combination of freedom and determination, control and lack of control.”⁵ In StP, players are given ample opportunity for violence, but when it comes to sparing the princess, the effort increases. The narrator intervenes. There’s only one ending where there never exists animosity between the Hero and the Princes, and even within that path, the player must witness as their agency is removed and they are forced to attack the princess.

However, in taking the most difficult route and embracing pacifism, the princess remains pure, friendly, and kind.

From the first choice, StP reflects players’ natures. For those who blindly accept violence, the Princess will match. For those who didn’t try hard enough to resist (some of my peers), they may succumb to the narrator’s influence and fail to make their own path. But for those dedicated to peace, players may find that every route offers a way to make amends and find common ground with the Princess.

In every route, the monsters present are purely monsters of the mirror; if you found yourself continuously fighting the Princess’s monstrous forms, then perhaps you yourself have already become the monster.