The basic overview of "The Stanley Parable" is that there is a worker named Stanley who holds a very mundane job until one day, he finds his whole office empty, so he goes in search of where everyone disappeared to. There is a narrator that guides the story, however, there are a plethora of options when it comes to the choices the player can make.
"Panopticism" by Michel Foucault discusses the idea of a "Panoptican," if I understood it right, which would be a disciplinary project that could be used in society, to see how people react and to enforce certain laws or orders. The general idea being that it would more or less be a tower that was all seeing, but that could not be seen. Not in the sense that it's invisible, just in the way that people could be observed while they are unaware that they are being watched.
This is the basic concept that comes into play when the game, or video in my case, begins, with Stanley leaving the office and going to his bosses office where he discovers that he, along with his coworkers, are not only being watched but controlled. He can escape in the first scenario, but if all the scenarios are observed as one unit, then the game reveals that the narrator is the true controller and watcher. Everything is preset. The narrator grows angry when things aren't going along with his set out destinations. Most of the endings where the player disobeyed the narrator led to the players death. It's just as in Foucault's piece; if people break out of the order, they are being observed doing so, so then a police force would come take care of it, or they would be exiled, just like the "lepers" mentioned, all because they represent a danger to society. What I found even more interesting was that the game took everything to a whole other level when the narrator was cast out because he wasn't following the rules of a woman narrator. It's more or less like a police state, at least in my eyes. Not necessarily a bad thing, as Foucault was just observing the best way for a society to run, but it does seem a bit extreme. The fact that the game even had a full computer system set up to control the actions and emotions of the workers fit right in with the Panopticism, where people could be put in different situations and given different circumstances, but they could be observed in a very isolated manner. It's kind of liking viewing microcosms of animal groups or plants, just on a much larger level with humans, who have free will, or at least a preconceived notion of having some type of free will. The game really showed what the essay talked about; free will exists so long as it's not disturbing the peace or disrupting the flow of society. Everything is mean to be in order and according to plan; Stanely only really achieved happiness in the first ending, and that's because he did what he was told. Then there was the ending where he ended up dead outside and affected "Maryella," I hoped I spelled that right. I saw it as Stanley being an example, just as the people who disobeyed the plague curfew were used as examples, just as though who disobeyed the religious institutions, school, so on and so on. It really fits all of the existentialism we've been reading in our class, at least in my opinion. It's like the excerpt from Sarte's "Nausea;" there is a perceived notion of choice, but really, there is no choice. We are part of existence, just as Stanley, but no matter our choice, we can't escape from the reality of our existence. Even death offers no escape, just as it didn't for Stanley, just because you still exist, just as dead matter in the ground that is degrading. Stanley even seems to try and fight the idea of existence before essence. He exists, and then he was a worker. However, he exists again and change his essence by going against the grain, or turning the generator higher, or even of the other "disobedient" actions he might take.
As I stated earlier, my favorite part was probably when the woman narrator took over for the male one. It was almost a double meta statement by the creators. Stanley's part of a Panoptica, but then so is his narrator, and, I'm assuming here, that she is also part of one. Just as Foucault stated, the police are meant to follow the kings order, following everything with his royal seal upon it, but at the same time, they work for the people against beggars, thieves, murderers, and what have you. So the same people that can use the police force for help can also be taken away by it for not following someone else's rule, just as the royalty could, the only difference between any of the groups being perceived power.
Which is why the male narrator was so angry when Stanley disobeyed. He had a sense of perceived power, but it was just that, perceived. There was nothing concrete about it. This type of disciplinary project can only exist when everyone in a society or group buys into it. Now, this may not mean that they are aware of the power or discipline that is floating above their heads, but they exist in the same sphere because without them, a police force wouldn't exist, and so everything would fall apart up the line, just like it did in "The Stanley Parable." That's what I got from it, so there you go.
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