Slay the Princess: The Princess (Chapter III)

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• Adaptational Badass: In the original version of the game, the Apotheosis is taken by the Shifting Mound almost immediately after she frees herself from the cabin. In the Pristine Cut, however, she lasts much longer, and is tied with the Wild in being the version of the Princess who nearly escapes the Construct altogether, as well as being the only vessel to resist being taken into the Shifting Mound for a non-negligible amount of time.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: She bursts from beneath the cabin, and she's so big that even the cabin could fit in the palm of her hand. She is so big that she manages to even dwarf the Shifting Mound, physically that is. This becomes more apparent when it requires several more arms to restrain her and only her head can breach from the river of bodies.
• Beyond the Impossible: She is the only variant of the Princess who is able to resist the Shifting Mound, if only temporarily. To be clear, she is putting a fight against a being that encapsulate every single version of the princess, including herself. Unfortunately for her it's not enough to stop her from being assimilated, but it is enough for her to give the Player one last attempt at freeing himself and the Voices from the Construct. If you push her to the breaking point by slashing open her eye, her agonized outburst not only kills you, but the Voices and the current incarnation of the Narrator.
• Chunky Updraft: The ground itself tears away and floats towards the Apotheosis in order to demonstrate how powerful she is. Notably, the Apotheosis doesn't even appear to be trying to do this; she's just so powerful and vast that reality literally revolves around her.
• Death by Irony: She's so powerful that she can free herself from the cabin without even interacting with the player, but due to how the construct works, her freeing herself causes the Shifting Mound to claim her (though the latter is delayed by a few minutes) and all of her attempts to escape it will end in futility.
• Enlightened Antagonist: While the Tower was primarily motivated by ego and a drive to show her superiority, the Apotheosis has her eyes set on higher goals — she has realized that the Construct is an illusion and seeks to escape it. She sees you not as a disobedient pet, but someone unaware they're trapped in the lies of the world, and responds to most things you do with a sort of detached respect (unless you stab her in the eye).
• Evil Sounds Deep: She speaks with the same kind of pitch and intonation that she had as the Tower, but now with reverb.
• Eye Motifs: The pieces of fabric she has wrapped around her body have eyes on them, symbolic of her being "all-knowing" now that she has ascended.
• Eye Scream: In The Pristine Cut as a last act of defiance, you can throw the pristine blade at the left eye of the Apotheosis when it looks like she's going to kill you. But to everyone's surprise (especially the Apotheosis), it actually works, cutting her cornea and causing blood to run down her face.
• Giant Woman: She's so big that she towers over the entire landscape around the cabin. When she's grabbed by the Shifting Mound, the hands can only cover parts of her face and neck instead of her entire body. If you 'fight' the Shifting Mound in the endgame, she causes vessels that you've brought her to surface from her Body of Bodies and speaks through them. Most of these surface in front of the primary trunk of the Shifting Mound, but the Apotheosis is so large that only her head appears, and she is popping out from the side.
• Glowing Eyes: Her eyes now shine so brightly with her light that her pupils aren't even visible anymore.
• Go for the Eye: Attempting to stab the Apotheosis in the skin will do nothing, as her skin is simply too tough. But by throwing the Pristine Blade into her eye, you can actually wound her.
• A God Am I: Even more so than the Tower. And considering the Apotheosis is a Giant Woman who towers over the landscape, it's hard to blame her. Attempting to slay the Apotheosis will even have the Narrator say that killing her at this point is a desperate long shot. And only the Shifting Mound could take Apotheosis down, using the hands to restrain the latter.
• Godzilla Threshold: As you approach the Cabin, the Narrator will recognize that things have spiraled out of his control and actually admit to the knowledge he usually tries to keep a secret from you, such as implying that your perception of the Princess can change her, as a desperate attempt at damage control. This can actually be a valuable hint if you intend to slay her.
• Hair Flip: She flips her hair as she emerges from the cabin.
• Holy Backlight: She is lit from behind by giant beaming rays of light that she herself seems to emanate, giving her a divine appearance.
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • In the original release her fight wasn't much of a fight. As she's warped into a Physical God you would either try to slay her despite her newfound power, or give in and submit. The Shifting Mound claims her before either attempt can start.
  • The Pristine Cut heavily downplays this, however. Depending on the exact route you can completely fail to pierce her skin with the Pristine Blade, but throw it into her eye in one last act of defiance and manage to actually wound her, though she immediately smites you so hard it burns not only your body but all the Voices and the Narrator into nothing. Or if you have the Voice of the Paranoid with you, then you can use your perception powers on yourself to gain the strength to match her for a time, which actually impresses her, though you ultimately fail to cut her with the Pristine Sword before she catches you in her grasp. In either case, the Apotheosis proves too powerful to be slain, though you can still foil her attempt to crack the Construct open.
    The Apotheosis: A victory, but one that remains rooted in the material. And I am beyond that now. Come. Let us leave this world of illusions.
    Before your blade can pierce her heart it is vanished from your hand. The world around you unravels into textured nothing.
  • Interestingly averted after the boss fight. You are given the choice to strike back at her due to the agonizing pain she causes you in her attempts to escape the construct. If you have the Contrarian and your attempt to run away in spite fails, you can shackle her. If you have the Paranoid, you can unravel her.
• Light Is Not Good: Her Holy Backlight only serves to make her look more sinister and imposing. If you stab her in the eye, she'll smite you with light so powerful and blinding that it burns away all the voices in your head.
• Magical Floating Shawl: Her body is wrapped up in a thin shawl with eyes on it, with the wrappings on her arms floating loosely around her.
• Meaningful Echo: As with Tower, her "little bird" nickname is normally mocking and dismissive. During her Villain's Dying Grace, as she tries to resist being taken by the Shifting Mound, she gives it in a far kinder tone as she bids you to fly out of the construct.
• My Beloved Minions: In The Pristine Cut, it's possible to submit to her and her plan. She turns out to be good to her word of We Can Rule Together, even trying to help you escape without her when she realizes she can't.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Depending on how exactly you attack her, she's either got iron-hard skin or a forcefield, rendering your weapon useless. Still, it's only nigh invulnerable. You can use sheer will to break through the forcefield (In which case, she'll be honestly impressed), or you can stab her in the not-iron-hard eye (in which case, she'll be pissed).
• Not So Invincible After All: Despite being a goddess and having skin that can't be struck, striking her in the eye will actually wound her eye.
• Outgrowing the Building: The Apotheosis makes her grand appearance by bursting straight through the cabin and the top of the hill it's built on, accentuated by Chunky Updraft. Much of of the chapter is spent as a Colossus Climb, with the player using her powerful gravitational pull to slingshot around and onto her body.
• Pet the Dog: Downplayed. Just like The Tower, she sees you as little more than a potential servant. But given that you've only reached this point by first attacking her in chapter 1, then defying her up to a point in chapter 2, her giving you yet another chance to submit is rather generous. Even though the option to serve her is named "Embrace your new goddess", she makes it clear she wants you by her side.
  • If she catches you in her grasp she'll unravel the very fabric of your being, which is excruciatingly painful... but if you submit then it's revealed to be a step in allowing her to break out of the Construct, and she'll reward the faith you put in her by carrying you toward the crack with her. Furthermore, when the Shifting Mound claims her before she can escape, she makes sure to fling you toward the break so that you might still be free when she realizes she can't escape.
    "I think... this is the end. I can feel every part of me freezing over... You have been the only thing I've ever known to have shown me grace. I am sorry if I have not shown you the same."
• Posthuman Nudism: She lost all of her clothing save for bits of fabric that barely cover her, symbolic of how this form has become so powerful that it has ascended to godhood. Even her crown and chain are gone.
• Power Echoes: Now even her ordinary voice echoes as loud as when she was using her Compelling Voice as The Tower.
• Power Floats: She's now become so powerful that she herself has become a center of gravity, with everything in her surroundings now orbiting her.
• Power Glows: She has considerably more Holy Backlight than The Tower did, and seems to emanate it herself now. The light even forms a symbolic crown on her head.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: She's the most powerful incarnation of the princess and has the longest hair (Even accounting that she's now a Giant Woman, her hair is still proportionally the longest). When she emerges from the cabin she even does so while flipping it triumphantly.
• Powers Do the Fighting: It's not even clear if she's trying to destroy the world or if it's just a natural byproduct of her presence.
• Powers That Be: The core the Apotheosis and the Tower before her, as fragments of the Shifting Mound they are effectively the manifestations of the nature of the universe as something that is both beautiful and vast, but uncaring and unforgiving. In confronting them the player either finds meaning by choosing to accept them as something greater than themselves that they can put their faith into or struggling against them in defiance.
  The Tower/Apotheosis: (As part of the Shifting Mound) Only with both of us is there a future to look towards. It is hope that carves meaning into being/consciousness. / Without me there are no externalities to resist, and without you to resist me, there can be no externalities. It is struggle that carves meaning into consciousness.
• Reality Warper: Just her very presence causes reality itself to warp around her. There's an enormous portal behind the Apotheosis, the earth around her floats towards her, and she's so big that the cabin is smaller than the palm of her hand.
• Smug Snake: She now fully believes herself to be an omnipotent god who will change the world, yet she's still just a small part of the Shifting Mound, who claims her just like any other incarnation of the princess.
• Term Of Endangerment: Much like the Tower before her, the Apotheosis refers to the Player as a little bird. However, her tone of voice towards you is much more affectionate than the Tower.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed. She still intends to destory the universe in order to remake it in her image, but she's much nicer to you, even forgiving you if you attack her. She wants you by her side, and while she's still the one in charge, her choice of dialogue makes it seem more like she wants you to be her second in command. When her attempts at further ascension fail after ripping a hole in the Construct, she tries to save you by flinging you towards the exit, even as she's being consumed by the Shifting Mound. And finally, The Shifting Mound's description of her vessel doesn't have the "she would not mourn you" line that The Tower had.
• Turn the Other Cheek: As a divinity, the Apotheosis believes she is inevitable and thus sees herself as beyond petty conflict. Even should you attempt to slay her, she treats you not as an adversary but a small and misguided being who must be gently brought to see the senselessness of opposing her. If you manage to drive her to genuine rage, then it actually breaks a fundamental facet of her self image.
  "I forgive you your transgressions. But my destiny is inescapable."
• Villain's Dying Grace: She's one of the more antagonistic vessels, but so long as you submit once she has you in her grasp, even if you fought against her beforehand, she'll take you with her when she opens a hole in the construct. Then, before she's taken by the Shifting Mound, she'll apologize for never showing you the same faith you had in her, and use her last ounce of strength to hurl you at the hole she made in the hope that you'll get the freedom she's been denied.
  "The Princess summons the last of her strength, her face a shield of purpose and determination. In her final act, she hurls you toward the hole in the world, toward something beautiful beyond."
  The Apotheosis: Fly, little bird.
• Villainous Breakdown: Should you throw the Pristine Blade at her eye, it will actually work, cutting her cornea. Enraged, the Apotheosis will start using her divine power to fight back against you, including smiting you with holy light to burn your body away, which is so powerful that it incinerates the Narrator in the process. Despite coming out on top however, the fact that her composure was broken at all deeply shakes her belief in her divinity, as lashing out in pain and rage means she lowered herself to your level.
  "It's so cold now. And I feel... small. I thought I was everything. But I'm no better than you, am I?"
• We Can Rule Together: She still wants you to join her as her first servant in the "new dawn" that she will bring to the world, though her line about "taking the empty seat at my side" makes it seem like she wants you as her second in command. She's actually genuine about this and tries to forcibly (and painfully) ascend you alongside her to the outside world.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Try to defy her one last time and she'll respect your determination. In the Pristine Cut if the Voice of the Paranoid is with the Player, he through the Power Born of Madness will reforge the Pristine blade into a Pristine sword. The Apotheosis will be honestly impressed by the display.
  "Your persistence is admirable, but it's misplaced."

• Black Comedy:
  • While leaving with the Cage's head, she'll make a joke about the Player dropping her head back down the pit. You of course can make him drop her head back down.
  • If she manages to decapitate you, leaving your heads to spectate as your bodies start fighting each other, she'll remark that their battle seems like it's about to "come to a head", then quietly chuckles to herself about the Accidental Pun.
• Chained by Fashion: Chains protrude from her back as she approaches you, and they aren't exactly stopping her approach. Her entire route is covered in chains as well, with her "cabin" just being a web of them over a pit and her forest being crosses covered in them.
• Chain Pain: She (or her body) controls the chains that make up her cabin, and she tries to use them to decapitate you so you'll join her in headless helplessness.
• Conditioned to Be Weak: While just as powerful as the other Chapter 3s, her constant failures to escape have broken her down to the point that she no longer consciously controls her own body. If you convince her to try to will your chains away, she has a mild Heel Realisation as she realizes she could have easily freed both of you at any time.
• The Fatalist: Has given into this view, as all of your encounters have gone down the same way. She wakes up in chains. You come to her, knife in hand. You offer her your implement. She cuts herself free. But she remains trapped. The Cage doesn't blame the Player for not taking the Prisoner's head to freedom because she believes neither of them ever actually had a choice.
• Freedom from Choice: Subverted. She considers herself to have this, and to be much happier now she's accepted that she has no control over what she does in her life. She's lying to herself, and you can only free her if you get her to accept this.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: A rare intentional example. She represents the idea of the Princess' story as endless repetition that neither party can change. But she's wrong, and sure enough the Cage has the most different outcomes of any of the Pristine Cut additions.
• Incurable Cough of Death: Towards the end of the chapter's "No Exit" branch, after the lethal dance of bodies is complete, her head coughs up a bit before saying that she feels cold. With a little Blood from the Mouth, though, that's a sure sign that the Shifting Mound is approaching...
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: After the bodies of the Player and Princess are done violently attacking one another, you can see The Player's body lovingly embracing the Princess' from behind, with her body reciprocating by gently holding his arm, all while in a pool of blood and feathers.
• Joke and Receive: After leaving the "cabin" with her head, she jokingly suggests that you could technically drop her back down, which you can indeed do if you feel so inclined. Adding on to this, judging by the bewilderment on the Narrator's part after The Cage suggests this, it was her joking suggestion that allowed you to do that in the first place.
• Losing Your Head: Being decapitated hasn't really hindered her very much, ironically. It's her own fear and self-doubt that's the problem.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: The Cage's body isn't actually hostile and is in reality trying to give her head freedom, whether that be through escape or death.
• Off with His Head!: She tries to take off the player's head, so they can watch their bodies endlessly murdering one another forever in a cycle she believes neither of you can impact.
• Self-Defeating Prophecy: Ironically, thanks to the Cage giving up and letting fate take its course, the player never gets the opportunity to give her the Pristine Blade in any of her endings, something she's convinced is destined to happen. In particular, if you fail to prevent the Cage from decapitating you but do not let go of the Pristine Blade at any point, your body (implicitly under the control of the Voices now, between both you being unable to hear them for the remainder of the route- even once you're faced with the mirror inside of the Long Quiet again- and the Voices explicitly being the ones in control of your body in The Princess And The Dragon, another route where your mind and will is divorced from your physical form) animates itself and goes on to try and kill her instead of actually giving the blade to her, which makes it this from a twofold perspective: you didn't give the Pristine Blade to her this time (which you have the option to point out to her), and technically, it's not you who made the choice not to.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The Voice of the Broken can sadly note that her cold apathy towards everyone around her is just a cover to hide her pain and helplessness.
• The Stoic: She's gone from being merely calm and reserved as the Prisoner to outright monotonous and emotionless as the Cage. That said, she'll become cheerful and affectionate if you convince her to give up her fatalism and help her escape.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: After going out of your way to free her head, she'll jokingly suggest you throw it down, and, if you want, you can.
• When She Smiles: The Cage's head will give the Player Character a warm smile during the pair's escape.
• You Can't Fight Fate: If you free yourself with the Voice of the Paranoid, the Cage notes that nothing's gonna change the final outcome, and it's all the same. The Skeptic then points out that it's all been a riddle. As with the Moment of Clarity described below, when given dialogue options, there's only one action you can select with the others being greyed out and commenting on the futility of choice.
  The pieces fall into place. For every permutation there is a pattern. And when the pattern is learned, the illusion dissolves. But was the pattern always there, or were you the ones who wrote it in the sand? The writers must follow their own script.
  [Give her your implement.]

Get ripped apart by the Beast and a bigger version of her greets you as the Den, now transformed into a feral Animalistic Abomination.

• Alas, Poor Villain: Should you trick her into chasing you out, she becomes trapped in the narrow entrance, completely at your mercy. Even the Narrator's description of her in that position paints her in a pitiful light. It also makes the voices of the Hero, the Hunted, and the Skeptic feel sorry for her and consider helping her.
• Androcles' Lion: In The Pristine Cut, saving her from being trapped results in the Narrator collapsing the Cabin and tunnel, but she digs herself out — and then, after a second to catch her breath, comes back to help pluck you out, much to the Narrator's fury and frustration. There is a steam achievement referring to this called "The Lion and the Mouse".
• Animalistic Abomination: She's not only a bigger version of the Beast, but now has extra body parts and limbs. On top of that, she doesn't even talk to you anymore, only desiring to kill you and/or eat you.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: If she gets trapped in the tunnel and you decide to help her out, she will repeatedly help you even when she has the opportunity to escape without you.
• Blackout Basement: Her lair isn't a jungle anymore. It's just a wide-open, pitch-black room.
• Body Horror: Occurs during the Cannibalism Super Power fight, where the Voice of the Hunted and the Den give into their primal instincts. Both the Den and Player start warping and merging into one another, culminating into the pair becoming a bleeding avian-feline abomination not unlike something from John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
• Cannibalism Super Power: She has avian claws on some of her extra limbs rather like yours clearly visible during the Skeptic version of her Chapter; considering you go that route by the Beast eating your lower body it's suggested the Den literally assimilated parts of you into herself. She can also quickly regenerate from damage (including regrowing lost body parts) by eating part of your flesh. The twist is that you can do the same by eating parts of her. If you fight her and decide to unleash the Voice of the Hunted's instincts, she will end up turning into a misshapen amalgamation of feline and avian parts, including a beak forcefully emerging from her maw.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: While the Den has the same animalistic instincts as the Beast, she lacks the intelligence the Beast had, becoming little more than a mindless animal who attacks the Hero without even remembering her previous plan to escape the Cabin. This allows the Hero to either lure her out into the open where his speed gives him the advantage in a straight fight, or trick her into following him back to the cabin entrance, where her larger size causes her to get stuck in the tunnel leading back.
• Consuming Passion: The core of her being. She, alongside the Beast, represents the primal and sexual aspects of consumption. The Den takes that idea further by consuming chunks of you (assuming you fight her) and you likewise doing the same, plunging into an endless cycle of consumption:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Den): This one is consumed by instinct. A dancer moving to the rhythm of the flesh. She will make for a ravenous heart. She wishes me to devour you. To make you a part of myself. But she is only a voice. Do not mourn her, for she is part of something greater.
• Everyone Has Standards: After the Shifting Mound ends the horrible Cannibalism Super Power brawl between you and the Den, the narration describes the look in her eyes as one of absolute shame at the depths she and Player sank to during the fight.
• Face Death with Dignity: Downplayed. If she gets stuck in the tunnel while you're holding the Pristine Blade, slaying her will become an option. She will cringe and wince in fear as she braces herself, but otherwise won't fight back or struggle like a true animal would.
• Feral Villain: Communication with the Den is nonexistent, to the point she's The Speechless. Attempting to speak to the Den before entering her lair will get you no response. She operates on instinct, and the Narrator describes her feral-like lunging and clawing at you. Instead of being a Talking Animal, the Den just roars at you. As such, the Den is even more of a wild beast, wanting to kill you because she's operating on a predator's animal instinct. It's thus shown that the Den has become so bestial that she can no longer communicate with words anymore.
• Hybrid Monster: The Den is only vaguely cat-like. Now she has bird-like wings, goat-like horns, claws that appear feline and reptilian, four legs and two arms, and glowing white eyes.
• It Can Think: It's implied that even though she's operating on instinct, she isn't completely mindless. If she gets stuck in the tunnel, she'll looks at her body in horror, then gives you a very pleading look, begging for help. If you decide to slay her, she realizes your intention and quietly braces herself, wincing in fear but otherwise no longer struggling. If you instead decide to help her, you can say "Let's talk" and approach her peacefully. She looks to the side, as if in shame or embarrassment at her defeat.
• I Owe You My Life: If you work to free her when trapped in the tunnel, she will return the act, in kind.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In the previous chapter she taunts you about being so much more than you and the hopelessness of escaping from her attempts to swallow you alive. In the next chapter, she is too big to escape through the exit tunnel, and if you manage to bait and outrun her she will get stuck there.
• Monster Modesty: You don't see it during her chapter, but after she is claimed by the Shifting Mound, it turns out her upper torso and parts of her lower self are wrapped up in cloth. Somewhat justified since her upper half has humanoid breasts, albeit covered in fur like the rest of her.
• Non-Malicious Monster: She is nothing but survival instinct and the will to escape embodied; she attacks you because she understands that is a way out, but as shown in The Pristine Cut, it's nothing personal — show you're willing to help her escape and she helps you as well.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: If you try to leave the tunnel alone after trapping the Den, the tunnel ends up collapsing on the both of you and you two are both trapped inside, left to slowly starve to death. When the rubble clears, this is what’s left of the Den when the Shifting Mound claims her.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: She has the body of a lion with wings, but where her neck should be, she has a humanoid upper body starting from the torso.
• Our Sphinxes Are Different: She's this mixed with a centaur, having the body of a lion for a lower half and a humanoid upper body starting at the torso. Her wings are much bigger, her four legs are more like a lizard or a bird, and she has two new arms.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: When she gets stuck in the narrow entrance, she gives to you a sad look, as if nonverbally begging you to not leave her behind, per the Narrator's description.
• Power Born of Madness: She lacks the intelligence of the Beast, but she also lacks her capacity for malice and resentment: the Den hunts you only due to her animal instinct, while the Beast wanted payback for your betrayal. This is why the Den can be convinced to pull a Heel–Face Turn.
• Roar Before Beating: Just like the Beast, she lets out a huge roar when she pounces.
• The Speechless: The only version of the Princess who never speaks^note Though the Shifting Mound speaks through her in the Long Quiet and with the Beast's voice in the finale. Seeing as how the Den is presented as a Feral Villain, it's possible that she's now so bestial that she can't talk anymore.

• Absurdly Sharp Claws: The Femme Fatalons she had as the Adversary have now grown into sharp, steel-like claws that she now uses much more readily in combat. This is symbolic of this incarnation being more bestial than The Adversary who fought mainly by brawling.
• Achilles' Heel: She's an Amazonian Beauty, is a lot bigger than you, and has incredibly powerful muscles; the Voice of the Hunted and the Narrator both waste no time describing how much bigger and stronger she is than you. But what the Eye of the Needle has in strength, she lacks in speed. It's possible to use this advantage to lure her out into the open and win via Death by a Thousand Cuts in a way that results in a Mutual Kill.
• Amazonian Beauty: Ramped up from the Adversary, the Narrator even makes a point to describe how muscular her thighs are.
• Berserk Button: Should you enter her domain without the pristine blade, she'll flip out by the sight of you coming in unarmed, taking offense at your supposed refusal to sate her bloodlust, and will instantly give chase. You can exploit this by luring out of the cabin to either free her or fight her outside.
• Blood from the Mouth: Lampshaded. The Narrator describes her as coughing up blood after you defeat her in combat and before being taken by the Shifting Mound.
  The Narrator: She stares you down, coughing up a splash of blood as she gasps for breath.
• Blood Knight: Even moreso than the Adversary. It's possible to try and trick her into following you if you act like you're not going to fight her. If you do decide to fight her head on, she'll be so delighted she will let out a deluge of Big "YES!" remarks with a smile on her face.
  The Eye of the Needle: Yes yes yes yes yes! Finally! You get it!
• Breaking the Bonds: The Eye of the Needle is even less restrained than the Adversary. Any action that doesn't get you closer will result in the Needle breaking her bond effortlessly and pursuing you.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: If you try to outmaneuver The Adversary, implying that you think she's too powerful to fight head-on, then she will become too powerful to fight head-on, which will also spawn the Voice of the Hunted for you, implying she sees you as too weak to satisfy her cravings. That said, this also works against her. The Adversary is perceived as your equal, so she can't be outmaneuvered; but the Eye of the Needle trades more strength for less speed, so she can be outmaneuvered and beaten that way.
• Clipped-Wing Angel: Zigzagged. The Eye of the Needle is much stronger than the Adversary, so she'll easily defeat you if you fight her head-on, while the Adversary could be stalemated that way. However, what she gained in power, she sacrificed in speed. So while trying to outmaneuver or flee from the Adversary just results in your death (the former turning her into the Eye of the Needle in the first place), The Eye of the Needle can be outraced and outmaneuvered in battle to suffer a Death by a Thousand Cuts. It's also worth noting that she's one of the few versions of the Princess that can be defeated outright instead of through a Mutual Kill.
• Combat Pragmatist: She's far too enraged by your cowardice to keep the Fair-Play Villain ideals she had as The Adversary and won't hesitate to fight dirty if she has to, such as using the pristine blade as a throwing weapon when you're running from her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: She's much stronger now than when she was the Adversary, so trying to fight her head-on in her Creepy Cave causes her to win while only sustaining a few superficial wounds, which is far from the Mutual Kill she desires.
• Dispense with the Pleasantries: The Adversary doesn't enjoy chatting, but she indulges your questions. The Eye of the Needle is far more bestial and has no patience to talk to you due to your previous cowardice.
• Dragons Are Demonic: Even more so than the Adversary. This version has more horns, longer claws, more prominent hooves, and a scaly dragon's tail curling out from behind her.
• Evil Is Bigger: The Eye of the Needle is so tall that she has to crouch just to fit in the cabin. When she stands up outside of the cabin, her head goes past the roof. She's also very broad-shouldered.
• Failed a Spot Check: If you lure her out of the cabin, she'll be so consumed with the chase that you'll have to point out to her that she's free. Which is what allows the Shifting Mound to collect her. She even lampshades this toward the end:
  The Eye of the Needle: [as part of the Shifting Mound] You run, and you run far. And the flesh I hurl at you is answered by the empty air of a place I'd never been. Cold and lonely, but also true. I didn't know what to make of my freedom then, but I know what to make of it now. You challenged me, and by challenging me you gave me purpose. A life without obstacles is no life at all.
• Graceful Loser: Given the bloody fight she desires, which ends with a fatal stab to the heart, her parting words are winded but she's smiling and satisfied as she admits you've outplayed her.
• Horns of Villainy: She's got horns across her head that resemble the shape of a crown rather than actually wearing one.
• Hot-Blooded: Like the Adversary, she's a loud, fierce, and passionate Blood Knight. Most of her dialogue has her basically screaming.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: If you thought the Adversary was passionate about fighting, the Eye of the Needle is so obsessed that she might as well be speaking in Double Entendre with how blatant she is. Nichole Goodnight described the voice direction for both her and the Adversary as, "horny for a fight."
  • If you first encountered her while wielding the blade:
    The Eye of the Needle: There you are, knife in hand. How thrilling. Attack me, bleed me, twist the knife in my flesh. Break your bones against my body. I want a real challenge this time.
  • If lured outside of the cabin and fought in the open:
    The Eye of the Needle: Yes, finally! This is the hole I've felt in my heart! This is what I've needed! This is what I've been missing! This is how it always needed to end! Both of us, giving it our all. Beating and bleeding each other to death.
  • Also if lured out into the open, before you actually start fighting, she'll mention that you've been taking up a lot of space in her mind. As in, she doesn't just want to fight anybody, she specifically wants to fight you and only you.
    The Eye of the Needle: There's nothing left to slow me down. Do you think this is better for you? Do you think this space gives you an edge? Then show me! Show me that you've been worth all the room you've taken up in my head!
• I Will Find You: Threatens this if you choose to flee without the blade.
  The Eye of the Needle: Anywhere you go, I will follow.
• Journey of Reclamation: The core of her being. Having gone through a previously unsatisfactory fight with you that's a step down from your initial one you had back in Chapter l, she is now much more demanding of having an actually satisfying fight. And, should you lure her out of the cabin, the two of you can engage in a fight that satisfies her.
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Eye of the Needle) This one remembers a spark lost in time, and she would stop at nothing to reclaim it. She will make for a burning heart. Do not mourn her. She has finally remembered what she thought she'd lost.
• Killer Bear Hug: Probably would have killed you without the Voice of the Stubborn.
  The Narrator: She lets you sink the blade deep, trapping you in place long enough to wrap you in her impenetrable arms. You're slammed to the ground.
• Little Bit Beastly: In addition to having longer horns than the Adversary, the Eye of the Needle also has a long, dragon-like tail with spikes.
• Mighty Glacier: She's bigger and stronger than The Adversary, but also slower, which allows you to be able to dodge her blows if you lure her into the open and deal her a Death of a Thousand Cuts.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: She's bigger and more muscular than The Adversary, with broader shoulders and powerful-looking thighs. The Narrator notes that she's now much stronger than you.
• Power Makes Your Hair Grow: Has longer hair than the Adversary, down below the level of her hips.
• Taking You with Me: If fought out in the open, she takes the player in a Killer Bear Hug just as she's stabbed in the heart. This does not kill you though, and she herself may or may not have retained the Adversary's Resurrective Immortality: she coughs some Blood from the Mouth while still standing and staring you down, and then the Shifting Mound takes her.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: If you leave the Pristine Blade behind while luring her outside, she will grab it and fling it at you with enough force to pin you to the cabin door.
• Thwarted Coup de Grâce: If you choose to fight her inside the cave or fail to lead her out, she will defeat you and leave you injured, disappointed that she is beyond you. Just when she's about to go for the killing blow, the Shifting Mound intervenes and claims her as a vessel (though when she confronts you at the End of Everything, she claims that "You died on the floor, but my soul wept in ways your body couldn't.").
• Wall Crawl: Her version of the basement stairs is an almost sheer cliff. To chase you up it, she just gouges into the rock with her claws and hauls herself up.
• Women Prefer Strong Men: Like The Adversary, her affection towards you is based on your strength. She will be furious if you don't bring the pristine blade when meeting her, and won't even give you a chance to speak before starting to chase you. She's almost relieved if you snatch the blade up as you flee.

• And I Must Scream:
  • Invoked. She uses her powers to "unwind" the player character by turning him inside-out, complete with showing his blood and organs on the screen, and states that she fully intends to keep doing this to him forever. In the original release, the Shifting Mound grabs the Fury before she can do it more than once. The Trope is fully played out in The Pristine Cut revision, particularly in the version encountered through the Adversary with the Voice of the Broken or Cold, where if you take the dialogue at face value, you remain in the state of being unwound for 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 years - significantly more than the time the universe will have stars.
  • As the embodiment of Personal Horror, the Fury herself is so alienated from her body and very identity that her existence is nothing but suffering and self-hatred. Her lashing out at the player is driven by the desire to make you feel what she experiences everyday just by existing.
• Body Horror:
  • Her "clothing" is actually a part of her, which has been peeled away from her body to form a dress while exposing glistening muscles and sinew. The skirt of her "dress" in particular being the skin from her legs being flayed back in ragged tatters with visibly exposed veins lining the inside, while her chest and rib cage has been ripped open to expose her still beating heart.
  • The Fury will use her powers to "unwind" you, turning you inside-out, complete with showing feathers and your guts splattering on the screen, which you do not die from, instead left helplessly suspended as she states her intention to continue doing this to you for quite a while.
  • Her crown is a simple arc held together above her head by 3 nails piercing her skull.
• Brought Down to Badass: The Fury has either fallen from the heights of the nearly divine Tower, or the confident and self-assured Blood Knight Adversary. In a way, this only makes her more dangerous than ever, as the Tower felt directly harming you was beneath her, and the Adversary was a Spirited Competitor that was more interested in the experience of fighting a Worthy Opponent than actually killing you in and of itself. The Fury on the other hand exists in a state of rage and pain that means she just wants to hurt you as badly as possible for what you've done to her, and she still possesses more than enough power to do it.
• Dwindling Party: If you got to her through the Tower or through the Adversary with the Contrarian when you submit to her, she will torture you through deconstructing and reconstructing and all the Voices will break and vanish one by one, ending with the Stubborn, and only you, she, and the Narrator are left. And then she unwinds you and herself before He vanishes and she is taken by the Shifting Mound. This is a little downplayed if you accessed her through the Adversary with the Voice of the Broken or Cold, as when you submit to the Fury and she unwinds you (starting with the six of you), the Voice of the Hero breaks down and vanishes, followed by the Voice of the Stubborn; but with help from the other Voice, you manage to outlast her and she breaks down. If you then comfort her and lead her out of the cabin, the Narrator vanishes, with only three of you remaining; and then the Shifting Mound grabs her, leaving you in front of the mirror with the only Voice left before you approach it.
• Evil Is Visceral: The Fury's brand of Body Horror is pure viscera. Her ribs, which are all broken, are bursting out of her chest, and her heart is on open display. Her dress being made of her own skin means that you can see the muscles and tendons on her arms and legs where the dress ends or is torn, which makes her that much more unsettling to look at.
• Flayed Alive: Her 'dress' is her own skin, which leaves vast areas of her muscle, tendons, tissue, and veins exposed. She's still alive despite this.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: Gets this from, of all people, the Unfinished Mound after she's taken. If you ask for her thoughts on the Fury, she muses that all the Fury's pain and desecration were ultimately her own fault ^note  coming, as she did, from either the tyrannical Tower or aggressive Adversary and that she was wrong to place the blame for it on you. She does note that Fury still has a core of passion and empathy deep under the hatred and agony, however.
• Fusion Dance: If she successfully destroys the player's will, she unravels both your body and her own into ribbons of meat and tries to fuse the two of you together so you can finally reach an understanding with her. Her bare heart surrounded by gore is what's claimed by the Shifting Mound when this happens.
• Glass Cannon: Compared to the other Chapter III Princesses, she can easily destroy your body via unwinding and/or disintegrating you, which would have killed you on the spot if The Stubborn or Cold wasn't with you. That being said, she's actually one of the few Chapter III Princesses that can be beaten in physical combat, and considering her heart is completely exposed, one good hit is all it takes to slay her.
• High-Heeled Feet: She has spikes in her heels that give her the appearance of wearing heeled shoes, much like how her skin being peeled away gives the impression of a dress.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In the original release, the route will end with the Fury turning you inside out no matter what you do. In the Pristine Cut update, this is averted as it is possible to defeat her, physically and/or spiritually.
• Horrifying Heart: Everything about the Fury is covered in Body Horror, from her exposed muscle and dress made from her own skin and the Meat Moss covering the world, but another notable trait is her open ribcage and exposed heart. Her heartbeat is also added to the background music once you reach her chamber.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Whether she was The Adversary or The Tower, they were both more powerful, confident, and dignified beings than The Fury is, and The Fury herself loathes what she has become.
• Identity Breakdown: Shattering the Tower's or the Adversary's fundamental beliefs (namely, the former's belief that she doesn't even need to get her hands dirty to do away with lowly presences, and the latter's will to fight and belief that the fight is the only thing worth existing for) will trigger a violent identity crisis in the Princess in question. This in turn leads her to become the Fury, a demi-goddess of psychological auto-cannibalistic self-mutilation.
• Love Redeems: If the Voices of the Cold or Broken survive her unwinding, the Player can take her out of the Cabin and show her that's there is more to life than the bitter feud they have.
• Madness Mantra: While deconstructing and reshaping the Player, she repeatedly asks him: "Are you still there? Are you still you?" She becomes more and more desperate sounding the longer it takes to break the Player Character and his voices. The mantra downgrades from a taunt, to a genuine question, to a resigned statement.
• Meat Moss: As a Chapter Three princess, her influence has spread outside of the cabin, into the path in the woods - which has become an unsettling landscape of wobbly, wet-looking growths shot with veins, with 'trees' that resemble grasping clawed hands trailing sheets of mucus or thin, torn tissue. The Narrator does not describe the woods but when you get inside of the cabin he tells you about how its once lofty elegance has been overtaken, fluid seeping from cracks in the stone walls and "congealing into chaotic streaks of writhing nerves and wet clumps of living meat."
• Misery Builds Character:
  • For all the horror of the Fury's being, the Shifting Mound notes that her pain gives her a certain depth to her being. There is a twisted sense of empathy to her rage and pain, as the fact that she suffers so much from the betrayal of her internal conflict is only possible because she cares deeply for and feels the loss of what she was, and she represents the sense of loss inherent to the process of change.
    The Fury: (As part of the Shifting Mound) What is a person? Is it their body? Is it all of their body? Pluck the eyes, peel the skin, strip the tendons, mince the meat, grind the bones. When it is all gone, do you still have what you started with? A person is not a body. Death is a transformation into something new. It is only bodies that fear it.
  • Should the cycle of the Fury tormenting the Player continue for long enough, she'll eventually accept that lashing out in her pain hasn't helped her, lamenting that she's broken and can never regain what she's lost, nor find fulfillment in hurting the Player in turn. It's at this point that, with the correct Voices, you can reach out to her and help her to move forward rather than dwell in misery upon how she and the Player have hurt each other.
• Never My Fault: If you got to her from the fight with The Tower, she doesn't take any responsibility for her ambitions to end the outside world or mind controlling you to torture you earlier. She's just interested in placing the blame of the situation on you; even the Shifting Mound says that her nightmarish transformation were due to her own choices.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Tower-Fury, having learned from her mistake of allowing you to press on in spite of the pain, would react to you still committing to slaying her even in spite of being turned inside-out with completely destroying your body and splattering your remains across the wall, to ensure that you won't even get a chance to stop her. Her strategy would've most likely been successful, if not for the fact that the Stubborn had...other ideas.
  The Fury: Still you defy your god. I've made the mistake of underestimating your resolve before. Never again!
• Oh, Crap!: While the Tower-Fury is capable of unmaking you in an instant, she is still notably taken aback and horrified when you first try and charge her after she's unwound you. Given what happened during The Tower to bring her to this point, she shows a rare moment of genuine fear at you attempting to still defy her, and obliterates you before you get the chance. She's even more shocked when she discovers obliterating your physical form is no longer enough to kill you. This is in stark contrast to the Adversary-Fury, who reacts to your attempts to charge with absolute delight.
• Personal Horror: The core of her being. The Fury is a Princess who has become violently alienated from her own self-image after you undermine her previous identity, leading to a destructive sense of confusion, self-loathing and her lashing out at you.
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Fury) This one is desecration. She placed the weight of her agony on you, yet it is she who unwound herself. There is passion and empathy buried under her unfeeling skin. She will make for a weathered heart. Do not mourn her — she has finally found peace.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Despite inflicting a terrible torture one being so sadistic that even the Voice of the Stubborn surrenders, the Fury is left emotionally exhausted to the extent she nearly cries, since she's still left empty after the ordeal.
• Rejected Apology: If you try to apologize to her, she will dismiss it, as she's too focused on her goal of inflicting pain on you.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: This is the central idea for Fury's issues in both her views of herself and her relationship with the Player Character.
  • The core of her Identity Breakdown is that she herself got so alienated from views on her own fundamental nature, whether it be the Tower's divinity or the Adversary's resolve to fight, that she no longer feels any pride or passion in what she adored about herself the most and isn't sure of what she even is anymore, a state of existence that brought her nothing but hollowness and misery. She hates what she had become and wants to make you understand what it feels like to change the way she did, which she does by torturing you via deconstructing and reconstructing your body in myriad of different shapes in hopes of triggering the same kind of Identity Breakdown within you. It's implied that her Madness Mantra of "Are you still there? Are you still you?" is directed not just at you, but at herself as well, as she desperately tries to pry out an answer of whether or not you both still remain the same people you were before your respective changes.
  • If her Chapter 2 form is the Adversary prior to transforming, the relationship with her is built on romantic competitiveness, conflicts, and violence to the point that in one of her lines, she says that she feels empty and the fighting and mutual wounding made her feel alive. By removing the element of what she believes is the defining identity to her bond, The Fury no longer sees any way other than a worsened form of that violence to aggressively hammer in the fact that you're no longer the exciting adrenaline-craving rival anymore. You've changed, and so did she.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: If you lack the Voices needed to endure her torture, she laments near tears that torturing you until you break has accomplished nothing and she's still just as miserable as she was before. If the right Voices are present, she still expresses this but the Player can reconcile with her.
• Villainous Breakdown: She's the embodiment of one, being either the Tower's breakdown over being stripped of her divinity or the Adversary's over being denied a final battle with her archenemy. She also has another one regardless of whether she succeeds in breaking your will or not, in either case she'll realize that hurting you can't bring back what's been lost, and that the suffering she both experiences and inflicts is seemingly pointless, as she ultimately just wants the comfort of being truly understood for all that she is and has lost by another. If she leaves you catatonic then she'll unwind herself in an attempt to merge with your broken body in a desperate hope that you'll finally be able to see and understand her perspective. If you manage to endure then she feels that it's all pointless and simply lays down, morosely stating that she can never bring the connection she hoped to share with you back. And if you manage to overcome the limitations of your physical body and defeat her in physical combat by simply creating a new one for yourself whenever she reduces you to paste, she'll have a quiet moment of empathy with you and apologize before the Shifting Mound claims her.
• Voice of the Legion: Her voice gains a demonic reverb to match her even more violent, visceral form.
• Why Won't You Die?: With the correct Voices, both versions of her encounter in the Pristine Cut can have her get frustrated to the point of near crying at your persistence despite her having the ability to unmake you. The Tower-Fury has you continue to fight despite being reduced to the atomic level while the Adversary-Fury has you outlast her will to make you suffer despite being stretched into an infinite line.
• Worthy Opponent: If you face her again after trying to defeat her as the Adversary unarmed, the Fury will be much more pleased if you charge her after you're unwound. Even when you've been reduced to a skeleton, she'll goad you to try and hit her.

• All There in the Manual: Both forms are simply named "the Grey" by the game. The achievements give them the names "Burned Grey" and "Drowned Grey" respectively, while the in-game files name them after their respective Chapter II Princesses.
• The Artifact: The only difference between the Burned and Drowned Grey besides color is that the latter has a choker on her neck, which is meant to symbolize the outcome of the Prisoner becoming the Grey because the Player didn't take her head with him. However, the Pristine Cut changed this so that said outcome leads to the Cage, which means that the symbolism of the choker is lost.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The Burned Grey was once the Damsel, and retains her romantic and cheerful nature, smiling broadly and taking your hand while telling you she loves you. None of this stops her from setting you on fire.
• Clothing Damage: Averted in the Burned Grey route: her wedding gown and veil are Immune to Fire, representing the way her commitment to you never fades even if she herself does.
• Creepy Loner Girl: As lampshaded by the Shifting Mound:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Drowned Grey) She saw herself as alone.
• Creepy Monotone: The Drowned Grey speaks in the Prisoner's flat tone, emphasizing her detached disposition.
• Crying a River: The flooding rush of water in the Drowned Grey route is a play on the words "drowning my sorrows" and symbolizes the tears of sorrow attempting to drown you, the source of the turmoil within her.
• Dissonant Serenity: The Burned Grey, despite burning and dying with you, continues to smile.
• Drowning Pit: The basement of the cabin acts like one in the Drowned Grey route. As soon as the door is locked, the water starts to flood the basement while you're talking to her, and if you try to escape, a rush of water will burst in through the door, pushing you further into the basement. And if that wasn't enough, she commands the drowned corpse to drag you further into a watery grave while you're trying to surface for air. It would have been very tragic had the Shifting Mound not intervened.
• Emotionless Girl: The Drowned Grey is a cold, mostly mute figure who often responds to you with a single sentence, or even a single word. Seems the Prisoner still doesn't like small talk.
• Expressive Skull: The Burned Grey's face has decomposed to a thin layer of skin over a visible skull, but this doesn't stop her from expressing her deep passions, frowning and grinning at various points through the route.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Played for Drama; the Burned Grey correctly deduces that the cabin is, in some way, responsible for the Player and the Princess hurting each other. However, since she's unaware of the nature of the Construct, her solution is to try to burn down the cabin to be Together in Death with the Player, even though it wouldn't have done much and would've only reset the loop, had the Shifting Mound not arrived to claim her.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Water for the death of the Prisoner, Fire for the death of the Damsel. While the Grey is considered by the Shifting Mound to be a single route, who blocks you from accessing the other "variation" if you've already given her one Grey as a vessel, there are differences between them: either the Voice of the Smitten or the Voice of the Skeptic joined by the Voice of the Cold, either dry or rainy weather and a cabin in either a dry or waterlogged neglected condition.
• Flames of Love: The Burned Grey burns down the cabin so that the two of you can be together forever and is symbolic of her passionate love for you.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Grey is counted as a single, unique vessel, which means it is not possible to get both the Burned Grey and the Drowned Grey in the same playthrough, despite the fact that they have drastically different personalities, perspectives, and routes.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Both Greys can't be killed, as like the Spectre, they are already dead, and since their goal is not to escape but to simply kill you, they won't try to possess you and render themselves vulnerable. With their extreme control over the interior of the Cabin, you were dead the second you walked through the door.
• Kill It with Fire: In the "Burned Grey" route she sets you, the cabin, and herself aflame as an attempted Mutual Kill. You can reach her before burning up, only for both of you to get smothered in flames; but you do not die thanks to the Shifting Mound's intervention.
• Kill It with Water: By contrast, in the "Drowned Grey" route she unleashes a tidal wave of water on you, and her drowned corpse pulls you down to the depths with her. It's a good thing the Shifting Mound intervened to stop the water from filling your lungs, thereby saving you from a watery grave and taking the Drowned Grey with her.
• Love Martyr: The core of the Burned Grey's being. Despite you having previously killed her as the Damsel, she's still loyal to you and hatches a plan to kill you and her so you can be together.
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Burned Grey) This one is passion betrayed. But even in the end, her love never faded. She will make for a bright heart. Do not mourn her, for she has finally found her light.
• Mirror Character: The Burned Grey and the Drowned Grey are this to each other.
  • The Burned Grey has an entirely white palette and is dressed like a bride. The Drowned Grey has an entirely black palette and is dressed like a widow.
  • The Burned Grey has a perpetually fixed smile, even as she burns to death with you, while the Drowned Grey has a perpetually fixed frown.
  • The Burned Grey burns the entire cabin down so you can be Together in Death, having surmised that it's the Construct itself that keeps them apart. The Drowned Grey floods the entire cabin to make sure you die, even having her bloated corpse drag you down to the depths.
  • The Burned Grey remains intimately close with you, even as you both burn into a crisp. Meanwhile, the Drowned Grey always keeps her distance, to the point where (on top of her dark palette) it's hard to see what she fully looks like.
• Mistaken for Undead: Inverted with the Burned Grey. She is undead, and obviously so, but the Voice of the Smitten spends the entire route insisting that she's clearly alive and well.
  How can this be? We just saw her alive and well a moment ago... floating away transparently!
• "Not So Different" Remark: As the Drowned Grey is engulfing you in the flood of rushing water, we get this:
  The Drowned Grey: Your lungs fill with water the same way mine filled with blood. In the end, we're not so different.
• Perpetual Frowner: The Drowned Grey is always frowning.
• Perpetual Smiler: The Burned Grey is always smiling even as she and you burn to death.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • In the original release of the game, you encounter the Drowned Grey if you did not take the Prisoner's head with you when she decapitates herself. The Drowned Grey and the Voices will treat you as if you killed her, even though it was perfectly reasonable to believe that she had killed herself and taking her head would do nothing. As of the Pristine Cut, this is averted, as you can only encounter the Drowned Grey if you kill the Princess.
  • Despite the above ending being removed in the Pristine Cut, the gallery hint for the chapter ("...the flood of words left unspoken."), the fact that it's possible to get to "The Grey" by not listening to the Prisoner (i.e. sitting closer than she told you or trying to cut her out yourself instead of giving her the knife), and how the Drowned Grey refuses to answer the Player's questions implies that this trope is the theme of that version of the chapter. The Princess finally makes you understand how she feels after diplomacy failed multiple times.
• The Quiet One: Neither version says much.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: The core of the Drowned Grey's being, as she is stoic and hostile, yet there is a glint of sadness inside, a grief that she would like to share with you, even if it means through a river of tears. This is lampshaded by the Shifting Mound:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Drowned Grey) This one is guarded sorrow. She saw herself as alone, but in the end had the courage to share with another. She will make for a deep heart. Do not mourn her — she has finally been heard.
• The Stoic: Unlike the Burned Grey, the Drowned Grey's face is entirely unexpressive. She also barely talks, spending most of the time silently staring at the Player. When she does speak, it is in an entirely flat voice lacking the (already limited) expression she had as the Prisoner.
• Terse Talker: Neither version gets a whole lot of lines, and the ones that they do get are short.
• Together in Death: In the "Burned Grey" route, she locks the both of you in the basement and sets it on fire so she won't be apart from you anymore. Of course, it doesn't stick, since the Shifting Mound claims her before the Player burns down completely.
  The Burned Grey: Dying apart kept us apart. Dying together will keep us together.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: To get either Grey (after the Updated Re-release closed an obvious loophole) the player must have killed a fundamentally helpless version of the Princess incapable of fighting or unwilling to fight back after going out of their way to make her so by previously being kind to her, to really twist the Pristine Blade. The Grey is the result, and a (preventable) horrific death.
• Widow's Weeds: Her appearance in the "Drowned Grey" route has her wear a black funeral gown.
• Wight in a Wedding Dress: Her appearance in the "Burned Grey" route has her take the form of a ghost in a wedding dress.
• Yandere: The Burned Grey is willing to incinerate the cabin with you and her in it so the two of you can be together.
• You Have No Chance to Survive: Just as the Drowned Grey has you on the verge of drowning in a flood of her tears, she comments that your lungs will soon fill up with water in the same way that hers filled with blood in a "Not So Different" Remark. Fortunately for you, the Shifting Mound makes sure that it won't happen as she comes to claim the Drowned Grey as a vessel.

• Amicable Exes: If you want, you can end up as this with her. At the end, you can admit that you never really loved or even knew her, and the two of you will simply peacefully part ways with no bad blood between you.
• And I Must Scream: She's trapped in the Cabin, the place she hates most, for all eternity. If you slay her, she thanks you for it.
• Armor-Piercing Response:
  • The fairy tale illusion the Voice of the Smitten tries hard to keep alive finally shatters when you ask the Princess what she really wants and she replies that she wants to dance under the stars, but to achieve that desire, she'd have to leave.
  • It can also shatter via you giving her one - if you ask what she wants on the last torch, she can say that she's worried that if she says, the light will go out. If you reply "then it deserves to go out", she'll sadly say that you're right, and the last torch will go out.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: This Princess only comes to be if you continue holding to an overly-idealistic worldview of the Damsel, who was already borne from viewing the Princess as good. Everything surrounding the Happily Ever After is exactly as saccharine as you would have originally imagined.
• Crapsaccharine World: She lives in a medieval fantasy of banquets, tournaments and royal manors ... and nothing else. Forever.
• Death Seeker: Implied — only you can kill the Princess, and she has the Pristine Blade around her neck, blade resting on her heart. She'll do nothing to stop you from pushing it down. And should you do so, she'll say "It's finally over..." as she dies. The game has a flag that indicates whether a vessel is "satisfied" when she is claimed by the Shifting Mound, and killing Happily Ever After counts as making her satisfied.
• Deconstruction: This chapter goes farther with the idea of the Damsel—and the Princess in general—being a subject of your perception and desire for romance than the Deconstructed Damsel, as this route includes the idea that the Princess is entirely aware that she is being forced into another person's fantasy and denied her actual wants and desires.
• Decon-Recon Switch: While the Princesses as a collective, and the Damsel/Happily Ever After especially, deconstruct the concept of the Damsel in Distress by showing how projecting your fantasies on a being with their own wants is bad for everyone involved, the Happily Ever After can become a reconstruction if you help her reject the happy illusion the Smitten has made for them, confess your love and leave the cabin with her — while their love certainly isn't perfect, it's blatantly and undeniably real, and she and the Hero would rather have that than a shallow eternity of endless, but ultimately surface-level pleasures that ultimately only serve to fuel someone else's selfish desires.
• Domestic Abuse: At least symbolically - the Voice of the Smitten has become a looming, nightmarish figure controlling the world around her, with her terrified of him thinking that she's not happy living in his Gilded Cage. While he's never explicitly depicted as hurting her, the connotations are very strong, and it is specifically included in the official list of content warnings for the chapter.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The Happily Ever After she's been given is a deeply false one that constrains her and the player for the rest of their lives unless they do something. If they gain the strength to reject the paradise they've been given they can start a true relationship by abandoning their Gilded Cage and leaving.
• Fate Worse than Death: She isn't wearing the one weapon that can kill her right next to her Achilles' Heel as a fashion statement; the stagnant, toxic nightmare of this Princess's life is so unambiguously awful that even the Narrator starts to feel sympathy for her.
• Gilded Cage: Her prison is, even by the Narrator's admission, a wonderful place in a vacuum - a beautiful palace full of fine food and wonderful entertainment. But it is still a prison, and deep down she still just wants to be free. The Shifting Mound even lampshades this:
  The Shifting Mound: (On Happily Ever After) This one is a songbird in a cage of gilded shadows.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: The art gives a few indications that something's wrong even before it becomes clear — in the stained glass windows her heart is broken, and as the Narrator points out all the tapestries of her and the Smitten have their eyes averted from the viewer. On a meta level, her song is elegant and romantic, but intermittently catches and restarts, like a record stuck on loop.
• Go Out with a Smile: Unlike many of the other Chapter III Princesses, she doesn't fight or even really notice her absorption by the Shifting Mound - she simply lets go of your hands mid-dance and is quietly subsumed, the soft smile on her face never fading.
• Happy Dance: Should you leave with Happily Ever After and go outside, she'll fulfill her Humble Goal of getting to see the stars. As she does, she takes your hand, and the two of you begin a romantic dance together. It ties into a recurring theme of the route — the Damsel's lack of depth wasn't true love, but this is real, and you've managed to Earn Your Happy Ending. At least, until the Shifting Mound grabs Happily Ever After anyways.
• Happily Ever After: Subverted, as it's an Ironic Name. She's less of a Princess Classic than the Damsel, and despite her name, Happily Ever After is stuck in a prison for all eternity. A beautiful prison, but a prison all the same.
• Happiness Is Mandatory: Any indication that the current situation isn't perfect angers the Shadow and makes the lights keeping the perfect world go out, so she always acts happy. She'll be reduced to hyperventilation if you openly express despair, but if you help her she can force her way through it.
• Honesty Is the Best Policy: The core of her being. Happily Ever After is a vessel trapped with you in a Gilded Cage with a thick illusion of happiness. The only way to break out of the illusion is to admit that you aren't, and never were, happy here.
  The Shifting Mound: (On Happily Ever After) This one is a songbird in a cage of gilded shadows. She will make for an honest heart. Do not mourn her. She has finally learned to sing for herself.
• Humble Goal: All she wants is to see the stars. If you help her escape, the two of you can joyfully dance together under them.
• Ironic Name: For someone literally named Happily Ever After, her situation isn't very happy. It certainly looks pleasant, but it's a Gilded Cage that the Princess has to remain in for eternity, with the Shadow of the Smitten watching over her like a hawk to ensure that Happiness Is Mandatory. What's more ironic is that the only actual happy ending to the route is if you free her, which will inevitably get her taken by the Shifting Mound, or if you slay her.
• Irony: Naturally, the one chapter where the Narrator doesn't try to make the case that killing the Princess would be doing her a favour is the one chapter where she actually might consider it one.
• Left the Background Music On: The background theme music of this chapter is composed by a string quartet, which is punctuated by four burning torches. Whenever she says that she's not happy with the monotony, a torch goes out, and a string instrument is no longer heard, leaving the sound as a trio. This continues with the other two torches going out one by one, narrowing it down to a single viola sound, which is all that's left of the quartet. When she finally says she's not happy, the last torch vanishes, and the instrumentation is gone.
• Light Is Not Good: The light, specifically the light of the torches, symbolises the illusions and lies she's wrapped in. Putting them out will allow her to break free of the prison the Shadow has made the cabin into, while keeping one up will leave her trapped for eternity (or at least, until the Shifting Mound shows up).
• Lotus-Eater Machine: The best food you've ever tasted. The most thrilling game you've ever played. The most beautiful castle you've ever been in. But that's all there is here. And you can never leave.
  But you finish. And you're just as hungry as you were when you began.
• Loving a Shadow: Discussed. It's possible to admit on this route that you never really knew the Princess as a person, just as a Damsel in Distress; an object of desire and a personal goal to achieve than someone you actually wanted to get to know better. And in a place where Happiness Is Mandatory as a Gilded Cage, it all feels hollow and empty. Should you choose to leave with Happily Ever After and dance with her under the stars, it feels awkward but real, like the two of you might genuinely be happy with each other.
• Madness Mantra: If you ask her if she's the one who let one of the torches blow out, she tries calming down and repeatedly says, "This is fine, this is fine, this is fine," before adding, "Wait, how can it be fine?" Also crosses over into The Artifact when it used to be a Borrowed Catchphrase from the Voice of the Paranoid (who was also in this chapter and also says the mantra in the Spectre!Wraith route), but with the update that replaced Paranoid with the Voice of the Skeptic in this chapter, it now sounds like she had to hear it from Paranoid as the Spectre!Wraith from somewhere else, as otherwise this one comes out of nowhere.
• Morality Pet: Happily Ever After's despair and emptiness are the only thing that gets the Narrator to realize the flaws in his plan, and convinces him to give up his mission and help you free her.
• No Name Given: While strictly speaking none of the princess vessels are explictly named, in most cases its pretty clear the name on the title cards is referring to that chapter's vessel. However, in Happily Ever After the title card completely departs from the standard "The X" formula and broadly describes the situation rather than the Princess, making it a little unclear what exactly she should be called.
• Odd Name Out: Not only is her chapter title not a name at all, it's also an "Epilogue" instead of "Chapter III."
• Pimped-Out Dress: She wears a more elaborate version of Damsel's outfit with an ornate tiara, a wider fabric wrap belt held by a brooch, a bigger skirt, a train that trails behind her, and bigger transluscent sleeves with the same long fabrics attached at the ends.
• Running Gag Stumbles: Only in this chapter does the Narrator not say "if the Princess lives here, slaying her would probably be doing her a favor", he will instead stop himself and admit that the cabin has actually become quite a nice place to live. Ironically, this is the only chapter where he fully realizes the folly of his motivation, realizing that a beautiful but stagnant reality is a worse hell than the world ending.
• Stepford Smiler: She tries to keep up her happy demeanor as the Damsel, but her despair and emptiness is palpable. Even at the start the Narrator notes that her voice doesn't quite hide the weariness, and near the end she's barely able to hold back from crying.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Lampshaded. If you decide to give romance with her a real try, the Narrator notes her hand is cold, sweaty and held awkwardly — you're in a castle, she's been crying uncontrollably, and you don't know her very well. But this makes a connection with Happily Ever After feel real, in a way your romance with the Damsel never could.
• Sword of Damocles: While her cabin is otherwise beautiful, the Pristine Blade has become a necklace around her neck, precariously close to her chest. This represents her fear and misery at being trapped in the Gilded Cage, and her suppressed desire to escape, one way or another.
• Table Space: You and the Princess are sitting so far apart from each other that it's hard to make out her appearance. This somehow doesn't stop you from eating a feast and playing board games together. Symbolic Distance is in effect.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: She's fully aware that she's got an eternity in the cabin, and she can't stand it. Even if that cabin is a royal palace with fine foods, it's a Gilded Cage. If you slay her, she actively welcomes it, dying with an "it's finally over". Her despair at her eternal life even gets The Narrator doubting his mission.
• Your Makeup Is Running: If she finally accepts the truth and snuffs out the lights, she breaks down into tears, and has smeared mascara for the rest of the chapter.

• And I Must Scream: Unlike the other Princess variants , she's not dealt with in just three or four loops. She's willing to torment and torture you to death again and again as many times as it takes to make you accept "her advances" and let her out. By the final loop, all the voices are so broken and traumatised that they openly welcome death.
• The Blank: By the time you reach her, the mask of the Nightmare has all but crumbled away and once you take her hand it breaks for good, leaving only a gaping hole surrounded by floating hairs for a face.
• The Dreaded: Despite their contrasting personalities, the majority of the Voices agree that there's nothing you can do to avoid or stop her. There are no options to resist her. At least just being around her doesn't kill you this time.
• Electromagnetic Ghosts: Retains all the aspects of these that she showcased as the Nightmare.
• Entitled to Have You: The Moment of Clarity has no desire whatsoever to hear what the object of her affections wants.
• Evil Counterpart: Could be considered one to the Damsel, as the Moment of Clarity represents an abusive and toxic love. She breaks the Player Character into losing all agency of himself, molding him after an eternity of abuse into being docile towards her. Meanwhile, the Damsel is molded by the Player Character's perspective into an idealized love interest that has no agency of her own and is completely docile towards him.
• Floating Limbs: Her arms aren't physically attached to her body, though she moves them as if they were. In the Pristine Cut, she gains eight floating arms giving an almost spider sense of horror.
• Gilded Cage: When you encounter her again, she lays out a future where she'll be spreading terror throughout the world while she keeps you by her side. She even offers to put you in a literal gilded cage.
• Hates Being Alone: Taken to extremely horrifying and tragic degrees as she absolutely refuses to leave the Player alone and even breaks him in order for him to stay by her side.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The Moment of Clarity is among the incarnations of the Princess that are impossible to oppose; you can try to select other options, but they're grayed out. By the time you meet her you've actually played out the scenario countless times, exhausting every other option and collecting every other Voice as a product of those choices, all of whom are utterly broken by the futility of their struggle. There is nothing left but to take her hand and set her free. This is emphasised in The Pristine Cut, as the Moment of Clarity is one of the two routes in the game (the other one is the Thorn) that you can't get the "Your New World" ending from, even compared to the other hopeless scenarios of the Burned and Drowned Greys, as at least there you were able to get a victory against the Princess by slaying the Damsel/Prisoner.
• Humanoid Abomination: Even more so than the Nightmare. The Moment of Clarity has three empty gloves for arms, and her mask is even more cracked. In her redesign for the Pristine Cut the Moment of Clarity's mask is a now group of fragments floating over a hole where her face should be, and she now has eight floating arms.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Based on what the Shifting Mound says about her, The Moment of Clarity herself is terrified of being rejected and having to bear her own pain and fear alone. Unfortunately, the only way she knows how to gain companionship is by tormenting the Player horrifically for an eternity to the point that trying to fight or run from her becomes even scarier than being by her side. When she removes the Player character's agency and molds him into what she desires, the Moment of Clarity gives off feelings of tenderness and warmth towards him.
• Mad Love: Out of all the Shifting Mound's vessels the Moment of Clarity is the most crazed about showing affection to the Player.
• Mind Rape: After being tormented by the Moment of Clarity for an eternity, all the Voices are noticeably traumatized to the point that they welcome death once you reach the mirror.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: This was present but downplayed in the original release (where she had three arms), but as of the Pristine Cut she's got a grand total of eight floating arms orbiting her body, showing how inhuman and monstrous she's become over the course of her route.
• No Face Under the Mask: Her new design in the Pristine Cut is this. As after driving the player mad with her taking her mask off, she now no longer has a face while the only thing remaining is her hair.
• Not Good with Rejection: What birthed The Moment of Clarity and the overall theme of her route.
• Odd Name Out: While most of the chapter titles starting from two onward reference the form either the Princess or the cabin takes in that chapter, "The Moment of Clarity" seems to be referring to the Player, not the Princess herself, as the chapter is about him and the Voices realizing the futility of trying to oppose her.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: She has eight limbs, has loud static and electric noises in the background, and is faceless by the end of the route.
• Pet the Dog: If she is created by the player deciding to remain with The Nightmare in the basement, The Moment of Clarity will say she was joking when she called the Player a coward for wanting to stay in the basement with her. She'll even go on to say that the offer to stay forever with her was brave, even if the Player utterly broke from it. Whether the Player ran or stayed, the Moment of Clarity still wants to keep him around and offers a Gilded Cage rather than getting rid of him once he's let her out now that he's been turned into a broken shell.
  The Narrator: You extend your hand to hers. For all her past cruelties, the moment feels gentle, tender even.
• Tragic Monster: The Moment of Clarity is born when the Nightmare removes her mask, bears her innermost self, and then suffers the heartbreak of rejection. This transforms the already terrifying Nightmare into a fate defying force of nature. The Moment of Clarity so thoroughly torments him to such a degree during the loops the Player becomes an utterly broken husk that frees her due to no longer having any real will to resist her.
• Villainous Breakdown: The Moment of Clarity's entire existence is the result of one from heartbreak.
• Villainous Crush: The Moment of Clarity is deeply infatuated with the Player to an obsessive degree.
• Voice of the Legion: She retains the creepy reverb she had as the Nightmare, but now her voice is more frequently cut with loud static feedback and electronic whines.
• Woman Scorned: An absolutely terrifying example of this.
• Yandere: The Moment of Clarity's solution to getting the Player to be with her? Break him until he no longer has any will to resist of course! Though we don't see it, she does declare an intention to treat the player well once she's free.
• You Can't Fight Fate:
  • The Voices treat her approach as inevitable. When given dialogue options, there's only one action you can select with the others being greyed out and commenting on the futility of choice.
    You are just an object. A tool. You were once something else a long time ago. But was that something you or is it just a dull and jaded memory? There is no other ending here.
    The Moment of Clarity: I've already taken your will and you're not getting it back. Now don't pause, don't try to resist. I've already molded you into what I need, and you lost your power so long ago. Don't bother working yourself into a frenzy to get it back.
  • This is the core of her being, as the Shifting Mound exposits in the Pristine Cut. The Moment of Clarity embodies inevitability of impermanence, that all things must end eventually, and the self-destructive futility of railing against that fact.
    The Shifting Mound: (On the Moment of Clarity) This one is a waiting maw. An inevitable destination where all roads end. She will make for a wise heart. Do not mourn her — she is exactly where she needs to be.

There are actually two versions of this Princess: a "Soft" Princess and a "Sharp" Princess. The "Soft" Princess occurs if you allow the Spectre to possess you without any fuss, whereas the "Sharp" Princess occurs if, before allowing her to possess you, you try to grab or stab the Spectre with the Pristine Blade first. Although technically still the same route, there are very different interactions and some unique outcomes to each Princess.

• Back from the Dead: Your merger ends up enabling the Princess, who was previously a ghost, to regain her physical form, turning her very similar to the Chapter I Princess but with the Spectre's chest wound.
• Badass Normal: She's one of the few Chapter III Princesses^note along with Thorn and Happily Ever After who's a normal woman with no supernatural powers or monstrous traits, no longer even having her abilities as a ghost from the Spectre. That doesn't stop her harsh version from kicking your ass, wrestling the knife off you and potentially stabbing you right back if you try to slay her.
• Bookends: This form of the Princess is the closest to having the Chapter I Princess as a vessel, making it this trope.
• Brought Down to Normal: Unlike the other Chapter III variants, this Princess reverts back to Chapter I due to the Player not making decision of his own, leaving her vulnerable against the Voice of the Opportunist. Not that this is a problem for the "Sharp" Princess.
• Buffy Speak: If you ask the Princess if you're a ghost, she'll look down at her hands, showing them flickering between solid and translucent. The "Soft" version of the Princess will describe it by stating that you're "something in between ghost and... not-ghost".
• Call-Back: With the exception of the chest scar, she's essentially identical to the base princess, complete with gentle and harsh variants and the possibility of cutting off her hand to let her slip free of her chain.
• Call-Forward: With her Sugar-and-Ice Personality of gentle and harsh, along with meta awareness of the situation, make her one to the heart of the Shifting Mound.
• Damsel in Distress: A "Soft" Princess is effectively helpless and a lot more willing to go along with whatever suggestions you have in mind. She won't fight back after being stabbed, simply bitterly demanding that the Dragon Get It Over With. While actually following through with trying to kill her doesn't pan out for you due to how you're connected, a peaceful resolution is entirely up to your own choices in such a route.
• Damsel out of Distress: A "Sharp" Princess is a lot more proactive compared to her "Soft" version, and will assert her own choices and plan to outmaneuver the Dragon. She actually wins the struggle pretty handily without your help, the problem arises in talking her down from further violence. This is sort of Deconstructed in that, while the "soft" Princess is less efficient at killing you, the "sharp" Princess' cynicism makes her less likely to listen to you if you try to convince her in this route.
• Deadpan Snarker: The sharp Princess is one of if not the snarkiest Princess in the game, being very nonplussed about your predicament and incredibly sassy and threatening to "the Dragon."
• Doing In the Wizard: Previously, it was believed that the Princess reacting differently depending on if the Player takes the pristine blade was a consequence of her being beholden to your perception of her. This chapter, however, presents the mundane explanation that the princess can simply hear whether you pick up the blade before entering the basement, and thus becomes more prepared to meet someone who is ready to slay her if you did.
• The Empath: The core of her being; she's a vessel that you become merged with, and this merging enables you to understand one another, and, depending on your actions, can become a being with multitudinous perspectives:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Princess and the Dragon) This one is perspectives bleeding into one. You know her better than you know yourself. She will make for an empathetic heart. Do not mourn her, for you would not mourn yourself.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: If you get back into her body after agreeing to help her (by trying to cut her out), she'll warmly welcome you back...before abruptly realising that if you're in her body, that means the Voice of the Opportunist is in charge of the body stood over her with a knife again.
• Heel Realization:
  • Her route is designed to facilitate this on your end, allowing you to literally see things from her perspective. Of particular note is when your body arrives to the Cabin and you get to see how you appear from the outside. To the Princess, the Player is a huge, vaguely birdlike creature, shrouded in shadows with glowing eyes and menacing her with a blade, who vacillates between being eerily silent and rapidly shifting personalities, many of them threatening for seemingly no reason. It's little wonder that she acts defensive, when from her perspective she's been held captive for no reason for as long as she can remember, only to be suddenly menaced by that.
  • When the "Sharp" Princess gains the blade after the Player returns to his body and falls on the floor, she quickly cuts her hand off and will charge on the player and stab him in the heart before briefly hesitating. If the Player tells the Princess to kill him before he turns against her again, she will stop and realize she is not entitled to kill her murderer.
  • If either you or the Voice of the Opportunist stab the soft Princess in the heart, or the sharp Princess does the same to you vice versa, then everyone is violently jumbled together, drawn back and forth between the bodies of the Princess and the Hero/Dragon, and the metaphorical harm that you do to yourself by hurting her becomes very literal. Eventually you all merge into one overlaid viewpoint, forcing everyone to confront how pointless the act of violence and rejection is.
    The Princess: We're back together again.
    Voice of the Hero: Maybe... Why were we fighting each other?
    The Princess: I don't know.
• Holding Hands: The Princess holds your hand if you leave the cabin together.
• Liminal Being: While the Princess was fully spectral as... well, the Spectre, the Princess and the Dragon's form is constantly shifting between living and dead. Sadly, this gives you two enough physical matter that you are once again chained to the wall.
• Madness Mantra: Played with. The opening of the Princess and the Dragon begins with one, with the narration going from the dying Player to a Smash Cut to the basement. The white text of the Long Quiet floats across the screen with no voice-over, but it is trying to guilt the Princess into accepting her fate, with one particular phrase repeated over and over, to the point that it starts going off the screen.
  You are seated in a room that is empty. A chain digs into your wrist, binding one arm to the wall. It is quiet, and you are alone. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you deserve. This is what you
• Meta Guy: A more serious example than most, but she can see the options in the menu and hear the voices. Uniquely, her title card is chosen by her, not the game.
• No Name Given: Even more so than other variants of the Princess, who fans(and the developers and voice actors) usually refer to by their chapters' titles. It's harder to know what to call this one, since "The Princess and the Dragon" refers to both her and the Player. Some fans do go with calling her by the full chapter name, others "Spectre 3", and some "the Dragon" despite that being more of a moniker for the Player.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Getting the "sharp" Princess to back off and not attack you after getting back to your body is this. Choosing the logical choice of warning her that you're back in control will lead to her charging and stabbing you to death, because her cynical streak makes her believe this is just a trick by the Voices to make her let her guard down after she managed to wrestle control of the blade from them. If you want to actually get her to hold off her attack, you need to choose the suicidal option of pleading her to cut you down while you still have control over your body - something she concludes is too unusual of a bluff to have been used by the Opportunist and stops herself at the very last second upon realizing you were telling the truth.
• Oxymoronic Being: She is both you and herself in a way that the Wild is not, as you exist in the same space instead of as a new entity altogether. This means that she is both subject to your perception of her, but you are also what you perceive yourself to be. At the same time, your body still exists as a separate being, animated by the Voices in Your Head.
• Painting the Medium: The "Soft" Princess permanently has the thin white subtitles usually reserved for cordial interactions, while the "Sharp" Princess permanently has the bold red subtitles typically used for hostile interactions.
• Self-Harm: Due to how you are Sharing a Body, any harm you do to each other is essentially this.
• Sharing a Body: While the Wild is a Fusion Dance, the Princess and the Dragon is you and the Princess literally sharing perspectives from two different bodies, being pulled back and forth every time you harm her or she harms you. This means that all harm and rejection directed at you or the Princess becomes self-harm and self-rejection.
  You are torn between two places. You are power and you are weakness. You are hope and you are despair. You are acceptance and you are rejection. You are the canvas and you are the painter. You are the victim and you are the victimizer. You are life and you are death. The Hero and the Princess. The Princess and the Dragon... You slam the door in your own face.
• Split-Personality Merge: In a way and to a lesser extent than the Wild, this form hearkens back to the time when you and the Princess were one being, as the piece of the Long Quiet that's controlled by the Player has become separated from the rest of the Voices and merged with the Princess. She'll note that having more than one voice in her head to keep her company in her prison is comforting and, more than that, feels oddly natural.
  "There's something about you being in here with me that feels... right. I never wanted to be your enemy. I don't know what to say. I just... feel fine right now. I think things happen for a reason, and if you killing both of us is what it takes for you to finally see what I see... then I'm okay with that."
• Stargazing Scene: She and the Player will have this if the route ends peacefully.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: The change in the Spectre's personality (i.e. whether you tried to slay her once before you allowed her to possess you) carries over to this variation, and has a stronger impact on her decisions. If she was "soft", she will not fight back against your body and will want you to return to her when you make it back to your own body, but if she was "sharp", she will be violent and try to kill you even when you've returned to your body.
• Super-Strength: A "sharp" Princess will display the same unnatural strength that she would have had in Chapter I, punching the Dragon across the room in retaliation after getting stabbed and effortlessly snipping her hand off with the Pristine Blade to escape her shackle.
• Swapped Roles: The theme of the chapter, as not only are you seeing the events of Chapter I from the Princess' perspective, but you also become a Voice in her head, able to make suggestions but ultimately leaving the decision making to the Princess.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: This route effectively shows that to a Chapter I princess the Player is big and intimidating, and the way he acts can be unnerving in the extreme. Small wonder that if he enters the basement with the Pristine Blade she's harsh and suspicious.
  And then a figure emerges, shrouded in a feathered darkness, the world trailing behind it, its shining blade gleaming against the wooden walls. It stares at you with wild, hollow eyes.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: After returning to your own body, it is possible to leave the cabin and abandon the "Soft" Princess, still chained up and bleeding from the wound inflicted upon her when the Voice of the Opportunist controlled your body. This counts as a flag towards the "Your New World" ending.
  • This is not achievable with the "Sharp" Princess, who instead knocks your body away with the Pristine Blade still in her, which she then uses to free herself.

• Ambiguously Human: She looks more like a regular human woman than the Witch, but she has slightly pointed ears and her dress and thorns may hide her cat-like features from her time as the Witch. At least one of the developers believes she still has the Witch's tail hidden under her dress.
• Broken Bird: This is what she's become after her and the Player's string of betrayals. But depending on the choices you make, you can help her build herself back up again or return her to the spiteful personality she had as the Witch.
• Do You Trust Me?: If you want to leave with the Thorn, you need to convince her to trust you again, and communicate your intent to help early. It's still possible to backstab her right after this, though.
• Flower Motifs: Poppies. They can symbolize the Princess' theme of death and change. The flowers being red and the Princess being enveloped in thorns bring to mind the tragedy of the circumstances where a mutual betrayal got the two of you, or it could symbolize forgiveness and romance. Either way, the thorns definitely play a part, as "every rose has its thorn" and even someone like her can be deadly.
• Flowers of Romance: In contrast to the tragic roses trope below, the poppies can potentially symbolize the romantic overtone of the situation. The poppies may also symbolize the death of the conflict between you two in that route if you choose to reconcile with the Thorn and help her out to start anew.
• Foil: To the Damsel, the Damsel represents an idealized love but lacks any agency outside of pleasing the Player Character. The Thorn represents a difficult journey to true love but has agency, the Player Character and her have to work through a number of trials to obtain said love in the end. The two even have similar theme reprises.
• Forgiveness: The key theme of her Route. In order to unlock it, the Player has to willingly (or even unwillingly) betray her as the Princess, then turn over the Pristine Blade to the Witch, at which point she betrays you. The positive ending to this route, in which she and the Player make amends and finally learn to trust each other, requires them to admit they both were wrong, but they now have a chance to make up for it.
• Have You Come to Gloat?: She greets the player this way, asking if you're here to laugh at her. You're given the choice of telling her yes or no.
• Heal the Cutie: If you earn her trust and free her, The Thorn regains her hope. Even when the way back up is blocked by thorns, she refuses to let it stop the two of you, saying that you're both meant for more than being trapped.
• The Hedge of Thorns: She's surrounded by a hedge of thorns, and even wrapped in thorn laden vines that pierce her skin. But she's Stopped Caring after the last two betrayals and seems to consider to be trapped in them a punishment or penance. It's implied she conjured them herself, out of her own self-loathing and unresolved guilt. Symbolically, you cut her off the vines trapping her when you forgive her, or they wrap around both of you even tighter if you try to slay or leave her.
• I Am a Monster: She's guilt-ridden and ashamed after her behavior as the Witch, and wants to be better — but isn't quite willing to trust you at first.
• Love Hurts: The core of her being. The Thorn, feels awful over her actions as the previous vessel, but is still scared and paranoid of you betraying her and her betraying you in turn. She yearns for companionship and affection, but she's scared that letting you in will inevitably lead to being hurt or her hurting you. She represents the vulnerability inherent to opening oneself up to others.
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Thorn) This one yearns for connections she feels she doesn't deserve. Even when shown compassion, she hid herself away. She will make for a cautious heart. Do not mourn her — she isn't alone anymore.
• Love Redeems: If the player tries again to earn the Thorn's trust and doesn't betray it when she gives him the Pristine Blade, the two's relationship can evolve to genuine love, signified with a Kiss.
• Mutually Assured Destruction: If you lose or fail to gain her trust, she will spitefully swallow the pristine blade so that you never have to chance to free each other from the vines, causing you both to get trapped there forever. If you intervene at this stage and stop her from swallowing it, she will instead bind your forearm with hers with a briar, laughing that you are trapped with her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: She feels extremely guilty about killing you when you tried to trust her. Perhaps because of this, it's possible to talk her into trusting you with the Pristine Blade again.
• The Paranoiac: Like the Witch before her, the Thorn is worried you'll betray her again and assumes the worst out of you, which you can prove true if you try to hurt her in any way, shape, or form. Her fear is especially noticeable when she winces as you cut her out of the vines imprisoning her.
• Playful Cat Smile: Played for Drama; if her trust is betrayed again, she'll regain the Witch's mocking catlike smile, showing that she lost all her hope that things will get better between her and the Player and that she's fully embraced the Witch's spiteful and taunting nature by this point.
• Pointy Ears: The Thorn herself appears almost entirely as a normal human, but keeps the Witch's pointed ears.
• Poor Communication Kills: If you don't communicate your intent to help her early, she'll refuse to hand back the blade to free her, leaving you only the option to walk away. She will then proceed to trap you in the prison with her.
• Power of Trust: Basically the theme of her route (alongside forgiveness).
• Properly Paranoid: The Thorn is skeptical of you despite you choosing to give her the Pristine Blade, and you can prove that suspicion correct if you try to harm her or leave the basement without her.
• Reformed, but Rejected: She'd like to stop hurting and being hurt, but if she's betrayed her bitterness becomes stronger and her voice and facial expression more resemble the Witch again.
• Rescue Romance: If you rescue her while Smitten is with you, you regain her trust and may choose to kiss her.
• Sealed with a Kiss: Under the right circumstances, you can share a kiss with the Thorn. She is the only version of the Princess with whom that is possible. The Narrator is forced to describe it in nauseating — particularly for him — detail after the Smitten calls him out for trying to gloss over it.
  "That was nice.''
• Splash of Color: The red poppies growing inside and around the Thorn's cabin make for a vibrant and striking contrast to the world they're growing in.
• Stopped Caring: She's so broken by the betrayals that both you and she have committed that she simply doesn't care what happens to her anymore. She even sounds bored, despite being wrapped in thorns that are piercing into her flesh.
• Swallowed Whole: If you try to abandon the Thorn without taking the blade from her, she'll spitefully try to swallow it to prevent you from leaving. If you let her, she'll down the entire thing, choking up blood with a smile on her face.
• Taking You with Me: If you try to leave her behind or betray her again, she will trap you in the same prison that she's in.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Betray her trust again by trying to slay her or snatch the blade without her consent while she remains suspicious of you, she'll give up on hope that the Cycle of Revenge will be broken, as the Witch's spiteful personality resurfaces, and she'll seek to trap you in The Hedge of Thorns while ranting that the two of you are bound to betray and backstab each other forever.
  "I knew this was coming. I can't believe I ever let myself hope for better. This was always going to be us, wasn't it?"
• The Tragic Rose: She's surrounded by beautiful red poppies, but combined with the razor-sharp thorns also bring to mind the typical imagery of roses, but with red poppies instead. It's meant to highlight the tragedy of the whole situation.
• True Love's Kiss: After reconciling with Thorn, you can give her a kiss, complete with the Narrator being forced to describe it in Purple Prose if the Voice of the Smitten is with you. It's even the name of the associated achievement.
• Turning Back Human: Unlike the Princess' other third forms, the Thorn's appearance becomes more humanlike than she was in the previous chapter as a visual representation of her previous softer personality returning.
• Villainous BSoD: The Thorn is what happens when the Witch falls into a spiral of self-hatred and remorse after repaying your gift of the Pristine Blade with violence and treachery, proving she's no better than you (and perhaps even worse, if the Narrator forced you to betray her). She's so broken by it that by the time you get to her, she's more tired and worn out than anything.
• When She Smiles: Once her trust and hope in you are restored, she proceeds to give you plenty of genuine smiles as you two leave the Cabin together, made even more endearing and rewarding after all the pain and betrayals you both went through.

• Alas, Poor Villain: Villain's a little strong, but should you break the amalgamation you've become and bring the Wounded Wild into being, you have the option to slay her, as she's completely at your mercy. Every one of the Voices you bring with you to this point are hesitant at best and flat out against it at worst.
• And I Must Scream: The Wounded Wild is fused with a tree and her chest cavity is torn open, exposing her heart.
• Body Horror: Not only is the Wounded Wild fused with a tree by her arms and legs, but her ribcage has been torn open and her heart is exposed. Cutting her free will also shows she's just a torso, with long branch-like hands at the ends of her arms.
• Botanical Abomination:
  • Just what the Wild is is unknown, but the Narrator trying to stop it talks about it as growing grass and roots, growing as it decays and decaying as it grows, and harvesting the remains of dying creatures to grow further.
  • The Wounded Wild is part of a princess fused to a tree, with the Princess clearly in no shape to continue living that way.
• Eldritch Location: While the Player is fused with the Wild, they have no physical body other than the amalgamation of the roots and trees that comprise the forest surrounding the cabin, and seemingly move them as if they are one unified organism. Even after the fused Wild is claimed at the end of the chapter, instead of having a body to speak through the Shifting Mound talks by forming a face out of the Wild's roots.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Wild refers to the Narrator as an entity separate from you, viewing the woods from the outside, implying that he's not the same as you or the Voices.
  • The entire conceit of the Wild route foreshadows the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet's origins: a singular god that encompassed both their domains who was rent asunder and then caged by the Narrator's Creator. The Princess even says "We're one. This is how we're supposed to be, can't you feel it?"
    The Narrator: You'd do best to remember, that some wounds will never heal. Some rifts can never be mended. Even in rebirth, some things never come back the same.
    Voice of the Hero: What is he going on about? What does he know about us?
    The Narrator: You aren't whole. You'll never be whole again. This struggle is meaningless. Whatever you think you're doing, you will fall apart.
    The Princess: We don't need to be made whole. All we need to do is find a single corner of his cage and break it.
  • The Networked Wild route ends with you reaching one of the edges of the Construct and cracking a hole in the wall, giving you a glimpse of The Multiverse outside. If you choose to leave the Construct with the Shifting Mound after awakening to your own divinity, you shatter the entire Construct and get to see the same vast cosmic everything briefly glimpsed here.
• Forgiveness: The Voice of the Opportunist asks if she's still angry about being stabbed in the heart. She's not and asks "Are you mad at me for swallowing you whole?" In response, the Opportunist shrugs it off as all pretty petty in retrospect.
• Genius Loci: She and the player have become the very woods that surround the cabin. It's actually a rather peaceful existence.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: From the Narrator's point of view, the Wild is the absolute worst result that could arise from the Hero and the Princess' encounter within the Construct. As they fuse into a single being, they become closer than ever to what they were before the Creator broke the Cycle of Life and Death and made the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound separate beings. It's made evident by how distinctly antagonistic he sounds in this route. Luckily for him it doesn't stick.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: The Wounded Wild is nothing but the Princess' torso and her tree-like arms. You only see this if you cut her free.
• I Am Legion: In this Chapter, the Princess uses first person plural to underscore that the two of you have resurrected into a conjoined form.
• Mood-Swinger: For the most part, the Wild is calm and kindly. She is even willing to let go of past slights if you are in turn. But if you start to focus on them, she starts to panic and scream as she's torn between not wanting to return to the cycle of violence between you and wanting you out for what you've done.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: When the Wild is separated from you and remembers (and cares about) the slights and violence you've caused each other, she vows to "hurt you like you deserve".
• Pet the Dog: The Wild speaks reassuringly to the Voice of the Hunted, who becomes less fearful.
• Poor Communication Kills: The fusion process is very fragile, and something that would likely go a lot smoother if the princess had explained it to you before commencement; there's minimal room to clear up skeptical questions when it's underway (which might explain why more players have the achievement for the process falling apart than the achievement from completing the transformation).
• Pointy Ears: Has a pair as the shared route of the Beast and the Witch.
• The Power of Hate: The Hero can resist his fusion with the Wild by recalling their past conflict, which creates enough discord between the two for them to physically separate out of pure spite.
  The Voice of the Opportunist: She really does hate us. And we hate her. It hurts thinking about us as separate things, but we're separate. We can't hate ourself. I love me.
• Power of Trust: If you question her process twice or ask to separate, it falls apart leaving her wounded. If you instead fully trust her, she'll work with you and the other voices to successfully break through the ceiling of the Narrator's worldlet.
• Scars Are Forever: The core of the Wounded Wild's being. Once you sunder from her, she becomes injured, and even if you cut her out and she finds herself in the Shifting Mound's hands, she still has the wounds you gave her:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Wounded Wild) This one is like a shadow of me, a memory of what she used to be, bound to the wounds of distance and time. She will make for a scarred and beautiful heart. Do not mourn her — she has finally found peace.
• Seeker Archetype: The core of the Networked Wild's being, as she and you search for a crack in the Construct to shatter and is the vessel that comes closest to discovering who she truly is:
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Networked Wild) This one is like a shadow of me, twisting vines in search of answers. She will make for a curious heart. Do not mourn her — she has found what she yearned for.
• Sharing a Body: The Wild is both the Princess and the Player fused together. The Narrator somewhat rhetorically ponders in his narration what that body looks like, or if it even is a body. From the imagery, (trees and roots) the Wounded Wild's appearance, and the fact the Player is the Long Quiet, which encompasses the woods, it's implied in this form you two really are a path in the woods.
• Splash of Color: Should you search within to find your freedom, you and the Princess come across a crack in the Construct that the two of you together can widen into a hole. What's on the other side is unclear, but its riotous color puts it in stark contrast with the world you've been familiar with up until that point.
• Split-Personality Merge: In a sense, the Wild is a downplayed version. It represents the closest possible facsimile of the divine entity that the Hero and the Princess used to be, before the Narrator used his process to forcibly split it in two and turned the two halves into the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound, that it is possible for them to reform into. By amalgamating, the two of them can achieve a shape that resembles that original form, but alas, the change the Narrator has imposed upon their fundamental natures cannot be undone. The Wild is ultimately an unstable construction that can only exist as long as the minds of the Hero and the Princess are synergizing and in full agreement to work in concert with each other, and they will inevitably start to push against each other sooner or later.
• Suddenly Shouting: If you question Sharing a Body with her in any way, she goes from a soft whisper to desperate shouting and then back again in her attempt to convince you to remain together. Her text and the outlines of the trees go red for a moment when she shouts.
• Sympathy for the Devil: The Wounded Wild is in such a pitiable state that all of the Voices are uncomfortable with the thought of killing her, regardless of the animosity they had for her mere moments ago.
• When She Smiles: The Wounded Wild had completely resigned herself to her fate and accepted her impending death. However, when you prove her expectations wrong and cut her free, she gives you a teary, yet gentle smile, showing how touched she is that you're still willing to show her kindness even after you two get separated.

• Beige Prose: Her narration is short and direct in comparison to the narrator's descriptive Purple Prose.
• CAPS LOCK: She talks like this whenever she possesses you.
• Demonic Possession: Performs this on you to escape, since killing you only resets the "Groundhog Day" Loop.
• Determinator: The core of her being; a princess who learned that she could not rely on others to help her, so she turned inward to focus her pain and rage on the resolve to escape no matter what.
  The Shifting Mound: (On the Wraith) This one is loneliness turned to seething. She could not find her strength in others, so she found it in herself. She will make for a driven heart. Do not mourn her — she isn't alone anymore.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Parodied. If you try to set her free while being possessed, she controls the narration and shouts out, "I PLACE YOUR BLOODY HAND ON THE DOOR", which seems like offensive, insulting language to U.K. players... and then your hand appears on cue, actually bleeding red blood and reaching for the doorknob.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Downplayed. If you state your intent to free her before possession, while she doesn't outright forgive you she acknowledges this as fixing your mistake. If you have Opportunist with you during this, she won't even react to his statement of putting things right with contempt.
  THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH FIXING YOUR MISTAKES. I'LL REMEMBER THIS. BUT I'LL ALSO NEVER FORGET WHAT YOU'VE DONE.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: The same as the Spectre: when she forcibly possesses you she can hear and interact with all your Voices, including the Narrator, and she proves capable of overriding his efforts to stop her when he describes the exit growing distant by countering his descriptions with her own.
  YOU CANNOT DESCRIBE ME INTO SUBMISSION. THE DOOR IS RIGHT THERE.
• Godzilla Threshold: From her perspective, this form is Necessarily Evil, as you refused to let her out of the cabin amicably (when she was the Spectre) or through intimidation (when she was the Nightmare) by insisting on slaying her, and thus she has no choice but to force you to let her leave. The Spectre, the Nightmare, and the Wraith all say that she becomes "something worse" because of your rejection.
• Laser-Guided Karma: If you get the Wraith through killing the Nightmare right before you both leave the cabin, then throwing the both of you into the void counts as this against her, since her last act as the Nightmare was to do the same to you.
• Laughing Mad: If you choose to throw yourself into the abyss while she's possessing you.
• Moral Myopia: The Wraith sees no problem with forcibly possessing you because, to get to this outcome, you've killed her at least once, but, if you got to this route through the Nightmare, she neglects to acknowledge that she was promising to do worse to the entire outside world if she were free. If you throw yourself into the abyss, before she starts laughing she asks "WHY DO YOU HATE ME?"
• No-Sell: She's the only character to simply defy the Narration — when the Narrator says the door is infinitely far away, she refuses to accept the description and opens the door anyway.
• Painting the Medium: Initially she's limited to pitting her willpower against yours when trying to puppet your body, but after she recognizes the Narrator's control over the narrative and usurps him, she starts simply narrating her actions and you lose all ability to resist.
  The Wraith: I PLACE YOUR BLOODY HAND ON THE DOOR. I MAKE YOU TURN THE HANDLE.
  Voice of the Hero: Isn't saying all this his job?
  The Wraith: HE IS GONE.
• Pet the Dog: While she initially sneers at the Voice of the Opportunist, only listening to him because she enjoys how uncomfortable the other Voices are made by his sycophanty, when she overrides the Narrator's will and accesses the cabin door, she responds to the Opportunist's praise with a sincere "thank you".
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Gives a particularly scathing one when she describes how it's all your fault for her being like this.
  ''Now I've become something so much worse and it's all! Thanks! To you!
• Taking You with Me: You can try to throw yourself into the Long Quiet to save yourself from her. Little does the Wraith know that this actually works, as she gets grabbed by the Shifting Mound.
• Troll: If the Voice of the Opportunist is with you (whom you get if you ended up reaching the Wraith after slaying the Nightmare), he tries to actively suck up to her. Although the Wraith is largely not interested in his sales pitch and initially remains scornful of him, she still allows him to talk. Why? Because she relishes in discomfort the other Voices feel from his butt-kissing.
• Undead Abomination: In distinct contrast to The Spectre, she's a warped, skeletal monstrosity with a distorted voice and the ability to warp reality. The Hero can even lampshade it, panickedly commenting that he preferred it when she was a normal ghost.
• Vengeful Ghost: A skeletal one. She breaks your ankle before you even see her and possesses your body without your consent, seeing it as taking what she feels you owe her after either killing her as The Nightmare or angering her as the Spectre.
• Voice of the Legion: Her voice has a reverb applied to it, which is then distorted even further when she's possessing you, echoing and overlapping on itself like it's moving around you.