Slay the Princess

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Remember, this is a tragedy.

This page contains unmarked spoilers for the full release of the game! Beware!

• The main menu music is quite melancholic, as if the game is telling us we're in for a dark ride.
• The first time you stumble upon the Princess in the cabin (unless you take the Stranger route first). It's clear how tired and lonesome she is after waiting for someone to save her after so long. Doesn't help if you decide to slay her, especially if you backstab her.
• If you kill the Princess in the basement with the dagger and then leave without a word, you notice that the cabin is now trapped in the abyss. If you reject the Narrator's reward, you find yourself feeling unhappy about being trapped in an endless void, and you realize that suicide may be the only way out. The Narrator is taken aback, and may try reasoning with you, but you won't have it and may try to end it all. The Narrator has to reluctantly watch as you descend back down the staircase and find the skeletal remains of the Princess, the Pristine Blade still embedded in her chest. As you pick up the blade and prepare to stab yourself, there is some sadness in the Narrator's tone of voice, as he can do nothing but watch you die as he refrains from reciting his usual Catchphrase, but replaces it with an Informal Eulogy of a sort. Not that this has stopped you from reviving in a "Groundhog Day" Loop (believe us, it doesn't).
  The Narrator: You pick up the blade, you stab yourself, and you die. The end. Nice knowing you.
• The updated Den route has the Hunted transform the Player Character into a wild beast in order to counter the Den. The Stubborn and the Hero are both terrified and saddened at the state of the Player Character and the Hunted. When the fight is done and over the Den herself is deeply ashamed over what transpired.
• The Damsel route is mostly heartwarming... but to get there, the Princess has to stab you multiple times after the Narrator takes over your body. All the while, she's apologizing and crying out "I'm sorry!" over and over. By the time you finally succumb to blood loss, she's sobbing and cradling you as you die.
  • Also happens if you stab her during Chapter II. She's still smiling, even with tears running down her face, the Narrator noting that her eyes show utter terror. The Voice of the Smitten is beyond consolation at your actions, distraught and furious as he takes the knife to kill you. And there's nothing you or The Narrator can do to stop him. For one of the more jovial voices, it's heartrending seeing him break down so badly.
  • For added heartstring pulling, when the Damsel resurfaces in the Long Quiet's confrontation with the Shifting Mound, from her perspective the Hero is crying as she repeatedly stabs him.
    The Damsel: Your Lover drives a stake into your body. And another, and another, and another. Do I miss your heart because I can't stand to see it go?
  • The deconstructed version follows this up with a sobering summary of how the relationship fell apart.
    The Damsel: Love melted into skepticism, and you pulled back layer after layer after layer until all you were left with was the knowledge that you did not know me. You sought the truth then. Will you hide from it now that it is within your grasp?
  • The Pristine Cut added another route after the Damsel called Happily Ever After. It is anything but happy, though. The whole place is a Gilded Cage, run by the Smitten who is forcing you and the Princess into a fairy tale ending that you clearly both hate. As the torches go out, the Princess finally admits that she's not happy, and she buries her face in her hands, crying. Even the Narrator thinks it's awful.
    • Never has the Princess been depicted as so scared, afraid, and downright hopeless than in this route. Even when you try to kill her or leave her in the basement, she'll try to talk you down or fight back. Here, the Voice of the Smitten has her afraid to say that she doesn't want to eat or play games. It runs very close to depicting an abusive relationship in a way the game doesn't even with the explicitly violent routes.
    • Maybe shown with the most force if you slay her. What does the Princess do, the princess who will famously lie, cheat, and do anything in her power to stop you from slaying her? Absolutely nothing. She stands there, making no effort to stop you, and when you push the blade into her heart? All she gives you is a relieved "It's finally over." Even the Narrator can't bring himself to celebrate, only not-quite-convincingly telling himself that this is all worth it.
      Voice of the Opportunist: They always say it's Lonely at the Top. I didn't think they actually meant it.
    • Even after all your efforts to bring her closer to the truth, and what happens afterward whether she lives or dies, even the Voice of the Skeptic sounds a bit sad and tired, almost as if he's a bit closer to Manly Tears.
    • A later update has you apologize to her after all the torches are put out ("I'm sorry. I feel like all of this is my fault."). Considering that her voice actress (Nichole Goodnight) was going through a divorce while recording her lines during the chapter, what is the Princess' response?
      The Princess: ...your fault? We were all just trying to make things work here. It just... didn't happen that way. I don't think this is the sort of thing anybody needs to apologize for. Even if we both feel empty. Even if an important part of us is gone.
    • The Narrator's reaction to this honestly bears special mention. This is what he wanted to do. This route is the everything he wanted to do to the world. This is what the Creator wanted to make happen. He split the original god in half and put the two pieces in an endless loop of dying and suffering to make exactly this. And he sees firsthand that such a world just...doesn't work. Effectively rendering everything he's done to you and the princess and himself All for Nothing and his tone shows he regrets it. So much so, that he raises no objection once you've broken free and are about to leave with the princess. To add insult to injury, since every chapter has a unique version of the Narrator who never remembers anything, he has no way actually doing anything with this epiphany other than hope you stop the millions of other Narrators from bringing this about and wishing the best for you and the princess.
      The Narrator: I've seen my fairy-tale ending. And I think there might be worse things than the end of the world.
      [...]
      I...think this is the end of me. Even if it's not the end of you. I hope this was worth it. Genuinely, I do.
    • While the first encounter with the Shifting Mound always ends with her saying "She asks that I tell you to remember her. You won't.", it's especially heartrending on the Happily Ever After route. You help the Princess through her emotional lowest point, break the Smitten's hold over you both, dance under the stars, and potentially even fall in love with her for real...only for her to be taken by the Shifting Mound, who can't even give you the courtesy to remember her because then you'll be stuck in the Long Quiet for eternity. It's a tragic conclusion to what's probably the most peaceful and happy Chapter III in the entire game.^note  Not so much if you got her in your final route, though. That, and memory returns every time you return to the Long Quiet, so ultimately you have a decent chance of remembering your experience with her.
    • Speaking of the Shifting Mound, if you left the cabin with the Princess without offering her your hand or dancing with her, or if you slew her after exposing the truth behind the fantasy of this chapter, the Shifting Mound mentions that you tore down the walls that confined the both of you, another a painful reminder of the divorce Nichole was going through. The one line that hits closer to home?
      Happily Ever After: [as part of the Shifting Mound] Would you rebuild those walls and throw the world in them? Would you keep them in that box we shared and tell them that they're happy?
• The Thorn route is this before it can become heartwarming. She is painted in blood drawn by the thorns that encircle her. And even though she's clearly in pain and miserable, it takes persistent coaxing to get her to let you take the blade to cut her free. The loops have clearly taken a toll, leaving her downtrodden and exhausted without hope.
  • How did the Princess wind up in such a state? When you gave the Witch your Pristine Blade as a sign of trust, she almost immediately stabbed you with it. At first, she brags about how she got you before you could betray her again, only to slowly realize that you were sincere. The sheer horror of the realization that she betrayed you at your most vulnerable breaks her, transforming her into the repentant (if drained of hope) Thorn.
  • If you don't communicate the intention to help her early upon re-encountering her, she will refuse to hand you back the blade to free her, leaving you with no other option but to walk away. It's a sobering way of showing how someone's attempts to protect themselves from others can backfire on them when they need help the most.
  • If you, for some reason, decide to betray the Thorn and attempt to slay her, the brambles wrap around your arms and stop you from killing her. And in her last moments before being claimed by the Shifting Mound, the Thorn has turned back into the Witch, returning her paranoia and making any reconciliation with her impossible. A similar thing happens if decide to leave her behind without taking the blade where, after realising you’re both stuck in the cabin basement, she’ll spitefully swallow the blade to ensure neither of you can get out.
• The Nightmare/Moment of Clarity route of all things is a major tearjerker, as during the Mind Rape sequence you see the Princess' constant cycle of death and rebirth.
  • When she removes her mask, you see her shed a Single Tear. It is also the moment when it comes clear that the Psychotic Smirk she has been flashing you all this time is actually a Broken Smile.
  • When the Nightmare removed her mask, she wanted the Player to see her innermost self, in hope that he would understand her feelings. The Shifting Mound can show you this moment from her perspective - the way she reaches out towards the horrified player with her free hand suggests not fury, but dismay. The Shifting Mound talks about the Nightmare as lonely and only wanting companionship but only knowing how to hurt. Possibly as a result of the isolating experience of so many lifetimes alone.
  • When the Player reacts with pure fear and revulsion after she removes the mask with it driving him, the Voices, and the Narrator absolutely insane.
  • As the Moment of Clarity, she puts the mask back on before you can see her again, likely out of shame due to the fact it broke the Player. As of the Pristine Cut when she climbs up to the Player her mask cracks and starts tearing away to reveal that she no longer has a face, distraught and ashamed that after revealing herself to the one person she ever knew her attempt was ultimately unsuccessful.
  • What's even more heartbreaking is that she is so desperate for any affection from the Player, she spends an eternity tormenting and abusing him in deeply misguided attempts to show her affections.
  • Both parties were broken by the mask removal, the Player's mind and the Nightmare's heart.
    • And possibly the Narrator, too. In another route he coolly tells the Player that he'd happily condemn the two to endless torture to spare infinite people the terror of death, but here he's actually seeing what it's like for them. His death may involve a degree of My God, What Have I Done?.
• The Wild is a route where the Princess and the Hero are Sharing a Body and are able to regard their past mutual grievances without enmity. The Princess can sense that this is how they're supposed to be, but by focusing on the ways they've hurt each other, the player can tear free of her, turning her into the Wounded Wild — a Princess with her chest torn-open, fused with a tree. You can cut her out of it, but there's not much left of her to cut out. Just before the Shifting Mound claims her as another vessel, she says that it's cold, as most Princess variants do when they're collected. But the Wounded Wild weeps as she says it, what's left of her completely helpless in your hands.
  "It's... so cold without you."
  • ...and that's not even counting that you still have the option to slay the Wounded Wild. With all of the voices, and especially the Hero, not really wanting to do it at all. It's mostly the Narrator urging you on. And the Princess just gives one last apology before the Shifting Mound claims her.
  • The realization that the Wild is right. Sharing a Body is how the Hero and the Princess are supposed to be, because they used to be that way, each of them being the Literal Split Personalities of the same being. And whatever the Creator did to render that original being asunder has only worked far too well. The Split-Personality Merge that the Wild offers is powerful, but is only ever going to be temporarily. The two halves, the Shift Mound and the Long Quiet, have had their fundamental natures changed too much for the rift the Creator created to ever be completely mended and are doomed to drift back to individual existence again.
    The Shifting Mound: Though that was us before we were us, there is no turning back. For all the Echo's delusion, he still managed to reshape reality itself, though he could not destroy what could not be destroyed. We are intertwined, but we are separate.
• The Spectre is one of the friendlier Chapter II Princesses. She's not happy about having been killed, but cares more about being free, or "going home" as she calls it — she doesn't remember who or what she actually is but knows she's supposed to be out there, part of things. Intangible as she is she's searched everywhere she can reach, even behind the walls, and has concluded that the only way out is with the player's help. Help her, and she's grateful even to an unrepentant killer. Leave her behind and she panics.
  But if you're just leaving me then...Then I'm really just going to be stuck here forever. Th-There's nothing I can do, it's just going to go on and on and on and on, lonely and sad and hurting and empty. No... Nnnno. Not that.
• The Stranger route happens when you refuse to go to the cabin altogether in Chapter I, which results in the infinite cabins appearing before the world collapses. When you finally meet the Princess in Chapter II, she initially appears as either a gentle person, a snooty one, or a nondescript one, and each time you speak to her, a new Princess will appear. When you make a choice to make multiple decisions at once, the reality will collapse, and the five Princesses will merge into one, but the result will be a horribly misshapen amalgamation of all five Princesses, all of whom will be left mortified by what they have become. Left scared, confused and hurt, all they could do is to helplessly ask you to help them in some way or form. Even the Voice of the Contrarian, who normally doesn't take anything seriously, comes to regret what his actions turned the Princess into, dropping his contrarian attitude and sincerely stating that you should help her, acknowledging that it's his fault that they've become that way. And no matter what you say to her, the Shifting Mound's arms will take her away before you'll get to know whether or not she heard your response.
• Near the final endings in the Cabin, both the player and the Voice of the Hero can express sadness at the Narrator's demise. Despite all the hell he causes you, the pair can't help but feel conflicted, since he's been with you from the beginning. If you started the game with the Stranger's route, the Voice of the Contrarian will be there too, but much less mocking that he usually is and he will express sincere sadness that the Narrator's is no longer there be it only because without him, there is nobody left to make fun of.
• While ultimately heartwarming the " And? What happens next?' ending is still sad in aspects, as the Player parts ways with his voices.
• The whole loop the Narrator created has caused endless suffering for the Hero and Princess. The worst part of it all is that he genuinely believes that this is saving everyone due to his extreme Mortality Phobia. His saving everyone is putting them into eternal stagnation, one they most likely never wanted or asked for.
• In certain conditions inside the final cabin, the Voice of the Hero and the Contrarian will have a discussion about throwing the pristine blade out of the window, with the latter going against it because it's not funny if he does it again. "What's the third beat?" Well, if you bring the blade down into the basement, the Princess will tell you the answer: since the Construct follows the rule of a narrative, if you bring the knife you must use it — either to let the Princess kill you and reset the loop, or to kill the Princess permanently.
  Voice of the Hero: (voice cracking like he's trying to not cry) There's your third beat.
  Voice of the Contrarian: Hey! You're right. There it is. (with a tone of slow realization) Can't say it's very funny though.
• "You're on a path in the woods" ending, before the Princess stabs the Player to restart the loop, the Player can tell her "I love you". She ends up bursting into tears saying "I love you too!" before burying the blade into his heart.
• The "Just as you once were nothing" ending. To trigger it, you need to repeatedly refuse to enter the cabin during chapter 2. Each time, the Shifting Mound will react with bewilderment as she can do nothing without being brought a vessel. She rages against the player that she hates him, pleads with him, falls into melancholy, before finally accepting it as both she and the player fade away. Into nothing.
• With The Pristine Cut update, The Fury, of all characters, manages to achieve one of these. Coming into the route via The Adversary, has her unleash all of her pent-up anger and misery against you, unravelling you until you're nothing but the most base of atoms. And when even that does not break you, she's left completely hollow, unsatisfied by her revenge and lost in a world where she cannot connect with her other half by any means. If you choose to slay her, she welcomes it, if only to feel something else for once. If the Voice of the Broken is present, he reluctantly accepts your choice and can make sure she spends her final moments in peace.
  • If you alternatively come into this route from the Tower, if you choose to fight the Fury to the bitter end at the Voice Of The Stubborn's insistence- which results in you dying repeatedly as the Fury unmakes you again and again with each attempt you make to slay her, culminating in you needing to utilize your nature as The Long Quiet once she's torn you asunder at an atomic level in order to kill her without her killing you first- it ends with you managing to stab her in her heart using yourself rather than the Pristine Blade. The "threads" piercing her heart are also described as "cradling her spirit", and it's in that moment that- in her fallen state from her former glorious self, having truly experienced the anguish of being made something "lesser" for herself and faced with the one that she herself tried to reduce to something less so many times and who repeatedly lashed out against her in response- she reaches an understanding with the Long Quiet, her voice and expression vulnerable as she speaks to the point of losing her Voice of the Legion in her final words. Even the Voice Of The Hero notes how genuine she sounds here.
    The Fury: ...Oh. I think I understand you now. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do the things I did to you. I... don't think I knew what I was doing.
    Voice Of The Hero: She sounds... genuine.
    Voice Of The Cold: They always do in the end.
    The Fury: It's... cold. But... I'm going to be okay, right? (the Shifting Mound claims her)
• Helping The Apotheosis with her plan leads to the two of you almost breaking free from the construct... until The Shifting Mound starts to claim her. From the giant's shoulder, you're left to watch helplessly as she is slowly consumed by the hands, as she does her best to keep you away from them. With her last moments, The Apotheosis does the only thing she can: she sets you free, throwing you towards the tear as she's lost. And even that last wish is dashed as it closes before you can reach it.
  Voice of the Broken: We have to be able to do something help her! This can't be how it ends, it can't, it can't it can't it can't!
• Also in the Apotheosis you can shatter the Voice of the Broken's faith in the Princess, and while it might be necessary, it's still heartwrenching. As the Apotheosis' actions become ever crueler, culminating in her burying you alive, the Broken's attempts to rationalize them become thinner and more desperate before he's eventually reduced to plaintively sobbing that he loves her. At which point the Narrator coldly points out that she doesn't love him - she doesn't even know he exists - giving Broken a full on breakdown when he realises he can't deny it. Even when he gets past this and joins the rest of the voices in standing against her, the bitterness and hatred in his voice constantly drives home how just wounded he is by the betrayal of a woman he'd once have happily slit his own throat for.