It's chaotic!
The Narrative Contradiction is an event when the game world of The Stanley Parable crosses path with matter from the Real World. The contradiction eventually causes the game world to break and heavily distort. The Narrative Contradiction only occurred in the The Stanley Parable Demonstration and in the Not Stanley Ending.
Information[]
The Narrative Contradiction began its appearance soon after Stanley finished watching the instructional video about choice-making. The Phone Room, which was normal before, has been corrupted with distorted signs, symbols, and forklifts littering the room.
Another Contradiction occurs when Stanley enters the right door after being led back to the Two Doors Room. The way to the employee lounge is blocked by a distorted door and debris. Should Stanley try to enter the left door and go to the Meeting Room, he will find the room partially destroyed with objects blocking the way to the staircase.
Going back to the Two Doors Room also proves fruitless, since the room has also been corrupted by the Narrative Contradiction. The doors are also corrupted, with the left door filled with wrecked cabinets and the right door has a staircase which leads directly to the roof.
Even if Stanley chooses to follow the Narrator and enters the left door, the game will progress seemingly normally until he enters his Boss's Office, which also suffered from Narrative Contradiction, if ever so slightly. The Boss's Office has changed significantly, with green floral wallpaper instead of red, a new interior design, and a voice receiver which replaced the default keypad. Even though the Narrator told Stanley to speak the code, Stanley is unable to speak, and neither is the player (the game does not allow any usage of internal or external microphones), and thus the game cannot be finished.
The player can also do it the other way around. When the player comes back from the path to the warehouse, take the left door first. Go to the Boss's Office, then go through the right door, then the left. The Player will be teleported to the Two Doors Room. The destruction is even worse, for example the roof has collapsed on the right.
Speculation[]
- It is possible that the keypad was changed with a voice receiver in order for the game to assimilate with real world matter.
- As with the distortion of matter from the game, it is possible that the game world cannot co-exist with anything which came from the real world. Any attempt to force the two worlds to merge will result in such chaos that the game must be restarted by the Narrator to be fresh again.
- It is possible that the deterioration toward the end of the Demo is a result of Narrative Contradiction.
- It is possible that the wasteland seen in Ultra Deluxe's Epilogue is the result of Narrative Contradiction, but without the game itself being able to reset back to the beginning after a certain point in the deterioration process, as seen in the aforementioned Not Stanley Ending and in the ending of The Stanley Parable Demonstration. This causes the world of The Stanley Parable to deteriorate completely, leaving only the remains of the Memory Zone and the Escape Pod with The Bucket inside it.
- Considering the Bucket version of the Real Person Ending does not feature Narrative Contradiction even though the same "incorrect" action is performed, it is possible that Narrative Contradiction is simply another intended element of The Narrator's story.