The revelation that the Player's perception of things impacts the Princess and the world around him is neatly integrated by how the player progresses through their playthrough. His first route would be directed by his lack of information and understanding of the scenario, so he would be more susceptible to either the Narrator or the Princess and make choices accordingly. However, as you complete more routes and begin to make choices out of sheer curiosity, your actions mirror the actions of someone who has realized that the Princess changes depending on how you see her even before the game makes that explicitly clear.
The first time you meet the princess, and in several other iterations of her, the room she's in holds two chains, one shackling her to the room, and one that's not shackling anything. The other chain is meant for you. But you are not chained to the wall. While the Princess is bound to the narrative, you have free will.
The Princess changes depending on how you perceive her. In turn, the individual Voices are all based on how the Princess perceives you. Similarly, she acts to appeal to those Voices instead of the Hero or the Narrator. Unlike the Princess, who is entirely subject to the whims of your perception, you don't have to abide by the additional voices; after all, you are the embodiment of stasis and stability, staying the same no matter what happens.
The Broken: After being utterly defeated by her, the Princess sees you as nothing but dirt under her heel and completely subservient to her.
The Cheated: Tricked by the Princess despite seemingly certain victory, she sees you as a gullible fool who was given a seemingly easy task but failed and will fail again.
The Cold: Having killed her without hesitation, the Princess sees you as only a cold blooded killer with no sympathy towards the seemingly helpless damsel.
The Contrarian: Having defied the Narrator and all expectations saddled onto you, the Princess sees you as a contrarian who treats everything like a game instead of taking it seriously.
The Hunted: Having hunted you down like an animal, the Princess sees you as mere prey.
The Opportunist: The Princess sees your duplicitous behavior as one of a person who cares only for themselves and will say anything to get what they want.
The Paranoid: Having kept her locked in the basement, the Princess sees you as a paranoid and fearful person who breaks down when getting anywhere near her.
The Skeptic: The Princess recognizes your skepticism of the whole "slay the princess" thing and sees you as someone who does not take things at face value.
The Smitten: When you opted to save the Princess no matter what, she sees you as a love-struck Knight in Shining Armor who will side with her no matter what.
The Stubborn: Having fought her to your last breath, the Princess recognizes your fighting spirit and that you are into slaying her for the thrill of it.
The Hero: Despite all of the above, deep down the Princess views the Player as having a heart and the willingness to do the right thing above all else. Which is why out of all the Voices he's always at the forefront of their encounters.
Why does the Narrator narrate your actions down to just walking in places? Well, fundamentally it's because the whole game occurs inside of the Construct, which given its outside of the universe, could only have been made from the entity you and the princess were before you were split. So the setting is made of the same stuff as what makes you and the Princess. In a rather literal case of perception being a reality, the Narrator convinces you that you are moving within physical space. Thus "you are on a path in the woods" as well as all of the little tricks the Narrator does to tell you the cabin changes, locks on you, door moves away, objects appearing from nowhere, etc if you try to go against him.
Critically though all of these narrations only work if they get no pushback from the Player and on occasion the Princess. Amongst the routes such as the Razor has you literally decide you are already at the cabin, the Adversary route has you decide that you and the Princess don't die, and the Wraith has you talk back against an infinite distance being had between you and the door of the Cabin.Which makes sense, ultimately the Player and Princess are made up of the stuff as the rest of the Construct but the Narrator as he says is just an echo. He can only convince you about how to think about things, his own thoughts have no effect on the perception of the reality you and the Princess are imprisoned in.
It also actually explains rather neatly the "influence" of the Princess spreading as you progress in chapters. You and the Princess keep your memories, and so your worldview rather literally affects what the world is even if the narrative structure of you being in a space, and going to a given location remains intact for the most part. Essentially the game has a Narrator because from a Watsonian sense a narrative is needed to differentiate the god that was separated into parts that can kill each other.
Adding on to that, this also explains why the Narrator always says "everything goes black and you die". You aren't actually dying but basically being black screened back to the start. You get tricked into dying essentially. Notably, in the route to the Prisoner, you are able to kill the Princess and end the world without dying yourself, and in fact, you will never die until the Narrator is forced to announce as such when you stab yourself with the Pristine Blade. If he tried to insist that you weren't dead after that, it would be extremely suspicious.
From the Narrator's perspective, his choice to keep the scenario as vague and ill-defined as possible for the Hero makes sense when you realize that the Princess' appearance changes based on perception. The Narrator concocts a very straightforward impression that makes sense one the surface, but is rife with plot holes the more you dig into it (how did the Princess get chained in the first place? Who sent the Hero here? Why must the Hero slay her specifically?). Not only that, but the Narrator's descriptions of the Princess involve a lot of Double Think to convince the Hero to slay her; she is simultaneously a world-ending threat that must be destroyed, but she's also a harmless Princess who the Hero can kill with one stab to the heart. The Narrator must portray her this way because it presents her as dangerous enough to justify murdering, but not so dangerous the she cannot be defeated or killed, and the danger she presents is one that affects the future but does not present her as a current threat. When the Hero begins questioning the Narrator, it becomes much harder to kill the Princess either due to sympathizing with her too much to go through with it, or her becoming too powerful to be defeated, both of which are propagated by the Hero's own feelings.
If you decide to slay the Princess immediately, no negotiation or hesitation, the Princess will seemingly die. Despite this, she acts as if she won't die. The Narrator says that she believes that she can't. That's the Narrator's emphasis. This quirk in the dialogue foreshadows much of the game, namely:
The Narrator's deliberate choice in words to avoid changing your perception. When he says the Princess believes she can't die, He's trying to make you believe that she is only bluffing. The Narrator informs you the basic premise of "slay the Princess, save the world" and refuses to elaborate details because if you believe anything else, it'll make the Princess harder to kill.
The power of belief affecting the Princess is also foreshadowed here. Indeed, if you give into your paranoia and believe in the Princess' own belief in her survival, she will survive. However, if you take things at face value, she is well and truly dead.
The term "slay" is also often used to describe the killing of monsters, specifically dragons. The Narrator sees the Princess as a monstrous entity, and therefore treats her in the same manner.
The Nightmare renders you helpless but aware, unable to move your body or even regulate your organs. She's a Sleep Paralysis Creature!
Sometimes when the Narrator is addressed in the third-person, "he" is capitalized (i.e., "What if He does hear you?"). When referring to the Abrahamic God or other deities, the pronouns are capitalized to signify religious reverence. The Narrator is an echo of the Creator, who was mortal but as the one who made the Construct is in some senses a "god" of this world.
There are parallels between the Damsel and what the player character has been reduced to in the Moment of Clarity chapter.
The Damsel is sweet but doesn't have the agency she has in other routes and besides a vague sense of wanting to leave the cabin, her only desire is to please the player. Ask her too many questions about what she wants and she undergoes Art Shift, eventually into the Deconstructed Damsel, at which point the Voice of the Hero uneasily says that he feels like the player, the voices, and the narrator are "the only ones here". She's happy treated gently but also accepts even being stabbed with a smile. If any version of the Damsel is taken to the Shifting Mound, Shifty's opinion of the Damsel includes the line "You have molded this one to love you".
The Moment of Clarity is a monstrous version of the Princess, wounded when she tried to show the Player her innermost pain and was rejected. She's broken him and his full collection of Voices into losing their agency, with no choices left but to follow her will. The Player, like the Damsel, has become passive and harmless to his opposite number. When you give the Moment of Clarity your hand to take her out of the cabin her grip is gentle.
In the "Tower" route, one of the changes to the cabin are the steps being massive, which takes the Player a longer time climbing down them, and are so hard to climb over that the Narrator even notes that, if you leave the Pristine Blade upstairs, it'll take you too long to climb back up and retrieve it. The environment, as well as the Princess, changes with the Player's perception, and because this route involves seeing the Princess as an unstoppable force, the cabin is transformed to prioritize her comfort over yours. Because she is much taller than you in this route, the stairs are likely built for her to walk up them more easily.
The stairs also serve as a subconscious effort by your perception to make getting away from the Princess more difficult, forcing the Player to engage with her directly.
Why does the Moment of Clarity have three arms? Because she is the apex of a route where the Player Character abandons the Princess and leaves her to loneliness, an absolutely clingy entity with a fanatical desperation for companionship. As the nightmare she made a horribly misguided attempt at intimacy during her mask removal, despite the Player Character's rejection via losing his mind. She refuses to leave him alone as she desperately doesn't want to be abandoned by him again, for all she wants is to be loved and remembered.
Her body is fading with it leaving only her clothing and cracked mask, representing her unstable and broken self-image due to heartbreak and abandonment.
She can't fathom that her clingy and violent attempts at intimacy with the Player Character only further lead him to run away from her, which only leads to her becoming even more violent and cruel with her advances towards him.
In the "Falling Forever" ending and the "Good Ending", the Narrator deals with the same issue in that he tries to keep the Player content in an abyss for eternity, while making the prospect of death unpleasant. In both, he struggles with justifying the Player's longevity without giving away his true intentions: If he tells the Player that he can't die and should simply stay where he is forever, it will raise suspicion over the Player's reality and likely push the Player into killing himself to start over, which starts the cycle all over again. If he tells the Player that he can die, then it puts into the Player's mind that death is a possibility (or in the "Falling Forever" ending's case, an inevitability) and die anyway, and then it starts the cycle all over again.
Notably in both, the Narrator does not mention dying until the Player or the Voices bring it up, and he's deeply reluctant to describe the Player killing himself. Notably, when he describes him slowly dying of thirst and starvation, he drags it out for as long as possible.
Many of the Voices not only reflect the Player's in-game attitude, but also reflect the type of Real Life Players who go into the game and what intentions or expectations they carry for a route:
The Hero: The most basic type is a Player that displays general empathy towards the Princess and the world, even if it's unclear why. They will weigh up the risks and moral implications between freeing her and the supposed threat to the world the Narrator insists she is. They will also listen to counsel from the Narrator, the Princess, and other voices for general ideas of what to do and genuinely want to make the "correct" choices. Players who stick to this path will end up meeting the Princess in the Shifting Mound's heart, with the options of slaying her for good, finding the middle ground of the two of you resetting the loop and saving her.
The Smitten: Many players go into the game with the intention of explicitly romancing the Princess, and try to do all of the "good" options to do so (freeing her, resisting the Narrator, refusing to hurt her intentionally). This is why the game morphs her into the Princess Classic damsel in distress: Players going into the game with the hopes of romancing the Princess will need to do more than token gestures of heroism.
The Broken: Some players may go in hoping to defeat her, but if the Princess overpowers them will change their minds at the last minute to garner some mercy rather than have full confidence in their decisions. In this case, the Princess literally breaks the Player's resolve, resulting in the Tower route.
The Cold: Experienced Players who have played the game for a while and lack hesitation towards killing the Princess, now seeing it as just another variable to get certain paths, or simply those who are curious about the consequences of certain actions with less empathy towards the emotional struggles of the Princess or Narrator. In doing so, they get the Specter, forcing them to literally face the consequences of their actions.
The Cheated: Many players may go into the game with the desire to "win" the game and feel spiteful that the story is a slow burn romance/horror Visual Novel rather than a more competitive experience. They will most likely find the Razor route first, exposing them to the game's combat and dark humor.
The Contrarian: Players who may know the Narrator's true intentions and go out of their way to press his buttons specifically to see what he does and to find more of the humour in the game. As such, they break the game, getting the surreal and meta Stranger, and find themselves forced back on the path.
The Hunted: Players who may start off inherently wary of the Princess specifically, likely due to the game's genre of horror or having been slain by her earlier. They get the Beast, exactly the predatory monster they anticipated, but also get a chance to see the most benevolent side of the Princess in the Wild.
The Opportunist: Indecisive players who don't actually know who to trust, or whether to follow the Narrator's words or the Princess's, and will switch sides depending on whose giving the most compelling argument. They get their suspicions validated with the Witch, and must make a firm decision as to who trust.
The Paranoid: Players who know the game is a horror game and may be genuinely frightened of messing things up, thus opening themselves up to a frightening experience despite their caution. The Nightmare route is also the most explicitly traditional horror route the game gives and will push most of the players to take more risks in the future.
The Skeptic: Like the Opportunist, a player may be indecisive, but actively trying to "solve" the game by finding out the nature of the world they inhabit. Ironically, in the Prisoner, they find the dilemma of the game stripped down to its most basic form— there's no monsters or dark secrets, just a Princess who must either be released or slain.
The Stubborn: Players who see the Princess as an opponent to best only, unlike the Cheated, they understand the genre as a Visual Novel and act accordingly. They get a warrior princess to fight against in the Adversary, but in doing so are exposed to the more esoteric aspects of the game the most quickly.
In the Wild Route, if you break from the Princess and bring the Wounded Wild into existence, you'll find her with her chest torn open. Why? Because you two were joined at the heart and you ripped her chest open when you separated from her.
The Princess appears supernaturally strong, easily capable of shattering the Player's bones with her bare hands, but this is given new context once we find out the Player is some kind of avian creature: since birds have hollow bones to help them fly, the Player's bones are much more brittle than a human's, so of course it's easy for the Princess to break them.
The Player is a bird-like creature and is thematically associated with birds. He is trapped in the Construct, which would make it a bird cage.
The Voices are, well, voiced, but they're not your voice. When the Player speaks, or when there is narration not by the Narrator, it's unvoiced. The Player is, after all, the Long Quiet.
The Narrator's plan involves creating a story where the Player kills a Princess and then remains forever in the void; this will lead to the Shifting Mound dying by proxy, and the concept of change and death dying with her. The Mound can capture a Princess only after the first chapter has "failed" (specifically when the Player dies), therefore transforming the first Princess into something else - something that doesn't fit into the Narrator's plan.
Even then, the Mound can claim a Princess only when the latter is either out of her cabin, or when the scenario ends in a way that will not lead to another transformation. In the first case, the Princess gets out of her cabin and enters the void of the Long Quiet, aka the Mound's own "cabin"; in the latter case, the Princess has stopped changing in a meaningful way, and has entered a stable phase... And the Long Quiet is the embodiment of stability.
This also provides an explanation for why the Shifting Mound cannot claim a vessel you refuse to enter the cabin: instead of taking the Princess out of the cabin, transforming her or stabilizing her, you just left the story hanging. This doesn't apply to Chapter I because when you try to leave, the Narrator responds by creating infinite cabins, which destabilizes the world so badly that it ends up turning the Princess(es) into the Stranger.
The whole game is a scenario set up by the Creator of the Construct, who created the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound so that the former can kill the latter and bring the end to death and change in the universe. The Creator, however, is dead, and despite his echo, the Narrator's attempts to railroad the Player into that outcome, he does not have to pursue it at all. Due to theDeath of the Author, the story he wrote doesn't have to end the way he wanted it.
Why would the Prisoner refuse to communicate with you when you two get shackled together for an incredibly long passage of time, after the shackle you investigate ends up latching around your neck? Other than the fact that she Hates Small Talk, if you do follow the Prisoner's instructions correctly, you'll learn that she had her own plan to escape the cabin and flee, with you coming to visit her with a knife being a crucial part of her plan. However, when you get yourself shackled and the knife gets repelled away from you? Her plan gets sabotaged by your carelessness, so of course she'd be veryfrustrated by how you screwed her whole plan over and got you two locked away for seeming eternity, even if she's very calm and collected about it.
Why does the Voice of the Hero's Personality Power only active in finale? Because it's specifically his route, and his Personality Power activates because after various loops, he was able to forge a perspective that enabled both the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound to talk one on one.
Notably, while all of the other voices have a specific Personality Power, the Voice of the Hero's is the player's agency. The only moments in the game where the Hero is not present or detaches from us are scenarios where we haven't or unable to make our own choices. At the beginning of every Chapter 1 of a route, the Narrator and the Hero are alone as they talk to each other, and the Voice of the Hero only spawns after we make an active choice (either going to the cabin or leaving down the path). When the Player obeys the other Voices in their routes, the Hero takes a backseat, usually with some degree of annoyance, confusion, or reluctant acceptance (such as the Damsel route where he sits back when Smitten takes the reigns).
This is also why in the Nightmare route, he's so downtrodden; he's allowed you to make as many choices as possible but none of them meant anything in the long run.
Aside from the very beginning of Chapter 1s, the only other times when Hero disappears are when the Long Quiet confronts the Narrator or the Shifting Mound. Both of these are scripted events that happen regardless of Player input. But what happens if you start to question the Shifting Mound and engage in a fight? Hero appears, and offers you the chance to go to her heart and end it differently.
This also plays into his power against Smitten and Broken in their respective routes. Hero can't stop Smitten from killing us because it requires for us to have gotten up to the point of devoting to the Princess's escape, as well as Hero regretting killing her deep down. The Tower usurps our agency unwillingly, which automatically opposes Hero and Broken and allows him to fight back more meaningfully.
It also explains why the Voice of the Hero opted to stay behind in the "And? What happens next?" ending, the Player ultimately has full control of his agency and chooses to leave the construct with the Princess of his own accord.
The Player no longer needs his Voices or their Personality Powers as he has full control of his personality.
The Narrator actively prevented the Voice of the Hero's Personality Power from activating as He was preventing the Player from having true agency thus blocking the Voice of the Hero's Heart Is an Awesome Power ability.
Why is the concept of Life and Death being the Hero and a Princess respectively? It's because in fairy tales the hero always saves the princess, it's the right thing to do, afterwards the Hero falls in love with the princess he saved. With love, especially in fairy tales the two then live like soulmates, if one dies than the other has no reason to live, just like the concept of life meaning nothing without death.
The reason the Player character is a bird like monster? Because he views himself as one for going to kill a Princess.
A subtle hint as the Narrator's true origin as an echo of The Creator? His pronouns are always capitalized, as He and Him.
The Damsel appears to be a Flat Character designed mostly for Wish-Fulfillment, with no desires apart from leaving the cabin and making the player happy. However, she still has enough volition to want to leave the cabin, the Voice of the Smitten wants to free her from the cabin, and the Voice of the Hero is open to anything except slaying her. But if the player continually asks the Damsel what she really wants, she'll slowly break down, the Voice of the Hero is more unnerved by her Dissonant Serenity than before, and the Voice of the Smitten freaks out when the Shifting Mound takes her, saying she was their "perfect match". Ironically, insisting the Damsel must have more agency than she actually does and trying to "make" her a Round Character removes what little agency she does have, making her even flatter and satisfying no-one. By contrast, simply taking her at her word and helping her fulfill her Humble Goal satisfies everyone (except the Narrator) with a Happy Ending.
Even when you go along with His plan and kill the Princess, most of the Narrator's congratulations seem faintly sarcastic — He doesn't like very much, after all. But in the Spectre route, He gives a genuinely respectful, understated "you're a hero" if you kill yourself to destroy the princess. What's different? His Mortality Phobia. For Him, death is the worst thing that can happen to someone. He might not like you, but He can't not respect someone who's willing to make that great a sacrifice for the good of the world.
A lot of her lines in chapter one in particular make a lot of sense if the Princess is knowingly trying to exploit her perceptual nature. She gloats that she'll soon escape the chains if you try to leave her down here — and sure enough, she then casually breaks free from manacles she otherwise has to cut her arm off to escape. She mockingly asks you if you really think stabbing her will kill her, and sure enough, it doesn't. Even her harmlessly cutting off her arm occurs after she conspicuously shows apathy to cutting to her arm off, planting the idea it won't do much to her. The only way to kill her is to just stab her before she speaks, not letting her plant any ideas in your head. No wonder the Narrator is so desperate to avoid you talking to her — it's not just that it might warp her, it's that she's trying to control how she warps.
While the Princess and the Player's existences are rather tragic, the Narrator, from a meta perspective, is also living an incredibly pitiful existence. He kills himself in order to guide the Long Quiet to kill the Shifting Mound, meaning he will never experience the eternal life he's trying to achieve for the rest of the universe. Not only that, but the Narrator is, by the game's nature, doomed to fail in nearly any possible scenario the Player makes; the only possible avenue for the Player to fulfill the Narrator's wishes involve always taking the blade, limiting interactions with the Princess, killing her right away, and then being completely satisfied with sitting in a void for all of eternity. He has grossly underestimated the Shifting Mound's ability to work around his plan, as she only needs to claim one vessel to make the player commit to her completion. He also underestimates the potential good that the player (and potentially princess') ascension can do for life in the current (dying) or subsequent universe. Considering the caveats and the Player's natural curiosity towards the Princess, nearly all of these steps will be screwed up in one way or another, leaving each iteration of the Narrator to either witness their world be damned to oblivion or know that the Player's mind will merely be shunted to another reality, so death is still not permanently gone. And, to add insult to injury, the Narrator does not have the Ripple-Proof Memory of the the Player or the Princess, meaning he will never learn from past routes or grow beyond his initial knowledge from the very first Chapter 1 the Player achieves.
The Narrator is also incredibly held back by his Never My Fault attitude, in that he never once questions if his entire plan is morally wrong or even poorly thought out, and every version of the Narrator will assert that they are completely in the right with any issues being solely the fault of the Player's lack of effort. This attitude will inevitably be the unmaking of every Narrator, who won't even have the experience to recognize that the Player can try out every option and it still won't stop the Princess forever. It almost feels symbolic to the inevitability of death itself, which is very fitting.
The Narrator can alter the reality of the world in very minute ways, and will sometimes nudge the Player in certain directions to push him to slay the Princess (such as locking the door behind the Player and not opening it until the deed is done, or teleporting the Pristine Blade to the basement when the Player does not take it with him). In the Damsel route, which is one of the routes the Player is the kindest to the Princess and most antagonistic to the Narrator as a result, one gets the impression that the Narrator is purposely and spitefully dragging out the Player's death at the Princess' hands as a form of punishment for defying him so much.
During the lead up to the Moment of Clarity route, the Narrator is uncharacteristically horrified by the events during the unmasking. One might think is this just due to the Nightmare's ability to induce terror, but his tone during his abandonment of the Player sounds almost like guilt ridden sadness. This is because he is finally seeing the damage his construct has caused the Princess and Player, his conscience is finally getting a hold of him and he can bare it no longer to see it.
However, because each cabin and chapter has a different Narrator, he can't learn from this, or change, or try to make up for it. In the endgame, the Narrator who speaks to the Long Quiet across a broken mirror blithely says he'd happily commit two eternal beings like the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet to endless torment to spare people the torment of oblivion. He's not seen any inkling of what that's like.
The Moment of Clarity torments the Player character into being in a relationship with her and the abuse only stops when he stops fighting back against it.
The life the Narrator envisions for people outside of the Construct if the Long Quiet kills the Shifting Mound and is then content to exist alone eternally sounds... not great! No pain or fear, surrounded by their loved ones, forgetting and joyfully rediscovering? This sounds tremendously static. But one of the endings is worse - in "Just as you once were nothing", the Long Quiet refuses to bring the Shifting Mound any vessels or allow a single Princess to escape the cabin. Both of them wither away and fade. What happens in the outside world, if both are functionally dead?
The scariest answer; because the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound represent stability/life and change/death, the pair of them fading likely means both if these concepts disappear with them. In that case, the universe is both deathless and lifeless, and lacking change and stability, meaning that all of the universe could be stuck in a paradoxical limbo where they simultaneously cannot be dead or alive... which is an even worse fate than death.
alternatively, the universe could also settle into a sort of endless loop. Nothing can ever change meaningfully but the lack of stability means that SOMETHING still has to keep happening. Thus the universe could experience what we the players experience: a never-ending loop, going through the same day over and over again with the only differences being up to whatever individual agency is achievable in that time frame only for it all to start from the beginning with all memories of past events wiped away allowing people to continue to make the same discoveries and experiences for the first time repeatedly. Which in some ways can actually be worse.
. The Narrator is an echo of the Creator, who was mortal but as the one who made the Construct is in some senses a "god" of this world.