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Characters / The Stanley Parable

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The small cast of The Stanley Parable.

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Main characters

    Stanley 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stanley_shrug.png
The titular protagonist. He is a normal, boring guy who pushes buttons all day and not much else. But one day, his coworkers all vanish, prompting him to try to discover what happened to them.
  • Butt-Monkey: Unfortunately for Stanley. Depending on player input, he can suffer in ways including but not limited to: shutting himself inside his office for the rest of eternity, getting goaded into jumping to his death, getting blown up by the Narrator when he tries to take control for himself, and getting crushed to death by a trash compactor. The fact that the player, who is a separate entity from Stanley, is the one actually inflicting all these fates upon him only intensifies this.
  • Cosmic Plaything: Thanks to the game's No Fourth Wall status, Stanley is almost always made this by the player. And when he isn't, he's being made one by the Narrator.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: In the "Bucket Window" ending in Ultra Deluxe, in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome he fights the monstrous bucket with a knife and wins. The Narrator even unironically praises him for the feat!
  • Driven to Madness: Happens to Stanley in the Insane ending, when the Narrator decides that Stanley decides he can't face his boss.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • In the Zending there is no other choice than to jump off the top of a staircase.
    • Zig-Zagged in the Museum ending. Stanley goes along the corridor labeled "escape", while the Narrator warns him that only death awaits him there. After that, multiple times it looks like he will die, but then he is saved, until finally he dies for real.
  • Featureless Protagonist: The majority of the original game is experienced in the first person, and his face is only seen once, most cutscenes showing the back of his head. Averted in Ultra Deluxe, which shows his face more prominently by way of posters, graphics, and collectible Stanley figurines; the player can also see him from a third person view during the "Infinite Hole" sequence.
  • Flat Character: He's basically a vessel for the player to explore the game and he doesn't even talk. The narrator may attempt to give Stanley some characterization but due to the player constantly going off-track, none of it sticks. The "Not Stanley Ending" even features him outside the player's control... and all he's doing is standing still.
  • Heroic Mime:
    • A weird example. Similar to some of their other games, Stanley lacks a voice or any real way of expressing himself, but the Narrator will sometimes make statements about what Stanley is allegedly saying/feeling/thinking at a given moment, though it's hard to say how reliable his descriptions are.
    • Parodied in the Real Person ending, where the keypad becomes a voice receiver which requires the player to speak the password. Since there's no way to say anything in the game, there's no way to open the door, and the game ends with the Narrator berating the player for not unlocking the door.
      "Stanley had been trained never to speak up."
  • Informed Attribute: He collects them by many thanks to how anything the Narrator describes Stanley to be doing is never seen in-game.
  • Married to the Job: Stanley; it's said that he loves his job and does it "every day, of every week, of every month, of every year".
  • Ridiculously Average Guy: His job is to push buttons. That's all he spends his life doing. Stanley's appearance also fits this to a T: a 30-something, clean-shaven caucasian male with short brown hair and unremarkable height and build, wearing a plain white button-up shirt, black pants, and shoes. The original game's stand-in model for Stanley was based off a generic, nameless NPC model from Half-Life 2, and the Ultra Deluxe edition depicts him with a newer, though largely unchanged model.
  • This Loser Is You: Stanley blindly presses buttons, obeying prompts on a screen with no understanding or wider life, depending on others to tell him what to do. Brought home strongest in the Phone ending. It might also be targeted by certain developers, represented in the Narrator, who treat their players like sheep, demanding arbitrary actions and expecting responses to events rather than allowing creativity or considering other responses.
  • They Killed Kenny Again: Dies in several endings, but since the game just resets at the end of every ending, he comes back just fine.
  • Unfazed Everyman: By virtue of being an exceedingly-ordinary man trapped in a video game controlled by The Narrator, who's a little off even on the nicer routes and is fully willing to screw with the narrative whenever given the occasion to do so, he's this.
  • You Are Number 6: At his job, he's known as employee 427.

    The Narrator 
Voiced by: Kevan Brighting

The man who narrates Stanley's journey. Though seemingly just a quirky narrator, depending on Stanley's actions, he can become the main antagonist, deuteragonist, or a supporting character to Stanley.

  • Absurd Phobia: The Narrator's greatest fear of all? Open-world games. Likely because the freedom they provide goes against his need to have Stanley follow one specific path with no deviations.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy:
    • The Narrator is much nicer to you in the Demo than he is to Stanley in the game. Additionally, in the game, during many of the Mind Screw segments, he continues his narration while in complete control of the story, while in the Demo he's just as confused as what's going on as you are.
    • He's also relatively nicer to you compared to how he was in the original Half-Life mod. In the original mod, the Narrator became antagonistic in all of the six endings where he addresses Stanley directly, the remaining two endings being Freedom and Insane. In the HD Remake, the Confusion Ending and the Zending have the Narrator warm up to Stanley or make a Heel–Face Turn respectively.
    • In Ultra Deluxe, the Narrator is considerably more nicer to Stanley and a lot more self-reflective on how the original game was not perfect and tries to enhance the experience for the player for better or worse. A lot of the new endings also has him drop the antagonistic tone, sometimes even if Stanley starts disobeying him.
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot / Benevolent A.I.: Depending on the route you take Stanley on, how much he's on your side or not varies.
  • Alas, Poor Villain:
    • In the Zending in the HD Remake, the Narrator will break down and beg you not to kill yourself, because for once in his life, he's happy. If you go against him and his story, he'll joyfully try to kill you, even if he needs to destroy the entire facility to do it.
    • Confusion reveals that not even the Narrator is safe from railroading, that even though he's controlling Stanley and most of the overall story, even he's not in control in the end.
    • In the Real Person ending, the Narrator begins frantically begging the now-playerless Stanley to pick a door to walk through so that the story can progress—which Stanley can't do without the player's influence.
    • In the Skip Button ending, the Narrator, after discovering the Steam reviews, takes one to heart, specifically of a "Skip Dialogue" button. Unfortunately for the Narrator, the dialogue skip sends Stanley forwards in time in increasing intervals... but not the Narrator, who proceeds to Go Mad from the Isolation after enough skips.
  • The Alleged Boss: Despite being the narrator of the game, he frequently comes off as this in relation to the player and Stanley. He has no real power in relation to the player and lacks any real ability to get them to obey him, and frequently attempts to be as "buddy-buddy" as possible with Stanley, who has no way to be on equal footing with the entity who can quite easily destroy him if he gets pissed off.
  • Ambiguously Evil: The Narrator may or may not be evil depending on the route you choose. In some endings he's the Big Bad, insulting, harming, and even killing Stanley, while in others he just wants to entertain Stanley and make him happy.
  • Ambiguously Human: He certainly talks like a human, but all you as the player or Stanley get to know him as is the disembodied voice that controls the games world and narrates your every move, but the few occasions where it even comes up seem to cast him as something distinctly not that; he discusses humanity like something he's learned about through only a few bad books, and doesn't understand much about what people want or need to make their lives fulfilling.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: In the Real Person ending, the Narrator gets what he wants, which is to remove the player's influence. But, without a player to influence him, Stanley can't do anything, and the Narrator doesn't seem to immediately understand why.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: He might be a bit of a Cloud Cuckoo Lander, and will occasionally play along with some of your weirder deviations from the plot, but piss him off quickly enough and he will remind you that, for all intents and purposes, he is very much the one in control of how the story goes.
  • Big Bad: How "bad" he is depends heavily on the ending, but in general, the Narrator is the constant, godlike entity who tries to force Stanley to follow his story. He's also revealed to have been the one who erased Stanley's coworkers in one ending. If Stanley rebels against him, he will do everything in his power to stop Stanley from achieving freedom.
  • Break the Comedian: The Narrator provides a good deal of the humour in the game, responding to the players' attempts at rebellion with passive-aggressive sarcasm, barely-restrained irritation, acerbic wit, growing bewilderment, deeply inappropriate slideshows, and over-the-top music. However, a few endings deliberately set out to remove the humour from the equation, either by turning the Narrator into a more overtly villainous figure or by gradually turning him into as much of a pawn as Stanley. In the Real Person ending, after losing his temper at the player for refusing to obey his commands, the Narrator apparently manages to sever your control over Stanley and banish you to a spot outside the office... only to realize that without a player at the controls, Stanley can't do anything. Throughout the credits, the Narrator is pleading for Stanley to do something, anything to make the story progress, until he sounds on the verge of tears; in the end, he despairingly opts to give Stanley time to decide and falls completely silent. Worst is the Skip Button ending, in which he ends up going insane from waiting for Stanley to regain consciousness from using the skip button. The last time he appears, he's muttering "The end is never the end is never the end" over and over to himself.
  • British Stuffiness: The game wouldn't be as great without British VA Kevan Brighting's dry narration, particularly when you go against his story.
  • Can't Take Criticism: Zig-Zagged based on the Ending. He gets taken aback over you not liking his homemade video game in the "Games" ending, but seems perfectly willing to add a skip-button to the game when one Steam reviewer complains about his Motor Mouth tendencies, which ends up working a bit TOO well.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: His trains of thought (which tend to translate to active changes in the game itself), seem to make almost no sense to anyone except himself. For example, the idea that adding a bucket for Stanley to carry around throughout the game constitutes an entire sequel.
  • Control Freak: The Narrator only intends to have Stanley follow the story he sets out in the beginning, and he takes deviation unpleasantly and sometimes personally. Occasionally he turns into a Killer Game Master.
  • Creative Sterility: The Narrator is fairly intelligent and philosophical, but also deeply uncreative. All of his grand ideas for storytelling and game design are very basic and unstructured, with no resonance or cohesion. Things the Narrator considers his brilliant works include a very simple undetailed story of Stanley escaping a mind-control facility, a tedious game involving pressing a button to stop a baby from reaching a fire, a very rudimentary Minecraft house structure, and ideas like adding balloon decorations and contextless infinite holes to make a sequel to The Stanley Parable interesting.
  • Creator Breakdown: invoked
    • In-universe with the Narrator. He has spent a lot of time in designing the story, creating a complex story about Stanley being under control of some unknown force along with the rest of his coworkers. To have his work being destroyed by you causes him to breakdown and scream at you.
    • The Real Person Ending ups this tragedy. If you go through the right door instead of the left door, you unintentionally mess up the story. The Narrator yells at you for corrupting the story and attempts to salvage it by resetting the game, only to make it worse. However, even if you do follow through with his instructions, he still gets upset because you can't say the password.
    • He doesn't take the remake's lack of new content very well, and creates a world of memories back around the original Stanley Parable's release. However, Stanley ends up finding a bunch of Steam reviews, most of which are more critical of the Narrator and the game than the ones he has framed. That said, he's at least willing to take their criticisms to heart, such as the review saying that a way to skip his dialogue would be appreciated... but even that blows up in his face.
  • Deadpan Snarker: The Narrator is prone to sarcastic remarks, mainly when you disobey his orders or do something dumb/baffling. For example, if you return to the boss's office twice during the "Elevator Ending":
    "I can't even begin to grapple what might be up there. Is it the boss's office again? Or what if it's the boss's office this time? The suspense is killing me."
  • Digital Avatar: Word of God made it canon that the cartoony Holmes-esque figure in the thumbnail for Where is The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe? is this for the Narrator.
  • Ditzy Genius: The Narrator is demonstrated to be legitimately intelligent and sophisticated, but has the tendency to go off on odd, unrelated (and often incorrect) philosophical tangents, to change paths at the drop of a hat, and to do things with no thought of the consequences for Stanley or even himself.
  • Evil Brit: The Narrator, possibly—or at least in the "Pawn" and "Countdown" endings where he’s at his absolute lowest and is outright trying to kill Stanley for going against his narrative.
  • Evil Laugh: The Narrator does this in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Stanley during the Countdown ending.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Even at his most villainous, the Narrator continues to speak in his usual chatty British-Accented tone, most prominent when he is taunting Stanley during the Countdown ending.
  • Fun with Subtitles: Seems to work in tandem with his narration powers, changing color to reflect his emotions on multiple occasions and even switching to meme speak at one point to better go with a joke he tells you in the Broom Closet.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: During the Skip Button sequence in Ultra Deluxe, using said button to skip the Narrator's rambling — which becomes the only way to proceed once the only door in the room disappears — causes him to lose his sanity as Stanley skips ahead in time while leaving him alone with nobody to talk to. The amount of time that Stanley skips goes from minutes and hours to weeks and years, and after skipping ahead enough times the Narrator truly loses it.
    Narrator: The end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never the end is never...
  • Green-Eyed Monster: In the Ultra Deluxe version, he becomes envious of Stanley during some of the bucket routes, namely how close Stanley is to the bucket, wishing for the bucket to be destroyed or taken away from Stanley. It's extra hilarious, considering that he's the one who made the bucket a thing in the first place.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Surprisingly enough, he tends to be this with Stanley, especially in endings like Zending or Skip Button.
  • Humanoid Abomination: While the Narrator goes unseen in the game proper, Word of God reveals that the Narrator largely looks human, albeit with a computer for a head. Averted with his Digital Avatar, who looks entirely human.
  • Hypocrite: Aside from the below gag, if the Narrator discovers and berates you for your capacity to make correct and incorrect choices, he claims Stanley and his wife would have pledged themselves to each other, a previously mentioned plot that the Narrator himself chooses to deviate from should Stanley answer instead of unplug the phone.
  • Hypocritical Humor: A running gag is the fact that while the Narrator's original vision of The Stanley Parable's story seems to be all about breaking free and making your own choices, the Narrator is incensed whenever Stanley starts doing anything the Narrator didn't explicitly tell him to do.
  • Interactive Narrator: Probably the most literal example. You are free to follow or completely disobey the Narrator's attempts at telling his story, and watch him try to react accordingly.
  • It's All About Me: In the lift room, the Narrator tries to apply psychological pressure by claiming that the story has been all about you and that you should give more consideration to his advice instead.
  • Jerkass: During his worse moments. When he's not being flat-out evil like in the “Countdown” ending, he can be passive-aggressive and selfish, like in the “Games” ending.
  • Just Toying with Them:
    • The Narrator will not only blow you up, but will add an extra minute to the countdown mid-way through, just because he's enjoying watching you squirm.
    • At one point, the Narrator opens a door just to close it right before you can walk through. Then he opens another one and does the same prank over again. (Although, this may be the case in which both him and you are being toyed with, since he is genuinely confused at where you are supposed to go to progress the story again.)
  • Killer Game Master: The Narrator starts trying to be this if Stanley pushes in the opposite direction too much, but only really goes through with it in the Countdown, Powerful, and Apartment endings.
  • Know-Nothing Know-It-All:
    • The Narrator considers himself a genius storyteller, but his "masterpiece" is dull, trite, and incoherent. He also has some surprisingly simple pleasures, such as his glee at the "cup game" in the demo, and being delighted at constructing the bare minimum of a shelter in Minecraft; his idea to improve it is just to replace the blocks with diamond.
    • Ultra Deluxe makes an extended gag about all his great ideas for things to put in a sequel, which ends up being a small handful of ideas that tend to be along the lines of "put balloons on things."
  • Lack of Empathy: It's up to player interpretation as to what extent this really applies (he did create Stanley, after all, who doesn't seem to have any more sentience than a child's toy), but if you go against what he wants, he can get nasty quick.
  • Lemony Narrator: Particularly if you do the opposite of what it says you will do.
  • Manchild: He is shown to take childlike glee in certain things, like building a dirt house in Minecraft.
  • Madness Mantra: After enough skips in the Skip Button Ending, the last thing you hear of the Narrator is him repeating the game's loading screen phrase over and over. ("The end is never.") He'll keep repeating it until you skip again.
  • Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: The Narrator is perfectly cordial if you only do what he says, but if you decide to ignore him, anticipate quite a bit of push-back being sent your way.
  • Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Due to his lack of understanding when it comes to humanity and his unwillingness to listen to anyone that isn't himself when it comes to how his story goes, even the nicer endings you can end up with doing things his way tend to come along with a whole host of rather unnerving implications.
  • Non-Human Head: He'd look human if it weren't for his computer-head.
  • Precision F-Strike: He doesn’t swear much, so when he actually does, it stands out. One deleted scene in particular features a Pickle Rick reference where he drops the S-bomb.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: Depending on which route you take (and how much you manage to piss him off in the process) the Narrator's overall lack of understanding when it comes to human desire and the world outside of his story and his lack of empathy for Stanley (certain endings imply that he views Stanley as little more than a doll he made that just so happens to be capable of making choices, whether he's justified in that view is up to the player) can combine to create rather catastrophic results, as shown in the Countdown, Apartment, and Insane endings.
  • Puppet King: The Narrator may be this, as the Confusion ending introduces the idea that the Narrator, like Stanley, is trapped in a path charted out by someone else - specifically, the female Narrator who appears in the Museum ending. The Skip-Button ending, the unlock-able Epilogue, and the existence of the Settings Person only further serves to muddy the waters.
  • Oh, Crap!: He has a bit of a freakout after the post-Epilogue content if the player actually does use the repaired Achievement Machine. Apparently the Narrator doesn't know about the Settings Person, because he's immediately puzzled and then has a bit of a panic over the possibility that someone unknown to him is observing them.
  • Reality Warper: The Narrator has the ability to alter the environment as he pleases. It's a sign that things have gone very, very wrong in the Skip Button ending when he realizes that he can no longer do this and that him and Stanley have both been trapped in the room with the Button, and hints at larger forces at play in the Museum and Confusion endings when things begin to interfere with his ability to directly control Stanley and his ability to reset the game's world.
  • Resignations Not Accepted: Though he is loathe to admit anything that might shake the player's faith in his status as the game's controller, the Figurine ending of Ultra Deluxe heavily implies that he is stuck in the game's world completely alone, with no way to leave it no matter how much he might want to, and created Stanley as a way to simply give him something to do.
  • Sadist: While the Narrator usually doesn't cross the line of sadism, he does in the Countdown ending, outright admitting he's finding Stanley being stuck in a room that's about to explode with no escape despite all signs indicating there should be a way out amusing.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Although his dialogue is full of Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, he is shown to occasionally swear and use slang as well.
  • Troll: In the HD Remake, the Narrator seems to outright become this if Stanley gets onto the cargo lift and immediately steps off again, causing the lift to leave him behind. The Narrator then actively encourages Stanley to jump several stories below to the warehouse floor.
    Narrator: You know what? Looking at it now, it's not that far to the bottom floor, I bet you can make it. Come on, I'm sure you'll survive the jump. Don't tell me you're scared; that's not the Stanley I know. (in various mocking tones) Do it! DO it! DOOO IT! Doit doit doit doit!
    (Stanley steps off and plunges to his death)
    Narrator: Whoops, looks like I was wrong. How clumsy of me.
  • Unreliable Narrator: You can make the Narrator this or not depending on your actions. He tends to not be amused. Outside of that, he is also fully willing to make things up to seem in control or to sound smarter, has a very fallible memory, and is willing to lie to both the player and Stanley whenever he sees fit.
  • The Voice: The Narrator is heard but never seen.
    • In the "Launch Presentation" trailer, the Narrator seems to be a disembodied voice, as Stanley looks at the direction of an open door while the Narrator is rushing into the presentation room.
    • In the HD Remake, due to the mechanics of the Source engine, the Narrator is represented as a megaphone.
    • In the Ultra Deluxe-exclusive Vent ending, it's briefly suggested that all of the Narrator's lines are pre-recorded onto cassettes, before the Narrator pops back in and admonishes Stanley for believing such a cliché twist.
  • Unwitting Pawn: Implied to be one to forces we never see in the Confusion and Real Person endings, (and depending on your interpretation of the Curator's role in the game's world, may be one of these in the Museum ending as well.) Ultra Deluxe's content only adds fuel to the fire with the Skip-Button ending, the game's Epilogue, and various statements made by the Settings Person while conversing with the player.
  • Villainous Breakdown: The Narrator gets progressively more and more antagonistic as you walk through the game without following the pre-determined story. He outright loses it when you get the Real Person ending.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: If you manage to disrupt his storyline enough to throw it off track but not enough to get the Narrator to outright rage quit on you, he often develops this sort of relationship with both the player and Stanley. This is most noticeable in endings like Games, Confusion, or Tape Recorder.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In Ultra Deluxe, as Stanley keeps pressing the skip button, the Narrator is fully aware of this, undergoes Sanity Slippage, and then outright vanishes. Considering that the final ending wraps around to this story, it is outright implied that the Narrator died sometime between the resets, until the Settings Person does a hard reset to the game.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: During the updated Game Ending in the Ultra Deluxe version of the game, when Stanley attempts to explore after ending up in Firewatch, The Narrator realizes with horror that they're in an open-world game, and hurriedly spawns walls to stop him, reacting with quite visceral upset and disgust at the mere idea.

Secondary characters

Original

    Instructional Film Narrator 
Voiced by: Kevan Brighting

Heard in the "Choices" video and other videos of its type. Speaks with an American accent.

  • Propaganda Piece: The Bucket version of their video ends with them supporting a war against multi-legged insectoid monsters.

    Museum Ending Character (Unmarked Spoilers) 

The Second Narrator

Voiced by: Kim Hoffmeister (original mod), Lesley Staples (HD Remake and Ultra Deluxe)

A mysterious lady who rescues Stanley in the Museum ending and attempts to get the player to see the game for what it is- that no ending will truly end well for both Stanley and the Narrator and that the best way to help them is to stop playing entirely.

  • Benevolent A.I.: At least in the Museum Ending, where she expresses concern about both the Narrator and Stanley. Assuming however she's the one in charge of the other endings such as the Confusion Ending, she may be less benevolent than she appears.
  • Big Good: She cares about both the Narrator and Stanley and encourages the player to quit the game to save him. However, it's unclear if this is the case in every ending where she comes into play.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Some endings, namely Confusion, imply that there's an unknown, higher force pulling all the strings, and that The Narrator is just as much a puppet as Stanley. We don't meet it until the Museum ending, where it is a second, female Narrator. Subverted in this particular ending, where she is not malicious at all and is in fact trying to help you.
  • Humanoid Abomination: Like the primary Narrator before her, she's a reality-warping computer-headed humanoid.
  • Sheathe Your Sword: She advises that you stop playing entirely and spare yourself any further trouble, knowing that none of the endings will be remotely satisfying. She outright tells you to pause the game and press the escape key on PC, and on consoles, she tells you to turn the console off.
  • Not So Above It All: In the bucket variation of the Museum ending, she is just as obsessed with the bucket as Stanley and the first narrator, outright saying Stanley deserves to die for not appreciating the bucket enough.

    Mariella 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mariella_tsp.png
A female character who only appears in the Insane ending.
  • Ambiguous Situation: It's unknown if she's in the same situation as Stanley.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: The narrative switches to her in the Insane ending's cutscene.
  • Companion Cube: In the bucket version of her ending, she carries her own bucket, and feels quite assured in the fact that she has it, even declaring that her life “kicks ass” because of it, and (correctly) assumes Stanley’s death came about from him not having a bucket.
  • Unnecessary Combat Roll: In the bucket version of her ending, she backflips her way to work, simply because having a bucket reminds her that “my life kicks ass”.

    Stanley's Wife 
Voiced by: Aviva Pinchas
  • Cargo Ship: She's literally just a female mannequin. invoked
  • Real After All: Hinted to in phone calls with her and in the normal Elevator ending, where she sends a message of encouragement to Stanley before the press conference through a sticky note.

    Demo Receptionist 
Voiced by: Jenny Kuglin

    "Eight" Button 
Voiced by: Davey Wreden
  • Creator Cameo: Its "voice" is provided by one of the game's main developers.

    Broom Closet 
  • Empty Room Psych: Serves literally no particular purpose in the story and The Narrator will simply get annoyed if Stanley (and to an extant, the player) remains in there for a long period of time. By the second time, he gives up arguing and waits for them to finish up in there, by the third time he has boarded up the door.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Starts showing disdain for Stanley's relationship with the Bucket if he brings it there.
  • Silent Treatment: Gives Stanley and the Bucket this after its "argument" with them.

    The Stanley Parable Adventure Line™ 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/followtheplottedline_9978.png

Ultra Deluxe-exclusive characters

    Ultra Deluxe Intro Narrator 
Voiced by: Alex Hirsch
  • Snake Oil Salesman: He makes a grand show out of advertising the New Content introduced in the Ultra Deluxe version of the game, which (originally) just amounts to a limited-use jump function.

    Cookie9 
A user on Steam/Pressurized Gas who gave the game a thumbs-down review.
  • Caustic Critic: Their review expresses annoyance at the Narrator, feeling as though they have to stop and wait for him to stop talking far too often. Their later blog post reviewing the sequel is almost just as caustic, but enjoyed the bucket, and claims they did enjoy the original game in hindsight.
  • Online Alias: We never learn what their real name is, just what their username is on Steam and their blog.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Their negative review of the game, and their demand for a 'skip' results in The Narrator to implement one, then eventually regretting it...

    The Bucket 

Stanley Parable Reassurance Bucket

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_201.png
"Voiced" by: Kevan Brighting

A bucket in Ultra Deluxe. Picking up this metal container will change the outcome of some endings, as the Narrator will take notice and will start bending the storyline to focus on Stanley's strange attraction to this bucket, often playing up the bucket as if it was an actual character.

    The Settings Person (Unmarked Spoilers) 

Employee 432

An unseen/unheard character that directly interacts with the player everytime upon starting up the Ultra Deluxe version of the game in order to collect info from them. They appear in the Epilogue to reassure the player that game's story will go on, and they fix the machine that allows them to get the unachievable achievement.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Apparently, having a pencil sharpener but no pencils to sharpen is enough to drive a person insane and eventually become one with the universe.
  • Ambiguous Gender: They appear to be nothing else but text on screen, and nothing is given about their gender as a human.
  • Ambiguously Human: Considering they were Employee 432, they definitely were human at one point, but it's unclear if that stuck or not when they ended up in a different plane of existence.
  • The Anti-Nihilist: Comes to terms with their existence after a while and decides that the Narrator was too obsessed with trying to please everyone and that the game isn't some sacred cow, so they can do whatever the hell they want, because it'll be more fun that way.
  • Canon Character All Along: A new paper added in the Confusion Ending outside of the Employee 432 peer review room mentions them muttering about "keeping the wheel turning," matching with a line spoken by the Settings Person and implying they're one and the same. Word of God from a stream outright confirms this.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: That text telling you to adjust the time? They become important later.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: They were this as Employee 432, given they have an entire room dedicated to complaints about them.
  • Madness Mantra: "I must keep the wheel turning" if their time as 432 is any indication.
  • Oddly Named Sequel: After playing the Epilogue, they'll make player pick one for every time they boot up the game.
  • Sanity Slippage: Went through this as Employee 432 when they were given a pencil sharpener but deprived of pencils to sharpen.
  • The Voiceless: Speaks only in text.
  • Walking Spoiler: The unseen character that interacts with the player in the beginning holding significance later would be a spoiler enough on its own, but the fact that it's part of the epilogue and seemingly more powerful than the Narrator and they were likely Employee 432 elevates them to this status.

    Tape Man 
Voiced by: Joe Finegold
  • Apocalyptic Log: The Bucket version of the Tape Recorder ending has him narrate how he'll exploit using the Bucket's powers for profit, only for something to come after him, with his last word being "Gambhorra'ta".

    The Bucket Destroyer 
A Bucket-destroying device with a supposedly deep backstory that the Narrator creates just because he's gotten tired of Stanley carrying the Bucket everywhere.
  • But Thou Must!: You can't feed it the bucket that it's supposed to destroy; attempting to do so will just result in Stanley looking at the bucket in refusal.
  • Fatal Flaw: Destroying buckets is all that the Bucket Destroyer knows. Being unable to destroy Stanley's bucket leads to its undoing.
  • Flat Character: The Narrator admits that destroying buckets is all it knows, and that is its singular personality trait.
  • Merchandise-Driven: The Narrator openly wonders what Bucket Destroyer merchandise the fans will be asking for.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: It dies just minutes after the Narrator introduces us to it.

    Gambhorra'ta 

Other Characters

    Mysterious Characters 

"Employee 425" and "Airport Man"

A pair of mysterious male figures who can be observed by Stanley on separate occasions. "Employee 425" can be observed wandering down the hallway only seen through Room 425's windows. "Airport Man" (Ultra Deluxe-only) can only be seen in both the No Buckets (if the player gets all answers correctly) and Three endings, both times he can be seen watching Stanley from afar.

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