Fashion and Surrealism opening at The Fashion Institute of Technology(1987), photo by Seiji Kakizaki for High Fashion Magazine February 1988

• Just... Just listen to the "unfunny" clip, what's more to say, vote for the gay old guy
• Depending on the ending, he can be
• Spoilers I guess??? He's always trying to guide Stanley to the outcome HE wants, which is a very, very small chunk of the game where the player just obeys everything and doesn't experience anything else. Obeying Narrator to a T will win you the "Freedom" ending, where Stanley can finally leave the office building, and Narrator will wax on about how Stanley's "happy" and "finally free to live at last". ...exceeeept, on completion, Stanley will spawn right back in the building as though nothing happened, restarting the adventure all over again. The truth is that Stanley will never be free, regardless of what the Narrator says. Stanley is trapped in the building and will stay trapped no matter what. This truth can only be acknowledged if you're defiant, and even then, I may be mistaken but I'm pretty sure the Narrator never fully admits this??? The museum ending has a WHOLE DIFFERENT narrator explain their mutually fucked circumstances. The dishonest factors can increase in other ways from the player's input (for example, the Narrator might say "Stanley walked through the left door", but the player can use their input to defy this statement and go through the right one instead, therefore making the Narrator's statement inherently dishonest and the Narrator will get pissy about it, changing the outcome for that path). Sometimes he'll misdirect when he's petulant, especially if the player is directly defying his instructions, which makes the game feel like a game of tug-rope for control at points. I want to say there are times where he directly attempts to trick the player but admittedly I can't think of an exact instance. Plus you know, the Narrator has a large ego and always talks big about things like his importance and integrity and whatnot so who knows how much of that is even sincere and how much is a sad veneer, but that's getting into overanalysis territory and my fingers hurt so let's leave this here. I hope this was coherent.
• he quite literally rewrites the story whenever he has issues with the direction stanley starts to go in, i do not know how to explain it better than that
• He is literally the narrator, and he constantly tries to mislead and lie to Stanley through the narration to get him back on the story’s proper path
• He constantly narrates what Stanley is feeling as if it is the truth, when it is not. He speaks as a authority, and while he is one, he is definitely not reliable.

• (Spoilers for Ht9) She just. Fully ignores most of the magic plot happening around her in the first boom to be a dyke. In the second book it’s even less reliable and it’s fully fucking insane. It’s first person but she’s telling YOU (harrow) what is happening and it’s impossible to decipher. The appearance and personality of every character is fully morphed by Gideon’s mean dykishness.
• MASSIVE spoilers. Like even mentioning that this is a thing is a huge fucking spoiler. I normally don’t care about spoilers that much but I legitimately feel awful for anyone with even a passing interest in reading these books who has this spoiled for them. Anyway. Yeah turns out the second-person narration is actually a first-person narration by the dead girl living in Harrow’s head whose death traumatized Harrow (and the entire fandom) so badly that she literally lobotomized herself to forget it and give Gideon a chance at not having her soul digested.
• constantly adds her own commentary, does not pay attention to the interesting moving parts of the plot bc she's too busy looking at pretty girls, cannot be trusted to read her own intentions correctly never mind anyone else's. I love her dearly
• she just doesn’t notice or doesn’t give a shit about a ton of plot-essential information. Harrow and Palamedes are talking about a necromantic theorem that would blow open the entire story if we could hear them? You can instantly feel Gideon’s eyes glaze over and her mind wander to the nearest available hot girl, and our attention goes with her. It’s handled so smoothly that you might not even notice it happening until a second or third read.