Thinking corner: Does netflix's bandersnatch really give you control?

Disclaimer: I have not yet watched black mirror as a tv show, I am purely focusing on the interactive episode Bandersnatch oh also spoiler alert for this episode!

Bandersnatch is the newest craze for Netflix watchers, as the makers of black mirror put the audience into the driving seat and let them choose the fate of the main character; Stefan as he spirals into madness, the audience is then given choices at key times to determine what happens next in the plot. This would make us think that we genuinely have a choice in what happens. However! There are times where you are manipulated into a choice in order to progress, lets take the first major choice you are given as an example, Stefan goes to the game company Tuckersoft trying to convince them to fund his game idea, the manager(Thakur) agrees and offers you a deal you're first major choice pops up; do you accept the offer or decline? Being new to the experience, naturally, you would accept as that's kind of the reason he goes there in the first place. Instantly you are hit with doubt as Colin tells you that you've chosen the wrong path. Next scene shows the reviewer giving Bandersnatch a 0 out of 5, Stefan gets upsets and starts calling out that he has to do it again, next screen you have the option to end the game or go back to a significant choice and essentially go down a different route. Essentially you are forced down the rabbit hole in order to get the experience to last more than the measly 10 minutes you just got out of it.

First major choice in Bandersnatch: Netflix

There are times when something happens that should have been a choice but wasn't, for example, while Stefan was in the WHSmith regardless of which music you chose in the bus scene you are given the same choice between two albums, so you choose the music you want him to listen to and as he goes to the checkout he picks up a book about the author of Bandersnatch and his spiral into madness, at first you probably thought nothing of it but no matter how you progress the story he reads this book while he is extremely emotionally fragile and therefore more suggestible. He reads about how the author goes mad, starts seeing a glyph and a monstrous face everywhere, becomes convinced that his wife was trying to poison and control him and eventually killed her and because Stefan is in a very similar situation he starts to become paranoid and mimics the authors' behaviours, seeing the same glyph and drawing the same creature and eventually kills his father in one of the endings or finds out he's been controlling him since he was a kid in another ending.

Another example that I found while playing I played the game where Colin had jumped and completely disappeared, I reached the stage where I killed Stefan's father, I hit a game over went back in and played from a different point and Colin all of a sudden is back. My playthrough ended with Stefan going meta and saying that he stripped away all the players' choices. At the time I thought Colins return was because Stefan went back into the timeline and changed my options so that everyone lived and ignored my choices which I thought was very clever.

If you do follow Colin back to his place he kicks starts the no control paranoia for Stefan by telling him that someone else is always in control and that you can almost hear the code. He compares real life to that of a well-known arcade game Pacman where he explains that PAC stands for program and control and that Pacman was created to be controlled for entertainment just like the reality that he is currently in. He also goes on to explain how there are multiple timelines and realities and they are currently just following one specific path further proving that no matter what you choose in this story everything else is happening anyway, we are just seeing one particular possibility.

Bandersnatch also removes your option of not choosing, as many gamers who have played a choice driven game, we often have the option to not pick any of the choices we are presented with. As an example in 'Telltales - The Walking Dead' you can be given two choices in dialogue but if you don't choose either of them within the time limit you stay silent, which is considered a choice as well, the story adapts around that. In Bandersnatch however, if you don't choose one of the choices it just auto selects the choice that is highlighted so you have to choose one of the two options presented to you.

No option is an option in Telltales The Walking Dead

In conclusion yes Bandersnatch is an option driven interactive story; however, the choices you are given and the way they are carried out there's no way of getting a perfect ending. There's no way the audience can get an ending where Stefan doesn't spiral into madness, where no one dies, no one questions reality and the game gets completed with a good review. We are always forced into two places, madness or death, there's no passive/happy ending for the audience. I absolutely loved this experience as it really got me thinking about what was happening. Really made me want to see more, the main issue I do have with Bandersnatch is that I would have liked to have seen some of the lesser choices like music make a significant difference later in the game but that's just me being picky about it. Overall whether you've seen other black mirror episodes or not I highly recommend trying this experience.

8/10 Millnahs