"Now they've only got the illusion of free will
but really, *I* decide the ending."
The Black Mirror event Bandersnatch is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
that ends in misery no matter what you do.
“People think it’s a happy game.
It’s not a happy game.
It’s a [BLEEP] nightmare world.
And the worst thing is it’s real
and we live in it.”
As you’re participating in this interactive narrative,
you might be wondering when you’ll encounter that big “twist”
that’s Black Mirror’s bread and butter.
But in Bandersnatch, the twist doesn’t come from within the story
(which has any number of potential surprises, paths, and endings).
The twist is in the format itself --
in the act of watching (or playing, depending how you look at it).
Bandersnatch starts out giving us the free-wheeling promise
of choice and adventure --
the subtle delight of selecting between
Frosties and Sugar Puffs,
or the Thompson Twins and Eurythmics.
[Sings] "I want to breathe in the open wind..."
Yet, inevitably, the story snowballs into some variation
on a horrific nightmare that we can't escape.
So the real twist is that we, like Stefan,
only ever had the ILLUSION of control.
He complains that he feels like a puppet whose decisions are being made for him
"I-I'm not in control."
"Of?"
"Anything."
but while this meta-humor may make us laugh
"What is Netflix?
Is it a planet?"
the joke’s on US because WE, too, are the puppets,
being controlled by
Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker and director David Slade.
So here’s our take on how Bandersnatch beats us down into understanding that
we’re not in control and the best thing we can do
is accept how powerless we really are in our own lives too.
"Get away from me!
Just stay away from me.
I'm not in control."
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"I-it...
Some sort of f-future entertainment th-thing."
"Like a computer game?"
Audiences have debated whether this interactive film format
is really more of a film or a video game.
But while Bandersnatch feels like a game
in that it presents us with an array of choices,
we have far less agency than in a typical game.
In fact, our situation might make us think of the episode Black Museum
when Carrie's consciousness gets placed inside her husband’s head
"I'm talking about taking Carrie's consciousness
from that broken shell and putting it in there.
Like a hitchhiker.
Like a passenger."
before ending up in a stuffed monkey that allows her to select only two modes:
"Monkey loves you.
Monkey needs a hug."
We’re backseat drivers.
No matter what we do,
the numerous endings and flows lead to a similarly bleak place.
We end up murdering our father,
being violent with or killing others,
going to jail,
losing our minds,
numb,
jumping off a balcony,
committing mental suicide,
discovering a terrible conspiracy,
or some combination of the above.
The creative endeavor we're doing all this for fails, too.
The game turns out badly
"Two and a half stars out of five.
Disappointing."
or isn't completed;
even in the ending when it is a hit
"My rating is five stars out of five.
Magnificent!"
it’s later pulled from the shelves
because people find out we decapitated our dad.
So while all these endings are different in their details,
we can’t affect the outcome in any meaningful way.
And we certainly can’t win
"Your fate has been dictated.
It's out of your hands."
Colin articulates the key philosophy of Bandersnatch
during the LSD scene,
when he gives his interpretation of the Pac-Man game:
"The whole thing’s a metaphor.
He thinks he’s got free will, but really he’s trapped in a maze.
In a system.
All he can do is consume."
It's easy to see that this speech is describing Stefan’s situation.
And it’s also a greater statement about how, as consumers,
we let ourselves be seduced by the illusion of choice
into ignoring our impotence in society.
But most immediately, the speech is speaking about US,
as the players/ viewers of this experience:
"He’s pursued by demons that are probably just in his own head.
And even if he does manage to escape by slipping out one side of the maze,
what happens?
He comes right back in the other side."
We're the consumers,
we’re trapped in a hell, and any time we think we’ve escaped,
we’re just thrown back into another part of that hell.
So, as with the grimmest of Black Mirror episodes,
this Black Mirror event is an experience of total dread.
Except it’s MORE unpleasant than the others
because we probably start out with some amount of misguided optimism,
thanks to the light-hearted opening choices,
the fun of the 80's music,
and the novelty of the format.
We ARE Stefan,
because we can only watch ourselves assist this grotesque horror unfolding around us.
Our attempts to resist, like his attempts to resist us,
yield only short-lived, inconsequential victories.
Stefan feels like he’s being possessed by some demonic force,
"I'm being controlled by someone from the future."
and what makes Bandersnatch creepier than the most hopeless other Black Mirror episodes
is that we end up feeling WE'VE been possessed and defiled.
Just as Stefan feels he’s been made to commit terrible acts,
we feel we’ve just done something horrific,
but we couldn’t stop ourselves.
This feeling of being INFILTRATED
is what makes the film so deeply uncomfortable.
As Brooker said, quote,
“Normally, if you’re watching a linear story,
you put yourself in the main character’s shoes
and forget that you exist.
In Bandersnatch, you can’t forget that you exist
because you are constantly being reminded that there’s a device in your hand...”
And he added, too, that they were trying to make it so, quote,
“You would feel responsible for what is happening to him."
"I know there's someone there.
Just give me a [BLEEP] sign!"
The idea of doing a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure that underscores futility
is about as Black Mirror as you can get.
In fact, as we participate in Bandersnatch,
we have the vague feeling of being a character within a Black Mirror episode
who’s been offered some shiny new piece of tech
and stupidly accepted.
“It’s a free trial.”
“Oh, free.
Yeah.”
“Yeah.
And it’s completely safe.”
Just like those ill-fated characters, we jump in enthusiastically,
"Are you ready?"
"Oh yeah!
Beam me up!
Here we go!"
ignoring the warning signs as we get sucked into a losing battle.
Structurally, Bandersnatch finds clever ways to give us
the usual Black Mirror beats and lessons,
but updated to fit the interactive format.
So like in a standard episode, we get early hints
that this is not going to go well.
Colin remarks that the author of the book Bandersnatch
went crazy and killed his wife
"Didn't he go bonkers and cut his wife's head off?"
and if you’ve ever seen Black Mirror,
you know an offhand disturbing remark like this
tends to give us a pretty accurate indication
of the direction the story is about to go in.
"It's not an interrogation."
"You ever have one of those relationships where you just can't get someone
out of your head?"
In the same scene, we receive a super exciting pitch --
Stefan is offered the chance to work on his passion project
at a trendy game company, alongside his idol Colin.
"So here's my proposal.
Come and write it here."
But if you're an experienced Black Mirror viewer,
the main lesson you should have internalized by now is
look before you leap.
This is the “too good to be true” moment
that we recognize from countless Black Mirror episodes.
"I can sign you up to something that helps.
It will let you speak to him."
The offer of a great-sounding new gadget or opportunity
the characters later regret signing up for without being more skeptical.
"They want to do a pilot."
"A Waldo pilot?"
"Yeah.
I mean, how does that sound?"
"Yeah, s-sounds good."
If you select “refuse,” Stefan even calls it just that to his therapist:
"Too?"
"Good to be true."
Here, he’s like a Black Mirror character becoming CONSCIOUS,
reflecting the awareness and wariness of viewers who’ve seen a lot of the show.
But while this version of Stefan is on the right track with his caution,
it’s not enough and it doesn't make any difference.
If you hit "accept," Stefan eventually decides
this was the wrong choice
"No stars out of five.
Terrible."
"I should try again."
so the game resets.
But if you "refuse," Stefan still works on the game from home.
"I need to write it how I know.
You know, just me.
At home."
Many of the choices we make lead to the same result...
if we refuse to take the LSD, Colin slips it into our tea.
"Chose for you."
Or you get choices between two things that aren’t really different.
As Vox wrote,
“The choices we’re presented with on Stefan’s behalf
are variants of ‘bad’ and 'worse’.”
"One of us is jumping.
So who's it gonna be?"
Bandersnatch gets really meta in parts
"So all of this is happening to entertain someone?
Someone who's controlling you?"
"Uh huh."
"So why aren't you in a more entertaining scenario?"
But all this tongue-in-cheek playfulness speaking to savvy fans
ultimately still feeds into the message of futility.
Knowing you’re in Black Mirror,
understanding its tricks
and trying to avoid its pitfalls
won’t save you.
There’s no escaping.
The mistake we made was consenting to play a game called Black Mirror.
How did we think this was going to end well?
"There's a sad, sick story behind most everything here."
One of the most intriguing elements of Bandersnatch
is the demonic-seeming symbol that pops up throughout.
It’s the symbol that author Jerome F. Davies
wrote in blood on his walls after killing his wife,
and that appears all over Stefan’s room as he’s working on the game.
Black Mirror fans will recognize this symbol from White Bear,
the episode about a woman convicted of taking part in a child murder,
who’s punished anew every day to entertain an angry crowd.
"How do you like it now?
HOW DO YOU LIKE IT?!"
[Shouts] "Murderer!"
[Sobs]
Repeating the symbol here could be a hint that Stefan, too,
is in a White Bear-esque hellish simulation
to punish him for his crimes.
This feels plausible --
like Victoria, he’s stuck in a horrific loop that,
at least in some scenarios, reveals him to be a murderer.
And of course, Stefan IS within a hellish artificially-constructed simulation
for OUR entertainment.
Like White Bear, Bandersnatch highlights audiences’ desires to,
on some level, punish or torture the person they’re watching.
And it reminds us that the viewer is COMPLICIT.
In White Bear, the symbol is a part of Victoria’s punishment --
a reminder of the terrible thing she did,
since it comes from her murderer fiancé’s tattoo
“Iain Rannoch, identified by his distinctive tattoo,
killed the youngster as Victoria Skillane held the camera.”
And we also get an insinuation, like in Bandersnatch,
that this could be an actual demonic symbol
that makes people do terrible things against their will.
"Breaking down in tears, Skillane admitted to filming Jemima's final moments,
claiming her fiancé had pressured her into helping him,
maintaining she was 'under his spell.'"
We also see the White Bear symbol in Playtest,
another episode that centers on a horrific simulation
and gives us the feeling that a mysterious outside power
is controlling the action.
"Mom.
[screams] MOOOMMMM!"
"Mom!
Mom!
Mom!"
(Incidentally, Playtest was also once pitched as an interactive episode.)
And Bandersnatch refers in prominent visuals to the episode Metalhead,
which happens to be directed by Slade.
We’re told here that Metl Hedd is a video game developed by Colin,
suggesting, as many speculated at the time, that Metalhead’s hell was a simulation.
Overall, Bandersnatch is packed with Easter eggs and references to other episodes,
including San Junipero, another simulation-centered story.
But as we look closer in Bandersnatch, we discover a truly clever deeper meaning
to this symbol --
it’s the unit of the flowchart that Stefan uses to plot out the video game.
So the symbol comes to represent the option of an alternate path --
a decision itself.
And this is the fundamental topic of Bandersnatch -
the multiplicity of worlds resulting from our ability to make choices.
"I mean, it's your choice.
Inasmuch as you have any choice."
The impulse to understand all possible paths,
and find the ultimate right path,
is what drives Stefan mad,
and also what tortures us, the viewers/ players.
Ultimately the will to see all possible worlds
is the will to be a god.
But human life is limited --
we don’t get to see what would have happened if we’d made the other choice,
if we’d had Frosties instead of Sugar Puffs this morning
(a choice which, as far as we can tell, makes no actual difference).
The film makes a visual reference to Philip K. Dick’s Ubik,
a 1969 science fiction novel
featuring a spray-can that has been read as a metaphor for God.
The novel was adapted into a video game in 1998,
so you might even say Bandersnatch’s main premise
is inspired by Ubik.
And we can see Dick’s broad thematic influence
on Bandersnatch --
like the author’s work, it explores alternate worlds,
the inscrutable nature of reality,
and the possibility that we’re being controlled
by a mysterious spiritual force.
"When you make a decision, you think it's you doing it.
But it's not.
It's the spirit out there, connected to our world,
that decides what we do."
But as much as it raises questions of alternate realities
and opening our minds to the cosmic flowchart
"There's a cosmic flowchart
that dictates where you can and where you can't go."
in the end (or ends)
Bandersnatch seems to be warning us of the dangers in this kind of thinking.
The title Bandersnatch comes from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass.
"Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
Notably, Carroll’s words tell us to beware the Bandersnatch.
As humans, we can’t grasp all knowledge
and the desire to do so will make us go crazy.
Think of Darren Aronofsky’s Pi,
where the protagonist’s attempts to crack the deepest mysteries of life
leads to insanity.
"This 216 number?
"Th-th-this is insanity, man!"
"Maybe it's genius!"
"I have to get that number!"
"Hold on!
You have to slow down!
You're losing it!"
An author of fiction experiences this madness
in trying to be god of the world that he’s creating,
and as participants in this interactive film,
we experience this frustration of wanting to grasp the big picture
by playing enough times.
By trying to transcend our limited experience of time
and see the full flowchart,
"Mirrors let you move through time."
Stefan is rejecting our human condition.
And this attempt to play god leads to a demonic state.
So if all of this reinforces the depressing realization that,
just like Pac-Man, we’re powerless to change anything,
is there any even slightly constructive message
we can take away from the Bandersnatch experience?
While almost all the endings leave us with a more-of-the-same kind of misery,
there is one that feels different.
It follows from the only set-up in which, when the decision screen comes up,
we’re offered no choice at all.
"Are you coming or not?"
The first time we see Stefan’s childhood flashback
of looking for his rabbit,
we HAVE to decline his mother’s offer to go with her
because this is his past, and it can’t be changed.
But later on, after we look at the family photo,
Stefan does get to go back and change this memory.
Little Stefan finds the rabbit,
and then we get the choice to go with his mother onto the train
that we know derailed and killed her.
If the boy joins his mother in the past,
Stefan’s mind shuts down and he dies suddenly in his therapist’s office.
"He was just sitting here.
We were talking.
Closes his eyes for a few moments."
While on the surface this ending sounds about as bad as the others,
it’s the only conclusion to Bandersnatch that offers us catharsis and peace.
And that’s because it resolves what’s really been TRAPPING Stefan
in the hell that is his life --
his greatest wish.
What’s really driving him mad, is the desire to rewrite the past
to undo his mother’s death.
This is why he keeps killing his father in so many variations of the story --
he can’t overcome his repressed anger toward the other person
who was a part of that event.
The more outrageous endings
(like the explanation that his family life was all a fiction
in service of a clandestine experiment)
feel like delusional attempts to undo the pain of what he’s experienced,
by making it all a lie.
"The past is immutable, Stefan.
No matter how painful it is, we can't change things."
So if there’s anything we can learn from Bandersnatch,
it’s that we have to accept what we can’t change
as viewers of this horrific film,
as citizens in a messed-up society,
and as mortals in a universe where time moves only forward.
"We can't change things.
We can't choose differently.
With hindsight...
we all have to learn to accept that."
What’s done is done.
So the one productive choice available to us
is to make peace with the past,
acquiesce to the finality of our choices.
Only then do we stand the best chance
of escaping those demons that threaten to invade our heads...
and even then,
who knows?
"And is it a happy ending?"
"I think so."
This is Shantell Martin.
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and her collaborations with brands like Puma and Max Mara.
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