Panopticism Bonus

One of the first games I thought of for this post while reading through Panopticism then playing through Stanley's Parable was Bioshock. Throughout the game, you're faced with a similar narrator, Atlas, telling you where to go and how to proceed. Games have conditioned us to believe that going forward is a good thing, but Atlas turns these expectations around.

The ultimate goal of Atlas' assistance was to assassinate Andrew Ryan, the founder of Rapture. Each step taken by the player was in actuality a step taken by Atlas, or Frank Fontaine. When Fontaine cuts off contact, he parts with the order to kill Ryan. The rest of the game seems to revolve around the influence of the player being passed around like a baton. As he is dying, Ryan orders you to finish the task, challenging your free will. 

Once he is disposed of, the player finds a new ally in Dr. Tenenbaum. Even though her intentions are to stop Fontaine and protect the Little Sisters, indicating that she is a good character, she still orders the player around in the same manner as Atlas. It seems like at no point is the player character actually under the player's control within the game. 

Even the loose morality system in which you decide between harvesting or rescuing Little Sisters is an illusion of choice: The former sides with Fontaine, while the latter sides with Tenenbaum, both options adding up to bringing you closer to each character's demands.

Did Irrational think that players were incapable of progressing through the game without constant orders? Or was this an intention of the narrative? Whether your character receives directions or not in a linear game, they will come closer to the goal in the same way by pushing forward. Do developers fill in the role of the faceless authority manipulating the players' actions? Or do they simply intend to nudge them in the right direction in discovering the world they've created?