I have to wonder if the Pale is a sort of meta-commentary on the nature of role-playing sessions and the fact that their participants (eventually, due to life or by simple virtue of the game ending) move on.
From how it is presented in game one gets the impression that the Pale is either null data (as in the "2 mm hole in the world", apparently representing "nothing") or arbitrary data (i.e. whatever data remains at a given memory address at the time of its accession, like in the case of uninitialized variables in a language like C). It then overwrites reality (i.e. the actual game data) with its own information at a given location. To this we introduce the notion of pale-surfing where people move through the pale to reach whatever location they wish to go. We are told that this adversely affects the mental makeup of the participants, as in Joyce and the pale-driver, and possibly also our main character.
But what causes the characters to move around in the first place? The game master and the players who, depending on the session, place the characters where they need to be. But role-playing sessions are often separated by lengthy time intervals. Weeks if not months can pass before a session can resume. No participant is going to have the exact same notion of a character they were playing between sessions. Their recollections of the character will differ and so will how they role-play that character, however subtle the difference may be. Over many sessions the differences will add up, the character will change, hence the mental warping.
Still older characters fondly remembered can be reused for new sessions, new adventures. They can be given a lease of new life and a new role. But what does it mean to be an older character to be repurposed? It means that the character loses any sense of time and with it a singular identity. Multiple identities can then overlap, memories can intermix. Such characters can become pale-drivers.
What happens when sessions conclude, participants leave, campaigns finish? Part of the setting is shelved, though not forgotten. Maybe they reside in the memory of the participants and the characters they bring over to new campaigns; but still the locations are no longer visited, so they are overwritten by the Pale. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody's there to hear it, the tree doesn't exist. The participants' attention is elsewhere.
What happens if there isn't anybody left to play? When there are no longer any sessions running? The Pale wins -- reality is overcome entirely. Nothing remains. Thank you for playing, and thank you for the good times. The group disbands -- but maybe one day they will Return?
