Pi as Richard Parker

I honestly hadn't considered what it would mean for Pi if the story with animals was actually a lie and the boat was shared by people all along. Pi as Richard Parker is a much more demoralizing story than Pi surviving with Richard Parker. It entails Pi becoming the worst version of himself, a sort of literary double that lacks humanity and decency. Pi as R.P. makes his story even more uncanny than it already is.
Assuming that there never was a tiger on that life boat, Pi went through an amazing ordeal of losing himself in his circumstances and surviving in a very animalistic way. This actually meshes perfectly with my concept of what actual survival would entail. Survival would be ugly, damaging, completely out of a person's typical realm of possibility, and something never to be forgotten but life-shaping. If this is true of his experience, Pi made an incredible journey, both literally and emotionally, and lived to tell the tale. In this view, the story does have a happy ending and Pi has been blessed for his faith in God and all His religions.