Ralsei looking like a boss monster and his name being an anagram of 'Asriel' have no thematic or narrative implications whatsoever. Toby just did that as a prank.
The party members' Titles change over the course of Deltarune, depending on both the player's progress and whether they meet certain conditions (such as finding the Moss, or or playing the "original game" in chapter 3)
twitch does take a lot of power and resources, yeah, but at least twitch chats are real people. at least twitch provides something to its users, however you feel about it. chatgpt is worthless and nothing. its inhuman. dont act like theyre in any way comparable. yes, twitch and things like it use more electricity and whatnot than they probably should. but literally even a single electron spent on chatgpt is too much. even if it barely took anything at all to run chatgpt, it would be too much. chatgpt should not exist. to compare them is disingenuous
Because of the immense, oh so human value Twitch.tv adds to the world... This is such a stupid critique. Critique things on what they do, not aesthetic judgements...
twitch does take a lot of power and resources, yeah, but at least twitch chats are real people. at least twitch provides something to its users, however you feel about it. chatgpt is worthless and nothing. its inhuman. dont act like theyre in any way comparable. yes, twitch and things like it use more electricity and whatnot than they probably should. but literally even a single electron spent on chatgpt is too much. even if it barely took anything at all to run chatgpt, it would be too much. chatgpt should not exist. to compare them is disingenuous
Because of the immense, oh so human value Twitch.tv adds to the world... This is such a stupid critique. Critique things on what they do, not aesthetic judgements...
more than ai, yeah. as if that's a high bar. this seems just so obvious and self evident to me that it's baffling that you don't really seem to get it. i can't understand what you can't understand. are you stupid? yes or no. answer yes if you're stupid, and no if you aren't.
twitch does take a lot of power and resources, yeah, but at least twitch chats are real people. at least twitch provides something to its users, however you feel about it. chatgpt is worthless and nothing. its inhuman. dont act like theyre in any way comparable. yes, twitch and things like it use more electricity and whatnot than they probably should. but literally even a single electron spent on chatgpt is too much. even if it barely took anything at all to run chatgpt, it would be too much. chatgpt should not exist. to compare them is disingenuous
Because of the immense, oh so human value Twitch.tv adds to the world... This is such a stupid critique. Critique things on what they do, not aesthetic judgements...
more than ai, yeah. as if that's a high bar. this seems just so obvious and self evident to me that it's baffling that you don't really seem to get it. i can't understand what you can't understand. are you stupid? yes or no. answer yes if you're stupid, and no if you aren't.
twitch does take a lot of power and resources, yeah, but at least twitch chats are real people. at least twitch provides something to its users, however you feel about it. chatgpt is worthless and nothing. its inhuman. dont act like theyre in any way comparable. yes, twitch and things like it use more electricity and whatnot than they probably should. but literally even a single electron spent on chatgpt is too much. even if it barely took anything at all to run chatgpt, it would be too much. chatgpt should not exist. to compare them is disingenuous
Because of the immense, oh so human value Twitch.tv adds to the world... This is such a stupid critique. Critique things on what they do, not aesthetic judgements...
twitch does take a lot of power and resources, yeah, but at least twitch chats are real people. at least twitch provides something to its users, however you feel about it. chatgpt is worthless and nothing. its inhuman. dont act like theyre in any way comparable. yes, twitch and things like it use more electricity and whatnot than they probably should. but literally even a single electron spent on chatgpt is too much. even if it barely took anything at all to run chatgpt, it would be too much. chatgpt should not exist. to compare them is disingenuous
Because of the immense, oh so human value Twitch.tv adds to the world... This is such a stupid critique. Critique things on what they do, not aesthetic judgements...
if i had a time machine, first thing id do is obviously kill hitler. even if germanys fascism was caused by complex socioeconomic factors itd still be worth doing for the bit. then id go even further back to the early 20th century and become one of those old timey bank robbers, when they had names like 'pretty boy floyd' and 'baby face nelson' and id make sure people knew me as 'sweet baby ray' just to see how it fucks with barbeque sauce history
I know that killing Hitler solves nothing, but it's still, like, *the* thing to use time travel for. But yeah, killing both capitalism and queerphobia before either can really begin, sound like much more *effective* ways to use time travel.
if i had a time machine, first thing id do is obviously kill hitler. even if germanys fascism was caused by complex socioeconomic factors itd still be worth doing for the bit. then id go even further back to the early 20th century and become one of those old timey bank robbers, when they had names like 'pretty boy floyd' and 'baby face nelson' and id make sure people knew me as 'sweet baby ray' just to see how it fucks with barbeque sauce history
I know that killing Hitler solves nothing, but it's still, like, *the* thing to use time travel for. But yeah, killing both capitalism and queerphobia before either can really begin, sound like much more *effective* ways to use time travel.
if i had a time machine, first thing id do is obviously kill hitler. even if germanys fascism was caused by complex socioeconomic factors itd still be worth doing for the bit. then id go even further back to the early 20th century and become one of those old timey bank robbers, when they had names like 'pretty boy floyd' and 'baby face nelson' and id make sure people knew me as 'sweet baby ray' just to see how it fucks with barbeque sauce history
I know that killing Hitler solves nothing, but it's still, like, *the* thing to use time travel for. But yeah, killing both capitalism and queerphobia before either can really begin, sound like much more *effective* ways to use time travel.
When Orwell was alive, he worked for both the British imperial army in his youth, and for the cia later in his life. To act like he is not hilariously biased when it comes to the subject of communism and socialism is just plain revisionism of his life and the society that surrounded him. He wasn't a progressive writer, and this must be taken into mind when analyzing his work.
it has been repeated a thousand times, but his works aren't some "anti-authoritarian" anything. he was a man who had a deep disdain for the working class and the idea of the working class doing revolution. he had no problem being the boot on other people's throat. he had no problem making lists of political dissidents to report to the police. he wrote some dogshit novels about what he thought the USSR was like (he never went there or really studied it) during the second world war. he also wrote "I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler" in his 1940 review of Mein Kampf. the only reason he is so well regarded is because the CIA pushed his works onto TV and into schools as anticommunist propaganda. he was always a worm and his works are just bourgeois wank.
Have you read homage to Catalonia? You can have criticisms of Orwell but he was very much a socialist, and definitely did not "have a deep distain for the working class". I can't comment on the Mein Kampf review haven't read it
Just read it, it's a trivial three paragraphs. And immediately, the much more clarifying quote is "—I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity." (Reading it in it's entirety provides much better context. And mind, this is writing at a time where Hitler had hardly yet started the global war or had the holocaust!)
When Orwell was alive, he worked for both the British imperial army in his youth, and for the cia later in his life. To act like he is not hilariously biased when it comes to the subject of communism and socialism is just plain revisionism of his life and the society that surrounded him. He wasn't a progressive writer, and this must be taken into mind when analyzing his work.
it has been repeated a thousand times, but his works aren't some "anti-authoritarian" anything. he was a man who had a deep disdain for the working class and the idea of the working class doing revolution. he had no problem being the boot on other people's throat. he had no problem making lists of political dissidents to report to the police. he wrote some dogshit novels about what he thought the USSR was like (he never went there or really studied it) during the second world war. he also wrote "I should like to put it on record that I have never been able to dislike Hitler" in his 1940 review of Mein Kampf. the only reason he is so well regarded is because the CIA pushed his works onto TV and into schools as anticommunist propaganda. he was always a worm and his works are just bourgeois wank.
Have you read homage to Catalonia? You can have criticisms of Orwell but he was very much a socialist, and definitely did not "have a deep distain for the working class". I can't comment on the Mein Kampf review haven't read it
Howdy folks! Originally I was going to write up an essay about some of the interesting things going on with Susie's character like I did with my Noelle, Kris, and Ralsei posts, but while thinking about it all, I remembered something that really, really peeves me with this game's structure and writing, something that I think deals major hits to many of the game's recurring characters.
There is way too much optional dialogue.
To clarify, a wealth of optional dialogue is not a bad thing. I love finding cryptic hints or nuggets of characterization that are really hard to come across; for example, Ralsei trolling Susie is one of my favorite bits of characterization for them and part of why I love their dynamic as much as I do, and it mostly happens in obscure dialogue sequences that most players will never see. No, what I think Deltarune has a really bad habit of doing is including optional dialogue and seemingly never considering what happens if you make too much important information optional. Rant incoming, so sorry if it gets messy here and there.
Exhibit 1: Ralsei the Neglected
This was the first thing that really set me off when I realized it. Ralsei's moment in Castle Town in Chapter 4 is incredibly important for his character, where we get to see in a moment how much he's developed and get a window into how he reflects upon himself. It lends further support to his bond with Susie. It gives a very crucial scene to his dynamic with Kris where, no matter what we try to make them say, they spin it so it comes out as affirming to him. Putting his identity issues front and center also adds weight to what he's gonna be going through throughout the rest of the chapter, where despite all his growth, all his trust in others, all his new experiences, he still crumples in on himself for the sake of hiding the truth and breaks down repeatedly upon having the truth exposed. Watching Susie try to comfort him through her own pain, seeing Kris take initiative to hug him when he's desperately trying to hide his pain one more time, those moments feel several times more powerful when we know how strongly he felt before and how far he's fallen since he lost the ability to hide the truth. There's just one small problem: you can skip that entire scene in Castle Town on a first playthrough. There's no reason given for it, heck, the game outright tells you you're gonna go to both Noelle's house and Castle Town to make story progress. But if you go to the former first, you discover that the latter is entirely unnecessary for the plot, and so much of Ralsei's pathos is out the window. It's not mandatory, so the story can only use it as a sweetener instead of using these moments to meaningfully further his growth. Kris telling him of course it's fine to have feelings isn't a meaningful scene anymore, it's just a little bonus. What a way to take the wind out of his sails.
2. Noelle the Idiot
Listen, I can hear people yelling now. "Of course she wouldn't question Susie's lies! She's head over heels for her!" It's true that Noelle's willing to brush things Susie says aside if it means she can be closer to her, and of course she would. She's a teenager that's head-over-heels for someone that to her is breaking the pattern of distant secret-keepers that protect her and reinforce her utter lack of confidence. It'd make sense for her to give Susie leeway, but if you're sticking around in the Holiday house segments, the amount of leeway becomes somewhat absurd. Susie's lies are downright terrible, and thus far the game has frequently made a joke about the fact that Susie is absolutely awful at masking what she truly thinks and feels. To let Noelle pass off so many of them without clocking "hey maybe this person I'm infatuated with is doing the same things that make me feel so alone, I should question this" makes her either look like a moron completely blinded by teenage thirst or a total hypocrite whose development in Chapter 2 meant way less than it clearly did from how the NPCs around Hometown talk about her. I just don't buy that the character the game insists is remarkably perceptive about Kris's strange behaviors is suddenly this blind, even if it's through the lens of teenage romantic hyperfixation.
Hell, do y'all remember the storm of controversies about the Sweepstakes blog page Newest Girl? How Noelle has a guttural freeze response to Susie's bullying of Kris without even hearing what it was either of them said? It's not even in the game, so a lot of people have argued it's not canon, but personally I think it's the same issue as with Susie's terrible lies. Noelle looks a lot more flawed through bonus content in a way that feels misaligned with how she's treated in the main story, and hardly for the better. I actually like Newest Girl. I like seeing how her crush can sometimes get a bit problematic. It's realistic and adds an interesting dimension to her character. But the game doesn't really seem to think her crush has any aspects of that; it's treated as something so pure and real by everyone that isn't an irrational hater (we'll get back to this, oh trust me we will) to the point it looks almost completely edgeless. I don't think that's necessarily the case, but it's there, and I don't think the game does a good job of making these pieces fit together into a proper set of character traits for her.
Exhibit 3: Susie the False Bully
Okay, honestly, this is the one where I feel there's the most intent behind it. A big part of Susie's story is that she feels discarded by her peers, never having been someone who gets to have lasting connections because people are judgemental or leave her too soon. I like this about her character! I think it's a really compelling way to reinforce her internal struggles, which are genuinely handled well. The piano scene after the First Sanctuary in Chapter 4 is beloved for a reason. But the game waffles like crazy on how seriously we're supposed to treat her behaviors. The start of Chapter 1 and its Dark World emphasize that Susie has a pattern of behavior where she'd rather beat things out of her way instead of trying to see where others are coming from. Long before we knew why she was so attached to Toriel, she made her jealousy Kris's problem by physically assaulting them, something that seemed to genuinely intimidate them. Her bullying seems like it'd extend to the other classmates, but it doesn't. In the Light World, it's personal; in the Dark World, it wasn't, but both times it's about making her feel better. This is what the optional dialogue gives us, and it's both compelling and interesting... except later on some characters act as if Susie's bullying patterns never existed (Toriel, even though she's a pretty forgiving person, should have something more to say when she came over to her house than "don't hoard chalk from her"), while others (primarily Catti) are drinking insane levels of haterade and have it out for her for zero reason. MK and Snowy's perceptions of her "bullying" are patently ridiculous, and the game knows this, but suddenly we're expected to take Catti's beef seriously? Catti, who has provided zero explanation for why she thinks Susie is so dangerous for Noelle, and for whom Susie's rationalization of her hatred is so insanely mundane? That Catti? By sticking around for bonus dialogue, I've lost track of what exactly it is she's done that's so bad if literally nobody cares aside from her. I can get behind an internal redemption story. I love the stories where someone decides to be better while expecting no reward from their peers. But the optional dialogue that's supposed to help us understand the extent of her bullying fails to defang it in a way that makes consistent sense from what we know so far, so while it being defanged somewhat is the point of her character, making everyone around her in the Light World look like total assholes or be overly forgiving, except for in cases with major characters where we're shown why those characters think the way they do about her. Kris was intimidated by her, but they do like her, probably always have. Noelle has blinders from her crush. The optional dialogue, to my eye, seems to exist to help us understand exactly how Susie's bullying worked psychologically and stop us from extrapolating too much about how bad her behavior was, but the optional dialogue is just inconsistent.
I could honestly rant about so many other instances of this, but these three cases feel like the biggest ones in the game, and make me genuinely worried for some of the future storytelling. If the game relegates important information and scenes of development to optional dialogue, if the game pretends like optional dialogue isn't there while still having it, the characterization gets messy and it's easy to lose the plot of what we're supposed to be carrying about. Am I supposed to think Ralsei's dynamics are meaningless? Am I supposed to think Noelle's an idiot? Am I supposed to take Susie's arc seriously when the game's means of fleshing it out can't make up its mind? I honestly don't know, but if this pattern continues into Chapter 5, I think these criticisms will become a lot more serious and constitute a much bigger issue.
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