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Regarding Noelle - a question

I have been wondering.

While the trans-development for Ralsei seems to be pretty obvious - be it for being a trans woman or non-binary or fluid or whatever -, I also see people seeing Noelle as trans, in this case transmasculine, or trans man.

My question would be - and this is not a rhetorical question, but a real question - what people see within the text/the game leading them to seeing this. While I can see that Noelle is definitely also breaking out of her current habits and is learning to listen more to what she actually wants and likes - stopping to watch herself through glass, so to speak-, I seem to be missing clues that other people make out which indicate she is transmasc.

And, as stated - I do not devalue this reading of the text, I am just asking for ideas from other people why they come to this conclusion, since I cannot see it so far. If you got something, thank you for your help in advance!

king5lizard

Sure thing! So far, Noelle has been playing a very feminine, "good girl"/"girl next door" role. So when she describes wanting to break free of that, particularly when playing that role "feels like watching someone else move [her] through [her] life, that resonates well with transmasc experiences. The entire disassociation angle ("looking through [her] life through glass") is also uncannily dead on on how I'd describe myself (trans man) as an egg. It's worth mentioning none of these feelings are exclusive to the weird route either; Noelle says she starting feeling like this when Dess left.

Another piece of evidence (?) is that Noelle's room is straight up the colors of the trans flag. Deltarune has used the trans flag colors multiple times to indicate transness (Kris is blue and pink, the drink voucher Ralsei wants is blue and pink, Ralsei's princess dress is a pale pink contrasted against white fur, the trans pale blue Mettaton dress is contrasted against a white Spamton mannequien, probably something else I'm forgetting), so it's unlikely to be an accident. It's also her whole ass room. Every other lightner's room is strongly indicative of their character traits, so that sure says something about Noelle!

Noelle also has a lot in common with Ralsei, who just changed their pronouns in the menu and reaaally seems to want to be a princess. They both are mages with a pacify spell who suppress their own needs to appeal to others. This is more on the speculative side, but I wouldn't be surprised if Noelle and Ralsei get a lot of interactions in chapter 6, considering they are the only two party members who haven't really interacted yet.

Next, Noelle admires Susie's unabashed individuality and is way more comfortable around Kris, noting that they are the only one who knows how weird she is. This definitely could be because Kris and Susie seem to be more openly queer than Noelle feels that she can be, but I think it's worth noting because Kris is trans and Susie is butch. That admiration and being weird like Kris fits nicely with a transmasc interpretation.

She argued with Kris on who should be festival king or queen when voting way back in the day (I also thiiiink she voted for herself as king but I cannot find the screenshot rn, I look later to see if that's true).

There's no silver bullet like for Galsei and the "Got it, princess?" scene, and Noelle could just not be a fan of the gender role she was assigned while still being a girl. But all together she's putting on a hyperfem facade, wishes she could be more like trans/butch people, has similarities to the currently-questioning egg, and has a trans flag for a room. I can't say for sure if Noelle will transition, but I think the groundwork has been laid!

annomaniac

Thank you very much for this thorough analysis, it helps a lot and pointed out some perspectives I missed completely!

I also think chapter 6 will give us a lot of information about Ralsei and Noelle. If you do the weird route in chapter 5, Noelle already *has changed* to a high degree thanks to someone else (Kris) and is aware of this, for better or worse – and we go straight to chapter 7. This implies that the developments of chapter 6 are not *needed* for the story at this point. Why not assume therefore that in 6 we will learn about the development of Noelle and Ralsei and their final realizations about themselves?

liberalsarecool

Cosign.

liberalsarecool

AI will NEVER deliver on the promises made by the most greedy, desperate, investment-starved tech bro con artists.

Look what Meta did with the their metaverse, Horizon Worlds. They wasted $70 billion on something with zero demand.

Now they pivoted to AI. Another 'forced demand' strategy. Provide cheap AI to get people hooked, they drive up the price. It's unsustainable.

radiavoc

smh you could have stolen noelle's name

marmaladedoodles

"I could burn you down in an instant"

Regarding Noelle - a question

I have been wondering.

While the trans-development for Ralsei seems to be pretty obvious - be it for being a trans woman or non-binary or fluid or whatever -, I also see people seeing Noelle as trans, in this case transmasculine, or trans man.

My question would be - and this is not a rhetorical question, but a real question - what people see within the text/the game leading them to seeing this. While I can see that Noelle is definitely also breaking out of her current habits and is learning to listen more to what she actually wants and likes - stopping to watch herself through glass, so to speak-, I seem to be missing clues that other people make out which indicate she is transmasc.

And, as stated - I do not devalue this reading of the text, I am just asking for ideas from other people why they come to this conclusion, since I cannot see it so far. If you got something, thank you for your help in advance!

#deltarune #transgender #Noelle #transmasc

anonymousyellowlizard

which chapter do you think ralsei will come out as a girl in because i cant work out whether it makes more sense for it to happen in chapter after all the setup or chapter 7 because that girl is very repressed.

I'm gonna bet on chapter 6, and here's why:

1) Ralsei did not have a whole "oh I don't know could I really be a girl? that never occured to me" moment - ie, as others have pointed out she's not an egg! She's closeted. So at least she isn't unaware of the desire to be a princess

2) We got two direct drops for the word 'princess' straight up, no beating around the bush, once by Ralsei admitting she would like to be one and once by Flowery calling her one while handing her a trans flag, something she does not deny or get mad about. And by the end of the chapter, the pronouns are updated! This is already in motion, she is Already changing how she wants to be viewed, just feels more like taking careful steps rather than jumping in headfirst.

3) We have unfortunately seen enough of what happens when a transfem character's arc ends in transition. The arc is taken fully out of the author's hands to dismiss it, to deny transfemininity, to claim it came out of nowhere and made no sense, to claim the character wouldn't have wanted that (as if characters just exist in an alternate reality with their own wants outside of what they're written as and the author is just there to report to you what happened. Lol. Lmao). I think overall, Toby is not only a good writer, but crucially a cognizant one.

He's very in touch with how fandom and audience reception works and he has time and again done things to nudge any particularly egregious interpretations away (see, tea theory gaining popularity → rotten tea → Ralsei's tea healing more after the ch4 it's okay not to smile scene) (see, Ralsei is just Asriel theories gaining popularity → scene with Ralsei saying how they like their face even if we think it's similar to [Asriel] and Kris laughing it off like it's ridiculous → scene with Kris pointing out to Susie quite insistently how different Asriel and Ralsei look → scene with Asgore being like yeah I thought so at first glance but actually not really).

I think Toby is well aware of how transfem arcs can get dismissed and he's treading the line well already. We aren't doing a 180, we're setting the scene for it slowly but firmly: establishing the flags, the lost girl motif, the double princess mention. It's a good progression and in the same chapter where she's called princess and says she would like to be a princess we also encounter mad mew mew/pink AND we see Ralsei change pronouns to they/them.

It's already moving the train has left the station. We are mid-transition.

So I really think we're gonna get the arc by the end of ch6 at least so that we have a whole chapter that anyone who wants to play the game has to actually play through with Ralsei being fully out in her undeniable transfem glory. And they have to sit with a whole chapter of her till it sinks in that denying it is just denying the text. At least, that's my reasoning.

luxerino

pink just telling it how it is

full page ⬇️

ammi-delta-document

Wook everyone, I made my little monstersona into a pfp, yayyy!

Also made them a princess, because I called myself the princess of the Ralsei fanclub, and recently I hired Rouxls as my royal announcer so I figured I could reflect that in my pfp (the tiara looked bad, so my ribbons have little crowns now)

It is just an idea, but I think a female Ralsei would have wavy, plushy ears, resembling long hair.

Alas, I wonder if there is a hint within the gameOOOoooo....