Undeniable that Berdly and Spamton parallel each other incredibly well in MANY ways, but what do you think is the actual *point*? Are they both just supposed to be washed-up small folk posturing? Or is it supposed to be something more?
Actually, id like to just ask generally: what do YOU think the point if Berdly in deltarune will be? Will he have a big standout moment, will he somehow be the crux of the story that creates true change? Will he get a big, climactic boss battle or final sacrifice? Or will he just simply always be haunting the narrative
Honestly, I’m of the opinion that he WILL die even on a ‘pacifist’ route, just not by our hand
To explain my thoughts on what the point of the parallels is, I’d like to go back to Spamton’s involvement in ch2.
Outside The Weird Route, which ends in Spamton getting Snowgraved like Berdly after he helped set the whole thing in motion to gain access to NEO, there are two ways Spamton’s story can unfold… which seem to end in the exact same way, before looking closer.
There’s violent pacifist, which has him quote something very similar to Berdly’s line from Smart Race, and yields the PuppetScarf weapon - Ralsei’s second strongest weapon to date, at the cost of a harsh penalty to Magic “for those who abandon healing”. Outside any speculation of if that’s what you’re “supposed to do”, which I really don’t think is the case given something from ch5 I’ll get to later, the fact that using violence is directly tied to a lack of healing is very intentional.
And then there’s the ACTs of kindness, where you free him from the wires leading to him crying out the joys of friendship before falling to the ground like before. This yields the DealMaker, which is not only a pretty great armour I ended up using all the way to ch5, but also provides resistance to Puppet/Cat bullets.
…I think that how you handle SNEO is a microcosm of where the story is going with Berdly.
Going back to Chapter 2, the Queen battle at the end has you win either by freeing Berdly from wires (sound familiar?) or through violence… except if you used violence in any of your earlier Berdly encounters, the end result will be the latter, meaning to be a “true pacifist” you have to not use violence in any of Berdly’s earlier encounters - so win though bumper cars, by playing smart/dumb, and by helping him free from the wires.
If you do this, Berdly will directly thank the Fun Gang for their kindness and mercy before freeing himself from Queen’s control… whereas violence will result in a completely avoidable injury as he has to do it all himself. Something that Susie says is stupid, and even Queen cries out for him to stop.
Even as everything else plays out exactly the same, Berdly’s injury will not go away as a direct result of player’s apathy during the events of Cyber City. As of ch5, he seems to be trying to work out the cause on his own, meaning that if he figures it out… he may come to the realization that no one helped him or even told him why his arm was injured, deliberately leaving him in the dark. An injury that leaves him dependent on others like Noelle carrying his books, unable to work his volunteer job, and feeling like he can’t do much to help at all. And as seen by the near roaring in ch2, which only happened because neither Queen nor Berdly were told about these things, I don’t think Berdly feeling like he needs to repay his actions and help others is going to go well. In fact, I think this may involve in the very senseless self-sacrifice that Undertale acknowledges as “cowardly” through Alphys’s actions in neutral pacifist.
This is what happens when you “abandon healing”.
But going back to those ACTs of kindness and the DealMaker, one way in which the pacifist option is shown to be incredibly useful is through the Pink encounter - a boss who also shares strong parallels to SNEO, and who Berdly also strangely forshadows. After you encounter her, you’re given access to a choice of six different very useful items from the flowers, plus Flowery’s scarf which is still strangely powerful as the BrokenScarf (given it has +12 attack even after it got torn to pieces, making it stronger than the puppet scarf and lacking the penalty to magic).
As noted by others who are way smarter than I am, the Pink encounter is to Kris a more positive outlook on their situation than SNEO, where Body and Soul work in tandem rather than one hijacking the other for their own intentions. The whole point is co-operation, as opposed to one dominating the other to the point of self-harm or injury.
And that right there is I think what happening to Berdly.
The Violent Pacifist is where I think your suggestion would play out, as the less-than-happiest outcome (like how in Undertale, Asgore and Alphys still end up in less than favourable scenarios even on a neutral pacifist ending). He is someone who wants to have a standout moment, who wants to show himself in a grand gesture of heroism… but as demonstrated before, this is not going to end in anything other than hurting himself.
Whereas the ACTs of kindness you use to set him free, the very same things that help you free Spamton, save Tenna and Jackenstein, the things Ralsei thought would make the prophecy change even as it seems to be set in stone, the ways in which you show you care for others…
That kindness and mercy may just be the way to create true change as you say, by having Berdly appreciate the values of co-operation over being the best there is, as he did for the Giga Queen battle.
I don’t think Berdly is supposed to be the One True Hero Who Fixes Everything or whatever, but I do think showing him that very kindness and mercy that helped him in chapter 2 is what’s going to lead to our happiest outcome, as with Alphys way back in Undertale.
