There’s obviously so much chilling stuff about Chapter 5’s Weird Route, but I can’t stop thinking about Noelle’s little speech as, like…
On some level this is much more ‘traditional’ Shadow Crystal Boss stuff then Pink is on the Normal Route, it’s like that narrative role has been split between Pink and Weird Route Noelle, including the allusions to Gaster (did Pink have those save for being a FRIEND reference as a pink-and-yellow cat and FRIEND also being obliquely linked to Gaster?)
And it’s, like, folks like Jevil and Spamton were implied to be driven to madness and despair over their growing understanding of the mechanics of Light and Dark. Like, it seems like Darkners generally accept that they are based on inanimate objects that designate their purpose, but not all of them are troubled by the ontological implications of it as Spamton was. From a certain point of view, Noelle has just reached the next level of such realizations, by realizing that even the Light World is part of an artificial scripted video game that she now wants to intentionally escape from or at least irrevocably break.
And on some level, she’s not just mirroring a Shadow Crystal Boss’ mindset, she’s also mirroring a lot of the Fandom’s thoughts during the Chapter One era. A lot of us already thought that Hometown was uncomfortably restrictive, unconvincingly idyllic and strangely artificial-feeling, that it was some sort of façade or illusion… or just waiting for the other shoe to drop in some other way. We thought it’s going to be the job of the Heroes to break through this ‘Facade’ in some way…. Although obviously not quite in the way Noelle decided to try it.
But on another level, is Noelle describing the Existential Horror of Being a Video Game Character or just the Existential Horror of Being a Depressed Teenager? All of the experiences she describes, even if we know they kinda correspond to this world being a piece of Fiction and also a Video Game, are actual things people experience in our Real World, it’s trauma, it’s dissociation, it’s depression, it’s living in a repressive environment that isn’t being attentive or considerate of your pain.
I really love it as, like, moving the focus of the Game’s horrors out of just being ‘hey what if Videos Game were real, would that be fucked up or what?’ and directly addressing the real-life experiences that all this Videos Game stuff can be used as a metaphor for. Using a purely ‘this is basically a real-life the Video-Game-Has-Become-Self-Aware Creepypasta’ lens, Noelle is correct in her realization that her world is Not Real and could never offer her the freedom she wants, and she tries to find a glitch, an exploit, to escape it for good. And that is still what is going on to some degree… But it’s so horrifying because it’s clearly also what this situation would be in real-life, just a depressed teenager thinking there’s no other way to escape from her suffocating small town, drowning herself in the lake.
It’s one of the things that make you think, is ‘understanding’ this world to be inherently fake and inherently unfree really the ‘right’ thing after all? Is Noelle actually right about the Light World or are her thoughts clouded by the depression and trauma she’s been clearly struggling with? And were characters like Jevil or Spamton really ‘right’ about the Dark World as well? Depression and anxiety often disguise themselves as insight, after all. And going back to the Literal Video Game, Noelle’s method of achieving ‘Freedom’ also seems clearly wrong due to the paradoxical nature of the ‘Freedom’ in the Weird Route. Noelle believes she can do anything… as long as she’s ordered too, the Player went on this alternative path seeking an escape from the Game’s usual railroading, only find an even more limiting path with even less options.
Are there really no options except marching along your set path in blissful ignorance or giving up on your world and your life entirely? It makes me think of Susie. For Aborted Weird Route Noelle, she became yet another symbol of being brought back to her set path, of how there’s no escape of the fate the world had deemed for her.
But for Normal Route Noelle, Susie has always been a symbol of change, a more positive kind of change than the Weird Route represents. And Susie seems to similarly be a force for positive change for Kris, and a symbol of breaking and changing the rules on a Meta level as well. A symbol for asserting your freedom in a world that’s not even supposed to have any.
And she doesn’t do it by noticing how false and scripted and unfree her world is and rejecting it outright, Susie takes both the Light World and the Dark World at face value, as Real. But instead of just ignoring all the things Wrong with them and doing what she’s Supposed to, she takes her iron-clad believe that it is Real and Free as her motivation to try to break through the restrictions that the Narrative and Game Mechanics try to place on her.
If Weird Noelle’s behavior in Chapter draws comparison between her experiences and the Ontological Horror that is the existence of Darkners to make it feel like truly no one in this Game World is free, when Susie draws comparisons between her experiences and the experiences of Darkners when she empathizes with them, it’s to try to assure them that they are real enough that change and hope for them is always possible.
…But also that’s not as simplistic and straightforward as Susie would like to believe either. We have seen the limits and the flaws of her attitude, as well. Especially in the last two chapters. Her difficulty in accepting Gerson’s death, her struggles in navigating the conflict with the Flowers in Chapter 5, and what is, by now, feels like willful ignorance of Kris’ Double Agent nature. Thematically speaking, Flowery seems to exist to demonstrate the limitations and dangers of just trying to Fake It Until You Make It when you’re supposed to be Ontologically Doomed, or just trying to believe hard enough in doing the impossible. I think there is a reason why fans are worried about her essentially choosing to move into Castle Town even if we agree that the Dark Worlds are real to some degree.
But I still feel very strongly that whatever the characters need to achieve true freedom, even it does actually involving ‘breaking’ the game or the world to some degree, it can’t come from a disregard and destain to the Dark World or the Light World, to Castle Town or to Hometown, it has to come from a burning hope that it all matters and it’s all real, even if the metaphysical laws of the universe are ‘supposed’ to say otherwise, even if Freedom truly seems out of reach, even if it is a world that is fleeting, even if it is dangerous. Because Reality can be all of these things, it can feel like all of these things, and that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter either. And I dunno what will be of poor Weird Noelle from now, but I hope that in the Regular Route, Susie can prove it to that version of Noelle.
And prove it to us, the ‘real people’ playing the game, too.
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