Deltarune Chapter 5 Spoilers
A warning for discussions of grief and death.
Okay, maybe I've gone crazy or I'm reading too deep into this, but does anyone else think that Noelle's word choice when referring to Dess is strange?
In other instances that reference Dess, she's presumed missing. Carol especially gives the impression that Dess disappeared, with her keeping Dess's room and belongings all perfectly left the way they were. Given Carol's personality, it seems unlike her to care so very deeply about a child that merely ran away.
Rudy has more sparce mentions of his eldest daughter, but given the angel statue in his hospital room made by his daughters that he keeps as a good luck charm, he clearly cares a lot about them. Much of his dialogue is dedicated to how much he cares about Noelle and wants to get better for her sake. While his lack of dialogue regarding Dess could imply avoidance, it could also imply that he knows something Carol does not that has either allowed him to 'move on' more easily, or he is keeping secret from everyone around him.
When Noelle herself refers to Dess, typically, it reads very wistful. Longing for someone who is no longer around. She greatly misses her older sister and frequently wishes she could share something with her. In chapter 2, one of the things in Noelle's room because of her internet searches is a calendar, with every day being December 25th.
While we usually accept this as more missing Dess evidence, I think it could also hint to her having run away. This search could read as Noelle searching for if her sister has made any social media accounts or been mentioned by anyone not from Hometown. I don't think it make sense for Noelle to be looking for sightings of a missing person because, as a family member, she would be one of the very first people to know about it. However, if Dess is not actually missing but merely not here, it gives her a reason to search.
Still, this leaves the question of what truly happened. Most people seem to be under the impression that Dess is missing, and with Asgore's dialogue in C5, it's implied something horrible happened with the Dark Worlds to make her go missing.
I'm going to go into full speculation territory now, stay with me
We don't know who all was caught up in the Dark Worlds at the time. Perhaps those caught in the dark world were just the Dremurrs and Holidays. Something happened that led to Dess's disaperence, presumably something that traumatized at the very least Kris and Asgore. What if the group was faced with something awful, and with no other choices, Dess decided to sacrifice herself in order to let the rest of them escape what they were up against? After this happened, Dess disappeared, leaving all who witnessed it with different impressions of what truly happened to her.
For Carol, Rudy, and Asgore, I would say that they believe she died that day. Their grief all manifests differently, but they all give the impression that Dess will never return. Rudy appears to have healed the most, still keeping a place in his heart for Dess, but continuing on to keep loving Noelle.
For Noelle herself, I think she feels deep down that Dess is dead, but desperately doesn't want to think that. She misses her sister dearly and will take any opportunity to deny what seems obvious. For her, the idea that her sister is still out there, just never returning home, hurts less than the possibility that she could never be home again. In describing it as Dess 'leaving', she is able to believe that her sister didn't die that day, merely went somewhere else.
Finally, we have good ol' Krismas. What exactly Kris believes isn't clear, but given that they stop reading Asriel's letter after just the words "My Dearest December," I don't think they handled it well.
Speaking of that letter, I don't actually think it was a "love letter" like the narration tells you. Kris is extremely hesitant to read the letters and forces the player to stop just two words in. As well, the narration explicitly states that Kris has already read this letter.
It's clear that Kris doesn't want to read it, but this reads much more as something very painful for them to read instead of simply melancholic or sad. I think that when they describe the letters in Asriel's drawer as love letters, they are trying to persuade the player to not make them read the letters.
So what am I implying about this letter here, what am I getting at? I think that this is a "goodbye" letter. Some people, myself included, will write letters that will never be seen by the person they are addressed to. Particularly, if that person is no longer alive or in their life. It's impossible to know if Asriel believes that Dess is dead or missing, but I think it's extremely possible that this letter was his way of expressing grief so that he could move forward. I don't think that Kris would have read their brother's love confession before Dess went missing, and certainly not after. However, as an expression of grief, Asriel might have chosen to share this letter with Kris, perhaps in hopes of aiding their own grief.
Overall, I don't really have much to say here. This post was spurred by me thinking that a single word of Noelle's dialogue was an odd choice and it kinda spiraled into how grief has manifested for the people who were in Dess's life. Still, I'm very serious about that letter, I do not think the letter Kris opened was a love letter. It's absolutely possible that Asriel loved Dess, it's even possible that there were some unsent love letters in that drawer, but I don't think that the specific letter Kris picked up was one. They seem far more upset than they would be if it was just that.
