The thing about “No one can choose who they are in this world” is that it doesn’t JUST apply on the meta-narrative level where it’s about the railroading of the player and how Kris is actually their own person who is being possessed. I mean, that IS part of it. But it’s also a central element to understand even the ‘surface-level’ parts of the story.
After all, it’s “no one can choose” not just “you can’t choose”. Pretty much all of our central characters deal with some sort of identity that has been forced upon them without their control. And that’s why it’s important that these characters are all teenagers. It’s not just to show the game is more ‘mature’ than Undertale, it’s also important to the theme of identity.
Because for a lot of people, teenagerhood is an important, and messy and importantly messy part of their identity-formation process. Authority figures who might have previously tolerated your ‘quirks’ start pressuring you to ‘grow out of them’ so you can become the person THEY want you to be. You’re starting to become more self-aware of yourself and how people perceive you and how you would like to be perceived. You’re also becoming more independent, and that includes the desire to define yourself, but at the same time you need approval and acceptance from authority figures and your peers. (And even if you’re kind of a late bloomer, you’re at least aware that this is the common narrative and it still effects your Teen Experience.)
“No one can choose who they are in this world” can mean ‘high-school’ just as much as it can mean the whole world of Deltarune. And like I said, you can see it in all of the teen characters.
Kris clearly had some self-image problems even before the possession started. There’s the “it’s only you” comment at the mirror in Chapter 1, their rather barren room, the wistful description of their wardrobe in Ralsei’s castle.
Kris is the hardest to judge because we actually know the least about them, but it seems like they’re not very happy being the Only Human in Town. There’s the story about the horned headband, the fact that they’ve been researching how to do magic, the way they shut the “How to Take Care of Humans” book as soon as they saw pictures of more humans.
It seems that being the Only Human in Town is very isolating experience. Even if people are friendly enough towards Kris and their family tries to be supportive – - they still know they are Different from anyone else they know, nosy kids keep asking invasive questions, some of the books in the library are ABOUT you but none are FOR you. Is Kris a weird loner because they WANT to be? Or is it that they feel like they don’t have any other choice by be an Outsider in their own home so they might as well lean into it and try and have some fun?
Berdly is more textually obvious. Even though on the surface he seems to revel in nothing more than being “the Smart Kid in Class”, that is also a label he has not chosen on his own. He only got it by a twist of fate, because he beat Noelle at a Spelling Bee (which he only managed to do because Noelle had to spell a word that seems to be Literally Traumatic for her).
Because of that one event, the adults around him put that label on him even though he didn’t feel like he deserved it. Even though he felt like he couldn’t fulfil it on his own. And because of that, his Inferiority-Superiority complex only grew in a way that was both detrimental to his own mental health and also made him kind of a crappy person to all of his classmates. Because Berdly was once an insecure little kid, and kids really have no control of the way adults see them.
Meanwhile, Noelle herself… according to Berdly she’s the real Smart Kid in Class. But is that really a label that SHE wants? How much of her achievement in school and her athletic extracurricular activities are a result of her own interests and passions and how much are they a result of her harsh and demanding mother?
Noelle really gets hit really hard with all kinds of labels from other people, probably because it’s so hard for her to say ‘no’ to any of them. She’s Queen’s Peon, she’s Berdly’s damsel in distress, she’s a Weird Route’s Player personal attack dog, she’s a [[hochi mama]]. But first and foremost she’s the Mayor’s Daughter, and she hasn’t chosen any of these identities.
Ralsei is another kinda-mysterious one because Ralsei never tells us ANYTHING but, look…
RALSEI DOESN’T EVEN FULLY UNDERSTAND WHO HE IS!! Despite his personality being seemingly obvious and well-defined to the outside observer, Ralsei doesn’t know who he is and so obviously he didn’t choose to be who he is because he doesn’t even know what it is yet!!!
If his explanation are to be believed, he lived a totally isolated existence until the events of Chapter 1, just waiting for Kris and Susie to arrive and become his friends (whatever he actually did exist for the last 12-18 years in total isolation, or if he was just created yesterday but with memories of a whole lifetime of loneliness isn’t said, but it would probably feel the same to him). And without anyone to interact with, without anyone to perceive him… well, how can he form an identity?
In a way, Ralsei’s struggles kinda form a Foil to those of the other teens. Everyone else grew up in a small but tight-knit town where none of them ever lacked for Other People’s Opinions on them. And that’s how they all got settled with identities that they never chose for themselves. But Ralsei grew up with no one, and that meant that he didn’t have an identity forced on him - BUT ALSO that made it impossible for him to pick an identity for himself!
Susie is the one I wonder about though. It’s clear that she’s much happier having friends and being a hero, so she probably didn’t 100% choose to be the bully she was at the start of the story. The archetypical way that story goes is “well, everyone was already scared of me because I was big and ugly so I had to become something they’re afraid of”, and Deltarune can certainly play into that. But also…
Susie is the character most likely to rage against the rails of the plot, and that includes the identities she didn’t ask for. She gets told that she has to be a hero? lol nope she’s gonna be a Bad Guy now. And I wonder if maybe a similar thing happened to her before, if she was put under some sort of pressure to be a ‘good girl’ and she tried to rebel against it by becoming a mean bully.
But that’s still not really ‘choosing’ who you are, is it? If Susie was forced into one option and so she went as opposite as possible as a show of spite and rage, even as violently pushing people away made her sad and lonely, was that really a free choice? it’s a show of free will, but would that be what Susie would have chosen if she was Allowed to be whoever she wanted?
… but on the other hand, maybe it is as simple as the “well, everyone was already scared of me because I was big and ugly so I had to become something they’re afraid of” thing. Like maybe the whole point is that Susie can chafe and rage against the puppet-string of the Player and the rails forced on by some unseen cosmic force, but it’s actually much harder for her to face against the Societal Expectations of people in Hometown.
Because with all of her magical adventures and magical powers and observational skills, in the Light World she’s still just a teen going to high-school.
And no one can choose who they are in this world.
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