OKAY so i think a huge part of Tenna’s character is the fact he is a performance artist. I will say I was in performance art groups for an undisclosed amount of years and there’s. There’s a certain vibe 🆗 there’s specific mindsets and attitudes that I feel Tenna speaks on in rly specific ways that I dont see dug into very often.
Tenna’s whole psychology sort of orbits around the fact he’s an entertainer. He lives to serve you, but he’s not exactly necessary. His self-worth and self-expression and overall ability to keep others happy are all psychologically melted together. You can see he genuinely loves to entertain and finds it very fulfilling, but the nature of that requires a level of people-pleasing and repression.
more under the cut bc this is fr a 4 page essay
Being a literal object made to serve the lighteners definitely underscores this, but I can't think of any other darkeners that are this, uh… neurotic? unwell. about it. (well there’s a certain puppet secret boss im side-eyeing but he psychologically goes the other direction. Flips a middle finger to god and tries to ascend to another dimension. classic.)
Tenna’s survival literally depends on if other people are happy enough with him or not. And to do that he’s forced to act a certain way. In obvious ways like always having to keep the energy up and ignoring conflict,
but this extends to trying to suppress his own negative emotions, thoughts, and needs, being forced to do things that are against his own morals,
and a fawn response to threats.
There’s a sort of conundrum with the nature of performing arts where it’s kind of inseparable from your physical self. Whether you're using your face, voice, hands, etc. (or your whole entire body, in Tenna’s case), when a comment or critique is made of your performance, there’s just one less degree of separation between the thing you put out there and your whole You (I love TV = I love Tenna :) no degree of separation from the abstract concept of TV and his own idea of himself). So there’s the whole self worth thing already tied up in there. I’m not even gonna get deep into that one I feel like we know where that one’s going.
But the other question becomes, exactly how much of myself am I willing to give up for approval? What’s the right way to balance self-expression and individual identity with giving the people what they want? ... Or do we bother balancing it at all?
(and this is true of any art anyone puts into the public eye, but performance art is just kinda extra weird about it, by nature. For example, actors are expected to get hair cuts, keep or change their bodies to be a certain way, they lack anonymity because their face is tied to their art, so you're expected to behave a certain way when you're off the clock too-- it just requires so much more self-editing.)
Tenna’s such a beautiful example of this. In a very unsubtle (imo) way you see him bulldoze his own emotions for the sake of performance, upkeep his own denial to try to keep the happy facade up, and go to lengths to hide personal information. And it’s obviously stressing him out.
He’s internalized it to the point where it’s starting to come out in odd ways that dont make sense anymore, too.
"everyone's gonna know I..." know what. that youre a single mother. babygirl what are u talking about. + we all agree that the audience in the second one is like. some sort of manifestation right. can a professional please give this guy some cognitive behavioral therapy im begging
And then the dude does not know when to give it up. In a bad way.
There's a saying that originated from broadway i think, “the show must go on.” There’s a cute happy song about it but the attitude in the showbusiness is very real. It doesn't matter what you're personally going through, you’re expected to show up and perform no matter what, Or Else. Or else you ruined everyone else’s months of hard work, or else the show will suck and it will be your fault. In a lot of performing art mediums, there’s no retries, either. You mess up on stage and your moment is stained forever :) so you better do it right! no pressure.
In Tenna’s case, the “or else” is “or else you get sliced into ribbons”. He’s expected to pack up Toriel, keep it a secret, and keep the fun gang occupied for an indefinite amount of time until the Knight picks up its to-go order. Ive said it before and ill say it again this dude is doing like 5 hours straight of comedy improv with a gun to his head HE DOESNT EVEN RLY WANT TO KEEP YOU HERE. HE RUSHES YOU THRU THE FIRST BOARD, ROUND 2 WAS VAGUELY SLAPPED TOGETHER, AND THE BONUS ROUND IS NONEXISTENT THE MAN IS FREAKING OUT BACKSTAGE TRYING TO KEEP IT TOGETHER. OR ELSE.
And then he has a mental breakdown live on stage and he just has to keep going. What other option is there.
And then his crew leaves, and his friends leave, and Mike leaves. But Tenna doesn't get to leave. The show goes on. Until the very end he's still cracking jokes and trying to herd you back to the board. Even his boss fight with the fun gang is just More Games!! He acts genuinely confused if you start whacking him in his fight!!
it's kinda meta in a way that an amount of people read Tenna's on-stage mental breakdown as a sort of temper tantrum for not giving him enough attention, which is similar to the way celebrities irl get dismissed when they go thru mental health issues. so so many signs pointing to how much he actually does not want to do any of this and is very scared. i mean to be fair that's the lie he gave us right before his battle. (covering up the deal with the Knight for Kris)
Maybe Kris/the knight really DID promise a reward, but the way he gets nervous as hell and shakes when he's alone with Kris-- that's not the usual reaction to someone you expect a prize from. they both know what the consequences are.
In conclusion: Tenna is a patron saint of performance art to me and all of his lovely complexes and mysterious deal with Kris perfectly represents the secret psychological horror that is to exist at an audience’s whims. Thank u for staying this long here take this shitpost as a reward
