Deltarune, the question is the answer!
☙ observations on eggs, the forgotten man and understanding art ❧
You must account for this to understand it
People are used to video game narratives following a mechanical reality, with concrete lore and their own "physics", separate from our own. This is in line with the modern scientific view of the world. When meta elements (player, author, code, script) do come up, they come in one of two flavors:
1. they are addressed as an "outside" presence, belonging to another world or intruding from it
2. they are merely paralleled by similar elements in the game
Deltarune (and Undertale) operate differently.
Both the thematic (abstract) and meta (our, real life) elements are an intrinsic part of their reality. If something is true on a thematic level, then it is physically true. Determination is both an emotional quality and a real tangible force. Will to hurt and emotional detachment make you physically more powerful. When a character is emotionally torn, they physically split in two. The prophecy (the written story of the game) is even more real than birds and trees.
The authors - Toby and Temmie - and the player, are all characters living in the game's world, and have their own bodies there. They did not enter the game world, they were not placed here by Gaster or another bogeyman of your choice. They were always there.
Of course, these are also real people, with real physical bodies. They don't literally live within the game, by our metric. But by the game's metric, they do.
The annoying dog is a symbol for Toby, the soul a symbol for us, but this is a story - it's symbols all the way down.
This relation is paralleled by the dark world. It obeys storytelling rules drawn by the light world, but the border between the two is blurry. When a fountain is made, the dark world already rememberes its entire history, the lightners and inanimate objects in it. Its representation may have changed, but the underlying truth remains the same. When lightners enter the dark world, they are not greeted as strangers, but as old friends or even gods.
What happens in the magic circle, doesn't stay in the magic circle either. Berdly can go into a coma, several items and (seemingly) the knight can leave. The world is not physically real, but it is consequentially real. The fake world affects real life with its fake rules, because all rules are fake. The court of law is a playground, too, and borders are just lines in the dirt, but that won't stop them from killing people.
Fountains don't create dark worlds - they merely increase immersion. Make the border easier to cross. Dark worlds were always real with no fountain, too, and remain just as fake with it.
This is why I call Deltarune Lynchian.
It's similar to Twin Peaks especially. Has Toby seen Twin Peaks? I don't know. I haven't spotted any explicit reference, it may be simply osmosis via Japanese media.
Much like Lynch's works, it might seem arcane at first, but the key is already there. One must simply listen to what the game tells you very intently, trust that it wants to be understood and tells you the truth, and ignore tempting what if's and wouldn't it be cool's.
The man's most consistent quality is that he defies description. He can't be remembered or drawn, and is never described in any terms other than "a man" and "forgotten". To meet him, we must go to secret rooms, go nowhere or be in total darkness. Even his valentine's day letter appears unreadable.
A similar nondescript "man" appears in the light world, in a car and in the diner. Is this the same man? How would we know? All they have in common, is they have no features. He may as well be, and that's what matters.
The man only ever talks to Kris, and when they do, Kris is always alone. Their conversations are very personal, as if they were familiar, their words make little sense from the outside. The man may as well exist only for Kris, and I would say he does, if not for Noelle receiving an egg as well.
❧ the forest and the trees
Despite having no appearance, he can be seen when he's there. Meeting him has meaning, the egg persists. His hand on your shoulder leaves a weight that carries far into the distance.
The man's Valentine's letter can't be read, but it can be felt to be understood - once you squint your eyes and squint your heart(!).
What is a squinted heart? Is it one that, much like squinted eyes, only sees the vague impression, not the details? Perhaps this is exactly how we should look at the man himself.
When drawing the man, Kris can't get it right over and over again. But eventually, once the drawing can no longer even be seen, they nail it. And they do it "in a single, wild line" - an outline. Intuitively, not carefully.
This is, speaking from experience, exactly how good art is made. You can't do it fully conscious - if you try to do it with your full will and intent, it will come out stiff, odd-feeling, by the book, technically correct but emotionally wrong. If you can't draw it without thinking, that's a sign you haven't practiced enough. That is the point of practice - so that you can do it without thinking, the only way to do it well.
It's also how hard video games are played. You try again and again, until you can do it purely by instinct.
As are musical instruments. Kris's soulless body, barely standing, shambling around, seemingly incapable of anything but obedience, base desires and emotional impulse; can execute beautiful songs better than the soul ever could. "Your hands began to move on their own"
An Organikk in the chapter 4 hidden room, and the webpage featuring the hall of windows, gives us this tormented quote:
* I heard something in between. Something in between.
* Lost where the forest would grow, the children followed the pointed tail.
Lost where the forest would grow. Not doesn't, and not does, either, although in the Japanese version the forest indeed does or perhaps will grow. It only would, because they don't find the forest - only the trees. The details, not the whole.
As if to emphasize that the image doesn't matter, a tree is painted on the smeared sketches - the man's physical unknowability, the distracting, meaningless visual that hides the truth while also shielding it from literalism. An accurate drawing - the image, memory - beating the game perfectly, knowing everything there is to know - is not the point. Once actually done, it turns out to have no meaning at all.
But it it does have consequence. What did it leave in you?
Once Kris is done drawing, their hand still traces the shape. Even if they can't remember the man, their body sure does. On their hand remains an unwashable graphite stain - permanent mark of the experience. You can't unexperience, can't unlearn.
There is an Organikk nearby, who gives us this question:
upon saying "yes", he says:
Took (the egg) and made (the drawing), your hands are shining. The shiny graphite stain is a mark of experience.
Miss Mizzle also mentions experience as something almost profane. She will ask us if we've flirted with a water cooler before. If it's the first, she will praise us, and our pure first love. But if we flirt repeatedly or say we flirt with everyone, she will dismiss our flirt as meaningless babble, and even calls it "disgusting"! Experienced flirting is compared to shiny oil dribbling from your lips.
Left - if we have flirted before, right - if we haven't.
A very similar thing happens with Pink. She thinks Kris flirting with her is meaningful, but this is dispelled by Susie, assuring Kris flirts with every enemy - so it's meaningless.
Too many lines and the canvas turns into a smear. Each drawing no different from the next, all substance is lost. Done once, it's special. Done over and over, it's just grinding and completionism.
I read a post describing how the man might be moving backwards in time. I'd go a step further and say, the man has no past or future at all - only a present.
We can't remember him, because we haven't met him yet - or we haven't met him already. We've also never looked for him, as we later learn. How can you look for something if it's not in the future? How can you remember what is not in the past? Once the man is gone, he's not gone already - he was never there. He disappears forever and since forever.
The future of Deltarune seems as fixed as the past. If he's found nowhere, it's not hard to imagine he's also found never.
Were the dinosaurs first, or the ice age? Is it mixed up?
"Happy new year", he greets you, "Or was it the old year. Well, in any case, [...]" and on leaving says "Whether 11 hours or 11 years, Deltarune will be waiting."
Any time he describes things happening in order, the order either loops (a week), or he second guesses himself with the order changed. His weekly routine tells us how to get his eggs both in the future and in the past. We could not go and get them were it not for SAVE and LOAD. He points at trees in the past if we don't have all the eggs yet, as if expecting us to go back in time to get them. Kris enters mancountry as their light world self, and exits as the dark world self, as if it made no difference.
The order doesn't matter. All that matters, is that he wants to help. You are impacted by his actions, whenever they are.
When Deltarune talks of eggs, expect to hear that they won't hatch. Eggs carry the promise of a chicken what hides in the shell, but Deltarune delivers none.
Temmie, once Susie told her that her hardboiled egg will never hatch, calls her mean, as if she's still hoping for something. Asriel cried when the painted eggs from his birthday, themed after his favorite lizard character, were cooked and eaten by Asgore the next day, as if expecting a real lizard to hatch.
Noelle's story of the special egg is especially interesting. She describes "throwing away tons of cats trying to get the perfect character", much like drawing the man over and over, or replaying the game for a perfect run. The special egg doesn't hatch and can't be gotten rid of. She attributes this to the egg "not knowing what to hatch into" due to mods - too many possibilities, perhaps, the choice can be daunting. She cares for it like a normal pet, and it "leaves due to happiness". The egg's happy end is never having to hatch, never having to decide what it is, take on a role. It's a question that was never forced to get an answer.
She can't remember its name - the only detail there is to know about it. Noelle herself is, of course, very unhappy for having to be "just a Noelle" - her own identity is suffocating. Maybe she'd rather be someone else, or noone.
All collected eggs thus far end up with Temmie, who takes care of them much the same.
Miss Mizzle spells out the meaning of eggs for us pretty explicitly. She frames looking for the "hidden beauty in gold and ivory" - the egg white and yolk - as wrong.
If you break the shell to see what's inside the egg, you end up destroying it. You should know what's inside without ever having to see it. It's almost like a lesson to let secrets be secrets, appreciate them for their meaning and not what hides inside.
This description fits normal and weird route as well. All main characters in Deltarune have a shell. In the normal route, everyone keeps their shell thus far. They're breaking out slowly, at their own pace. We might wait for them to hatch, but whether they will, and into what, is not so certain.
The weird route is a speedrun. We need Kris and Noelle to get stronger right the fuck now, by force if needed. The shell is cracked, the damage is done. You eat the whole apple, toxic seeds, core and all. Bitter poison, gnashing teeth and regret.
Miss Mizzle's water cooler is her eggshell, that she doesn't like broken. Shuttah in TV World talks of how water fairies were forced into coolers so they fit into Tenna's regimented studio landscape. But this is the church, and Mizzles still live in water coolers, they get angry when disturbed and leave when they please.
So which is it? Is it a prison? Or is it a shelter? Isn't that a good question.
It is, of course, both. Being condemned to freedom is a harsh experience. There's comfort in confinement. You're safe from mistakes, guilt and uncertainty. It's like childhood.
Many darkners are very attached to servitude and lose all meaning without it.
The animals stay in prison, saying they're fine here so long as the card kings live on the same condition as them - they want fairness, not freedom. But as soon as they discover the cage is just a facade, they leave!
Now their cage is gestating - with another, smaller cage, to be born when it's ready.
The only king left longs to stay in jail, but King of Spades will not share his.
Ralsei and Tenna try to enforce strict rules, but can't - their subordinates do as they wish, while the boss and the prince slavishly serve lightners. What forces them? External force? No. It's their own nature. Their need for purpose in life, and a darkner's near physiological dependence on lightners' care.
King of Spades stays in his cell so he can avoid servitude - purely symbolic, the master is Ralsei. Queen and Lancer are as free as a darkner could be, but King keeps himself in jail, prisoner of his own conviction!
Jevil lives in a cell, too, but feels freer than anyone because he is free in his mind.
Tenna's game has literal tape blocking off part of the map, but his feeble authority gives the Fuck Squad all the room to disobey. Ramb's game promises freedom, but is strictly railroaded - disobedience is the only path!
Queen, the self proclaimed mother, puts lightners in cages and enslaves with brainwash plugs as a show of care! "Flourish Under The Warm Bosom Of My Hellish Reign", she says!
And, of course, Kris, the cage with human soul and parts, knows all too well how terrible it is to have agency. Kris rips out their precious all-powerful soul, the "seat of compassion and power to determine fate", so they can be "free" - by following orders! And indulging in sweets and music like in their childhood! Comfort and servitude opposed to anguish and agency.
This is another reason why I think possession theory undermines the themes of Deltarune.
The egg is evidence for what hasn't happened yet. How come? Whatever it is that happens, the egg must've always been evidence for it, regardless of what it is. This kind of backwards schrodinger logic is everywhere in Deltarune.
Darkners are inanimate objects until dark fountains give them life, but somehow have a lifetime of memory. The game gives us choice and at least two routes, but somehow all of them reach the same "one" ending. The prophecy is absolute, but its interpretation everchanging.
You can't say what the egg is evidence for, because it's not settled yet. Inside is everything that could be, not anything that is.
How fitting that we get our egg from the man, the person who lives outside time, can't tell which way it flows, wants to help someone but doesn't know who, has no detail and sees no detail, only ever the vaguest impression. The man could be anyone, so long as there is a man behind the tree, and he has an egg to give.
To break the egg is to know the details before it's time. In a way, all attempts to predict the future of Deltarune are trying to break the egg. If succesful, they kill the mystery and suspense, trading the game's climactic resolution for posts and youtube videos. If not, they distract from the game's soul and towards musings about lore and emotionally empty plot details.
To love, is to care for the egg and wait - for it to hatch when it's ready. Or maybe it won't, and that's fine too. You shouldn't need to see the insides.
The chapter 5 friend exchange parallels the man. Pink's body talks in a voice only you could hear and she remembers nothing from it - as if it's a secret to be said in hushed tone. Noone can know, even herself - much like the man. A message so personal, it talks to you directly - much like Kris and Noelle's telepathy in weird route.
And what do we learn? That the cats - "friends" - seek protein. Not eggs, but protein - the gold and ivory inside, eggshells be damned. They're not interested in potential or ambiguity - only in specifics. Flesh and blood.
They're not too smart. They're not patient either. They don't chase forever - only until they get bored. Much like a player who's just out to find the hard truth, get to the end right the fuck now.
This wouldn't be the first time Toby Fox tells the player to value meaning and message above satisfaction and closure. It's also one of the central messages of Twin Peaks, by pure coincidence.
We were looking for secrets, and we found them. Isn't that reward enough?
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