so..... kriselle. right guys?
⚠ DELTARUNE CHAPTER 3+4 SPOILERS ⚠
to preface, this is just my own reading. you are free to interpret the weird route and its contents how you wish. you are not required to take my reading as the end all be all.
horror has always had somewhat of an inherent sexual (and queer) undertone to it but it doesnt mean that you cant write it without it- i love horror that blends real life psychology and human experience with the otherworldly because there is SO MUCH you can do with it and it gets scary because most of the time it feels like something that could actually happen under the right circumstances… although when youre including a supernatural element (such as the player) the circumstances change and you need to recategorize and take more care to understand certain actions while still being conscious so that you are not just writing something torture porn-esque. this is an otherworldly entity (the player) taking the place of the human (kris) and acting within human bounds (kris cannot shapeshift or anything like that, we're limited to what their human body is capable of) to perpetuate the horror.
in context of the couch scene this is the moment that kris can no longer hide the existence of the other entity inside them from noelle. the secret is entirely out in the open and noelle knows that there is something unbelievably wrong with kris. i dont think noelle understands that it's us, the player, doing this to her because she doesn't know its a game but she absolutely knows that whoever it is is not kris. we are forcing noelle to confont that it was all real, it wasn't a dream, and it finally snaps her when we put the thorn (i.e. thornring) back on her finger. we've pushed noelle to her limit, 'used up' all of who noelle originally was and forcibly turned her into another 'vessel' for our actions.
the loss of innocence is a common trope explored in horror, but i personally feel like this is moreso focused on the loss of autonomy than the loss of innocence. ch2 is noelle murdering monsters en masse and probably being berdly's cause of death. that innocence is already gone, but innocence can take on various forms and meanings which can alter the way we perceive certain situations as more one thing than the other. the thorn is representative of our control over noelle, we force kris to pierce it back through her hand during the couch scene which cements our authority over her. i understand why people could interpret the scene as being mainly the loss of innocence, with the rose wilting it could be read like an allegory for deflowering, but i believe that the scene is moreso focused on us removing her limitations. we've overflowed the pot on the stove and now she's stronger than ever. even not on the weird route, noelle exhibits behaviours of wanting to strangle berdly and take control of her life for once, whether joking or not. she was already really fascinated by her own power in ch2, finding out that yes actually she isnt powerless and she can take things for herself, as long as she listens to kris- hence her saying 'Thank you.' towards the end of the route.
what makes weird route kriselle so interesting is that kris doesnt want this. when noelle is close to kris and she begins to trigger the downfall of events, kris is trying to cover her mouth desperately to stop her. kris wants nothing more than to keep noelle from experiencing everything all over again. it's not just kris abusing noelle torture compilation. with not only closet scene where kris is trying to hit us with the hockey stick but also the bathroom scene we see just how fucking ANGRY kris is at us- literally beating the shit out of the soul…. both in a 'why would you ever make me do this?' way but also in a 'you broke her' way.
we've taken these childhood friends with such a strong connection and forced them to rip themselves to shreds. we've broken them to their core. i don't think noelle is capable of saving kris, i don't think she wants to anymore. in the few moments she had left between the start and the end of the couch scene, she's lost that will.
noelle's now broken, she's lost herself because we took her autonomy. just like kris. a cage. a vessel (not literally.). we've given her the power to take whatever she wants, we've removed her limitations, we've made her stronger.
as long as she listens to us.
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with that being said, @enuratled made some good points and connections in their reblog of my post and i want to elaborate on/include them in the main post due to wanting to ensure that im not coming off as discrediting or attempting to disprove the loss of innocence reading while explaining more of my position.
"...it's not necessarily that i disagree but I think loss of autonomy is loss of consent, loss of ability to consent and I think that's very much what the rose deflowered imagery is pointing us towards."
the loss of autonomy is the loss of consent which in turn can also mean the loss of innocence. all of these tropes and concepts are intertwined and you can't really fully separate them, although the loss of autonomy/consent/innocence doesn't always indicate a sexual connotation. my reading chooses to focus more on the psychological rather than the sexual, so i guess its just my piece of the puzzle when it comes to dissecting this. there is clearly a reading here that involves a sexual undertone because of the defloration and understandably so- this is something that happens in real life and depending on your background or perceptions may be the first thing your mind jumps to when you see this scene play out.
"it uses the same dialogue, noelle begging herself to move but being unable to, it has the rose being deflowered, it has kris forcing the ring onto her hand, it happens in her fucking bedroom! her most private space! the place where she's supposed to be the safest! she asked them to come in! in this case, the imagery of sexual assault is being used to convey the inability to consent."
a good point on the reading of csa. this makes the reading more prominent and ties it back into autonomy and consent.
"...a lot of good readings of the weird route comes hand in hand with discussions about comphet, and how dangerous it is to force these very gendered roles onto kids (or teens) who explicitly don't conform, or want to conform to these things. snowgrave, as much as it is about autonomy, power and player control, can also be read about gender and sexuality, especially with how it utilises this imagery of marriage."
ive read the hellspawnmotel analysis many times over and its one of my favourites, i think the concept is really solid and you echo the same sentiments with that here. there is clearly a strong theme of identity/gender/sexuality beneath the surface of deltarune and especially with weird route kriselle.
I understand that [c]sa is a very taboo topic, and it's not necessarily in-line with the usual host of 'dark' themes we expect to see in games like this, but that doesn't mean the narrative can't utilise the commentary that comes with it, or the imagery used for it. again, I don't think it has to be read as sexual assault, but I don't think that's an unfair or unearned reading.
i agree, it being taboo doesnt mean that the reading isn't or can't be there. i am not attempting to say 'you cant see it like this!' or 'youre wrong and im right!' because everyone is entitled to their own perceptions of a scene, especially when it is not explicitly stated or shown in the text. personally (just me, you dont need to feel the same), i feel it's just too heavy to be thrust onto us if that is the intended context with no warning. maybe thats the intention, to drop it on us with no warning like it would happen in real life, but i honestly can't see that being how it was originally intended.
i think where this scene creates so much clashing of readings is again that you cannot really separate loss of autonomy from loss of consent and loss of innocence from either. these tropes can be interpreted in different ways- sexually, psychologically, physically, etc. its up to you to decide how you want to read it. the reading of csa has a lot of evidence for it and a strong argument. i dont think its wrong, but im personally not sure that should be our main takeaway.
my main reason for why i emphasize the focus on the loss of autonomy in the way i have is that a lot of people have decided to take the reading of csa as what happens explicitly, treating this scene as if you've genuinely done this to noelle.
if this is to be taken literally like how a good chunk of the fandom is treating it unfortunately, we're the ones who are doing this to noelle and kris. these actions are our own. they're our choices. this isn't kris, its us, the player. i do not want to be responsible for the sa of noelle, i wouldnt want to play a game where im forced to commit csa. it doesn't feel right. i don't think toby would put that into deltarune directly. you can read it as csa being what happens after the screen cuts to black if you want to, but honestly thinking about the implication that i as the player forced kris to rape or deflower noelle makes me want to curl up, puke blood, and die.
i dont think anyone wants to be burdened with that.
thank you to @enuratled for allowing me to use parts of their reblog in my edit, and i hope this adds a bit more context to the entire post and where i come from! everyone can read it in their own way, and i do not wish to discredit anyone by suggesting a different reading of the scene. please consider reading their additions to my post in their reblog to see everything they said, as i believe it does hold a lot of merit.
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UPDATE: rose was patched out. i feel kind of vindicated but my feelings are honestly mixed....... you can still interpret the scene how you want but i think it's pretty clear toby didn't intend for the graphic to be taken that way. sucks we had to lose the rose because of that but it's for the best considering.... theres a lot of ways that the fandom was taking the csa allegory too far and blending it with other ones which snowballed into a whole new thing and i kinda dont want to go through a year of kris misgendering and "toby fox put child rape in his game". (even though he didnt. its an allegory. one that i dont personally wish to focus on but others can at their own will.) which i think is kinda reasonable
UPDATE 2: THE VISUAL WAS CHANGED AGAIN! this time i feel like it lines up with my analysis even more and really conveys how visceral and painful it is
the way that it both shatters out from her heart to indicate we've broken noelle and extends out like blood vessels... this is us turning noelle into another vessel for our curiousity....
shatter effect - we've broken noelle
extending out like blood vessels - tied to the heart/SOUL and 'vessel' can be a play on vessel/cage
the extensions having small sharp protrusions - rose stems have thorns
idk man i think the scene is perfect
this visual is so insane i love it
edit uhhh again(???): i want to clarify i dont think we are turning noelle into another ACTUAL vessel. she's not going to be like kris. theres some weird implications with that.
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