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What the hell is the point of her being half human? (Pt. 2: Rude Cluster)

HEART, HEAD, AND GUT. HEART, HEAD, AND GUT. PAY ATTENTION.

This is the follow-up to my first post (check it out!) in which I outline certain character ideas that Deltarune grapples with and how they connect with each other. This post is gonna be me outlining Susie's character arc, setting the stage for how her being half-human connects.

Again, to reiterate, this post is NOT ABOUT EVIDENCE FOR THE THEORY. At no point during this will I be asserting that a specific moment or detail is "why" she's mixed; that stuff's for later. Susie being half-human, before anything else, has to serve a narrative purpose.

By 'narrative purpose,' I don't mean speculating on how a reveal like that would "advance the plot;" speculation is off-limits for now. What I mean is that it needs to provide context for Susie's core character urges in a unique manner. And in order to understand how it would do that, we have to dissect Susie's core character urges.

" 'Core character urges?' What's that mean?" Damn u right I should probably explain my methodology for character analysis gimme a sec

Character Arc Theory Slop

We all have bullshit. Flaws, complexes, etc., whatever you call it. this bullshit was developed because long ago, we used it as a defense mechanism for however we were hurt in the past.

When we go about our day and do things, our choices and actions are unconsciously influenced and filtered by our bullshit, often in unhealthy manners. It can be useful in its inception and during certain situations, but the skills and positive traits associated with the bullshit are only side-effects of the bullshit's issues. The bullshit is still going to cause major problems for us going forward, and only when we recognize this can we learn to overcome it, becoming a healthier people as a result.

This is the crux of a character arc; It's a character unlearning their bullshit. (That, or tragically regressing back into it.)

Different types of bullshit emerge uniquely in people depending on the environment of their upbringing. We'll call these bullshit categories "Urges," and they can be split into three major 'clusters':

Urges relating to Compromised Self-Esteem (Heart)

Urges related to Existential fear (Head)

Urges related to Injustice/Anger (Gut)

I think these categories work well because they act as axioms of consciousness. Most everyone has issues with self esteem, anxiety, and anger, therefore the urge they have will likely coincide with one of these clusters. Consequently, they can empathize with characters with a similar fixation.

This isn't to say that a person or character can't be associated with more than one urge cluster; they can, and it can be useful in understanding them more thoroughly. But (as we'll see later) it's often the case that the urge prominence for a person/character is Imbalanced (One urge cluster is much more prominent than the others) and connected (The non-dominant urge clusters are caused by the dominant urge).

Is this an all-encompassing, one-to-one accurate depiction of the adaptive psyche? No, and it's not supposed to be. All models are false; some are useful. This model is useful because we can map it onto characters as a narrative guideline. It's fine to be reductive here because we're not doing therapy; we're doing an arc.

(And while we're doing clarifications, this is again how I personally analyze character arcs. if you have issues with this methodology or think it's too rigid, that's totally fine! And if it's still a bit confusing right now, don't worry- I'll be providing more examples with Susie.)

Understanding Susie

So, Susie. What's her bullshit? For complex characters like her, I prefer to Identify the core urge they're most associated with and then see if any extenuating urges pop up in other clusters. For my money I was able to Identify three, one from each cluster. I'll talk about them based on level of influence over Susie's actions:

HEART CLUSTER: The Fake Demon

God, Susie is such an insecure motherfucker. She believes that she is a ontologically defective person that nobody would accept willingly. From even her very first major dialogue exchange, this is apparent:

* You think just 'cause you don't say anything...

* I can't tell EXACTLY what you're thinking?

* "It's OVER! I caught Susie eating ALL the chalk!"

* "This was her LAST chance! Now she'll FINALLY be expelled!"

* Haha... Come on, Kris.

* Don't act shocked. * You know it's true.

* Everyone's waiting for it.

* Everyone wants it.

See how she projects her self image onto an imagined version of Kris's thought process? She didn't intuit Kris's actual opinion of her (shown by kris's shocked expression). She started with her preconceived conclusion ("I am an intrinsically bad person") and worked backwards from there. This is just one example- there are many more.

So we know how Susie feels about herself, but what's her coping mechanism for it?

There's many different ways a character with a heart cluster urge can manage their sense of inadequacy. They could try to live in service of others to bolster their sense of self worth (someone like Ralsei). They could try to win against others, using their accomplishments as a form of external validation (This can be seen in a character like Berdly.)

Susie chooses a different method; She Leans into her perceived inadequacies, adopting a persona that relieves her from the obligation of self-love.

When Susie acts out, She doesn't try to justify it. She knows it's wrong and that's the point- because that's who she believes she is as a person. When she refuses to do anything but fight, it's not just because she wants to take out her anger on others; it's because showing mercy or kindness is fundamentally at odds with her self-image. To stop being cruel would be to kill a part of herself.

I think the most succinct example of this pre-growth behavior is when Snowy recounts a story about her:

* One time me, Snowy, and Jockington were playing handball,

* And she just kept creepily watching us from the corner.

* Then, when the ball rolled over to her she just, uh, froze solid...

* ... and kicked the ball as hard as she could, right into Officer Undyne's car!

Like, this represents her Heart urge down to a T. She sits at the corner, longing for the same companionship that snowy and his friends have. But when an opportunity for it rolls up to her on a silver platter she freezes; Her longing has to contend with her embracement of self-hatred. She's got a visage to maintain.

And so the chance goes flying into a cop car window.

How do you even fix this? How does someone so self-assured in their deficiency begin to dig themselves out-

Susie Gets Lancered

A great first step for getting a character to grow is to put them in a situation where their core urge, their survival tactic, does not work. it falls flat on its face. Susie's heart cluster urge compels her to act in line with her self-image as a cruel, scary person.

so what happens when she runs into a fat little chud that loves being scary

Lancer is Chapter 1 Susie kryptonite, and of course he is! He's able to break susie's facade so easily because whereas others respond with fear or admonishment, he responds with excitement. It's not the outcome she intends and it stunlocks the fuck out of her.

Additionally, this causes Susie to question her identity by setting it in relation to lancer. Lancer also wants to be bad and scary, but doesn't have the psychological issues that Susie has. Susie has made her self-esteem issues inseparable from her identity, so when she sees someone that has her identity without those issues:

* You... * Want to be like ME?

* Yeah!!!

* Well, that's stupid.

It illustrates her insecurity problems are just that: problems. Not an inalienable part of what she is.

Kudos to Toby. Just a super creative writing decision all around, to paradoxically re-frame Susie's terror as kindness and use that as a means to her growth.

And she does grow.

What is growth for someone with this urge? It's allowing yourself to be happy. It's allowing yourself to accept loving relationships, even if it goes against the 'narrative' of your ego.

When Susie claims that she's becoming a bad guy and joins Lancer's side, it would be easy to say that this is yet another moment where she's acting out how she views herself. Hell, that's how Susie would justify it in the moment. But that's not what's happening here. The reason she joins Lancer is much simpler:

She just wants a friend to play with.

Brilliant writing once again. It's a perfect way for Susie to experience friendship without triggering her cognitive dissonance. By calling it villain work, she can internally justify having fun with others.

The facade whittles away, though; Susie is unconvincing with her aloof demeanor. she shows obvious concern for Lancer:

* He's probably lost and confused right now!

* Ho ho ho!!! I'm lost and confused!!!

* Sorry Susie... We didn't mean to make you worry about him.

* Huh...? Look, I'm not, uh, worried about him!

* Bad guys gotta look out for each other, is all.

And of course, eventually, she relents:

* I mean, LOOK, I'M not from here, and hanging out like this...

* I also feel kinda, uh, y'know...

* ... happy?

* Psshh, nah.

* ... maybe.

This, along with her deciding not to kill lancer, is Susie's triumph over her Heart cluster urge. She actively chooses friendship and her own happiness over manifesting her insecurities and pain externally. She joins the party for real.

(I will be talking about Susie backsliding when she learns about Lancer's betrayal, but it'll be in the context of the gut cluster.)

So great! That's it. Susie's character arc is all wrapped up and done. One small problem. THERE'S 6 OTHER FUCKING CHAPTERS TO GO.

See, this is why I called this urge "The fake demon." It's the one most apparent firsthand (because it's Susie at her unhealthiest), but it's also the easiest to resolve. Like I said before, urges are imbalanced. This one is the weakest and it manifests as a direct consequence of other urges (spoiler alert: her gut urge. I'll explain later). That's why I only talked about this urge in the context of Chapter 1, because that's when it's most relevant.

A lot of people complain about Susie feeling like a different character from chapter 2 onward, and this is probably why they feel that way. In a sense, she is a different character; the narrative shifts its attention to a fundamentally different urge she has, so what she needs to learn for growth changes as well.

Whether this is an issue for you is up to opinion; Personally I think presenting a character like this is a really good method for getting us to care about them long term. Think of it as a "save the cat" mini-arc. Plus I think Susie is fucking awesome regardless so I don't really care.

Let's move on to the next urge.

HEAD CLUSTER: The Sleeper Agent

If 'The Fake Demon' is the cluster urge that rears its head first, then 'The Sleeper Agent' is a cluster urge that only reveals itself in a character once certain narrative conditions are met.

This isn't to say that this urge didn't exist in the character prior and only developed as a result of the narrative; no, the urge always existed, the character just didn't have a reason to utilize it yet.

Susie's sleeper agent is her existential anxiety, i.e. her head cluster urge. To understand how her urge manifests, we need to ask ourselves: What is this anxiety over, and how does she manage it?

* Hey, Kris, wait! You think...

* Whoever made the Dark Fountain...

* Probably used the back door, right?

* ... you...

* Were kind of back there earlier, right?

* You didn't... see anyone, did you?

* Duh, you didn't. Heh.

* Otherwise you woulda said already, right?

* Let's go.

Look at how Susie handles this situation. A dark fountain is opened at the flower shop, and the only suspect around is Kris. She correctly identifies this, even noticing that they were at the scene. And yet, she outright rejects the notion of Kris being the culprit. Not because she doesn't suspect them, but because she refuses to contend with the reality that her friend would do such a thing.

That is Susie's core fear: Heartbreak. She is absolutely, utterly terrified of having her trust in others violated. And when a moment where emotional betrayal could take place occurs, she ignores it and puts it out of her mind.

That's how her head urge manifests; Where others would handle their fears by seeking some sort of external security blanket that they can attach themselves to, or by withdrawaling from the world around them and living in their own head, Susie responds to existential anxiety by distracting herself from it.

You know that moment at the end of Chapter 4 where Susie is at the shelter, and she's like "We have to do something about this tomorrow," and then the next day she does literally nothing about it on her on volition? that isn't a character contradiction; This is her fear urge working on overdrive. Getting closer to solving the conundrum of the mysterious s(j/h)elter is an extension of confronting the shakiness of her relationships, and she can't have that. She would prefer to stay outside, at the festival, with people she believes she can trust.

It's quite literally a materialization of her thoughts when sealing the church fountain:

* Can I tell you

* ... a stupid dream I have?

* ...

* No matter what

* I... want to keep being friends with you and Ralsei.

* When the sun comes up again...

* I want tomorrow to be the same as yesterday.

* And the next day

* To be just the same as that.

* That in the end

* We can always go back to the way things were before.

This is the soul of her fear complex. She is desperate to maintain her friendships with Kris and Ralsei, yet seems to poise falling out or an abuse of trust as an inevitability; calling the entire idea of maintenance a "stupid dream." She emphasizes this inevitability by implying that her friendships would only be maintained if time itself were to stagnate; and that the frivolous activities they enjoyed together were all that mattered.

She knows she can only deflect for so long, and does it anyway. She just can't handle another heartbreak.

It makes sense why this urge isn't prevalent during Chapter 1, then; There's no need to distract from heartbreak if there's no heart to break. Susie is shut-off and stuck in her own self image. She doesn't have the capacity to be scared of losing her friendships because she doesn't expect to make any! Additionally, her stated commitment to trusting her friends only happens after Lancer's betrayal. There's just no space for this urge to manifest at this point in the story.

Now the issue we have with this urge (and the gut urge) is that 'how' or 'IF' the urge will be resolved is still up in the air. Like I've said before, I'm not here to speculate, but what I CAN do is outline the growth/regression trajectories that this complex can go in.

(Dunno why she doesn't have ears in this one. Probably an oversight by toby)

So in order for a person with this distraction fixation to grow, they need to stop running and face the danger. Susie needs to choose to confront the heartbreak, even if it hurts. Because her alternative is to steep herself deeper in delusion and deflection, eventually wasting away into nothing.

And given her relationship with the grand fountain as of chapter 5, that choice is going to be extremely difficult for her. The game emphasizes this by making the last scene in chapter 5 a montage of her enjoying the dark world. She calls it her home, for god's sake! But this lifestyle, as a literal representation of her escapism, is hollow and unsustainable.

The Sleeper Agent urge works so well because it's an insidious killer. Susie can at least intuit her other core urges, but I doubt she even realizes this one exists, which could potentially lead to her regression. This cluster was actually the hardest for me to put together and explain because it's so discrete. I think it's a testament to toby's commitment to character subtlety; he highlights more dominant characteristics to keep flaws under wraps.

Like her heart fixation, this too is a non-dominant urge. It's more prevalent long-term, but is ultimately still shaped by:

GUT CLUSTER: The Big Kahuna

World ain't fair.

This is what shit has been leading to. Susie's other complexes pale in comparison to her gut urge. I mean like not cause she loves eating. Well she does love eating but- ah hell. Mixed metaphor, you know what I mean

The gut cluster is about how people respond to perceived injustices that anger them so that they can maintain emotional equilibrium. Someone like Ralsei responds by attempting to correct the world to their code. Someone like Noelle responds by passively accepting it. But Susie?

She subjugates it. Tries to, at least.

She absolutely, positively needs to be in control of the situation, no matter what. I scarcely need to provide evidence for this because it's written all over everything she does! But fuck it, one example per chapter:

In Chapter 1, you can't even control her actions until you're two thirds through the dark world, because relenting such a thing is incompatible with her domination impulse.

In Chapter 2, When she falls off the trash pile, she actively denies her injury because that would imply that she needs any sort of help and would be at the mercy of others.

In Chapter 3, Her suspecting Tenna of hiding something immediately procs her into investigation mode; She cannot consciously continue to have fun knowing that she could be taken advantage of.

In Chapter 4, When Berdly asks Noelle to the festival, Susie straight up yanks the phone out of Noelle's hand and shuts him down completely. the situation makes her angry, and she acts accordingly.

In Chapter 5, even after she carries Noelle in her arms, Noelle at the lake, she refuses to fully accept the relationship, because doing so would yadda yadda vulnerability you get the idea.

* What am I saying? This is all stupid...

* I can't... someone like me... it's not gonna work, right?

* ... Kris, be honest. What do you think?

As I've said, the urge outcome needn't always be negative. Her tossing Noelles phone is a great example of Susie's complex being positively reinforced. Noelle's main cluster urge is from the gut, too, but her urge to tolerate injustice instead of subjugating it. When Noelle sees Susie doing what she does, It implicitly teaches her that she too can muster up the strength to climb out of the hole of deficiency she resides in.

In fact this "hero" impulse is why Susie is viewed so positively in fandom space, especially post-Chapter 4. People were so adamant to portray her as an "unshakeable warrior of hope" that they got pissed when the negative aspects of her urges more blatantly revealed themselves in chapter 5. They bought into her scam and now they've got buyer's remorse. They'll get over it. Probably.

But remember: the urge is still rooted in unhealth. It's going to destroy her in the long run; She needs to overcome it, or-

Astute observation, random YouTube chatter. this song is indeed playing during strong scene at the chapter 1 and 4. Let's talk about why.

Imminent Death

It plays when Susie is emotionally dysregulated, and it's fitting. dysregulated gut types don't think or wait for an explanation, they just act. And the way Susie acts is through violent bursts of anger. She intimidates, threatens, and even inflicts pain on people she considers friends because it's her method of reclaiming a sense of control.

It's important to note why she crashes out like this; It's because she feels betrayed. Ralsei omits information she considers vital, Lancer puts her in prison after befriending her. Either way, she's unable to ignore the dishonesty, and this is the result.

Because ultimately, this is her center. The other cluster urges are just extensions of asserting her invulnerability. Susie's fear urge activates because she doesn't want to face the reality of betrayal because she knows how she'll act. She knows that her fears maker her feel vulnerable, so she ignores them.

Same with her heart fixation. Her mean girl persona is a projection of her internalized worthlessness, yes, but really it's another method of not letting others in. it's not "I push people away because I'm worthless" (that's more kris's speed), it's "I present as worthless because I need to push others away." Susie being insecure is secondary to Susie being in command of herself.

That's why The Big Kahuna is what it is; the other urges act in service of the big Kahuna. It's the control panel of her psyche, and everything else is built off it. If Susie truly wants to grow as a person, this is the giant she has to topple. And she topples it by being vulnerable; by letting others in, by being at service instead of at command, and by accepting weakness.

The good news is that Her experiences so far have been chipping away at this urge. She even admits this herself:

* It's kinda funny... I always thought tea parties were for wimps.

* I mean, don't get me wrong. They still are. But...

* Just feels like when I'm with you guys...

* I don't even... need to think about that.

* Like... I don't want to say I've been getting soft. But...

* I just always... HAD to be tough, you know?

* Now it just... feels like I... have options.

(It's funny; susie's escapism allows her to be vulnerable, but she uses it as a means to avoid being more vulnerable in the real world.)

The question is, when susie faces the ultimate betrayal of kris (this is pretty much guaranteed to happen), will she have whittled away at this enough for it to dissipate, or will she tragically reinforce it? That's what we're waiting on an answer for.

What's next

That's pretty much the gist of Susie's character arc. Unfortunately, I need to split this into another part. We still have to actually connect the dots; How does her arc connect to the ideas the narrative presents, and more importantly, how does it connect to her being mixed. We'll save that for Part 3.

Until then, See you around! Make sure to follow if you want to see more, and feel free to ask me a question if you're confused about something.

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