Kris, a Deltarune analysis
Ok, this is a very interesting discussion that I don't see a lot of people talking about so I decided to rework a previous post I had. Kris and their escapism from reality are probably the core of Deltarune as a whole and not seeing people talking about this irks me a bit. Let's start by analysing the Dark Worlds as a whole: They reflect people's fantasies, mainly Kris's especially if we're talking about the ones they created. How do we know that? Ramb's dialogue gives it away:
Not to mention the fact that Kris knows what individual Darkners want even before creating the Dark Worlds (as seen with Tenna and recently Seth), another clear indicator is how the battle system mimics Dragon Blazers, a known game series in Home Town that Noelle (and possibly Kris as well) played.
Noelle is another important piece here since Ramb mentions a "her" and given Noelle's reaction to giving away Tenna it's very likely that she was the girl Ramb was talking about.
This is their world of fantasy, the world of their imagination where magic exists and there's no differentiation between humans and monsters, only lightners and Darkners in a place where they're the protagonist and the key to "finishing the game" before a dark fountain is created, these characters do exist to some extent, they remember their times as simple objects and their stories (i. e. The whole Spamton/Tenna deal happening before a dark fountain was made and Tenna regretting that they had brought that laptop home or King feeling like they were abandoned by the lightners and remembering Queen from the time Kris played with him and the laptop (Queen)). The Dark Worlds are a place they can escape to and live adventures like they did with Asriel, Dess and Noelle, exploring new places and having fun but this time with new friends that seem to have very similar personalities to the old group (Ralsei = Asriel, Susie = Dess). Now I call forth chapter 3 which is probably the one people consider "the weakest" (not bad) chapter so far but is really REALLY important for Kris's characterization given its themes and Tenna. This chapter has a lingering feeling of nostalgia, but not a healthy one, on the contrary, it thrives in the fear of change and growing up, which is reflected everywhere you look with its retro games and looks. Firstly Tenna, we can see him as some sort of Kris's reflection, someone that had a lot of fun when the Holidays and Dreemurrs were together but ultimately started felling more and more lonely as time went on and people went away after the incident which possibly involved Dess.
After that day they both surrounded themselves with a fake reality, changig their surroundings in order to cope with the feeling of solitude (Kris's Darkworlds and Tenna's TV show), but try as you might, you can't completely cover it up which is shown by the purple cliffs all dusty and abandoned. Another really important aspect of this chapter is the Egg, Throughout this quest to get the egg there's a really important term that becomes recurrent after a while, "youth" it all begins with this one "counterfeit ace":
Then, once you have received the egg, your title will be changed to "enjoying the youthful days"
And, last but not least, Shuttah's dialogue exclusively unlocked after getting the egg:
There's also a bit of dialogue where the man talks about world history and the building he is in is also pretty reminiscent of old architecture styles, which also contributes to all this talk of evolution and change, which isn't random, this is not an instance of the characters being crazy for the sake of it, because if that was the case, then why would the game itself acknowledge that? And why exactly is this instance so connected to the "forgotten island", where, coincidentally, is the only place the man can talk and, ironically, this was the only Dark World created by Kris in their house, so this has to mean something to their character.
Although chapter 3 is the most important on this topic, chapter 5 also has some interesting things worth noting, for instance the fact that the flowers wish to be human added to how Kris reacted when seeing a book with humans, they simply don't know how to be one, it might've been a metaphor for that, their fears of change, their fears of growing up to become so much different from everybody else around them. The reason why this Darkworld was so unserious could be something to do with them trying to escape once again, but this time escape from how serious things got in the last chapter, so they resorted to going back to somewhere familiar where everything started, Card Castle but with a "flowery" twist, that's possibly why these worlds are so similar in terms of what happened and layouts. But it's also interesting how while Card Castle is where everything begun (Shadow Crystal hunting, Eggs, Star Walker), Flower Kingdom is where everything ends in a way.
We don't really know why Kris is working with the Knight and what their intentions are, but I believe everything they do is a way for them to just... Go back to the good ol' days where everything was ok, they're not a bad person in essence. But maybe the story's just repeating itself and just like how that incident happened back then, another tragedy seems to be nearing, the dark clouds in the horizon. If Susie's truly reflecting Dess, maybe the Tragedy could really be about her, getting a similar fate. If you want to relive the good moments, you might as well end up remembering the bad ones.
Although it might all be a fantasy, it's still very real with consequences.
gracieabrams
theartofmadeline
andulkaphoto
germansingergirl
amandla