What’s up with Rouxls Kaard?
A brief Deltarune ‘theory’, or rather just some things I’ve observed and seen no one else talking about.
Rouxls Kaard is a character of great mystery to me in Deltarune. He’s the only recurring character/character who’s shown up enough to be important who hasn’t: A. Had a character arc. Or B. Been set up for some obvious story importance.
The Fun Gang (incl Lancer), Noelle, Berdly, Queen, Jevil, Spamton, heck, even King, are all characters that have been important and received an arc. Even Seam, who’s also super mysterious, has enough connections to the darker lore (which has basically been promised to be expanded on) to set up a role of reasonable relevance later on.
But Rouxls Kaard? He’s not had any great big character arc, or lore significance, he just keeps showing up and no one really knows why. The only possible relation to the plot of any sort at this stage is his parental status to Lancer, and god knows Lancer’s probably getting enough of those. And yet, you can’t get rid of him. You can’t kill him, you don’t even get to try, and no matter what you do, he’s in your pocket at the start of Chapter 3. So obviously, he’s going to play a part sooner or later.
I decided to go back throughout the two chapters and see if I could find any changes to his character that would help me deduce what path Toby has in mind for this guy, because although I like gimmicks as much as the next guy, I don’t think ‘shows up each chapter with a new accent and fights us’ is the *only* thing Toby’s got planned. And basically? I didn’t find much. Not on Rouxls Kaard’s behalf, at least. There’s the introduction of the ‘Reale Powere’ which is probably blatant foreshadowing, but doesn’t do much in letting us know how it’ll actually be used. Maybe the extra dialogue pre pirate battle could be some kind of character development insinuating Rouxls is warming more up to Lancer, but I feel like that’s going to be debatable until we get some confirmation from the next couple chapters. So basically, Rouxls has had near 0 character growth of any sort, and is pretty much the exact same as he was in Chapter 1.
But then I found something else that was rather interesting. You see, up to this point I’d only been looking at Rouxls’ own behaviours to find some kind of difference. It was only a little while after that I realised that I could also be looking at how the *other* characters treat *him* to find more of a divide. And a divide, I did find.
Here we have a compilation of almost all the times Rouxls is talked about/treated by the other characters:
Not shown in the picture cause I couldn’t find a playthrough that starred these guys: Two Rudinns who appear in the puzzle rooms when you go back after the Rouxls encounters that basically fangirl over him, calling him dreamy and a hunk.
Anyway, you get the idea.
From Rouxls being the only employed/promoted puzzlemaker out of all the Kingdom had to offer, from the Jigsawrys painting an intimidating picture of him, to Clover similarly fan girl ing over him and calling him a hunk, the various clues to his arrival scattered throughout, and least of all his own high regard for himself, Rouxls is treated rather well by the world of the Card Kingdom. From the start of the game, all clues that warn us of his arrival paint him as some threatening, dreamy, master antagonist that’s powerful and respected. And sure, he is powerful and respected in Card Kingdom by it’s citizens, even if he doesn’t live quite up to the legend.
But then if we have a look at all the times he’s referred to in Chapter 2:
Not pictured again, cause I couldn’t find a playthrough with this dialogue: Lancer calling Rouxls a ‘Puzzle Pagliacci’, which in his words means more of a ‘sad clown’.
Bit of a tonal shift, isn’t it? Swatch talking about him with a clear distaste and asking you refrain from mentioning him (as with Spamton), Rouxls getting thrown out of the Mansion and getting electrocuted by Tasque Manager, getting accidentally publicly humiliated by Queen and King to the point where he literally runs away, followed by Queen (the same Queen he put his dignity on the line trying to impress) not even knowing his name, Ralsei (well known kind hearted prince of sweetness) not so much as giving a second thought to leaving him semi-petrified and stuck in the Acid River, Susie also forgetting his name and seeming downright reluctant to save him at all in the Snowgrave route, Susie actively trying to discourage him from coming along and the *game itself* going out of its way to make a point about how little it thinks of this guy.
Wow. And I get it, he’s a moron, but this is a massive and very sudden change to how people in his life have treated him between chapters, between days. It makes a lot of sense that Rouxls thinks highly of himself given he’s spent most of his life in a kingdom where he was feared and admired, but all of a sudden, all of that is gone. It’s like the game itself wants you to forget he was ever respected.
I’ll admit, I don’t know, past speculation. I have some ideas, but at this point I don’t have any hard evidence to suggest anything above the other. Maybe the intensive parallels to the other secret bosses (especially that hell of a Spamton parallel if you know the one) really do mean something. Maybe this will affect him badly, and things are about to get worse for him; maybe he’s just too self absorbed to notice or care. Maybe it’s just played up for laughs, and it doesn’t mean much lore-wise.
But Rouxls Kaard is taking up the mantle of the rules card. We learned how to play the game, and we don’t need it anymore. We can toss it out. Even the Joker card is used in some card games, but the rules card? No one would notice if it went missing, or was dropped somewhere. No one would care.
All I’m saying, is if Toby ever needed anything drastically bad to happen to a pre-existing character, he’d pick one that didn’t have anything going for them. Or one that people found annoying. Or set up one so that people think that they’re unnecessary, so that they can feel guilty when something *does* happen to them. I mean, look at Berdly.
(also, given the Papyrus parallels also, if we’re doing the chapter order = reverse Undertale boss order, Chapter 6 is both the penultimate chapter, the Papyrus chapter, and a chapter just far away enough for drastic things to happen while still not overshadowing the final boss, so especially if the Papyrus is the Knight theory is true, if something happens to this guy, this would be the chapter I’d look out for)
I would also love to hear any thoughts people have on this. This was mostly just an observational post, so if any of you want to share your ideas of what this means or where things are going, I would more than love that :]
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