Big fan of Arts, Animals, and Architecture, as well as a random assortment of Medias -- OG Posts Tag is RV's Originals -- Fanart alt is @tinned-mackerel -- You can figure the rest out yourself.
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10 Beautiful Postcards
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one of the games i'm happiest about making. if you like anthology of the killer, cd-rom multimedia, children's games, Yume Nikki, Theresa Duncan & Monica Gesue's Chop Suey, weird html webcomic experiments, wandering, comic books, paul klee, looking at things, taking the eye for a walk, i hope you will enjoy.
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Love, Integrity and Divinity in Deltarune: Blue, Miss Mizzle, “Amor and Psyche” and the Lover-Philosopher
As you can tell by this pic, my obsession with Blue has brought me down strange rabbit holes. On the left side are inspirations that I’m unsure of being intentional references (“Amor and Psyche”, Plato’s Symposium, lapis lazuli and the Madonna), and on the right side are references that I’m 100% sure are intentional allusions (M. Butterfly, “Madame Butterfly”, “The Butterfly Dream”, Persona). (Also Miss Mizzle definitely refers to Blue, I just put her on the left for the sake of grouping similar ideas together).
I’ve already written about Blellow’s allusions to M. Butterfly and “Madame Butterfly” in my previous character analysis, where their love based on Integrity and Justice transforms the original tragedy into a romantic comedy. I’ll write about the Zhuangzi “The Butterfly Dream” and Persona references another time, because Jungian and Lacanian psychology are two intimidating horses that scare me. So for now, let’s have some fun looking at the other potential allusions and how for Blue and Miss Mizzle, love is intertwined with both Integrity and spiritual elevation.
When you see “love” and “butterfly” together, it’s pretty instinctual for someone versed in Greek mythology to link back to the story of “Amor and Psyche” as depicted by Lucius Apuleius in The Golden Ass. Psyche – a mortal princess who ascends to divinity after undergoing trials to marry Eros (Cupid) – is often depicted with butterfly wings. Both her name and the butterfly motif represent the human soul. But before we can dive into this myth’s connections to Blue, we have to look at Plato’s Symposium.
Plato’s Symposium tells the story of a many-times-removed account of a symposium where a bunch of philosophers discuss their ideas of Eros, the god of passionate love. The important idea for my analysis is Socrates’s comparison of the Lover to the Philosopher. Basically, love is the mean between ignorance and wisdom, and the mortal and divine. Because love is of the beautiful, and wisdom is beautiful, the Lover is like the Philosopher – starting from a place of mortal ignorance and aspiring towards divine wisdom.
Lucius Apuleius, the author of “Amor and Psyche”, was a Platonist philosopher. You can easily read “Amor and Psyche” as the mortal soul’s journey from ignorance to divine wisdom. If you don’t know the myth, here’s a summary by OSP because it can be a bit complicated to summarise succinctly.
Like Blellow and M. Butterfly, Eros and Psyche’s relationship concerns Integrity and Justice in the discourse of love. Their initial relationship is unequal – Eros is a god lording over the mortal Psyche, denying her sight and knowledge of who he truly is, keeping her literally in the darkness of ignorance. Psyche’s curiosity for the truth is what frees her from Eros’s imposed relationship and allows her to truly fall in love with him. Thus, Integrity leads to Justice in love.
Due to Aphrodite and Eros secluding themselves, love “vanished from the earth”, implying that love comes from the divine. But Psyche’s “insatiate heart and burning curiosity” is what causes her to prick her finger on Eros’s arrow and “unwitting, yet of her own doing… [fall] in love with Love”. Her pursuit of knowledge about Eros is what brings about a new age of mortal love that is elevated to the divine.
Yellow shares some similarities with Eros – he’s ordered by Flowery to oppose the heroes’ love, “Love is blind” but is a “far-famed archer” while “Justice is blind” “But they’s a pretty good shot”, both hurt themselves (or try to, in Yellow’s case) instead of their beloved, and both are the pursuing lovers in the first part of their stories (see: Yellow wanting to make a “blue-quet”).
However, as mentioned in my M. Butterfly analysis, Yellow doesn’t impose his ideas of love onto Blue like Eros does to Psyche. His attempts to punish himself are more like Psyche’s suicidal despair after losing Eros. Like how the Soul cannot bear to live without Love (and vice versa), Justice cannot live without Integrity.
As for Blue, his motifs of love and butterflies can be easily linked to Psyche. Like Psyche, he betrays Yellow by stealing his special petals before pursuing him and mending their relationship with his bouquet. As the embodiment of Integrity, Blue too searches for truth. But he also resembles the nature and gods who help Psyche in her trials, guiding the heroes with Evidence, healing them and providing cloud platforms for them to ascend. He even takes pity on them like the gods do with Psyche in his Integrity ACT, reviving all party members with a 100+ HP heal.
This spiritual ascension through love can also be seen in Blue’s connections with Miss Mizzle. She is the first Darkner to mention Blue, chatting, “The Bluest Flower, A disciple of my speech / Shy to no camera, and a specimen of / Elegance and kindness. / Should you meet, Please give my regards.” From examining their shared flowery language, healing rain and idealistic view of love, we see that love based on Integrity brings one closer to the divine.
Miss Mizzle is a larger Mizzle that resides in the HolywaterCooler in Chapter 4. Compared to regular Mizzles, she speaks in a flowery language that one would expect from a lady in a medieval romance. While you might assume that her Light World equivalent is the church’s holy water, recruiting her reveals that she is “A regular "Mizzle" who, after ages of worship, falsely believes herself to be of great royalty. Isn't even "HOLY" elemental.” Regular Mizzles are the Dark World forms of holy water (referred to as such in the game files), while Miss Mizzle is probably the large pitcher of water in Alvin’s study.
Using the Embezzle ACT on Miss Mizzle can get you a BitterTear which heals all HP to MAX. According to the Check description “Bitter water that fell in droplets from the sky.” and Susie’s comment “...Isn’t that rain?”, it’s safe to say that this BitterTear in the Light World is a raindrop. Guess who else has Healing Rain?
Even if Miss Mizzle isn’t as holy as her regular Mizzle counterparts, she is significantly stronger than regular Mizzles, she is one of two sources for getting the rare and powerful BitterTear healing item, and she is one of the few beings in Deltarune that can heal using magic (rather than through items or food) (credits to Vampinvogue on twt for the list). The thing that turns Miss Mizzle into a stronger Mizzle is emphasised by her Check information: “A Mizzle transformed with affection.”
“Affection” – or simply, love – is portrayed as something that elevates ordinary rainwater back to the healing power of the divine. But this love must also be sincere, as shown by Miss Mizzle enjoying meaningful reverence over superficial flattery. If you succeed in revering her enough to SPARE, she turns pink like the other Mizzles, referencing water turning into wine. The other magic healers in Deltarune have similarly idealistic (or naive) views on love. Thus, to elevate the ordinary towards the divine, love must be based on Integrity.
Further connections between Blue, love and divinity can be seen in Yellow’s reference to lapis lazuli – a precious deep blue rock speckled with yellow/gold pyrite. The stone’s Persian name is the root word for “blue” in some languages (e.g. azul in Spanish/Portuguese, azure in English). Historically in Europe, it was imported and ground up to make ultramarine pigment, which in the Renaissance and Baroque period was largely reserved for central figures like the Virgin Mary due to how expensive it was.
The Madonna is also tied to certain medieval ideas of love and chivalry (see: ma “my” + donna “lady” -> milady). There’s the idea that selfless love for one’s lady can inspire one into becoming a better person/performing good deeds (see: Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart or The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle). This concept is similarly expressed in Plato’s Symposium: earthly love and appreciation for beauty can lead to divine love and knowledge. Likewise, Blue supports the heroes’ quest and ascension due to the sincerity of their earthly (romantic, platonic and familial) love.
To conclude, Deltarune’s Blue and Miss Mizzle reveal how Love based on Integrity leads to spiritual ascension of the mortal soul, transforming the ordinary and elevating it towards divine wisdom. These idealistic and sincere views on love drive healing, strength and justice not only for Blue and Miss Mizzle, but also for those around them.
Thank you for reading! This analysis is a bit more scattered than the previous one, but I hope the ideas came through clearly. Do feel free to expand on this if you notice anything I haven’t, and stay tuned for my future analysis on Blue, “The Butterfly Dream” and Persona :)
Blellow and their allusions to David Henry Hwang’s 1988 play M. Butterfly
The original source material is a heavy tragedy, which makes it all the more interesting to me as to how it is adapted in Blellow’s relationship in Deltarune. As Blue says, “This is a comedy, not a tragedy,” and I believe that’s due to their embodiments of Justice and Integrity.
(Warning: M. Butterfly, Madama Butterfly and “Madame Butterfly” contain several heavy topics such as suicide/attempted suicide, infidelity, historical underage marriages and orientalist stereotypes of East Asians. While my analysis briefly mentions these in not much detail, please be aware of these if you’re planning to read/watch these sources yourself.)
Hwang’s play M. Butterfly is based on the real-life relationship between French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and the Chinese opera singer and spy Shi Pei Pu. However, as the title shows, the play is also based on the 1904 opera Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini and the original 1898 short story “Madame Butterfly” by American lawyer and writer John Luther Long.
“Madame Butterfly” was inspired by Long’s sister’s recollections of Japan, depicting the tragic story of a 15 y/o geisha who waits for her US Navy Lieutenant husband. He abandons her for a white woman, she tries to end her life, but she is saved by her maid and she leaves his house.
Puccini’s opera adaptation Madama Butterfly further leans into orientalist stereotypes of East Asian hypersexuality and submissiveness. Inspired by the opera, Hwang’s M. Butterfly uses these stereotypes to tell the story of a (probably closeted gay) Westerner who dreams of being with a Madame Butterfly, and who is ultimately duped and destroyed by these orientalist dreams.
The “M.” in M. Butterfly ambiguously refers to both “Madame” and “Mister (or Monsieur)”, which encapsulates the double-identity of the Chinese opera singer and spy Song Liling. The French diplomat René Gallimard falls for Song while being unaware that female roles in traditional Beijing opera are played by men. Song plays into the lie to seduce Gallimard and extract information from him.
After Gallimard divorces his wife, he and Song live together for 20 years until the truth is revealed and Gallimard is imprisoned for treason. Unable to cope with the truth that his perfect oriental beauty is a man, Gallimard throws Song off stage and claims to have only loved Butterfly. He dresses himself in Butterfly’s kimono before ending his life like Butterfly did in Puccini’s opera.
Back to Deltarune, Blue and Yellow share some similarities with Song and Gallimard respectively. However, their gay relationship is a much healthier one, influenced by their embodiment of Integrity and Justice. With Yellow as Justice and Blue as Integrity, it makes sense that they love each other. Integrity guides Justice’s path, and Justice defends Integrity. These traits allow them to diverge from the original tragedy and create a romantic comedy.
Blue is the clearest reference to Song Liling as M. Butterfly. He’s a feminine man who can be mistaken as a woman, he has a habit of stealing, and he occasionally projects himself onto the persona “Mr. Butterfly”.
Unlike the spy Song who only reveals his true identity to the audience in Act 3, Blue as Integrity provides the most truthful introduction out of all the flowers: “Blue. A Flower, with shadow cast in the shape of Man.” He does not pretend to be human, and is very clear with the specified “Mr.” that he identifies as male. Meanwhile, on a meta level, Blue “plead(s) comedy, not tragedy” when it comes to love, desiring to avoid the tragic fate of his theatrical counterpart.
As the embodiment of Integrity, Blue shows his love for Yellow by guiding him towards the truth. In battle, he makes flowers for Yellow to shoot, heals Yellow with rain, and provides Evidence to solve the crimes. Afterwards, he makes the Fun Gang promise never to trick Yellow again.
Despite Yellow being easily fooled and trying to off himself like Gallimard, Blue confesses that he loves Yellow’s contradictory nature as “a man of ‘law’ whose judgement wavers like chaos”, admiring the “passion” that arises from it. After all, Yellow’s “passion” for justice can be considered a form of love – another trait that Blue embodies.
As an American-coded figure of Justice, Yellow parallels the author of “Madame Butterfly”, American lawyer John Luther Long. The lawyer reference explains the Ace Attorney-style trial in his battle. (Also, Yellow is pretty long himself and his hats can expand into a longer size, but that might be a reach.)
Meanwhile, unlike Gallimard, Yellow loves Blue for who he is, flaws and all. Not once does he mention the identity “Mr. Butterfly”. As Justice defending Integrity, Yellow protects Blue’s flowers, and he defends Blue from attacks in battle (making Blue the only flower that cannot be hit). He refuses to punish Blue because without Integrity, Justice only harms itself.
Of course, it helps that Yellow doesn’t have Gallimard’s internalised homophobia. Like most of the flowers, he’s not particularly concerned about human concepts of gender. In fact, he seems to prioritise roles like “cowboy” for himself and “chef” for Green over gender identities. But to Yellow, Blue is just Blue – not a dancer, nor the staged persona Mr. Butterfly.
He may not always understand Blue’s “darn purdy” words, but he loves Blue just for existing, and he doesn’t have Gallimard’s orientalist delusions about a subservient Madame Butterfly. A single smile from Blue is “worth at least a hunder’d million medals” to him, and he’s willing to find a hundred million pieces of bluegrass just so that he wouldn’t be unfairly “stealin’ smiles from Blue”.
Yellow and Blue’s relationship is one of equals. Neither forces the other to fit their ideal, nor do they trick each other for malicious gains. There is no demand to be loved – only an acceptance of each other’s beauty and flaws and a desire to see the other continue to be their best selves. The massive turnaround from M. Butterfly’s tragedy to the loving comedy of Blellow serves to emphasize the impact of their respective traits of Integrity and Justice, laying the foundation for a happy relationship.
Thanks for reading! You could go on with the M. Butterfly allusion into larger discussions of gender in Deltarune thanks to its themes of the performativity of gender. Blue also has several other allusions with his butterfly theming, such as Zhuangzi’s “The Butterfly Dream”, the first Persona game and Lucius Apuleius’s myth of Amor and Psyche. Let me know if you’re interested in any of that ;)
At house party yesterday and someone pulled out a set of divination cards based on constellations and indian mythology and I started givin people readings no plan no experience never read the manual never heard of the vast majority of the deck and maybe I was just sloshed but I killed it out there #Ifuckingloveinterpretingsymbols
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