#deltarune meta

[sandersgrey]

Its not "ignoring reality" for an abused, neglected teenager to avoid going to their house where they arent safe and most definitely arent cared for. Thats a kid doing what they can for their own safety and well being.

Susie even tries to feed herself in the Light World in what ways she can when she has no money due to her caretakers, so its not like shes ignoring her own need for food, its just that shes a teenager that cannot exactly provide for herself yet! Sleeping over in Castle Town isnt depriving her of anything that she would otherwise get in the Light World.

Susie isnt going to starve because she spends the nights in Castle Town when she wasnt getting fed at "home" anyway, and shes not only just as excited for the Festival in the Light World, shes also rightfully concerned and taken aback when the flower shop Fountain is opened. We are very distant from chapter 2 where she got excited at the librarby fountain.

"But using Castle Town is keeping her from trying to improve her situation!" And what exactly could Susie, who is poor, a minor, and a social outcast who the mayor openly dislikes, do about her situation in the Light World? What exactly are the options here that you think she isnt taking?

Is she supposed to confront her abusers as if that wouldnt most likely end with retaliation? If Queen is a parallel to Carol, King is clearly a parallel to Susie's guardian, and what do we see when Lancer tries to talk to his dad in chapter 1? Is she supposed to run away and, what, stay with Toriel forever? What happens when her parents finally notice and have a physical place they can track her down to? They still have legal custody, theres only so much Toriel could do even if Susie told her, which she isnt going to do right now because Toriel just (accidentally and with zero bad intentions) made Susie uncomfortable and unwilling to talk to her. Susie only resorts to sleeping in the Dark World once her one Light World option no longer feels safe to her!

What other adults could she talk to? Undyne is a cop and has been kidnapped. Asgore is an ex cop who cannot pay rent, neglected his own family, and also just got kidnapped. Alphys is openly afraid of her. Rudy is dead or dying. Again, the mayor straight up dislikes her and told her to get out of her house.

And even if she did tell a trusted adult, what could they do right now? Call CPS on her parents? Even if that did something and didnt just end up with retaliation from her guardian(s), she might just be sent into foster care (if she isnt already!) and get moved away from the support network Susie's been building. This might even have already happened, as we know Susie used to move around a lot and that whenever she did make friends, she'd have to move away. That is exactly the scenario she wants and needs to avoid here!

Susie isnt a hero in the Light World and she cant exactly enter a rpg battle with her abusers to easily improve her situation. In the Light World, she is a poor, ostracized teenager with zero power over the adults in her life. Sometimes the best an abused kid can do is keep themselves as safe as possible until they get a real opportunity to get out. That's not a delusion, its a pragmatic way of handling a complicated situation that doesnt have any easy answers.

This isnt even touching on what this whole interpretation would imply for the Darkners and the Dark Worlds themselves or how contradictory it is to Ralsei's character arc.

I think some people are ctrl c + ctrl v'ing the same tropes/themes from other stories with fantasy worlds without thinking critically about what this specific story is actually telling us. Theyre not analysing Deltarune's themes, theyre remembering half a dozen books/movies where the kids have to go back to the "real world" at the end and completely ignoring the ways in which Deltarune subverts that and plays with those expectations. You cant just apply the "generic fantasy themes and ending" interpretation to a video game made by Mr. Genre Subversion and expect it to work!

[ferventrapture]

A thing about time loops in media is that they can have no origin point.

They can create themselves. Kris didn't need to know Gerson personally in order to create the Church dark world. They just needed what Susie did when she made hers-- Familiarity with his Duskner. Kris knew the opinion of the Old Man toward the Prophecy, his philosophy and even that he wanted to write a letter to his son and wanted Susie to be the one to rewrite it to give it to him. They knew the Old Man would become fond of Susie the most and the fastest. They knew everything they needed to know for those events to go ahead, because they've been through that loop before. At least under the theory that it IS a loop. A lot of people have that theory but I have seen nobody say like. 'Okay so Kris could've just made this Church Dark world because they've met the Old Man before' and the 'origin' of the Loop could've actually just been Kris looping back to create the Church for themself to experience to begin with, which they could absolutely know already if they've looped multiple times.

[zalmonthe]

hello! i saw your ‘the human is you’ thing on my dash and while i don’t really believe it i really like the theory of it as a whole! but i gotta ask how does the player making the discarded vessel fit into the ‘the human is you’ theory apologies if you already clarified on it.

I talk about it here!

The soul makes its new self (mind and body) in darkness.

It's taken away, as we fade to white, we're told we can't choose.

It's a sunny morning, Kris wakes up - back to their old self and their dull life. Lack of choice is hammered at every step - handholding, terrible partner assigned by Alphys, Susie shuts down our answer and bosses us around.

We reach the closet - we're in the dark again. We get control back, and have a new (blue) self.

It's a dream.

Kris's dream is our game - Deltarune - both dreams and games are dark, that's why it's image_depth. As Kris remakes their old self, we make our new one. Kris returns to reality, we enter it with them.

The dream is nebulously real just like all darkness. Kris heard Gaster speak.

[alicelufenia]

I think a good rebuttal to the "but Gaster tweets" re: Krissociation Meta is that Flowey also Tweeted from the Undertale account when Undertale released

That could be, tho people also claim that Flowey breaks the 4th wall, where I think the important takeaway from his 4th wall leaning comments are his detachment and boredom with the people and places he's seen over and over doing the same things. It's about not seeing people as people anymore, while challenging the player/audience to see them as mattering despite that

Ultimately, I agree with my pro-Gaster mutual that even Gaster probably doesn't "know" he's in a video game. Only that his view of the world has led to treating it as such. Like Seam said, a view of the world that has become "darker, yet darker"

[ferventrapture]

It's funny that nobody believes there will be one ending to Deltarune, despite Toby saying otherwise. Even I don't fully believe there's one ending. Because not only is there like a bunch of endings for Undertale which was based on Deltarune, but also... it would kind of suck. Now, if the game ends the same way no matter what you do, but all the stuff within the game is variable and there's a bunch of different shit to do and different paths to go down, that might work for me. But if it's like it's been so far with only small differences and then you have like, one ending... and every time you play through, you only get those small differences... it'd be hard to sell that as a good and satisfying narrative. But at least the weird route seems different enough. That will probably hold up a lot of things. Like, the weird and aborted weird routes will change enough that it will fuel people's fanwork making for years afterward, even if there IS only one ending. It's just that people see one ending as bad because it's not enough of a 'reward' for playing through. But if you have the reward WHILE you play with fun gameplay, good story and differences depending on choices, then people could be cool with it, I think.

[helioclipse]

(time to not learn my lesson and post a mildly hot take again) not to knock the entire theory or anything, but if deltarune does make trans ralsei canon, there are several ways of going about it that i'd just find uninteresting imo. for example, a straightforward "now i'm finally happy! i like being a girl and this makes me happy! haha! princess of the dark dress go spinny!" scene. it would seem out of lockstep with other parts of his* character for me- up until now, ralsei has been characterised as someone who puts up a front of superficial optimism, placidity and submissiveness, but is in reality very cynical and defeatist. he holds himself to strict rules, and lashes out at flowery in part because of how extremely offended it makes him that flowery (who larps as an OP anime guy) disregards all of that for his own happiness.

as in, you know, ralsei basically seethes at this guy who lives for himself and ignores rules because it makes him happy. the most in-character and interesting thing to do here re: trans ralsei imo, which i worry might not even happen because it's too spicy, would be to take the anger he feels at flowery and draw the parallel between it and the self-hate he might have for wanting to abandon the assigned role of the dark prince (presumably for trans reasons). the fact he feels a sense of superiority for "holding back", the fact he doesn't Want to feel so disconnected from his role, the fact he projects and looks down on people who do abandon their roles (an actual character flaw) while lying to himself he's 100% nice, etc.

if there's any coming out narrative attached to this goat at all it might be less "coming out" and more "being dragged out kicking and screaming" because he clearly has some biases to work through (his self worth problems due to being a darkner are the most obvious example), and would kinda need to before doing anything on that front.

i repeat, this is one of the only ways i can see it being interesting, but giving the fluffy goat character actual textual internalised transphobia might be an insane move for a game like Delta "everyone instinctively knows how to theythem kris already" Rune, so i'm not even 100% confident the evidence for the theory isn't just more "ralsei's dogshit self esteem due to being a darkner" evidence. (not that it's completely DEconfirmed either obviously! i would never give any girlsei enjoyer a hard time! but yknow)

(*i'm he-ing ralsei here not out of spite, but because i have no reason to believe the "they" instances don't have other explanations. the "watering their own thorns" in ralsei's "dark vine" status is probably referring to the vine, asgore calling him "they" is out of unfamiliarity and straight up doesn't carry over to the japanese version (seriously, check for yourself, he calls ralsei 彼/he), and ralsei has both the "lovelyboy" act in the pink fight and "he" pronouns in the flowery fight still (which absolutely happens after the dark vine status). this is just what happens when i try to be as neutral as possible to what's in the game, even if it might change more overtly later, and i'm perfectly open to being proven wrong in the new chapters)

[prism-forgone]

Deltarune is a game that loves you for experiencing it

i have some hope in my heart that, by the end of deltarune, the message is not going to be "you're awful for having wanted to be a part of this, for imposing, when you're a stranger in these characters' lives".

and i don't necessarily voice this because i believe toby fox would pursue such a moral. on the contrary - both undertale and deltarune are really just love letters to games as storytelling devices, ones that can make you feel and experience things very strongly, to the point of feeling real. yes, all you're experiencing is fiction. no, that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

it's real because it doesn't make sense if it isn't, with how much it makes you react, live through it. if you were supposed to take fakeness out of the story, susie's approach towards the darkners would not be left as intact as it is. convincing ralsei they can decide who they want to be instead of it being decided by someone else despite being a darkner wouldn't have so much narrative weight. noelle discarding her whole world as as good as fake in the weird route and addressing her role as a character wouldn't be in direct opposition to the normal route's exploration of the relationship between fiction and those who receive it as meaningful.

i instead voice this sentiment because i feel like these facts, very clearly present in deltarune's narrative, get lost in-between somewhere. i see more and more people feeling bad for playing this game they're supposed to be playing. because we are not privy to what happened "that day" and are purposefully excluded from things by being locked in cages or told to look elsewhere, it feels like we're being voyeuristic by being part of the story, like there's no place for us in it.

but that's just not true! the angel is as much a part of the prophecy as the cage, the girl and the prince. the door in the middle of the castle in castletown is adorned with a heart and wings. the place is named after your name. you are as much a part of this as everyone you see on screen. it wouldn't work without you. kris needs you to propel the plot forward as much as you need them to experience the world around you. you're supposed to be here, watching as everything unfolds because it's a story. and stories are meant to be told to someone.

what i feel like deltarune is saying instead of an admonishment for submerging yourself in this fictional world is instead, "this is a story. the story is not "real" but all the emotions it causes when you submerge yourself in it are. and the fact that it's not really "real" doesn't mean you don't have a responsibility, as we all do, to be, above all else, kind. nothing else may matter - but this does, if only to you, because you feel how your own actions affect you".

it doesn't matter if there's one ending. it doesn't matter if it feels like kindness doesn't achieve a thing. kindness is rewarded quietly, through absence of pain that would otherwise replace happiness. the ending might not change but it doesn't need to, since, if you let it, the story is going to change you instead, leaving you different from the you that started playing deltarune. you're a part of it and are welcome through the virtue of it being a story you're open towards experiencing. deltarune is real so long as you let it affect you and cause real emotions in you.

this story wants you there like a tree that wants to be heard when it falls in the middle of the forest. it wants you there to see how it develops and it thanks you for watching the dreams of the characters you see in it.

[alicelufenia]

I see comments like "Ralsei is aware of the player," "Carol is aware of the player," and "Flowery is aware of the player" and then I look and the evidence given is "this character knows Kris really well"

Starting to think the reason they seem so "aware of what's going on" is that they in fact, know Kris well enough to have an idea of what they're doing and why, and you as the player feel seen by that, because the only other person you interact with as much is Susie, who doesn't know them as well, and certainly doesn't know their "whole deal" yet

Almost like you're meant to feel a sense of paranoia from being seen by people who understand you, and so distant from someone you desperately want to be closer to, but can't tell her anything because [internal screaming]