How to Redeem Bête Noire
The following article relies on the idea Betty’s SOUL color means she is always afraid. See the tag "SOUL of Fear: Always Afraid?" on the ArgentDandelion blog for more information.
The antagonist of GlitchTale's second season, Bête Noire ("Betty") is a unique being with a SOUL of Fear. As previous posts would suggest, her SOUL of Fear likely means her motivations and actions are fuelled by fear. This includes her desire to wipe out monsters, supposedly because they pose a threat to humanity. Yet, as previous posts have pointed out, Betty's belief monsters threaten humanity is deeply illogical. However, her fears about them is so deep-seated that, to remove her motivation for villainy, her very SOUL would probably have to be altered.
Both SOUL trait loss and drainage have happened multiple times in GlitchTale, showing it is possible. While these have all happened to humans, and Betty is not human, nonetheless her SOUL was created from a human one and still has human SOUL-like properties.
Approach 1: Trait Drainage
Many human characters have eye, hair, and text colors matching their SOULs. Both Jessica Grey and Frisk survive the drainage or loss of their SOUL traits, as shown either directly or by changes in hair or eye color. In Jessica’s case, she loses and regains her trait multiple times in the series, without seeming to affect her bodily health. Were Betty’s fear trait to be drained the same way, it might mean she would feel a reasonable amount of fear, and perhaps make her amenable to reason. (if perhaps only temporarily) It is unlikely she would naturally lose her fear trait, especially as the season progresses, thought it might be possible to alter her SOUL properties artificially.
If Chara’s emptied SOUL, as shown in the Season 1 episode Continue (above) can be filled with multiple SOUL traits, it is possible Betty’s SOUL can be similarly drained and filled with other traits. Yet, if completely draining her SOUL would kill her, or put her in a comatose-like state of extended dying (Sans’ SOUL was partially drained, which must have interfered with reviving him), then partial drainage could be more feasible. At a few points, Jessica Grey loses her Integrity trait, but apparently only partially: her eyes remain halfway blue. This might mean it is possible to experience only a partial trait loss.
If trait drainage is impossible, trait swapping could be better. Betty’s SOUL was created by using the Bête Noire spell on an inverted SOUL of Bravery: Agate’s SOUL. It might be possible to invert it once more. While supplementary material states that the chances of surviving an unnatural SOUL trait inversion are low, this was applied to humans: if it’s possible for Betty, there no telling whether it would be equally dangerous.
Approach 2: Bicolor SOUL
The GlitchTale character Rave Rutrow has purple-and-yellow eyes, hair, and text, showing he has two SOUL traits. This is not entirely without canon precedent: all the SOUL modes parallel the colors of the humans that fell in, possibly meaning they’re limited to real SOUL colors. In the Nintendo Switch version of Undertale, Mad Mew Mew's SOUL mode is Blue/Red, with the SOUL split down the middle, possibly meaning humans can have two SOUL traits.
While Betty is not human, the similarities between her SOUL and a human one might mean a bicolor SOUL is possible. However, Rave’s two-colored SOUL is natural, while changing Betty’s SOUL to a two-color SOUL would not be. Partial drainage of her SOUL, and then filling it with some other trait might result in a bicolor SOUL. While adding the Kindness trait might be the most intuitive solution, adding Bravery instead would surely be more likely to work, since the SOUL has already housed the Bravery trait before. (Unless that simply makes Betty bolder and less conflicted, which might make her even more dangerous.)
Applications & Complications
Betty is occasionally anxious early on in the series: she might be interested in SOUL modification, if only to test whether it would make her stronger (to better kill monsters) or prevent panic from leading to bad decisions (to better kill monsters). It's doubtful Betty would agree to SOUL alterations if she believed it would change her perspective or motivations, because, of course, her fears would seem reasonable to her. Yet, afterwards, she might be able to interact peacefully with monsters without feeling any fear, anxiety, or paranoia, and it would be harder to keep up a plan to exterminate them if she feels no fear for them.
The easiest time to do this would be before Betty kills Sans, or assuming Asriel wasn’t able to run away and explain Betty’s true nature. (It’s after this point Betty’s disguise as a sweet, more-or-less normal human girl becomes less useful.) If Asriel didn’t corroborate Gaster’s claim on the Pink SOUL of Fear, it might be just an interesting coincidence. Betty’s magical power comes from her SOUL trait; were she to lose her trait and her SOUL to turn grey, she would lose access to her magic. If Frisk knows Betty poses a threat or considers her an enemy, Betty would likely interpret any offer to drain or change her trait as a ploy to weaken her. (and perhaps then kill her) After all, Agate told her humans can’t be trusted.
What if Betty is Actually Agate?
The particulars of how to redeem Betty differ depending on whether Betty and her creator, Agate ("The Wizard of Bravery"), are separate beings, or Betty is just a different body with different abilities that Agate is using. As of “Hate”, Betty’s connections with Agate seem to intensify, and perhaps even show she and Agate count as the same person.
Still, Agate may have essentially frozen her paranoia and insecurity in place by changing her SOUL to a pink one. So, even if Betty is actually Agate, changing Agate’s SOUL color might allow her to stop being so afraid. According to supplementary material, Agate was externally brave but internally insecure. The idea she would never be stronger than her brother, Copper ("The Wizard of Determination"), due to things beyond her control, made her insecure. Later losing to her brother so humiliated her that she lost her trait, and she later returned with her SOUL inverted to a trait of Fear. (Her SOUL turned pink only in a last-ditch attempt to perpetuate her existence by creating an abomination)
For all her/Betty's counter-productive decisions, Agate is actually smart. Her humiliation, insecurity, and power-mad status just made her very mentally unstable. If her fearfulness and anxiety were not locked in place, she might be persuaded to find more constructive ways to deal with her fear and desire to protect humanity.
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