DELTARUNE THEORY: The True Purpose of the Weird Route
(MASSIVE SPOILERS for all of Deltarune + Chapter 5)
(Content warning: mentions of assault, suicide, and grooming)
@honmshi
Why is the Weird Route written like this?
That’s a very different question from “why are we doing this”, I’m speaking more in terms of the motivations behind the writing itself and why the game presents this option in the way it has.
The Weird Route expands on the core theme of Undertale’s Genocide route, it is a social examination on the willingness of players to mine content out of a story, even when the contents are displeasing. And it appears that Deltarune is giving us a stronger case of that by presenting an evil route that is far more disturbing with intentional triggers of grooming and the violations of one’s agency.
Deltarune is also a story about examining the artificiality of stories. That once characters and ideas are written down, they have become blocks of limited text for a world that can only go one way.
The Weird Route has us grant one of these characters with the knowledge and tools to escape their bindings as a mere character in a Prophecy (or at least give the illusion of it) and possibly find and confront their world’s god who designed their image, Gaster.
Noelle is cursed or blessed to find secrets in video games, Gaster is cursed or blessed to be that secret. - Andrew Cunningham
But these are very big picture elements of the Weird Route. I’d even say maybe too obvious. These themes would basically just be the same reiterated lesson from the previous game. What would be so novel about that? Besides, we also have two blatant confirmations that we’ve broken the Prophecy, with Ralsei telling us we’re on the path to “an even worse ending” and skipping through several key events of the written story.
What I really question is, why did Toby choose to make a route about players forcefully defying fate at any cost, specifically focus on this fucked up double abusive dynamic between two childhood friends?
Why is this route going for such taboo topics to communicate this point?
It’s not an entirely original thought but it’s a guess I feel even more strongly about after Chapter 5:
The Weird Route allows us to break the Prophecy, but not to subvert the Final Tragedy. Instead it’s to have your player character, using Kris as a self-insert, to get a new paired ending with Noelle.
Think Persona’s Social Link endings.
Fire Emblem’s S support endings.
Visual Novel dating sims endings.
A side ending where you can select the character you like the most and have two people get together in the end through just a couple of drinks and less than a dozen conversations.
The core story does not change. The only thing that does, is who is paired by the end of it.
It doesn't matter how shallow the dialogue leading to the ship is, how disrespectful it is of the character's own interests or crushes, how strange your choice is, or how objectifying the idea of picking the prettiest, the coolest, or the nicest is.
The characters are just toys for you to play with. And once you've decided on that, til death do they part.
I’m not trying to say that Dating Sim elements are inherently bad, when they’re done well they can actually communicate a lot about the boundaries of love and the deeper parts of the characters involved.
But there is a weird side to dating sims. A level of projection inserted into a game from both its creator and their players that can border on some creepy territory. Some of them ride off of sexist stereotypes and reward players with coercive behavior. Some let you romance… some very interesting options.
This is honestly one of the least problematic examples you can pull from.
The ability to choose between a roster of attractive characters and accomplish a true love specific to your tastes with them is a power fantasy. And all of these games set an expectation that the character you control is aligned with your romantic taste and that you get to decide who they end up with.
One of the most important aspects of Undertale and Deltarune is giving the illusion of agency to fictional characters. That’s why there’s so many secret dialogues in the game, why characters react to everything, why there’s so much rich history that is left unsaid about.
We’re supposed to see these characters as real as possible and personally investigate our relationship to them when we alter their lives for the better or worse.
Our control of Kris, aesthetically resembles the silent protagonist who we project our personality and choices onto despite their pre-existing history. But the big twist, the most novel framing device of the game, is that Kris is their own distinct person who is both explicitly genderless and has entirely separate motivations from their pilot.
Chapter 5 makes a great effort to point out that, no matter what ship we subscribe to, Kris has a personal, somewhat ambiguous taste that we are not privy to change.
We can’t choose who we want Kris to take to the Festival, because Kris will only answer Susie.
We can’t choose to support Suselle, because Kris feels jealous about their best friend and potential childhood crush being in a relationship.
And Kris won’t let us confess anything to Susie, perhaps because we misread romantic attraction or Kris just doesn’t want us to influence that relationship any further.
Noelle aesthetically follows the “unrequited childhood love” trope. She’s a very feminine neighbor of the main hero, whom she has a deep longing for but cannot get the words across. The insecurity becomes so prolonged that they’ve drifted into other relationships over time.
The soundtrack even names her main theme, “The Girl Next Door”. It is an undeniably popular trope with some of the most popular characters in many fandoms being this exact archetype.
It’s so popular that, even when these characters don’t end up together, fandoms ship the childhood best friends to stardom. It’s one of the most appealing fantasies that any piece of media can mine for viewership. And it’s not hard to see why.
It’s a relationship built on a pre-existing relationship, it carries so much yearning feelings and emotional insecurity for the characters involved. Most of all, it raises the stakes on how those two will feel about each if their dynamic were to change. And that’s exactly what drives the core drama between Kris and Noelle.
Problem is, we don’t know if Kris “loves” Noelle that way and vice versa (though much more clear on Noelle’s end) or if they want to reciprocate. We can guess, we can theorize, but in this story we can’t force them to.
But what we can do is make Noelle fall in love with “us”.
Because the Weird Route is not about Kriselle, it’s the silly-named but aptly titled SOULelle ship.
Kris doesn’t tell Noelle that she will ride with them, it’s “Noelle will ride with Me”. Kris doesn’t answer that it’s their voice on the couch, the person who’s talking is “Me”. Noelle even says in her deranged state that she’s fallen for the new Kris, the one who’s changed. The one who’s interesting now.
In a series that subverts genre and games themselves with a high respect for the character’s personal interests, this is how it would dissect dating sim elements.
You can date Papyrus and Alphys but they aren’t into you because they have their own tastes. You can flirt with Toriel (and call her mommy) and she’ll make fun of you for that at the end.
You can try to request Kris to go out with someone other than Susie and they’ll just whisper the words or jump into a spa before they let you decide that for them.
Noelle too, has her own tastes and it’s very much likely that Suselle is the endgame. It is even prophesied. “Love finds its way to The Girl”. And this is the part of the Prophecy we are breaking. (or at least reframing)
Only in this case, the purpose is to drag the princess away from the dragon so she can end up with the "hero".
It’s why we require a 6 year long, 4 chapter journey to destroy all of her psychological defenses through verbal and physical abuse to finally get to this point. And on the way, the game will never stop reminding you how personally degrading and awful it is for a player to play matchmaker.
If you want these two characters to fall in love so badly, you’re gonna have to do the work and force the wedding ring onto them, even if it makes them bleed, and even if it makes them force you as well.
But most importantly, this is only possible because you play as the character who Noelle already has a complicated longing for. None of this can work if Noelle isn’t physically looking at Kris, the only vessel that can make this possible on the only character who can be manipulated this way.
Hell, even in Chapter 5, Noelle still cannot wisen up that she’s not speaking to anyone remotely close to Kris anymore despite how many times we’ve made the distinction.
Noelle has wanted Kris to acknowledge her feelings, to finally confirm that they did have something special after all and by forcing that acknowledgement out of them, we’ve accomplished two major goals.
Kris has finally given up, and has become our self-insert and we decide who their ending will be with.
And Noelle has finally chosen “you”.
@annakulak5
Read Part 1 of this analysis on “The Most Disturbing Line in the Game”
IGNORE THE BACKROUND AND LACK OF PROPER SHADING I CANNOT FINISH THIS RN, I mainly cared about the vibes. Too sick to care tbfh, maybe I'll polish this one day
how about soulelle (soul x noelle), whether the soul is possessing the goner vessel or is just a floating heart is up to you. if it takes place in the weird route or not is your choice as well.
This is one I've seen before! The dynamic between Noelle and the player seems like it makes for a really cool ship! I hope you like this!
