In the wake of Nighthawk's newest video analyzing Kris, a genuinely disturbing number of people in the comments are talking about how interpreting the Sans/Toriel scene at the end as a sex scene is ridiculous and baseless. Disregarding the fact that this is, frankly, objectively untrue, it's also extremely beside the point. Here's why.
First and foremost- interpreting the scene as a sex scene is not, in fact, baseless and weird. Toby Fox knows the fanbase and culture around his games- he knows about the Sans x Toriel jokes and memes. He knows about them, because he cultivated them. Those jokes exist because he deliberately wrote that implication into Undertale. He furthered that implication in the Alarm Clock dialogue. He wrote that scene knowing exactly how it would play into the "Haha Kris, Sans fucked your mom" jokes that were already present and very popular within Deltarune's community. And writing about sex is not out of the question for Toby Fox, contrary to what people may think- most people's perception of Toby Fox comes exclusively from Undertale. Admittedly, even my own knowledge of Toby Fox's work is mostly limited to Undertale itself, but I have seen a playthrough of the Earthbound Halloween Hack, at least, so that gives me some additional insight. But even if it were just based on Undertale, there's still no reason to suggest that it's out of the question for Toby Fox to write something like that- because he has. The Royal Guards' fight in Undertale has the spare condition of one guard taking off their chest armor, with the other guard being so distracted and turned on by their chest muscles that the fight ends. In the date with Alphys, while pretending to be Undyne, Frisk can very explicitly (jokingly) flirt with Alphys, calling her a "hotbaby". Alphys is explicitly stated to have a crush on both Undyne and Asgore- in Deltarune itself, she even makes jokes about how Asgore could crush her. She's quite literally making Twitter horny jokes about Asgore in Deltarune itself. Noelle's crush on Susie is similarly rooted in "step on me" energy, and that entire concept is explicitly rooted in sexual attraction. Just because Deltarune is a story primarily about teenagers does not mean it is entirely chaste and that sexuality has no place in it- especially because that would simply be a badly written, inaccurate portrayal of teenagers. Toby Fox is a very good writer, and he is very much aware of the subtext of his own writing. He is very much aware of the interpretations of the fandom, as evidenced by the change to the Chapter 4 weird route scene. If he wanted to avoid that implication, he'd have changed the scene accordingly. There is a reason that so many people- including BornLosersGaming, who are notably highly regarded among the fandom for their understanding of Deltarune's nuances- interpreted the scene in that way.
Second, expanding on the first point, the attitude that an implied sex scene wouldn't belong in Deltarune, or would be inappropriate for it, is an explicitly Conservative opinion. If you think that, and if you say it, you sound like a Republican. Because, guess what- Teenagers are, in fact, capable of healthily engaging with media that contains sexual themes! They've been doing it for centuries! Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf, at least half of the entire history of teen movies. If you think there's a problem with the idea of Deltarune having an implied sex scene, there is a problem- and that problem is you. If you think that, why? What does that thought stem from? Is it because you think that Teenagers (Who, by the way, aren't even the target audience of Deltarune, because Deltarune's intended audience is "People who have completed Undertale", AKA almost entirely people who were children when Undertale came out ten years ago and are almost entirely adults now, dumbass) shouldn't be exposed to sexual themes? Because that is a very well-known right-wing talking point. And why is it then okay for Susie to constantly swear, and flip you off? Why is it okay for Spamton to make sex jokes about Kris and Noelle throughout the entirety of the Weird Route? If that is okay, then by the exact same reasoning, interpreting the Soriel scene as a sex scene must also be okay, because they're both scenes intending to do the same thing- make the player/viewer uncomfortable. And if it's okay to use sexual themes in that context in the weird route scenes, it's okay to do the same thing in the Soriel scene. And, again, this time stating it outright so that you can't misinterpret this- Deltarune is not a kids' game. It is rated T for Teen- the same rating as Final Fantasy VII Remake, a game which quite literally has you go to a brothel, get a makeover, and perform on a stage to seduce a mob boss so that you can threaten him for information. If I need to further prove my point, there's no point, because that would only be the case if you were being willfully obtuse, at which point nothing I or anyone says would be enough to convince you.
And third, and finally- Whether that scene is a sex scene or not, regardless of the intent and interpretation of what it means- if Sans and Toriel are just having fun and dancing, or if they're having sex- it doesn't fucking matter. Because that's not the point of the scene. What Sans and Toriel are doing in that scene does not matter, because the scene is not about either of them. That scene is about Kris and Susie. It is about how their behavior and their actions impact the two- how Susie is made uncomfortable and leaves, how Kris is visibly upset by their mother being drunk to the point of falling over. The point is how when Kris is visibly distressed, Toriel, their mother, does nothing, and Sans, who is not a parental figure to Kris, but is a fully-grown and responsible adult, also does nothing. The scene is about how these two adults, who see two children in distress, choose to prioritize their own enjoyment over the wellbeing of the children in question. The scene is yet another example of an overarching theme of Deltarune- within Hometown, despite the very obvious problems affecting the children of the town, the adults in the town are not doing enough to protect and help the children; Berdly has a crippling fear of failure and very low self-worth, and rather than do anything to help him, Rudy and Toriel comment on how annoying he is and make jokes about beating him up (in Rudy's case) or helping Kris avoid him (in Toriel's case). Noelle has major, transparent issues communicating what she thinks; she lets herself get talked over constantly by everyone around her, including her friends, Catti and Berdly, and she is explicitly shown to be petrified in the face of her mother. And even though Toriel and Asgore both know firsthand how Carol treats Noelle, with Asgore even being present while it happens in Chapter 4, neither of them do anything to help Noelle- no one does. Even the mouse NPC who was Kris and Noelle's former babysitter comments on her weird behavior following the Weird Route, but doesn't do anything. Like, it's even down to the random NPCs! Susie is likely the best example of this neglect, as the entire town knows her as the mean girl that everyone is scared of, but we also see with her piano backstory scene that this neglect was a factor of her life even before she lived in Hometown. Despite her constant acting out, no one ever steps in- not Alphys, the teacher for Susie's class, and not Toriel, who knows firsthand that Susie isn't doing great, because she found Susie crying in the cemetery and took her to QC's Diner, and yet does not do anything else for Susie, and not Carol, the mayor of the town, who actively treats Susie with contempt, distrust, and even outright malice when the two meet in Chapter 4, despite Susie's attempts to apologize, explain, and mediate. And of course, Kris, who has been explicitly acknowledged to not be doing well- they sleep through class, they barely talk, they're called a zombie by their classmates (mostly Snowy and Monster Kid), and even though Toriel, Asgore, and Alphys express concern for Kris on multiple separate occasions, none of them end up actually doing anything about it. When directly asked about Kris' wellbeing, Alphys- despite openly having concerns about Kris, that she expresses outright to Kris' face- evades Toriel's question and just says they're "normal". Even when Kris attempts to inform Undyne of the Dark Worlds, Undyne doesn't believe them- she laughs at the idea and dismisses Kris altogether. The point of the Soriel scene is to put a spotlight onto the widespread neglect that Kris, Susie, and all the children of Hometown face, and show how it's reached a boiling point, where the current state of affairs are unsustainable, and Kris and Susie are now forced to take action directly. Any and all discourse about whether or not that scene was or was not intended as a Soriel sex scene is ultimately irrelevant, since that discourse is actively distracting from the real point- that these children are victims who are being mistreated.
The fact that this is even a discussion at all just shows how all the jokes about how "UTDR fans can't read" really are true. Some of y'all just don't have media literacy and critical analysis skills, and that's embarrassing for you.
