#utdr blogging

[officecyborg]

Today in "the last thing I would ever have expected to be foreshadowing": does this imply that Asriel never returned the sexy dragons book because Dess had it?

If that really is the case, then it would suggest Dess disappeared just over 7 years ago. I guess that could be consistent with how old Noelle looks during the spelling bee, if you take the main cast to be around 12-14.

[thegeminisage]

✨I'M STREAMING DELTARUNE TOMORROW!✨

deltarune ch 3 & 4 are out tomorrow at 11am EDT (see what time that is for you + countdown on the official site) and as soon as that bad boy finishes downloading it i am streaming. mostly because streaming is the easiest way to record it (twitch will do it for me). i don't expect a lot of people to show up because likely you'll all be playing your own copy but for those interested...

Watch this video on Twitch Live

after i have played everything, the tag to block for spoilers will be #deltarune spoilers

[officecyborg]

So of course in Undertale, the save point flavour text is always "XYZ fills you with determination." I don't think I caught this on my first (or second) playthrough, but Deltarune never describes it as "determination". Whatever the light is, it's kept very vague. This is... odd, because "determination" is not just a personal characteristic, but a physical substance and corresponding power. The most determined being in the Underground is the one who can SAVE. Kris has saved in the past, but their save file was overwritten by our in-game correlate.

Whatever else is going on here, I'm wondering if Kris, despite being a human, straight-up doesn't have any determination. Once they did (and could SAVE), but now they don't.

Alphys describes determination as "The will to keep living... the resolve to change fate." I don't know what it says about Kris as a person that they don't seem to have any, but that doesn't sound good, whether it's "They don't genuinely believe that they can change their fate" or "they don't have any will to live." Speaking of which:

Between this exchange with Seam and now the Titans in Ch. 4, there's a repeated theme of darkness = a sense of futility = the literal end of the world. Additionally, if you get a game over and choose not to continue, the game over text is "Then the world was covered in darkness." followed by the screen literally going dark until you exit the game manually.

On the other hand, Kris still has some sort of light that can shine through darkness. Even if they don't possess determination, they have... something. Hope, perhaps. "They don't believe that they can change their fate, but they still hope they can."

[officecyborg]

I think the biggest reason I’m increasingly leaning away from “the player is literally overriding Kris’s autonomy/personality/emotions” as the game goes on, apart from any points about Undertale deep lore, or what Kris was doing before we got here, or what we see them do during the game, is that UT/DR are narrative games, and any fourth-wall-breaking elements have always been woven into the story.

Like, alright, let’s say the big point of the story is that we are puppeting around a helpless Kris. And they’re silent and don’t really emote much because we’re suppressing their personality.

…So what?

Seriously, why does this matter? Not from the perspective of “the way UT/DR deconstruct video game conventions on a meta level”, I mean within the story. The first time Deltarune spells out that we’re not Kris is literally five minutes into chapter 1. What else is there to say about it, really? Is Susie going to discover that Kris was never her friend at all? Are we eventually going to stop playing as anyone and watch it like a movie? Are we going to have a boss fight against Kris, like in Contact (DS), and then the game just stops? It's a reveal, but not much more than that—nor is it much of a reveal, as Undertale already did it. To me, this reading makes it harder to theorize about future chapters, rather than easier. The more I think about it, I simply can’t see this sustaining a 40+ hour narrative RPG.

“Then what on earth IS it about, if not that?” How about this—maybe “PC agency” isn’t exactly the meta concept being engaged with here. Maybe instead, it’s:

What would a silent protagonist actually be like?

Let’s make like Ralsei for a second, and close our eyes and imagine we’re not overriding Kris’s will. That (on the main route) it’s more like they are “hearing” our suggestions and going along with them. What would it say about this character that they will roll with basically any option presented to them? What does it suggest that they rarely speak up for themself?

Framed like that, it sounds less like “mind control” than “apathy”. Or even, “depression”. Someone who already feels like they have no control over their life. And Kris has plenty of reasons to feel that way, given traits like:

Being overshadowed by their older brother

Constantly getting dragged into their parents’ divorce

Sometimes having to take care of themself because their mom is drinking

Being fundamentally different from their peers and family in a way they have no control over

Recently having lost a friend under traumatic circumstances

No longer having anyone to confide in from their old friend group

Quite possibly, already having been manipulated into doing things they don’t want to do (and keeping it a secret) by a villain

Being thirteen

Perhaps it’s less that we’re subverting Kris’s agency than that they already feel like they have no agency. That their choices don’t matter, or possibly even that they don’t want to be Kris at all—the very first choice the game “offers” before snapping away. Which would be fair! It sucks to be Kris right now!

Now I think that would have plenty of narrative potential. In fact, the arc it suggests is consistent with what is already happening: They find a real friend who will stand up for them even when they don't stand up for themself, gradually come out of their shell and emote more, and increasingly make their own choices regardless of our input.

“Then what about the Weird route?” I mean, to be honest, the fact that there is a contrasting route where Kris so clearly is having their will overridden is part of what swayed me to this opinion in the first place. But I guess off the top of my head, it could be a contrasting answer to the same question: a silent protagonist is someone who doesn't get any say in the choices in the game, whose opinions and actions are at the mercy of the player (or whoever we are playing as; that “the player” will not have any canonical status in the game is a hill I'll continue to die on). Asserting that, despite all the evidence that Kris is still Kris, they are a vessel for our will.

[thegeminisage]

catching up on the 10th anniversary undertale stream over breakfast (late breakfast, yes, i had to do dishes first) and my ass really thot i'd be safe from crying my way through new home because they've been talking and joking through all of it but every one of them made a point to do the whole thing in total silence so as to focus on the story and did i cry my way through it? absolutely yes.

[officecyborg]

Susie's first conversation with Kris has her tell them "If you haven't gotten it by now… Your choices don't matter," while Ralsei says "But Kris, I believe YOUR choices are important, too. This world is full of all kinds of people, Kris. In the end, how we treat them makes all the difference."

In the same way that Susie's impatient violence and Ralsei's naive pacifism are two extremes, neither of which are fully correct or incorrect, I think these two positions are relevant to the game's "one ending". We're at the midway point now, and you could argue that all of the chapters "only have one ending", but there are increasingly radical departures in what happens in the middle. There's actually a subtle example in chapter 1, in that the ending scene is slightly different depending on whether you fought your way through Darkners.. The bonus bosses too are more than just challenges; both the party and Seam have emotional reactions and dialogue about them as part of an ongoing subplot.

And of course, the Weird route. Does manipulating Noelle into mowing down Darkners change the ending of the chapter? Not exactly. The broad strokes are the same. But it makes a massive difference to the character dynamics. Berdly ends up in the hospital! This continues into changing the entire first act of chapter 4, where Noelle will then try to talk to Kris about their offscreen reaction to what happened. Again, you get numerous opportunities to abort the route, and if you choose to, er, proceed, then you get that disturbing scene between Kris and Noelle that bypasses the stealth section entirely. The ending phone call is different, too. And yet, regardless, the section ends with Susie looking inside the guitar and the chapter ends with Kris jumping out the window.

I honestly have no theories about how Deltarune is going to end, but we can already say that "your choices don't matter" AND "how we treat them makes all the difference."

[officecyborg]

I assume the clubs room is decorated with baseball and Christmas tree-themed decor for reasons that are unrelated to the Knight who just came through, and who is not Dess Holiday

[officecyborg]

I think I’m going to replay from the beginning specifically with an eye for “forget about the vessel and all that shit, what if Kris is just a kid in crisis and none of the adults around them have noticed?” Because. Let me tell you. Once you start looking for them the signs are everywhere. Just in chapter 4 alone I was like “Oh god…” I feel like I’m watching Twin Peaks.