#utdr meta

[tainebot01]

As much as it deeply frustrates me to see such bad faith takes and blatant refusal to acknowledge the deeper messaging of a game and character I hold so dearly… it’s starting to get a little silly to see Deltarune Let’s Players react so negatively to Berdly.

If you are one of those folks who find Berdly just that annoying, I’m sorry to say this but:

My comrade in arms, my fellow gamer - That Is You.

You Are A Berdly, and that’s not inherently bad.

If you have the time, patience, and devotion to find yourself sharing your feelings on games like these, to take a moment out of your day to experience this journey with Kris and company, to gain admiration and understanding for Noelle and Susie beyond their surface level initial impressions, even to wish to belong amongst them despite the closest thing you have to a presence in this world being an annoying thing that pops up on occasion… then you’re way closer to the bluebird than any other character in this game.

Berdly isn’t an irredeemably bad character, nor is he a shallow parody of gaming culture. He’s a reflection of the very people the game is made for, the kind for whom this storytelling and sense of belonging is so important, and the only reason you hate him so much is because you don’t like what you saw in the mirror.

Then again, I’ve heard even the smartest species of birds struggle with identifying their own reflections.

[mbharestuff]

Begging the UTDR fandom on one knee to understand that it is possible for a piece of media to be good, for its creator to be generally well-meaning, and for said creator (and creator's businesses) to still be worthy of criticism.

Please detach yourself from your parasocial relationship to your favorite creators. You can admire them--I admire Toby Fox quite a bit for a number of reasons--while also acknowledging their insufficiencies or outright failures.

[twilightofthesandwiches]

can you perceive the idea of kris actually being the discarded vessel having been thrown into the world as an infant to be found in the woods by the benefactors and left to grow their own mind

Yeah, I think I actually brought it up a few times myself as a possibility as to what is up with Kris and the Vessel. Honestly, thinking about it, it might be my favorite of the current Vessel-related theories right now? Maybe not necessarily that this is the one I'm betting on coming true, but at least the one I find the most personally compelling at the moment.

I like the idea of subverting the perception that the Vessel was some sort of Ethical Guilt-Free Alternative to our current situation with Kris, the easy 'Good' answer to our moral dilemma. I mean, I think that regardless if they're Kris, there are some implications that it might've not be a purely non-sapient empty meat puppet....

But revealing it and Kris be one and the same would obviously drive the point home in a very compelling way.

And I think it works very well with the idea that Kris' situation is kind of a metaphor for the Existential Horror of Being a Teenager. Like, struggling against us as a controlling sort-of 'creator' entity who wanted to mold them into an extension of our desires and identity and asserting that their are their own person with their own personhood... I think it's very resonant with Deltarune's themes.

Again, I'm not definitely sure that this theory is true... but I do like it a lot!

[radioactive-yuri]

one thing i desperately need to know is rouxls kaard's actual genuine feelings on lightners. like. he has essentially created a contained subsystem that directly mimics the dynamic between lightners and darkners, but within this subsystem, he's the only darkner, and the "lightner" is whichever darkner he deems powerful enough to fill the role. but that's where it gets interesting, because those darkners also naturally have their own feelings about lightners, that rouxls seems weirdly ambivalent about. the spade king despises lightners, queen thinks she knows what lightners need, and tenna just wants to entertain lightners. there's no real personal stance on lightners that's informing rouxls' decisions on who to serve; it really is a purely instinctual choice of whoever seems like the "boss".

he also tries to stop the fun gang constantly, but never expresses any personal distaste towards them, and is actually pretty polite and civil in the way he approaches them. it's like he's consciously ignoring the inherent power dynamic between lightners and darkners in his interactions with susie and kris, instead choosing to see them as just people that his own chosen replacement for a lightner wants captured.

to me, this basically reads as him once again playing into the theme of autonomy in deltarune. he, a darkner, cannot conceive of himself as someone with real power, but still seeks to take some control of his life by choosing who he serves, instead of just accepting that it's every lightner out there.

[the-irreverend]

It's funny how certain people will get after Nintendo for not giving Mother 3 an official English release, and yet when they see people frustrated with Toby Fox for having UTDR only available in two languages, they call it "drama" or "an overreaction."

P.S. Yes, I know Toby Fox is just an indie developer, and Nintendo is a multinational corporation, but come on, you think with UTDR's surge in popularity, he'd at least try to look for . Yeah, I also know he said he'll consider "a different approach," but it really shouldn't have taken him this darn long.

[hun9rybug]

I'm assuming onionsan is not dead given that the takoyaki is clearly made of raw onion instead of dust, right?

Since monsters become dust, shouldn't it follow that onion is missing a tentacle or two but alive, and is presumably off tending to their wounds somewhere else (explaining their absence from the lake this chapter). Or am I missing something lore-wise?

[gloogy]

I think the worst part of having insider information on the development of deltarune is knowing that the spamtonitis in game and in the fandom is only going to get worse as it goes on

[hedonistbyheart]

I think it's really telling how much of a comparison can be made between Asriel asking Chara to do their creepy face and how Noelle acts with both Kris and Susie.

Asriel asks Chara to scare him. He makes a startled noise and then laughs, delighted. He's sad he didn't get it on film and is proud as punch when he 'tricks' them into doing it again. Chara looking creepy is a fun game to him and he isn't scared of them.

Noelle is the same. She explains it to Susie as a kind of comfort and that it allows her to be herself. I think her conversations about it with Susie imply that she also enjoyed Kris' pranks as a kid, even if they might have taken it too far sometimes. I'm not entirely sure that's not just their families misinterpreting things though, because Noelle seems to speak of it fondly enough.

Like many things in Deltarune, I think these fleshed out relationships are dynamics that already existed in Undertale, but which are being explored in detail and explained more clearly in DR.

(Including the more toxic parts, like Noelle struggling to say no to people and us pushing Kris to make Noelle stronger against both their wills).