i think it's really interesting that as much as deltarune and undertale plunge in the lesson that things are not necessarily as they seem (a narrative throughline that is especially emphasised in deltarune with the revelation that the prophecy in itself is a multifaceted, complicated thing that has been shattered into various interpretations by the different mouthpieces through which we experience it) there is a prevailing... desire? stubborness? to view many of the characters through lenses that are highly divorced from nuance.
this is particularly becoming quite apparent in the way that many peoples' opinions of sans and toriel have been utterly annihilated by the ending of chapter 4. don't get me wrong, i can see how in a vacuum this situation feels like it should read without nuance; kris has been built up as a tortured character who is struggling in the midst of their parents' divorce (in addition to further disruptions to a once happy equilibrium; asriel leaving for college, presumably some involvement in whatever happened to dess, and of course the tumultuous relationship they have with the soul). they (and susie) have just returned from a life-threatening adventure at well past 1 in the morning, and are greeted by... kris's mother dancing with a stranger in their living room, visibly intoxicated.
to be clear, this is certainly uncomfortable. of course, toriel is allowed to have another adult in her house and it is important to remember that she is allowed to be her own person beyond the doting mother of kris (a high schooler), which she is most of the time. and there is no way she could have been expected to know what they'd actually been up to. still, it is a slap in the face to kris and susie. sure, toriel had been under the assumption they were with noelle, in a house of family friends that the dreemurrs trust greatly, but the lateness of their return was something that clearly slipped her mind as she let loose.
however, a prevailing "critical analysis" of this scene is that this is the moment we are meant to realise that the two of these beloved characters from undertale (specifically toriel) are imperfect and flawed.
...i fear this is not the case.
deltarune may itself be a game about defying pre-established boundaries and reaching beyond the parameters that the game appears to spoonfeed you, but let us not forget that undertale is the same way. the beginning of the game instills you with a mindset that the only way to get by in this world is to "kill or be killed"ā a statement that is chipped away at and eventually defied in the true pacifist ending. but the world itself practically lives in that defiance; you can find it everywhere, not just in flowey/asriel's narrative, even if he is the "mascot" for it.
when we enter the ruins we are given a very distinct, typical RPG premise; our benevolent, perfect, maternal tutorial character shows us the ropes, and when she is pushed to confession she reveals the truth; a great villain, asgore, lies at the end of our perilous trail. he will show no mercy, and all of toriel's actions have been to protect us from him. at the beginning of this game it is very easy to see this story as black-and-white; toriel is the "good guy", asgore is the "villain".
the truth is, as undertale is made to prove, quite a bit more nuanced than that. toriel and asgore both act out of grief. they are cut from the same cloth, because the very moment that cemented their separation was spurred by the deaths of their childrenā their children, that they raised together. asgore has hardened himself because his role as the king of a warring, subjugated nationā a burden that is now entirely on him because the queen forfeited her power in addition to their marriageā necessitated that change. toriel has closed herself off because she became resentful and bitter toward asgore for acting single-mindedly during such a critical time. the differences between them were exacerbated by profound tragedy (a likeness that they seem to share with their counterparts in deltarune).
in the wake of undertale's release in 2015, and even up until deltarune's release three years later, one (i) was hard pressed to find any discussions about toriel and asgore's conflict that did not conclude that asgore was entirely in the wrong and toriel was entirely in the right, which was always something that rubbed me the wrong way even as a little 13 year old fresh out of playing the game. but the misunderstanding is not unfounded, at least in theory, because that is how they are originally presented to us in the ruinsā again, toriel as a benevolent caregiver and asgore as a murderous tyrant.
a thesis of undertale is that these rigid character archetypes are inherently reductive; they do little to show the nuance that can exist beneath. this is true of every character and the underground as a whole, but toriel and asgore are the poster children of this message.
the truth is, while asgore's solution to breaking the barrierā waiting for humans to fall into the underground and take their souls while they are weakā was inefficient and agonizing for the monsters, toriel's solutionā that asgore kill one human and then with their soul go to the surface and take six moreā was equally wrong. especially in wartime, there was no doubt that a monster appearing on the surface with a human soul, with the intention of stealing six more, would be seen as an offensive rather than defensive action; there are no two ways about thatā not to mention that toriel, being a boss monster, could have done this herself! there is no evidence that asgore had strict command over her even as king. this is a less salient point, however, because we are only given hints of what this time was like indirectly. but adding the context that toriel was essentially asking the father of a human child that had just died to go and kill several humans back-to-back while he was actively grieving... yes, asgore was wrong, but so was toriel; there was no correct answer here. even beyond that event, evidence of toriel's imperfections can be experienced directly on screen, as her intentions to trap frisk in the underground and act as their parent against their will become more and more clear.
so no, toriel has never been perfect. she has always been flawed despite her good intentions, which themselves are obviously clear. understanding this imperfectionā and that toriel and asgore both possess it despite being good peopleā is essential to understanding the themes of undertale as a whole. paradoxically, this is why i believe she deserves far more lenience than what she has been given; every character should be given the lenience to be nuanced. sans is certainly callous in deltarune, sure, but he has no obligation to kris, especially not before he and toriel are decidedly in a romantic relationship, which is implicit (especially based on what we know from undertale) but clearly not a discussion that the two of them have had; for now, they're friends. in terms of toriel's suitors, asgore is "objectively" far more "toxic" with how he repeatedly seeks her out to make romantic gestures despite her clear discomfort and repeated rejection of him. i feel bad for asgore; perhaps even the inciting event (likely dess-related) for the divorce was not his fault, but these actions are still ones he should be at least expected to take accountability for.
i believe a similar flattening of characters into distinct good/bad roles has been evident in the treatment of kris as well. there is no doubt that kris's intentions seem to be far from evil, and that they are tortured by the forced puppetteering of a soul... but did we ask to be placed into kris, either?
even on a pacifist file, kris still repeatedly displays intense animosity toward the soul, which many people have taken face-value as proof that we (like in undertale's genocide route) are the or an antagonist of deltarune forcing our will upon an innocent kris. but... what exactly is it that we are doing? we were promised an empty vessel we could pilot ourselves and were instead unwillingly thrown into an equally unwilling participant. kris is allegedly the victim here, but... is that it? is there nothing deeper than that? sure, maybe they have a wider vision of what the "greater good" is in this narrative, but... all we are doing as the soul is as much good as we can with the information we know, which is little. we have purified a titan. we have shown mercy to enemies. we have closed dark fountains, which to our understanding can cause disruptions in the balance of light and dark that could have world-ending consequences.
meanwhile, kris has been shown on screen opening a dark fountain (one is the minimum amount they have opened; there are likely more), colluding with the knight and carol, refusing to let us save undyne by opening the bunkerā they seem to be trying to cause the roaring that ralsei has repeatedly warned us about. are we really the antagonist here, or are we trapped in an antagonist's body? whatever intentions kris has, toby cannot coast on the expectation that we as the player will repeatedly bend to justify their actions because we assume that they must be good, and i imagine that he is notā he is an excellent writer. it is simply fact many actions kris has taken have been in servitude of an outcome that we seem to have to stop, one that has directly put several people (including their own mother) in danger. that is nuance that simply cannot be lostā even if kris turns out to be purely benevolent and the explanations we have been given have been all wrong, the fact that they continue to do things that we are repeatedly warned against is hammered into the story. in a pacifist run, both we and kris are victims of circumstanceā but kris is not a victim of us, the player. there is more than good-bad going on here, and as with all of these characters the truth will lie somewhere in the middle.
anyway that's my ted talk. sorry for how long that was! i am just really passionate about analysis of these characters and have been for so long. deltarune just gives me an excuse to talk about all of my character thoughts from when i was in the undertale fandom back in ye olde 2016, even if it isn't necessarily a perfect reflection of that game
romaincrisis
dededos
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto