ok hot new "What is Ralsei deltarune" theory
what if he's deltarune. the game itself.
Because for all our asserting and believing that his story can canonically continue after the game ends, we know on our level the game has to end. Toby isn't going to just commit himself to cranking out new chapters forever, the story has to reach a conclusion, and therefore so does he.
He knows the prophesy because he knows his own plot, or at least the way it's "supposed" to go. He tries to carry every burden himself because he knows everyone has to end with the story, a fact that really would be harsh to learn, and worth protecting his friends from.
It would line up Susie's dialogue with Gerson directly with her interactions with Ralsei - trying to choose "eternity", not even realizing that she'd just declared an intent to save the poor boy. She sees the end of the prophesy - perhaps something direct, like "the heroes' stories must reach their end" or something rhyme-ier than that, and punches it down with infectious hope
It would maintain the quiet themes shared between Ralsei and Flowey: Flowey turning cold and violent, taking over (really becoming the game for a brief time in the neutral end) and eventually shooting a giant rainbow laser at his last friend all because he needed to try and find just some last little drop of story left in his world, while Ralsei tries to give himself up, deny himself any attachment in the first place that could dry up and sour by the oncoming end. Either way, the little flower boy lives his life tormented by the fact that there's only so much there can be in his story.
And in keeping with the themes Toby expressed directly during the Undertale 10th anniversary stream - the important part, one of the most important parts of Undertale, is that the limits of the game aren't the limits of the world. There's only so much that the games can share, but they inspire people to imagine what's a step beyond the screen, and that imagination is worth as much as the game itself ever was.
If the idea of what the characters do post-canon ever plants itself in your head - that's the story continuing, as truly as anything that was ever written in code. If you find yourself living just a little differently for having a little Ralsei or Susie on your shoulder telling to take care of yourself, that is an extension of their story, as real as anything else about them that ever reached you
To step up on a soapbox about it - what even is a character anyway? What's the real part of them? What is it that gets you to feel for them and love them even knowing they're technically just words and pictures?
I posit that the answer is that they do have a soul, a real soul, and it's your soul. There's some small piece of you that, when you look at it in the right way, in the right reflection and refraction and paradigm, is being expressed by any character you truly connect with. If you find yourself loving Ralsei, it's because there is a Ralsei in you, or more precisely there's a part of you that felt and thought and acted similarly, that learned to be Ralsei-shaped/identified as you met him
It's also why I give a lot of leeway to mischaracterizations. Maybe your Ralsei as reflected in you Would Not Say That, hell maybe explicitly and canonically it's clear he Would Not Say That, but if I see someone who has him Say That that just tells me that person saw some of themself in him, and wound up expressing more of themself through Their Ralsei than what we see of Toby and of ourselves in our own Ralseis. The little tendril of their soul that's breathing life into the character and making something Real out of a puppet in that instance poked a bit of itself out of him and didn't notice but it's still life and it's still real, it's still all art for having expressed even if it's via the shape of a distorted character bearing a name and identity it ostensibly isn't even the same thing as anymore
Does that make sense? I feel like I should feel less certain that this makes sense. If it doesn't make sense let me know and I can continue the ramble and maybe make it make even less sense
ANYWAY all of this is the philosophical cope I have for how Deltarune can end and the characters hit the End of their story and still feel ok, like we'd still have "won" and gotten to "keep" them and keep them "alive" even afterward, because UT/DR both are kind of "about" fiction and how it affects us and what even does it mean to "end" anyway
To inspire is to live through whoever's been inspired - as Gerson's story is going to continue to live and evolve and breathe via Susie, her and the others' story can and should and will (and I know this fandom, it will) live and evolve and breathe through us. The story ends. The story never ends.
janainaart
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