iwritenarrativesandstuff - Tumblr blog

iwritenarrativesandstuff · 17 hours ago

Text

Kris Playing With Their Touys....

It's a funny title, but this is a really long character analysis of Kris Dreemurr, going into detail about how they interact with fiction, how that applies to the story as a whole, and how that connects to the Weird Route. It's pretty long, so enjoy!

There is a lot of talk about what Deltarune is trying to say about how we consume fiction, and a lot of writing has been done on how some of the characters interact with fiction as well. Noelle has a large focus on nostalgia, and Susie now has a strong connection with the act of writing fiction through Gerson, but I think that not enough people are talking about how Kris plays into that puzzle by focusing on how they treat fiction.

We don’t get a lot of info on Kris’ likes/dislikes, and most of what we do know is limited to being people reminiscing on how they used to be, and not how they are now. They used to watch TV with Asriel and the Holiday sisters, but as soon as Asriel left they stopped watching entirely. Tenna doesn’t even think they like TV so I think it’s possible that they only watched it to spend time with family, and once Asriel wasn’t around they didn’t bother. Ramb says that they used to play with toys alongside presumably Noelle, though we have no evidence that this continued in any form once the two families drifted apart. They used to do a lot of pranks, but the latest possible example of that we have is Kris putting a bath bomb in the toilet, which could’ve happened at any time, while the majority of their pranks were focused on Noelle so that had to have happened before the families split.

From what I can tell, there are four interests Kris has that they still have in recent times. Magic(shown in their search history/experiences with Catti), knives(search history and self evident), piano(very obvious), and video games. I do think all of these parts of their personality either will or already have become very relevant, but I would like to focus on video games.

Why Are You Upset? It's Just A Game.

Alvin gives us a very funny story of Asriel when he was a child. Apparently Asriel confessed to him(despite their religion not having the concept of confession), that he dropped Yoshi into a pit so he could make a difficult jump, and then followed it up by saying that Kris dropped Yoshi into a pit on purpose and just for fun. It’s a very funny scene, and I’m not going to try and say something like “Tricky Tony wrote this to foreshadow the reveal that Kris dropped Dess into a Depths Pit” or whatever, but I do think that even funny lines like this are directly connected to the ongoing themes of the story.

To understand how this scene does that, let’s break down why it’s funny. This scene directly contrasts another scene where a character reminisces about Asriel, another scene that references their world’s Yoshi analogue in fact. Toriel says that when Asriel was younger, for his birthday they painted a lot of eggs to look like Yoshi eggs. He was very happy, until Asgore cooked the eggs for breakfast the next day. We get a lot of pictures painted of Asriel from the various townsfolk, but these two paint him as very sensitive towards his comfort character in the green lizard. It’s silly and cute, but when you fully conceptualize why it is silly and cute things seem much more relevant.

Isn’t it silly that he’s so concerned about hurting a video game character? Isn’t it cute that he treats them like they are real?

That idea not only directly ties into how a lot of people have reacted to Deltarune(people have literally said that anyone who does the weird route is an awful person. It’s ridiculous, but I do think a reaction like that was what Toby envisioned), but it also directly connects to the ongoing plot about how Darkners are treated by Lightners. If a Dark World brought Yoshi to life in the same way it brought Lancer to life, then would we still treat Asriel’s reaction the same? Or would we also be crying when our favorite npc Green Lizard sacrificed himself to let the heroes succeed?

But what interests me most about this parallel is how Kris plays a role in it. Kris intentionally dropped Yoshi into the pit, not to win the level but just because they could. Maybe it was fun to get a reaction out of Asriel. Maybe it was fun to see if the game would let them do it. Maybe they just wanted to see what would happen. It’s not like it matters. It’s just a game. Games are fun.

Of Course. Games Are Fun.

During the backroom segments with the Mantle game, Ramb says something interesting. He says that Kris wouldn’t like Tenna’s version of the game, but they would like the original version. I think it is useful to question if Ramb actually knows Kris or just who they used to be, but at the very least he seems correct that Kris doesn’t like Tenna’s game given that we can say that Tenna sucks to Susie and Kris will not stop us like they usually do when we make them say something mean.

In addition, Kris does very little to resist us playing the Mantle game. During the entire side-quest, I can only notice three examples of them wanting to stop. When they look back at us after the “You Were Used Up” line, when they flinch when attacking Susie and Ralsei, and finally when they fight our controls when we try to enter the shelter.

That last one is incredibly significant. They had the power to resist our fine controls the entire time, but they only invoke that when we’re approaching a location that represents what is both a deep seated trauma, and plays a key role in the plan they are trying to keep secret from us. When we recreate the weird route, even when on a weird route file, they don’t react. When we make them kill all the enemies in the first section of the game they have no issues with it. Their conversations with Susie after the first and second round of the game aren’t out of the ordinary, which is notably compared to how Susie can tell they’re freaked out in the weird route or after the third section.

And why would it bother them? It’s just a game.

Or it is until it gets too real. First by bringing up the shelter, second by hurting them in real life, and the final thing to shatter the illusion is when HERO_SWORD leaves the game. HERO_SWORD is, by all definition, a Darkner. It is an abstract concept given life through the Dark Fountain. All of the characters in the game were just as real as all of the other Darkners, and the barrier separating the two was an illusion. Yes, all of that was fake from Kris’ perspective, but so is everyone else here. To further press on this point, after you complete the Eram fight Kris will deal significantly more damage to Tenna. It’s a strange detail, and I believe that it is trying to suggest that Kris no longer sees Tenna as a “person.” He’s just as fake as the digital Tenna they attacked in the game.

When Susie finds Kris after this, she can say that if Kris isn’t having fun then they should stop playing. This acts as a nod to the player, telling them that if they aren’t having fun anymore that they should stop playing, but I think it applies to Kris too. Telling them that they don’t have to keep playing to see what happens. That they can quit. Maybe in the future they will take this to heart in connection to the plans they have with Carol and the Knight.

Don't You Miss Exploring, Kris?

This is a satisfying place to end it on, and you could just stop right there and just be happy hearing about how Kris can connect to our desire to play games, but I do have one last thing, something I saved for the end because it is a very bold claim, and one that needed all this buildup.

If you are on a Weird Route file, Eram will mention that Kris “enjoyed” what we made them do the day before. Most people have come to the conclusion that this line was an attempt from Eram to get in Kris’ head and play on their insecurities. I think this is entirely plausible, but I disagree.

While I do think Eram is exaggerating, I think it is correct. Kris, on some level, did enjoy the Weird Route.

We get a lot of information on Kris and Noelle’s relationship when they were kids. Kris would come over often, and Noelle just says that the two of them would play in her blog post, and that phrasing implies something along the lines of playing pretend or with toys. Ramb gives us an idea on the type of the game they might have been playing when he says that Kris would bring a laptop home to play with Noelle, making the laptop Queen and using the cards to be King. This line to me seems to suggest that Noelle and Kris used to play make believe, and invented their own stories based on what they learned at church, or based on Lord of the Hammer, or the most likely option, based on the game Noelle loves, Dragon Blazers.

Kris pranked Noelle a lot, from what we can gleam they seemed to love scaring her. At first this can seem like it is something adjacent to bullying, but Noelle makes it abundantly clear that even when she’s terrified she absolutely loves being scared. And if she loves being scared then Kris is the perfect person to scare her because Noelle claims that they are one of the few people she can say no to, and we see signs of this a lot in the weird route of chapter 4. Noelle constantly asks Kris if this is a prank, and she fully trusts that if she asks that they will drop it and tell her that everything is okay. If you push her too far before trying to back out by saying it’s a prank, she slaps Kris because she’s mad that they violated her trust in that way. If anyone else pulled that shit on her she’d freeze in place, and not be able to stop them. That’s why Rudy asks Kris specifically to look after her in chapter 1. Because he knows she can tell them to stop.

So. We know that Kris and Noelle played pretend a lot as kids, and they played pretend based on a work of fiction that was based on the prophecy that the two of them would inevitably be involved in. We know that Noelle actively enjoys being scared, and Kris provides this thrill while also allowing Noelle full control to tell them to stop if she needs it.

Let’s reexamine the events of chapter 2’s weird route, but view it as Kris and Noelle playing pretend with toys again.

Kris leads Noelle to an out of the way and creepy place. While examining Spamton’s shack is not required for the route, it is a nice landmark to help the player make sure they got all the enemies. Noelle describes the shack as creepy, but nostalgic. Referencing all the times Kris scared her, and the monologue she can have later in the chapter where she talks about exploring the woods with Kris, Asriel, and Dess.

Kris and Noelle then defeat all the enemies with violence, and in a specific way. First, remember that this is all pretend and with toys, but also remember that they are playing pretend based on Dragon Blazers. A game with a hidden evil route that terrified Noelle. It is easy to imagine Kris using the existence of this route to scare Noelle during their games.

Kris does a lot of things to creep Noelle out. They say that the two of them are something else, they corner her against a fence while telling her to proceed, they pressure her into stealing something. While all of these would be red flags, given their established dynamic this is just their usual way of having fun. Kris goes out of the way to scare Noelle a lot, she likes to be scared, and if she doesn’t like it anymore she trusts Kris enough to say no. Getting the SnowRing in particular stands out to me because I can so clearly picture Kris trying to convince Noelle to steal candy from a gas station.

Then we get to the ThornRing, and this is where I think things go too far and we’re back to reality. We hear about a lot of examples of Kris scaring Noelle, but we have zero examples of any of their pranks causing physical harm. Just like when the Mantle game crossed a line by physically hurting Kris, equipping the ThornRing to Noelle followed by defeating Berdly is when a line is crossed for Kris to firmly cement that this isn’t a game anymore, and this line is crossed because Noelle doesn’t have the option to say no anymore. She can say no to Kris, but we aren’t Kris so instead she freezes and goes through the motions.

Alright, that was a lot, so I’m gonna condense it down right here. I believe that Kris actively enjoyed the beginning parts of the Weird Route because it reminded them of playing pretend with Noelle when they were kids. Noelle and Kris’ old relationship was built on the fact that Noelle liked being scared, and Kris liked scaring her, and it functioned because Noelle felt comfortable saying no to them. Once the ThornRing is equipped that is when the line is crossed for Kris and they are no longer having fun. Normally, that would be where Noelle would tell them no(Susie can refuse equipment after all), but Noelle can only tell Kris no. She can’t tell us no, so she freezes up and goes through the motions.

Final Words

There are definitely holes in this interpretation, some I recognize and likely many I haven’t even thought of, but I feel confident that the broad strokes of this are at least close.

One issue I would like to get a head start on is the idea that Kris is perfectly fine with freezing Darkners. While I think the beginning of this analysis with how they view video games does work as an explanation of this, it definitely isn’t a foolproof one.

My main counter to this being a problem is that 1: Kris experienced Susie going on a rampage in chapter 1, and while a lot of Darkners were scared, no one got seriously hurt. And 2: aside from the obvious bluebird in the room, there are no signs of the damage Noelle caused in the computer lab, which I think is telling now that we got to see what happened to Tenna. The act of freezing an enemy is not that serious, at least from what Kris can observe, and the part of the weird route that freaks them out is the manipulation of Noelle and injuring Berdly.

Thank you for reading.

#very good analysis!!!#deltarune #utdr #deltarune analysis #deltarune kris

92 notes · View notes