parallax25

[parallax25]

Protagonism and the Nature of Fiction

A Deltarune Theory Essay

NOTE: THIS IS NOT FINISHED.

Before I start, I'd like to say that I originally intended to make this a video essay, but I don't have a microphone and there really isn't any good free editing software. So what else would I do but make an overly long Tumblr post that no one's going to see? Mostly this post just serves as a way for me to archive my thoughts on the matter of some of Deltarune and Undertale's biggest mysteries, but on the off chance that someone does see this post, I'd like to at least make it intelligible for someone else. When I say this is a long post, I mean this is a LONG post. I don't know if there's a character limit on Tumblr posts, but if there is I'll probably exceed it. With that said, read on.

:: I: The Nature of Fiction ::

One of the biggest things Undertale's known for is its frequent fourth-wall breaks. One of the biggest things Deltarune's known for is its clear implication of a diagetic player. Both of these games toy with subverting conventional video game expectations (especially within the context of RPGs) as well as deconstructing and critiquing tropes that are, at this point, ingrained into conventional game design. This aspect is great for both games, because it lends a very compelling meta narrative to them and allows for some rad worldbuilding opportunities. Making SAVEing and LOADing diagetic, for example, reminds the player that what they do has consequences within the world and is not just a part of the menu. So, the natural conclusion for most people playing these games is that these aspects must be fourth-wall breaks; that the game and the fictional world are one and the same. Examples of this notion in Undertale include things like "Flowey knows he's in a game," or "Sans knows what LV and EXP are that thus realizes he's in a game" or something like that. In Deltarune it's "Gaster took over Toby's Twitter account," "Ralsei knows he's in a game, that's why he mentions controls and knows there's a predetermined narrative," "Gaster's talking directly to the player," "Spamton and Jevil also know that the world is a game," etcetera etcetera.

But really, the idea that Undertale and Deltarune make fourth wall breaks at all just isn't true, and it's what I'd like to disprove here.

Sure, SAVEing and LOADing may be 'diagetic' in a way, but it has an analogue within the fictional world of Undertale. In Undertale it's just magical time travel that occurs whenever the being with the most determination in the universe dies or decides to 'LOAD' their 'SAVE'. It's not diagetic in the way most people think it is. Meta textually it's more literal, sure, but not within the fictional world. Flowey doesn't know he's in a video game. I doubt if he knows what a video game is. I think that he's come to see the world as a metaphorical game, or that he's aware that the fictional universe of Undertale is being manipulated by higher entities. It's also important to realize, however, that fourth wall breaks are, by the nature of fiction, impossible to do without completely breaking a fictional world and all semblance of immersion for the audience. You see, a game, a book, a movie, and a piece of art (to an extent) all serve the same purpose: to abstractly represent by means of gameplay, textual narrative, abstraction, or sequential narrative devices, a fictional world that resides in the collective unconscious of its audience. A fictional world does not really exist anywhere except within the minds of the people who engage with it. Characters represent fictional people and are wholly separate from them. It's the difference between a stage play depicting a real life event and the people involved, and the event and people themseleves. The game Undertale is wholly separate from its fictional world. In the game, when you enter a different room on the map, the previous one is no longer loaded. It's objects and processes within the GameMaker engine cease to be considered. Its collision physics are no longer accounted for. Does this mean that, within the fictional world, everything outside of Frisk's range of vision ceases to exist? No. Obviously not. If you were to perform a fourth wall break, then what you are doing is merging the fictional world and the game. Anything that happens in the game, is one hundred percent literal within the fictional world it represents. Anything that doesn't happen within the game literally never happened within the fictional world. History is erased. Canonically, people are made up horrifying almagamations of pixelated 2 dimensional sprites, half second long .ogg files, and lines of dialogue. It's a veritable ontological nightmare, as every person in existence is replaced with slightly different versions of themselves saying different things every couple of seconds. Everything that does not exist in the playable area does not exist in the fictional world, if you admit that the fictional world and the game world are synonymous.

(Now that I think about it, these kinds of concepts could be really cool to toy around with in a game like The Stanley Parable.)

You see what I'm getting at? Fourth wall breaks are impossible. Everything that seems like a fourth wall break in Undertale and Deltarune has to have an analogue in the fictional world that the games represent. The player is not diagetic within Deltarune, you're just controlling an eldritch, timeline-traversing entity that can take control of people's SOULs and annihilate timelines. I mean, sure it comes to the same thing, but it doesn't mean that YOU are diagetic to Deltarune. Jevil doesn't think that the world is literally a video game, he just knows that the universe is being manipulated by entities outside of it and that the fate of the universe is predetermined (literally by Toby Fox, meta textually a theme of freedom and destiny, and within the fictional world by a godly entity). Gaster didn't fucking take over Toby Fox's Twitter account, Toby just used his Twitter account as a way to implement a narrative device for the release of Deltarune. Gaster still canonically said that stuff, I think, but this just mean's he's contacting the interdimensional cosmic horror entity and speaking to them. Any meta fuckery has to happen on a metatextual or gameplay level in order for the fictional world to maintain its integrity. When Ralsei and those Froggits in the Ruins mention keyboard controls, it's just for player convenience. In universe it would make no sense to be like:

"Hey Kris, did you know that you can walk faster with [X]? I hope that's helpful . . . "

"Ralsei what the fuck are you talking about?"

I don't think Ralsei even knows what a keyboard is. And, yes, I know he's talking to the player here.

(Side note: Ralsei's general tendency to say stuff about controls, to be the only one to mention SAVE points, to have the notion that there's a predetermined narrative to follow, and something else I'll get to later, is, I think, a vague metaphorical allusion to the fact that he knows a lot about the nature of the Deltarune universe and is aware that something's controlling Kris.)

Yeah. So generally any kind of fourth wall break that's there for player convenience or humor I would just declare isn't canon. Like ... as in the characters literally never said it. 4th wall breaks by characters are wildly inconsistent anyways; Mettaton mentions an "on-screen keyboard" in Undertale during his fight, but uh ... that seems like it would have some pretty serious implications if he actually said that and understood what he was saying, and yet it's never mentioned again.

When someone engages with a fictional world and immerses themselves within it, they experience the narrative within the context of the fictional world. They see everything through the lens of someone that exists within that world. One does not consider the medium of the fiction anymore, they just consider the fiction being presented to them. A person playing God of War doesn't consider the fact that they're playing a video game, they just see the world through the lens of Kratos. It's analogous to a person getting closer to a screen until it fills their range of vision. It occupies their entire mind; they cease to consider anything outside of that ... they are simply engaging with the fiction as though it was real. When the fiction acknowledges the medium that it's in, or makes some reference to it, or clearly relies on it, the person engaging with it mentally takes a step back from this metaphorical screen and from there on considers the medium that the fiction resides in as an integral component of it. For most people this is what happened with Undertale. Undertale's meta-narrative is deeply intertwined with its conventional narrative, but the two never intersect. At no point are you, the player, actually literally implicated within the world of Undertale. Most characters defer to your actions to Frisk, while some like Sans don't actually speak to Frisk but instead what they perceive as just some otherworldly entity. Flowey calls you "Chara." Chara ... doesn't really make it clear what's going on with them. The relationship between Frisk, Chara, and the player is extremely ambiguous and isn't really the point of this thesis but suffice it to say, Undertale doesn't make any 4th wall breaks outside of a cheeky meta-textual level. My point is, the acknowledgement of a medium by a piece of fiction that resides within it destroys the integrity and internal logic of that fiction. The idea of a video game character realizing that they're in a video game is entirely, fundamentally paradoxical. That means you just kind of ... destroy the unseen, unspoken barrier between fiction and medium. Like ... there are no people that could "realize" anything! If they've broken out of the bounds of that fictional world, then the fiction itself acknowledges that these people never existed, that they literally cannot realize they're in a video game because there is no one that could realize anything. A fictional character cannot "deviate" from the narrative, because, by definition, the author of that fiction would have had to plan that bit of the story out. It is fundamentally paradoxical. It is the textbook definition of a paradox. Why, why, why, does everyone get the idea that a character could do this? It's absurd, and I hope you see my point because the nature of fiction is kind of a difficult concept to articulate in words.

So as a general rule of thumb, it's imperative that a fictional world and the medium it's being represented must be divorced from each other. Not that the medium can't be conveyed or acknowledged through storytelling or meta-textual elements, but the narrative, and, by extension, the characters and world must not rely on the medium. Games like DDLC break this. There's no other medium that game could possibly be represented in. It's a great game, and I love what it does and how it screws with the player, but what it means is that the fictional world and the game are one and the same, which could be problematic if you want serious storytelling and you want your audience to care what happens in the fictional world. I mean, I don't think it matters that much, in terms of how an audience will perceive it, but it certainly breaks serious immersion. My point is, it must be possible to convey the story of Deltarune in other mediums. Well, okay, the fact that Deltarune has a protagonist that we control is a crucial element to the story, but my point still stands. I guess if it was in another medium we would just follow Kris as they are suddenly possessed by Lovecraftian horror beyond their comprehension, but that wouldn't be nearly as effective or compelling storytelling. And while Undertale being represented in the medium of a retro-looking RPG is also part of the storytelling, it could definitely still be told through, like, a TV show or movie or something. It's just that Undertale's subversion of tropes and subtle jabs at the RPG genre in general make the narrative even more compelling, and lend it a really artful humor.

:: II: Narratives ::

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:: III: Protagonism ::

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