sunshine-jesse

[sunshine-jesse]

So how do you square your pet theory that Susie is gonna be revealed to be the true protag and inherit the SOUL with your more recent insistence that the SOUL is a symbol of Kris being self-hating and refusing to full-heartedly engage with life due to species dysphoria/yet-to-be-revealed past trauma?

Have you just given up that prediction, or are you anticipating a scene where Kris has a change of heart and does a sacrifice-play with Susie then being left to take up the MC role for the finale in their place/memory?

I think Susie is gonna wield it to slap some sense into Kris at some point. A lot of Chapter 4 leads me to believe that we're gonna have a Susie solo segment at some point either way and her having to dunk the SOUL into whatever pit Kris crawls themself in to seems like a good premise for that.

[sunshine-jesse]

just a little vent art, sorry if anything is out of character kris gets misgendered by the community a lot, and when it happens so often, it starts to get overwhelming. but, once you remember that the only people that really matter are the family/friends that love and respect you for you, you realize it'll all be ok

[sunshine-jesse]

felt inspired to make this in response

[sunshine-jesse]

HOW THE KRIS/PLAYER RELATIONSHIP WORKS, A (shitty) ILLUSTRATIVE GUIDE:

I made this diagram because I'm mad and autistic about how people read the player/Kris relationship.

[sunshine-jesse]

The SOUL is required to use it but all ACTs belong to the person who uses them. It's a Kris ability because the SOUL is their own regardless of our ability to connect to and control it (as confirmed by the fact that it's referred to Kris' SOUL in almost every narration and how it was there before we got there).

This stuck out to me so hard because of where it happens but also how it’s said. The Narration and Flavor text has long since been shown to be Kris’ thoughts, observations and jokes. When you learn it starts to help you get a feel for how they think about things. They talk about their own side of the room dispassionately but when looking at Asriels side theirs more to talk about for instance.

This text right here isn’t in the usual 3rd person like other observations are, this is a directed statement. It’s being said to US. In the normal and good route, and to a lesser extent Snowgrave, we don’t act like ourselves. We act like a person. The abilities we as The Soul have are incredible, we banish the dark, we can read minds, we can change the essence of ourselves to do other things like shoot, we can see through walls and our ability to fight and dodge are legendary and thats probably scratching the surface. Yet despite this we never act as anything more than everyone else through Kris.

It’s in the moment we’re facing The Titan and it’s spawn, our light shines brightly as we fight them all off with relative ease, our light banishing them, dodging every attack from these unholy monsters. All of that started with the Knight fight in CH3 where through power and knowledge Kris doesn’t comprehend we face against a being leagues above everyone else, go toe to toe with them when it should be impossible and even had them on the ropes until Kris forced us to throw the fight. Shattering their sword in the process that makes us even deadlier to the Spawn and Titan. In this moment we’re not a mortal being, we’re the thing legends are written about and Kris asks us “When did you start being yourself?”

[sunshine-jesse]

Everything we do in this fight we can do in the Jackenstein fight when we're not as locked in. The ability to Unleash/Banish is squarely a Kris ability.

They can't do anything new, but they can get a new stat depending on how they handle the Spawn fight.

I really, really don't think it's about us, the player.

This stuck out to me so hard because of where it happens but also how it’s said. The Narration and Flavor text has long since been shown to be Kris’ thoughts, observations and jokes. When you learn it starts to help you get a feel for how they think about things. They talk about their own side of the room dispassionately but when looking at Asriels side theirs more to talk about for instance.

This text right here isn’t in the usual 3rd person like other observations are, this is a directed statement. It’s being said to US. In the normal and good route, and to a lesser extent Snowgrave, we don’t act like ourselves. We act like a person. The abilities we as The Soul have are incredible, we banish the dark, we can read minds, we can change the essence of ourselves to do other things like shoot, we can see through walls and our ability to fight and dodge are legendary and thats probably scratching the surface. Yet despite this we never act as anything more than everyone else through Kris.

It’s in the moment we’re facing The Titan and it’s spawn, our light shines brightly as we fight them all off with relative ease, our light banishing them, dodging every attack from these unholy monsters. All of that started with the Knight fight in CH3 where through power and knowledge Kris doesn’t comprehend we face against a being leagues above everyone else, go toe to toe with them when it should be impossible and even had them on the ropes until Kris forced us to throw the fight. Shattering their sword in the process that makes us even deadlier to the Spawn and Titan. In this moment we’re not a mortal being, we’re the thing legends are written about and Kris asks us “When did you start being yourself?”

[sunshine-jesse]

I believe this is talking about/to Kris because this is the fight where Kris gains access to the slain/purify stat depending on what we do to the Spawn, suggesting Kris fully takes ownership over their actions and locks the fuck in.

This stuck out to me so hard because of where it happens but also how it’s said. The Narration and Flavor text has long since been shown to be Kris’ thoughts, observations and jokes. When you learn it starts to help you get a feel for how they think about things. They talk about their own side of the room dispassionately but when looking at Asriels side theirs more to talk about for instance.

This text right here isn’t in the usual 3rd person like other observations are, this is a directed statement. It’s being said to US. In the normal and good route, and to a lesser extent Snowgrave, we don’t act like ourselves. We act like a person. The abilities we as The Soul have are incredible, we banish the dark, we can read minds, we can change the essence of ourselves to do other things like shoot, we can see through walls and our ability to fight and dodge are legendary and thats probably scratching the surface. Yet despite this we never act as anything more than everyone else through Kris.

It’s in the moment we’re facing The Titan and it’s spawn, our light shines brightly as we fight them all off with relative ease, our light banishing them, dodging every attack from these unholy monsters. All of that started with the Knight fight in CH3 where through power and knowledge Kris doesn’t comprehend we face against a being leagues above everyone else, go toe to toe with them when it should be impossible and even had them on the ropes until Kris forced us to throw the fight. Shattering their sword in the process that makes us even deadlier to the Spawn and Titan. In this moment we’re not a mortal being, we’re the thing legends are written about and Kris asks us “When did you start being yourself?”

[sunshine-jesse]

I just want to say that I deeply, thoroughly enjoy and appreciate your current Deltarune kick, the little bits of discussion and preliminary analysis you’ve been putting out over the past few weeks have already helped me contextualize and better understand the story so far, and I can’t wait for your planned proper deep-dives.

Now here’s one topic I’d like to hear your take on; a lot of people in my circle who are really into Snowgrave were crying foul at a whole lot of stuff last month: the “copout” of Berdly being merely in a coma, the fact there was basically just one substantial segment and a tiny cliffhanger for the route as progression in two whole chapters, and the seeming hard swerve from it being a relatively grounded corruption/indoctrination/abusive relationship arc with subtle mind-control elements to a “creepypasta parody” with an overblown possession sequence & mindwipe of Noelle.

Just gonna shotgun some questions here: do you think all or any of these complaints are on the money? Do you think Toby has something planned for the finale that will be spectacular enough to redeem the threadbare middle bit in the eyes of at least some naysayers? Do you have any hypotheses of the intended set-up or meta-comments it might have been angling for? My own best guess is “Berdly not actually being lethally struck and the route as a whole being aborted off-screen and constrained to one-and-a-half scenes that throw out all prior slowburn and covert elements is a metaphor for the escalating toxicity/oneupmanship that is inevitable when a controlling Game Master attempts to rerail a ruined story and stymie an edgy contrarian player’s attempts to derail it all over again.” Am I grasping part of it, or am I offbase/missing other aspects of it?

I ask all this because I really like reading your thinkpieces and this is the topic in Deltarune I am most engaged on. Feel free to answer whichever questions you feel like to the extent you feel like, and if you were planning to get into this subject in your future write-ups you can just tell me to wait and see.

Nothing that happened in chapters 3 or 4 are a copout when the whole narrative is a meditation on whether or not our actions within the context of an unbreakable fate mean anything. I think you're pretty much on the money there.

It's threadbare because it's frankly irrelevant outside of the effect it has on Noelle. It's clearly not actions out-of-character enough for Kris to meaningfully affect their character growth (not just from necessity or laziness, the John Shadowmantle fight heavily suggests this, leading me to believe that the Weird route is an externalization of Kris' own trauma), and it hasn't actually impacted anyone else in the story that much yet. Therefore, it won't really do anything until/unless Noelle is involved in the story.

[sunshine-jesse]

Agreed.

The SOUL, described as the "culmination of their being," is effectively their whole, "perfect" or "divine" self. It represents everything they're capable of, and I don't think it's unreasonable that a bullied, isolated teenager with a bit of a mean streak could have something like the Weird route buried within them. Externalizing trauma in such a way is still something that someone can get a sick kick out of, despite being something incredibly shameful.

The reason we control the SOUL is the same reason that we can control, say, Link in the Zelda games. Link is effectively a reincarnated, heroic spirit passed between generations and worlds. We control the "idea" of Link, the courageous(*) silent hero who nevertheless still has their own distinct personality in between games. Link's "will" is our own: The will of someone who wants to carry out fate and see the story through to its end, and the story is predicated on the idea that our will is also Link's, creating a two-way connection that allows us to carry out the story.

(I'll write more about Kris as a thematic mirror Link at a later date)

*this is almost certainly an intended comparison btw:

They think that by rejecting the SOUL- the will of a hero and the culmination of their being- they're rejecting their own humanity, which is something they hold deep shame over. But all they're doing is compromising their ability to take control of their own fate. The themes of puppetry present in the antagonists look more like they're meant to mirror the idea of connection with others, so I strongly believe the intended takeaway (which I'm sure will be blatantly obvious by the end of ch5) will be about the connection we've formed with Kris, not the control we have over them.

I'd actually be willing to bet that Kris won't have a speaking line UNTIL they accept the SOUL and connect with us. We probably can't hear them because we're not properly connected with them, honestly.

The Weird route throws a wrench in the idea that we're merely the will of a hero, but that's because the Weird route is the same as the Genocide route in Undertale in the sense that it breaks the narrative over its knee. In Undertale, we still hold the fate of humans and monsters in our hands either way, but by breaking the narrative in service of becoming stronger, we fast forward through many character and story beats. We carry out the intended end goal (deciding the fate of monsters) with the intended takeaway (our actions matter) in the most twisted way possible.

The Weird route is much the same. The narrative compensates for our actions by fast-forwarding through Noelle's character arc and fill the role Susie does in the normal route. People focus on the horrific abuse the SOUL inflicts on Noelle (for good reason) but overlook the fact that it also causes her to become a more confident and self-assured person, at least while we're still on that route. A connection that would be formed with Susie is instead formed with Kris, and their character arc is contingent on that connection. We can't break the themes of the story (growth through connection) through the Weird route, merely turn them fucked up and evil.

And in portraying the themes of the story in the most twisted way possible, we'll probably reach the intended end goal in the most twisted way possible, whatever the fuck that may be.

i can't 8elieve i have to make this

alright so i've had a8solutely enough. i cannot take it anymore. i must speak my mind on the matter. 8ecause i'm going to explode if i keep it in my head any f8cking longer.

deltarune chapter 3+4+snowgrave spoilers a8ound.

KRIS IS NOT UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE SOUL INSIDE OF THEM AND I FEEL INSANE THAT THIS ISN'T THE MAJOR8TY OPINON!

with that inflammatory opening out of the way, allow me to esta8lish the groundwork that this cry of agony into the void disguised as a deltarune theory will 8e oper8ting on.

i want to get this done eventually. may8e even make it concise if i can help it. as such i will not 8e going through deltarune chapters 1-4 8eat 8y 8eat narr8ting my reading of all of this. that would 8e insane and i'm not a youtu8er looking to make a quick 8uck 8y explaining the plot of deltarune.

instead, this will 8e focusing on specifically evidence that runs counter to the idea of kris 8eing controlled 8y the soul inside of them. everyone already seems well enough familiar with the evidence for it.

8y focusing on counter evidence, my only goal here is to show this commonly accepted mindset is at 8est, heavily flawed in specific aspects and working off a lot of assumptions, and at worst is a8out as sound as the idea that gaster's soul is hidden somewhere inside of kris and narr8ting things.

proof OF something is completely meaningless if it has sufficient proof against it. proof against something must 8e met with lest you fall into the dangers of "friend inside me" theorizing where you do nothing 8ut try to justify a pre-existing idea you already had.

now that all that is out of the way, lettuce get into my disconnected series of points as i remem8er them:

first major point: THE SOUL'S actual influences.

so i must conceed. whatever the soul is, whoevers ever it is. whether chara or frisk or whoever the protag of undertale yellow is or kris or the player, regardless of who they are they have genuine non-normal interactions with at least two people around them that is commented on 8y those people. non-normal meaning unique to the soul.

susie and noelle.

susie and noelle have 8oth commented on what the "influence" of the soul is like.

on susie's end we have the moment in chapter 1 when she is escaping jail. she comes to the cross roads and wonders where she should go. the prompt then comes up saying go left or go right. no matter what you pick, susie reacts the same way. she comments that it sounded like kris said something.

now, on its own. this doesn't inherently mean anything. may8e susie is just thick headed enough she reacts this way. 8ut then we get to noelle.

she comments on how she just "has to keep doing as kris says" and the a8ove screen shot "as long as i just do what they say" as the soul has picked multiple times for her to do ice shock. it implies that to the other characters, in 8attle what the soul does registers as kris telling them to do things.

i wish i had a screenshot of it on hand, so you'll unfortun8tly have to take my word on this. 8ut in the 8erdly fight, if kris goes down noelle makes the comment "i can still hear their voice." confirming that in 8attle, the actions you take in the menus registers to the other party mem8ers as telling them to do things.

an extra detail in this is noelle, despite 8eing in trance due to the thornring, says no at first and the game prompts you to pick a different option.

implying that anyone at any moment, realistically speaking, can reject the soul's suggestions. further showing that the influence the soul possesses when it comes to other individual living people is 8asically talking to them.

this is enough to convince me personally on this topic point, 8ut don't worry. i have one more thing.

snow grave chapter 4

in snowgrave chapter 4, noelle reacts to you picking the option "please don't" as if kris said that. to which she then rationalizes to herself "i mean, i know you didn't say anything, 8ut..." implying she registered a response, 8ut recognized kris themself didn't say anything.

these three moments culmin8 into my first point of contention with "soul control" theory as i have decided to call it just right this moment. for all intents and purposes, as descri8ed 8y the game, the influence the soul has into making people make decisions is merely telling them to do something.

it could perhaps 8e a pestering, annoying nuisance at worst that'll never shut up. 8ut it cannot FORCE anyone to do anything. i 8elieve this extends to kris. as there is no reasona8le evidence against it.

this alone, is not enough for a full counter argument tho. it is merely one facet of a counter argument. i have at minimum two more points at the time of writing this.

second major point: kris does whatever the f8ck they seem to want.

let's once again, start with chapter 1. a famous moment of express kris characteriz8tion.

kris defends susie without any prompt, or quick time event, or any input from the player. there is no choice given here. kris just does it. this alone shows that, even when the heart is inside of kris, there is at minimum, SOME circumstances in which if the soul has control kris can override it.

this scene shows at 8arest minimum, in an assumedly stressful scenario kris can surpass control if one of their friends are in danger. remem8er this. it's an important tool that'll help us at a l8er d8 in the future. in times elsewhere.

of course, i am speaking in commonly accepted terms that imply the soul is controlling kris. i do not 8elieve this, as you have read. so let us move on to the other pieces of evidence, that expand this to 8e what i 8elieve is ultim8ly another piece of evidence against soul control theory.

the end of chapter 1. a very stark moment. this is o8viously highly painful for kris. the expression, screen shake, and constant damage taken noise indic8s yeah, this is a 8ig hurty. and yet despite this clear pain, kris does it anyway. the soul in this moment, is likely ready for 8ed. as it just chose to go to 8ed. 8ut kris is a8out to go eat some f8cking pie

and the soul in all of this? it can't slip its way out of kris's fingers. implying either kris is strong (8acked up 8y them constantly shaking the screen, slashing tires, making huge thud sounds when they throw stuff at pretty hihg speeds, and the entire hockey stick segment.) or the soul is really weak (8acked up 8y it 8eing repeatedly KO'd 8y kris, the fact it can't move the 8ird cage at all. not even jiggle it around. and can't even lift an angel tree topper off it.) or 8oth (see 8oth examples a8ove.)

knowing the main st8ted given non-specul8tive reason for this is cuz, kris wanted to eat all of the pie toriel made (and this is a regular thing they do, toriel asks if she needs to lock the oven again.)

this throws an instant wrench into the idea that susie 8eing in danger spurred kris to wrench control 8ack from the soul. it seems something as chill and mundane as getting pie allows kris to wrench control from the soul to get a slice (or 8) of some delicious pie. indic8ting it's sort of a thing kris can do whenever.

8ut okay. may8e there's still wiggle room here. the soul could've 8een asleep at the wheel and kris seized the chance to get what they want. there's no reason to 8elieve the soul, player, frisk, etc, wanted susie to get got. and the soul was getting ready for 8ed. perhaps all this is just a result of the soul slacking.

so then the question prompts. what if undia8ly to any reasona8le person, the soul wanted to do something and kris didn't.

(please excuse the watermark, i'm pulling all of these from youtu8e, writing this is hard enough as is and i don't wanna replay all of deltarune 4 times to make my simple points.)

a 8attle of the ages takes place in chapter 4. the soul wants to read what's inside the guitar. and kris does not. kris infact, does everything in their f8cking power to stop the soul from even getting near the guitar.

there is a8solutely no question. the soul wants the guitar or at least wants susie to read the code inside the guitar. and kris 8y all metrics, wants that guitar to remain hidden.

this is something 8oth parties want for assumedly really important reasons. 8oth to save undyne and to not save undyne. and in a 8attle of willpowers. kris wins out easily. not even a struggle. it's painful sure 8ut in terms of actual capac8ty to do it, kris has no real struggles. the only 8enefit the soul has over kris in this whole dilemma is floating out of kris's reach in the closet. and only in the closet.

in a 8attle with the soul, kris wins. kris's will, determin8tion, narr8tive relevance-whatever you wanna call it, is 8y and large stronger than the souls. the normalcy they go a8out denying the soul any agency in this feels almost routine. normal to them.

this is my second major piece of evidence against soul control theory. in every instance kris can tell the soul to f8ck off and do whatever they want when they feel like it. there's other pieces of evidence to this fact, 8ut like i said at the start i wanna try to keep this concise. this is pure counter evidence here folks.

this fact that kris wins out in the 8attle of wills paints the rest of the game in an interesting light. 8ut that's specul8tion and theorizing i can leave to a different post. right now i'm merely here to show counter evidence to soul control theory.

which leads to my third piece of major evidence.

third major point: all the little things

"what the f8ck does all the little things mean" i hear you wondering. to put it simply, it's an uncounta8le (meaning i don't want to count it) amount of small non-impressive, easily missa8le interactions 8etween the soul/player, kris, and the world.

one example is the moment that honestly sparked the idea in me that kris was not in fact, under the control of the soul. at least to the point where i cared a8out it.

in chapter 4 snowgrave, i wanted to visit 8erdly. i was curious if i could have any neg8tive interactions with him. may8e rip off his 8lankets or something. this is the route where everything's messed up, i wanna see the lim8s of it. so i went over to the heater. i planned to just interact with it and choose "do nothing" 8ut then something shocking happened to me.

it turned on. kris turned it on. no prompting. no option for me to do anything else. i couldn't even turn it off. it was just on. the fact i, the one who was either in control of the soul, or taking on the role of the soul (not getting into what the soul is, just the idea it's controlling kris.) could not make 8erdly worse off struck me hard. it spoke to me. so starkly did it convey to me, i am not controlling kris. in a puppet sense at least. there is no more control happening here than in any rpg where you take on the role of a hero.

there's many other "kris does things on their own" moments. some of which even tie into the "the soul is just telling kris suggestions" idea. like how kris will stop themselves whether via 8iting or coughing, from saying they'll never play again. or how they'll cough when the option to say ralsei is just a darkner and shouldn't have feelings to override it.

kris sticks their fingers in the gr8s of a picnic ta8le. they gather darkners from the li8rary. they close the drawer with the dragon drawing 8ook in it when susie sees it. there's just so, so many tiny things that speak to a kris with agency that the soul has no real control over. the player can't even leave noelle's house right as she enters her yard. either noelle is asserting her will over the narr8tive, or kris just doesn't wanna leave for whatever reason.

after carol shows up all the doors in the holiday house give the text 8ox "no reason to go in there" in rooms you could defin8tly just enter 8efore. hell you can't even use the kitchen sink in chapter 2's ending.

who's really in control here?

major point 4: who's really in control here.

i need to level with you folks. it genuinely hurts me on some level. seeing people glaze over my final, and argua8ly my strongest piece of counter evidence. it's not just implic8tions you can glean from interactions. it's written outright. said to 8e so accur8 to even the smallest details.

kris is the cage for the soul. in this dynamic, kris is the one in control. keeping the soul captive. whatever happens, is allowed to happen 8y kris. cages aren't controlled 8y their captives. that's silly.

this is why it's hurt so much, seeing people go on and on and on and on a8out how kris is 8eing controlled 8y the soul. that their life is not their own. when there's so much pointing that that mindset in particular, is not correct. down to an unmissa8le panel of the prophecy calling kris the cage.

there is no player. there is only the cage. the cage forces you down the path. and you are trapped inside of it. even if you don't wanna 8e.

miscellaneous points

"8ut if kris is in control why did snowgrave happen?"

kris's actual motiv8tions are a complic8ted su8ject. honestly you could make a ram8le twice as long as this specul8ting and comparing evidence for kris's motiv8tions for-honestly everything. they seem like a complic8ted character who has conflicting motiv8tions and likes and dislikes. how can someone who loves pie also happily eat moss?

i dunno man kris is kris. they're as hard to quantify as any character. it's not like to8y fox can't write complex characters. noelle's simultaneously a huge weirdo and also the sens8tive girl next door. susie's a mean girl with a heart full of hope and kindness. toriel's a loving mother who does everything she can for her darling non-8inary child who's pronouns she respects, 8ut also gets drunk with her new 8oyfriend in house on the weekend and makes her kid comforta8le. asgore is a man with nothing 8ut love in his heart who cannot for the life of him stop f8cking things up and making people uncomfy.

things are complex and i think kris is no different as a character. i think it's worth looking into ram8 and eram's insistence that kris enjoys f8cked up sh8t, kris's allowance for the snowgrave route to happen, their clear discomfort with killing their friends in mantle, the entire f8cking aftermath of snowgrave in chapter 4, and all that other junk as pieces of a whole. not just lies 8eing told to the audience. whether it's lying that kris cares a8out their friends, or lying that they enjoy f8cked things-i think neither is lies. 8ut that's specul8tion.

"then why does kris keep taking the soul out of their own 8ody? what is the rel8tionship with kris and the soul if not hostil8ty from the soul forcing kris through life?"

that deals with a lot of specul8tion that i don't feel like getting into, writing this has already wiped me out majorly. i've 8een writing this for three hours str8.

8ut to comment on this, we don't really know what the soul does for kris, or what not having it in them does for it. it could 8e kris takes out their soul to remove their emotions to do weird knight conspiracy stuff. they could take it out to keep the soul out of the loop. they could do it for some other reason. kris could feel entirely neutral to the soul or resent it majorly. it's hard to say for sure. i have my theories 8ut i would save that for another post.

let me know if you want another f8cking novella on what i think kris and the soul actually are. it's an interesting su8ject i'd love to speak on if there's interest for it.

"WHAT A8OUT THE 8IG SNOWGRAVE SCENE!? HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT?!"

that would require me to define the rel8tionship 8etween the soul and kris. and kris's motiv8tions. and analyze the su8tlies in that scene from 8oth noelle, the soul, and kris's pov. and throw in some healthy specul8tion.

this is why i wanted to only focus on counter evidence. regardless of what someone says a8out the snowgrave scene, the previous pieces of counter-evidence to soul control still stand. i could think of three explan8tions. 8ut again, that would 8asically 8e part of that novella i mentioned a8ove.

anyway, that's a8out everything i can think of now. see you in deltarune chapter 6 every8ody. may8e if i'm left to my own devices i'll rant a8out why gaster and asgore are two characters who don't actually matter next.

[sunshine-jesse]

One more thing:

Upside-down Gnosticism theory works extremely well for one character in particular, who's face is visible in both pure light and pure darkness if you flip him upside down:

pls tell me about the deltarune gnosticism parallels

Oh you've unleashed a horrific fate upon yourself.

Theres more too it than this but just know this is based on device theory in a lot of ways because of the tiered reality it suggests for the world of deltarune. As well as Gaster's presence as an arbiter of how we interact with the deltarune world on as our connection between our reality and deltarune as a world.

Keep in mind also this will be a gross simplification of some aspects of gnostic theology. I'm planning on making a whole video on these parallels where I go into the creation myth in depth but Im gonna leave out some bits until i can do that because without it those parts would not make any sense.

A lot of this is going to sound like a madman's ramblings so bear with me I'm still analyzing this.

It's not the first thing I realized but a very key piece of it is how deltarune treats the elements of light and dark.

Gnosticism has a very dualistic view of the spiritual and the physical. Every human carries the spark of divinity and the light of god (keyword light. They essentially use it the same way modern Christians use grace or the holy Spirit.) but they are also cursed with materiality, rather than the holy spiritual body they were created to inhabit. (Which gives og goner vessel vibes to me but that's a later topic)

I see some clear parallels to how they portray light and dark in deltarune

Light -> Holy light, the spark of god, essence without form. The piece of you that persists when your materiality fails you (death).

Dark -> Mass, materiality, form without substance. Something that is real and created but has no spiritual shelf life beyond that form.

This really sticks out to me especially in the way ralsei talks about darkeners. Because functionally while they are not able to leave the dark world they still act and function like normal people. But because Ralsei knows of the dark world's pure materiality and lack of persistent self outside of the dark worlds, he doesn't see them or himself as real people.

His insistence that darkeners don't matter doesn't totally make sense in universe (it does in the meta narrative of it all but you know what I mean) unless you treat light as less of a element against dark, but more as a element that keeps objects composed in the same shape. Gives them a persistent essence of being beyond their physical form. Darkeners aren't real because they are soulless and do not retain a consistent consciousness.

However we clearly run into a problem here. If darkness is materiality then why does the light world still have physical form. But I feel like by assuming the layers of deltarune's cosmology are just the light world and dark world is misleading. The light world is just the highest tier they as characters know. The light world is not just light, it still retains shadows. Darkness in the corners built into their world.

That's where device theory comes in. The tiered reality it suggests looks sort of like this. (Yes I linked the gnostic comparisons don't worry about that yet).

The yellow blue gradient is supposed to communicate the transition or fading divine light as you go down the tiers.

In gnostic theology the pinnacle of holy light is the pleroma. Which is functionally heaven but in laymen's terms is essentially a halo of gods light. The spiritual sun the light shines from. The farther you go from the pleroma the more material it gets. Which leads me to believe that the source of that light. Of essence rather than form in deltarune is our world. Our light being dragged from the pleroma into the "material" (or material for deltarune (code/darkness/whatever the fuck functions as mass in their reality))

Now the lynch pin that holds all of this together is this. The goal of gnosticism is gnosis, the rejoining of your divine soul with god in the pleroma. For deltarune salvation isn't gnosis. Its freedom. The closer you get to the pleroma the more freedom and agency you are given. The more you can control. We, being in the pleroma have full free will and a lot more control over ourselves, gaster while working against the system is still ultimately written if only on a meta level, and the lighteners are not just written for but bound by the systems they are found within. And then we have darkeners. I don't think that's hard to puzzle out.

That's why all the secret bosses, gone mad with knowledge of things they shouldn't know focus on freedom. Too darkeners what is freedom if not salvation? Ability to choose their fate beyond what happens to their light world forms.

It's also why kris' search for freedom is so compelling to me through this framework. Because by giving up their soul to another force in one way or another (my theory is the occult shit they were doing separated their essence, their self, from their soul (ie the spark of divine light they've been given). Meaning functionally Kris has given up their key to salvation through this framework. They've doomed themselves to be ultimately just as material as the darkeners they face. Which is why I think Kris sees themselves in the secret bosses as much as they do. Why spamton failure to escape the paradigm freaked them the fuck out so much. Because it is a demonstrative example of the fact that they can never achieve freedom. Gnosis. Escape.

Now I'm leaving out the gaster demiurge elements because that requires me delving into the creation myth but trust I will get back to y'all on this. I just need to lay out the most obvious parallels I see in its dualistic cosmology.

This is all I have for now. Apologies for my mad prophet ramblings

[sunshine-jesse]

Not Gnosticism, just upside-down Gnosticism.

:D

pls tell me about the deltarune gnosticism parallels

Oh you've unleashed a horrific fate upon yourself.

Theres more too it than this but just know this is based on device theory in a lot of ways because of the tiered reality it suggests for the world of deltarune. As well as Gaster's presence as an arbiter of how we interact with the deltarune world on as our connection between our reality and deltarune as a world.

Keep in mind also this will be a gross simplification of some aspects of gnostic theology. I'm planning on making a whole video on these parallels where I go into the creation myth in depth but Im gonna leave out some bits until i can do that because without it those parts would not make any sense.

A lot of this is going to sound like a madman's ramblings so bear with me I'm still analyzing this.

It's not the first thing I realized but a very key piece of it is how deltarune treats the elements of light and dark.

Gnosticism has a very dualistic view of the spiritual and the physical. Every human carries the spark of divinity and the light of god (keyword light. They essentially use it the same way modern Christians use grace or the holy Spirit.) but they are also cursed with materiality, rather than the holy spiritual body they were created to inhabit. (Which gives og goner vessel vibes to me but that's a later topic)

I see some clear parallels to how they portray light and dark in deltarune

Light -> Holy light, the spark of god, essence without form. The piece of you that persists when your materiality fails you (death).

Dark -> Mass, materiality, form without substance. Something that is real and created but has no spiritual shelf life beyond that form.

This really sticks out to me especially in the way ralsei talks about darkeners. Because functionally while they are not able to leave the dark world they still act and function like normal people. But because Ralsei knows of the dark world's pure materiality and lack of persistent self outside of the dark worlds, he doesn't see them or himself as real people.

His insistence that darkeners don't matter doesn't totally make sense in universe (it does in the meta narrative of it all but you know what I mean) unless you treat light as less of a element against dark, but more as a element that keeps objects composed in the same shape. Gives them a persistent essence of being beyond their physical form. Darkeners aren't real because they are soulless and do not retain a consistent consciousness.

However we clearly run into a problem here. If darkness is materiality then why does the light world still have physical form. But I feel like by assuming the layers of deltarune's cosmology are just the light world and dark world is misleading. The light world is just the highest tier they as characters know. The light world is not just light, it still retains shadows. Darkness in the corners built into their world.

That's where device theory comes in. The tiered reality it suggests looks sort of like this. (Yes I linked the gnostic comparisons don't worry about that yet).

The yellow blue gradient is supposed to communicate the transition or fading divine light as you go down the tiers.

In gnostic theology the pinnacle of holy light is the pleroma. Which is functionally heaven but in laymen's terms is essentially a halo of gods light. The spiritual sun the light shines from. The farther you go from the pleroma the more material it gets. Which leads me to believe that the source of that light. Of essence rather than form in deltarune is our world. Our light being dragged from the pleroma into the "material" (or material for deltarune (code/darkness/whatever the fuck functions as mass in their reality))

Now the lynch pin that holds all of this together is this. The goal of gnosticism is gnosis, the rejoining of your divine soul with god in the pleroma. For deltarune salvation isn't gnosis. Its freedom. The closer you get to the pleroma the more freedom and agency you are given. The more you can control. We, being in the pleroma have full free will and a lot more control over ourselves, gaster while working against the system is still ultimately written if only on a meta level, and the lighteners are not just written for but bound by the systems they are found within. And then we have darkeners. I don't think that's hard to puzzle out.

That's why all the secret bosses, gone mad with knowledge of things they shouldn't know focus on freedom. Too darkeners what is freedom if not salvation? Ability to choose their fate beyond what happens to their light world forms.

It's also why kris' search for freedom is so compelling to me through this framework. Because by giving up their soul to another force in one way or another (my theory is the occult shit they were doing separated their essence, their self, from their soul (ie the spark of divine light they've been given). Meaning functionally Kris has given up their key to salvation through this framework. They've doomed themselves to be ultimately just as material as the darkeners they face. Which is why I think Kris sees themselves in the secret bosses as much as they do. Why spamton failure to escape the paradigm freaked them the fuck out so much. Because it is a demonstrative example of the fact that they can never achieve freedom. Gnosis. Escape.

Now I'm leaving out the gaster demiurge elements because that requires me delving into the creation myth but trust I will get back to y'all on this. I just need to lay out the most obvious parallels I see in its dualistic cosmology.

This is all I have for now. Apologies for my mad prophet ramblings

[sunshine-jesse]

Good post that I learned stuff from, but I think the function of light and dark are actually in reverse in Deltarune relative to Gnosticism. The "dark" is the holy force that gives meaning to the world, and the "light" is the material 'anchor' that meaning can be given to.

The light persists because it's material and doesn't require meaning or purpose. But purpose and meaning are not physical and can't carry over into the material world. This also explains why DWs have retroactive history: the meaning that Lightners have given those objects through their usage of them persists whether they're alive or not. The "life" they're given is incidental.

I think this reversal of said duality is part of a vague overarching theme of Deltarune that I haven't quite put words to yet but I'm sure I'll make full sense of one day. But it intuitively makes sense if you think that Deltarune being a fictional work is canon to the game; The highest layer is the most material for them, but the most abstract for us, and their real world being so abstracted from ours is why the LW has so little in the way of game mechanics compared to the more "real" (to us) DWs we can actually interact with.

Just some food for thought. I know very little about Gnosticism but what you've said here got my gears turning.

pls tell me about the deltarune gnosticism parallels

Oh you've unleashed a horrific fate upon yourself.

Theres more too it than this but just know this is based on device theory in a lot of ways because of the tiered reality it suggests for the world of deltarune. As well as Gaster's presence as an arbiter of how we interact with the deltarune world on as our connection between our reality and deltarune as a world.

Keep in mind also this will be a gross simplification of some aspects of gnostic theology. I'm planning on making a whole video on these parallels where I go into the creation myth in depth but Im gonna leave out some bits until i can do that because without it those parts would not make any sense.

A lot of this is going to sound like a madman's ramblings so bear with me I'm still analyzing this.

It's not the first thing I realized but a very key piece of it is how deltarune treats the elements of light and dark.

Gnosticism has a very dualistic view of the spiritual and the physical. Every human carries the spark of divinity and the light of god (keyword light. They essentially use it the same way modern Christians use grace or the holy Spirit.) but they are also cursed with materiality, rather than the holy spiritual body they were created to inhabit. (Which gives og goner vessel vibes to me but that's a later topic)

I see some clear parallels to how they portray light and dark in deltarune

Light -> Holy light, the spark of god, essence without form. The piece of you that persists when your materiality fails you (death).

Dark -> Mass, materiality, form without substance. Something that is real and created but has no spiritual shelf life beyond that form.

This really sticks out to me especially in the way ralsei talks about darkeners. Because functionally while they are not able to leave the dark world they still act and function like normal people. But because Ralsei knows of the dark world's pure materiality and lack of persistent self outside of the dark worlds, he doesn't see them or himself as real people.

His insistence that darkeners don't matter doesn't totally make sense in universe (it does in the meta narrative of it all but you know what I mean) unless you treat light as less of a element against dark, but more as a element that keeps objects composed in the same shape. Gives them a persistent essence of being beyond their physical form. Darkeners aren't real because they are soulless and do not retain a consistent consciousness.

However we clearly run into a problem here. If darkness is materiality then why does the light world still have physical form. But I feel like by assuming the layers of deltarune's cosmology are just the light world and dark world is misleading. The light world is just the highest tier they as characters know. The light world is not just light, it still retains shadows. Darkness in the corners built into their world.

That's where device theory comes in. The tiered reality it suggests looks sort of like this. (Yes I linked the gnostic comparisons don't worry about that yet).

The yellow blue gradient is supposed to communicate the transition or fading divine light as you go down the tiers.

In gnostic theology the pinnacle of holy light is the pleroma. Which is functionally heaven but in laymen's terms is essentially a halo of gods light. The spiritual sun the light shines from. The farther you go from the pleroma the more material it gets. Which leads me to believe that the source of that light. Of essence rather than form in deltarune is our world. Our light being dragged from the pleroma into the "material" (or material for deltarune (code/darkness/whatever the fuck functions as mass in their reality))

Now the lynch pin that holds all of this together is this. The goal of gnosticism is gnosis, the rejoining of your divine soul with god in the pleroma. For deltarune salvation isn't gnosis. Its freedom. The closer you get to the pleroma the more freedom and agency you are given. The more you can control. We, being in the pleroma have full free will and a lot more control over ourselves, gaster while working against the system is still ultimately written if only on a meta level, and the lighteners are not just written for but bound by the systems they are found within. And then we have darkeners. I don't think that's hard to puzzle out.

That's why all the secret bosses, gone mad with knowledge of things they shouldn't know focus on freedom. Too darkeners what is freedom if not salvation? Ability to choose their fate beyond what happens to their light world forms.

It's also why kris' search for freedom is so compelling to me through this framework. Because by giving up their soul to another force in one way or another (my theory is the occult shit they were doing separated their essence, their self, from their soul (ie the spark of divine light they've been given). Meaning functionally Kris has given up their key to salvation through this framework. They've doomed themselves to be ultimately just as material as the darkeners they face. Which is why I think Kris sees themselves in the secret bosses as much as they do. Why spamton failure to escape the paradigm freaked them the fuck out so much. Because it is a demonstrative example of the fact that they can never achieve freedom. Gnosis. Escape.

Now I'm leaving out the gaster demiurge elements because that requires me delving into the creation myth but trust I will get back to y'all on this. I just need to lay out the most obvious parallels I see in its dualistic cosmology.

This is all I have for now. Apologies for my mad prophet ramblings

[sunshine-jesse]

wait

WAIT

WAIT

HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE.

ERAM shares the "orange in pitch black" color scheme that Jackenstein's eyes have and Seam's shop has

Seam sells the Halloween pencil, further linking said color scheme to halloween

the variables that the deer in the minigame have are called TORIEL

toriel's wallpaper is a desktop wallpaper of Kris and Asriel IN A HALLOWEEN COSTUME. EXCEPT. IN CHAPTER 2 AND BEYOND IT'S THE TWO OF THEM PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

ERAM IS THE OLD, DISCARDED PICTURE????

We do know that she keeps pictures of Kris, Asriel, and her in the house, right? So the old Halloween picture could've been what it was created from, and being a picture of Kris would explain why it knows so much.

It being created from "a photo of Kris" means that the odd controller could be Asriel's knockoff controller shown in her desktop wallpaper.

entirely out of nowhere crack theory concept: what if eram is the hallway mirror. the way it talks about kris's expression, its knowledge of them, it's placement in the hallway, the lack of it otherwise despite the cactus also being present... I have no other evidence I just thought it was cool

how does something with the purpose is to reflect light manifest in a dark world?

[sunshine-jesse]

Oh boy.

It's gonna be fun trying to theorypost or analysispost in a community that's more likely to get annoyed over over my refined and cultured taste in media.

I'm actually working on an effortpost as we speak:

[sunshine-jesse]

The "When did you start being yourself?" narration during the fight that Kris can actually get the Slain/Purify stat opened my third eye, I swear.

I came to the same Krissociation conclusion you did only to find out about your blog after the fact.

And like.

I'm just saying.

Being plural and naming the vessel after my body and making "my" name the name of my alter made the intro hit a lot different, and I read everything about Kris entirely differently from then on.

RIGHT IT'S CRAZY

[sunshine-jesse]

Y’know

I think it’s interesting how our choices might not even matter in the Weird route because the spell that’s explicitly marked as Fatal doesn’t actually kill its target, and the other freeze spells have only been shown to work on, uh,

computer programs.

Just a thought.

[sunshine-jesse]

jackenstein being the tutorial for the titan fight because play/pretend can help prepare you for actual hard/difficult times… and jackenstein is a Halloween decoration… the holiday entirely based on playing with scary/uncomforting things… runs into a wall and leaves a me shaped impression