#deltarune meta

[bkdkink]

hey so like

does susie end up creating undertale in the end or

[alicelufenia]

Of course I dislike the notion that the red heart You control is your own (in-game OR irl) SOUL for plenty of other reasons, but my most direct objection is: who the hell decided I have a red SOUL?

Even if real life humans had something equivalent, I seriously doubt my SOUL would be Determination typed. If anything it'd more likely be Kindness (I'm always doing my best to do right by, and be kind to, others), or maybe Patience for having such long term commitments in my life, and always being willing to give people a chance.

As far as I'm concerned, that is The Human's/Kris's SOUL that I'm offering guidance to, and it doesn't need to be more or less than that. Deltarune made its stance on self-inserts pretty clear at the start after all.

[umbralundertaler]

This has been noticed before, but it feels very significant to me so it should be brought up again.

Remember how in Undertale when you spare an enemy, the name turns yellow or pink depending on what you choose?

Well. With these colors, it seems like FRIEND really wants us to trust it...

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Man, this is such an interesting exchange, cause, like… in most stories, when a character says they'd like things to go on forever, that they want something eternal, they're pretty much setting themselves up for a very rude awakening. You know, nothing lasts forever, sometimes you have to learn how to let go, sometimes you need to move on. I mean, that's one of the core themes of Undertale.

Flowey/Asriel's whole motivation in the Pacifist Route is to make the Game go on forever, to put the ending eternally out of reach, to trap Frisk in an infinite time loop because he just can't move on from Chara's death.

Part of the narrative is that if the Player RESETs a Pacifist Route then they are no better than he was, since now they are also yanking everyone away from their Happy Ending so that we can play with them again, because we can't accept the game has Ended. The Murder Route is less focused on that whole theme but you replay it over and over again Chara will basically call you a weirdo for your obsessive clinginess to this world.

Part of Undertale's themes is the importance of an Ending to a story. A True Pacifist Player's true and final act of selflessness is to let go of their desire have things keep going for forever, to give up on Eternity… for the sake of the happiness of every other character in this world, for the sake of their Happy Ending.

On the other hand, as a Wise Dog once said…

Both Undertale and Deltarune love exploring the ways in which the world of a game is different or similar to the real world, how the perspective of a Player is so different from the perspective of an actual character living in this world and... Real Life doesn't have a clear set ending.

The Player is the only one from whom the story just ended. Everyone else just kept living their stories of friendship together, although they probably never experienced something as high-stakes as the events of 'Undertale' ever again. And... when endings do seem to come, they're not going to be as clear-cut and satisfying and clearly communicated as the Game Ending is to the Player.

…But on the other other hand, it is still true that some things in life do end and we do have to accept that. Like… you know, the most famous Ending in life… is Death.

Gerson hears Susie talk about how she wants things to go on forever, but he already decided he has no interest in Eternity himself. He knows that the Three Heroes are here to seal the Fountains that revived him, he knows that when they succeed he'd go back to being a dust-covered hammer, probably never to be revived again and… he's perfectly at peace with that. He's an old man who died from natural causes, he had a long, full and satisfying life, he already had his ending. What's happening now is some weird glorified epilogue, but he knows it will end soon. And that's fine by him, because the time for his story has ended.

He does have one major regret in life, his failure to properly support his son's writing, and he spends all of the time the Dark has given him to try and make up for it. But it's really just a matter of asking Susie to deliver his message. He doesn't try to maintain or expand the Dark World so he could make up for his mistakes or try to pull Alvin in so he could meet him again or find a way to come back to life in the Light World somehow… I wonder if Someone was expecting him to do something like that and that's why they tried to give him that Shadow Crystal, but we all know that didn't work

In a way… we've already seen Susie's rude awakening for her desire for a 'forever'. She formed such a powerful bond with "the Old Man", she definitely would've wanted their time together to last longer, to last as long as it could, to last forever. But that's not possible.

And even his appearance in the Third Sanctuary was kind of a surprise stroke of luck that shouldn't be taken for granted.

The whole point of the Second Sanctuary is that Susie realized that Gerson was dead in the Light World, and trying to cope with this idea, went straight to a kind of denial.

Well, she can just pop over to the Dark World and, like, ask him what the Door Code is, right? No big deal! I mean, it's not exactly like Susie and Kris were really at a dead-end, there were plenty of areas in the Church they haven't checked thoroughly at all (not just the Fire Extinguisher)…

It wasn't because she HAD to do it for the Door Code, it's because she had to do it to reassure herself that her new friend isn't really gone, that maybe he'll be there waiting for her in his study if she just High-Key Stab Reality and Unleash the Flow of Pure Darkness Energy…

But it wasn't that simple. At best you can say his appearance in the Third Sanctuary means that he can manifest in any Church Dark World created by the Knight… but seeing how Susie's whole goal at the moment is to stop the Knight from making more Dark Fountains, that's not exactly increasing her chances to see the Old Man again.

When they go to seal the Fountain, Susie muses about her 'stupid dream' that things will just… stay the same. That she'll keep having fun Dark World adventures with her friends through eternity. But she knows that although Kris fully understands her, that's not what's going to happen. It's both about how the stakes and seriousness of the story have been so overtly raised for her, the Knight and the Titans aren't just an ominous background detail. She has fought them both. But it's also because she is already experiencing an Ending right now. She knows that when Kris seals this Fountain, she will probably never see Gerson again.

…But despite all of that, I don't think the narrative completely rebuke Susie's desire for Eternity. After all, Gerson heard her say that, fully knowing his own fate, and he mostly seemed intrigued? It doesn't seem to waver his belief that she's the one who should be writing the story, that he could count on her to defy fate in the name of Justice. Y'know, Susie wasn't really thinking of the Inevitability of Death at that moment, she was just thinking that… she would like to keep having fun adventures with her friends in perpetuity. And is that such a bad thing to wish for?

I mean, just because something was a theme in Undertale doesn't mean that Deltarune can't use Susie to drive home the point of 'well, yeah, you're not wrong, but it's a bit more nuanced than that", there's precedence, in fact.

I'm thinking about, like, the Tenna storyline in Chapter 3. That was also about someone who needs to move on, Tenna is clinging to his happier past in unhealthy way and wants the fun of his game show to last forever. He also wanted his own version of Eternity. But the game still draws a contrast between Ralsei, who just tells him to remember the happy times and accept that everything ends, including his use

And Susie, who is the one who rejects this mindset. Her solution still has some level of moving on and accepting that the Dreemurr-Holiday Family Unit has ended, but that doesn't mean he's just got to lay down and accept that his whole life is over. She comes up with a plan that ensures the continuation of his life and his dreams. It's an Ending of sorts, but an Ending that has a continuation attached to it. And it came specifically from Susie's distaste for endings, from her aggressive rejection of going gently into that good night.

There are certain things, certain endings, we all have to accept, but there is also so much that is worth rebelling against, that is worth fighting for. Susie's desire for an 'Eternity' might be a bit oversimplistic, but it is also the source of her rebellious spirit, out-of-the-box-thinking and the shining hope that Gerson sees in her. So I don't think the story will dismiss it outright, we really just have to wait and see just how much of that 'Eternity' Susie will manage to keep...

[hun9rybug]

I can't keep track of the record number of exes in this game so I made myself a chart, enjoy

[local-susie-deltarune-fan]

I think deltarune is beginning to really pull the rug from under most undertale players’ feet in one key area that I haven’t seen discussed

Your Favorites Aren’t Great People

I mean even in chapter one. Undyne is a cop. That is, however, a reasonable direction for her character.

Asgore is a pushover, Toriel isn’t actually a great mother, Sans doesn’t really care about anything. These are things we know about them from Undertale, but have been brought out in Deltarune to see their uglier details.

This is also, I feel, why we haven’t seen Papyrus.

In Undertale Papyrus is confident, wacky, having fun all the time. He’s unapologetically weird, and thinks he’s the greatest around.

But the grim truth is this. Nobody likes him.

He’s weird! He’s a character, special to a lot of people, and very much coded in so many ways I wouldn’t know where to begin.

The Main reason he’s really out and about in Undertale is because of Undyne’s encouragement, which, in Deltarune, he never has.

So I believe he’s a shut-in, having been kicked down and belittled enough that it’s left him hurt and reluctant to interact with others. I’m not sure we’ll ever see him in game.

But honestly, I hope we do, even if just to help a little, y’know?

[weirdmageddon]

good tenna analysis in the comments section GAWD.

“tenna is a coping mechanism that stopped working” “tenna has a hard time reading the room because he’s a one-way transmission device” these are both so hard

[hushbugger]

The Deltarune text dump now has all the text from chapters 1-4. That includes unused text, the Japanese translation, and copious spoilers.

(Warning: the page is pretty big. It might lag your browser.)

Happy ctrl+F-ing!

[daisukoth]

Actually, doesn't the weird route jingle show just how much the route is about following a guide, and not actual freedom?

You get a literal sound cue telling you whether you fucked up, or succeeded. Like a bell for the player to follow

[lucanderie]

The single scene I believe nailed down Kris's entire trajectory, that explained the most about them as a character, has to be their chapter four piano concert:

We, as the player, have no input in this scene at all. If you try to play the long sequence right, they'll just mess it up, prompting the dialogue anyway. There's no command from us that they twist in order to be "allowed" to play, no nudge from us in the right direction- they just snatch control, because Susie wants to hear them.

This is such a complete stab through the gut, not just because of their passion and the fluid animation and sheer expressiveness, but because Kris can just do that! It isn't that they physically can't play piano with the soul in the driver's seat, they just won't, until Susie empowers them to. No matter how badly they want the freedom to express themselves on their own terms, they restrain themselves. They let us take the reins and try to just submit, and they can't keep it up.

The interpretation this strikes me with, coupled with their "knighting" and their "promise" to the mysterious caller and their unspecified egg trauma... We know they know how we work, and that their plans with us are premeditated and calculated, at the behest of (maybe multiple) adults who have significant power over them. At least the Mayor is directing them to let themselves be turned into a vessel. We know this would have to have started before they went to the first Dark World, when Susie was still a bully, Noelle estranged and Ralsei not even in the picture.

We know that by the opening of the third fountain, by the time they're spinning prompts to get into banter with Susie and blocking us from being mean to Ralsei and drawing messages on windows and sneaking in as much of themselves into their relationships as possible, they've been turning themselves into our tool to be ultimately pitted against the group since day one. That no matter how much they can be coaxed out, at the end of the day, they have to be shoved back in their place, if not by us, by the Knight/mayor/etc who've facilitated this entire thing. That their choices don't matter.

Evil-Kris officially out, Deeply-Conflicted-Kris officially in. Of course earlier Kris tries to keep themselves closed off from the Extended Fun Gang- no matter how much they adventure together, how much they grow to like their company, Kris will inevitably, in their eyes, have to betray them. Because they made their choice before the story could even begin. Because they promised.

[reverssentiment]

There is only one story in Hometown... mostly. The Prophecy is Lord of the Hammer is Dragon Blazers is the local religion. All the art that you can really call pop culture – that shapes how kids, or adults, relate to one another – emerges from the Prophecy. One single fairy tale, repeated over and over but still carrying its core ideological payload of destiny, and something terrible at the end.

Susie fundamentally couldn't fit in until she found her place in the Prophecy, and her self-image as someone who really isn't a bully is increasingly reliant on being the girl with hope crossed on her heart instead – reflected in her incidental exposure to Dragon Blazers via a Lost and Found cartridge, such that she's missing context and playing social catch-up compared to her peers.

And this is true of almost all media, but it's not true of horror. Blood Crushers, the movie about a killer severed hand, is the one piece of fiction referenced in any detail that has absolutely nothing to do with the Prophecy; not surprisingly, Noelle hides her interest in it from her family (playing the Glaceir sequence in secret; watching scary movies with Dess, the same scary stuff Kris remembers being interested in in her room), while Susie the outsider loves it openly.

The secret bosses, with their recurring fixation on freedom, are framed via the tropes of horror: killer clowns! Haunted puppets! An Evil Video Game! To break away from the single story that gives our lives structure is a traumatic rupture, which the Dark Worlds – shaped as they are by a culture that has plenty it refuses to look at, in their kids and in their lives – cannot imagine as anything but, well, a horror.

[you-can-a1ways-come-home]

i know people have already dissected pretty much all of Tenna and Spamton’s dialogue connections, but i wanted to point out something i noticed that i haven’t personally seen mentioned before, and how it may tie in to their relationship. this could just be me going “i’ve connected the dots!” here, but…

these are the only instances in the game where Tenna says this specific line, and it seems like an intentional reference in the writing to parallel these moments with each other. we know Spamton is connected to and knows that jingle, because he also quotes it in his Neo fight (in reference to Tenna and Mike). it seems like it was probably an ad they made together.

many people have pointed out that the Tropic of Love was probably a special place for Tenna and Spamton, and to me, this further implies that; it also implies that Tenna was thinking about/missing Spamton in both of these moments. (and yet still tries to pretend he doesn’t miss him at all ….. )

the other evidence that the Tropic of Love is connected to Spamton has been discussed before but i wanted to put it here for clarity!

the song that plays on the Tropic of Love is called “SOUTH OF THE BORDER!!” and is the only song in the chapter to be capitalized and have multiple exclamation points, similar to the way Spamton speaks.

(i’ve also heard people say that this song and the “KEYGEN” song — when Spamton flashes rainbow colors like the trees do on the Tropic of Love — share a leitmotif, and the first few notes of both do sound similar, but as far as i know this hasn’t been completely confirmed yet? correct me if im wrong)

the only other time the phrase “south of the border” is used in connection with Deltarune is Spamton’s dialogue in the description for the “Mr and Mrs and Spamton cutting board” on the Spamton Sweepstakes page, which also feels like a very intentional reference.

and Spamton does indeed cross out Tenna with a red marker on the below page, which of course you can find linked in the “Spamton engraved wedding ring” description. there’s an implication here that Spamton bought a wedding ring for Tenna, never got to give it to him, yet still kept it for years — we know other things found in the Spamton Sweepstakes have factored into canon, including which products and phrases they were linked on (Noelle’s blog posts, questions Spamton answered on Twitter, many hidden links)

(still don’t know what went down w Spamton and Mike tbh)

basically the point here is that the Tropic of Love was almost certainly some kind of romantic getaway or memento for them — and Tenna kept it in his special version of the game even after everything that happened. he still thinks of it fondly. he even goes there and uses it as a place to think, as revealed in a secret on one of the Sword Route game stages. Tenna kept his pipis, their old posters and Spamton’s phone. their shared motif still haunts almost every corner of TV World. Spamton still uses this motif to introduce himself (“HEY EVERY !”), a version that’s unresolved and can only be completed by Tenna. Spamton seems to allude to calling Tenna after their separation several different times in his dialogue, and not being able to get through (which just further proved in his mind that Tenna never cared for him at all; though the real reason he can’t get through is because they were cut off, because the connection between their dark worlds was presumably severed quite soon after he ran. neither of them could get through if they tried). at some point, Spamton just started calling out for him from the bottom of the dumpster, until he had to get it through his head that he was truly alone, that nobody would ever come.

[credit card numbers] seems to have a double meaning in this case. Spamton also seems to view the pipis as their kid, the same as Tenna does.

i realize this likely refers to several different people, but i would absolutely be willing to bet Tenna was one of them, as he’s one of the only people Spamton canonically refers to as his friend besides Swatch.

they both care way more than they want to let on, and still can’t get each other out of their heads (after at least a decade apart, if the hidden mailroom dialogue means anything). and, despite all their obvious anger and resentment, despite falsely believing that the other abandoned them and never actually cared at all, they absolutely still deeply miss each other. (there are so many more instances i could point out that imply this but this post already took me way too long to put together! lmao)

i mean, famously bitter grudge-holder Spamton G. Spamton was overjoyed at the chance to reconcile when he realized that Tenna cares about him after all, that maybe he wasn’t only using him that whole time just to find out his secret. (“you really do care!!!”) and even after he got humiliated by Tenna yet again, Spamton wasn’t really even angry — more just disappointed and resigned. and Tenna, who thinks Spamton was just using him the whole time, that Spamton pretended to get a phone call just so he could abandon him at the very last minute, still keeps the gift Spamton gave him as his prized possession, still wishes Spamton could just be there for him at his lowest. i think all of this says a lot about how they actually feel about each other, underneath the fronts they’ve put up to protect themselves from the pain of realizing they both lost the one person in the world who might’ve truly loved them.

[as a last note: i do actually believe there is a chance for them to reconcile in the game if you keep Tenna in Castle Town. this is a Toby Fox game. the main themes present in his work are love, hope, and forgiveness — that even if you’ve been irreparably changed, even if you can never fully go back to who you used to be, even if you feel completely unloveable, there is still love for you. and i believe this will hold true for Tenna and Spamton both, two characters Toby clearly cares about a great deal based on how much he talks about them on social media, in newsletters, interviews etc, despite having initially been worried over whether other people would like them. i think these characters and their stories will be relevant to the overall narrative and themes of Deltarune; Spamton in particular still has many loose ends and connections to the deeper lore of the game. i do honestly think it’s that deep. Toby is currently making even niche pairings from ten years ago — like Burgerpants/Nice Cream Guy — canon after all this time (and has seemingly been planning to for nine years) because it will make people happy. he’s having Fangamer sell Tenna & Spamton plushies as a pair, in cuddly poses, and is drawing attention to that aspect in particular. if you think there’s absolutely no hope for their relationship… maybe, just maybe, there will be.]

[deltatalemoon]

[prism-forgone]

some chapter 4 weird route thoughts

kris and berdly's whole dynamic is based on them kind of having fun messing with him, poking at him to tease - which is why i think it's genuinely heartbreaking how you can see kris drop that whole thing completely in the aftermath of the weird route, with genuine care for his well-being completely replacing it

they're the one that got him to the hospital and there's so much worry in how they "think he looks cold" and replace his hot water bottle, or turn on the heater upon examining it, with no prior prompt at all, as if they were in a hurry to do so. they're so worried and you can so easily tell

i can just imagine them shambling across the town to the library, winded from the emptiness in their chest gradually making their limbs feel heavier and their body uncomfortably cold. and them dragging berdly, ice-cold as he is, to the hospital, barely holding him up

and, after all that, they go to noelle's house and hold themselves together for long enough to spin the whole thing as a joke for her sake. god

kris genuinely cares so much about everyone they know and so clearly wants to protect them as much as they can, it breaks my heart

(update: got to me so hard i might've written an entire thing about it overnight)

[twilightofthesandwiches]

So Kris as we know them is a pretty quiet, deadpan and stoic person. It’s one of their main identifying features that the game constantly draws attention to via both comedic and serious moments.

But like with everything we think we know about Kris, it is always worthwhile to consider how much of their behavior is natural or real, and how much of it is a result of our influence as a possessing entity, or simply colored by our biased and partial look into their life.

First things first, it’s important to remember Kris isn’t quite as quiet as they might seem to us, because we’re incapable of hearing them talk. We can only really gleam when they said something from the reactions of the other characters around them. So there’s plenty of times we can’t quite judge how much Kris was actually talking.

And that also extends to their emotional reactions to some degree there are plenty of times times where other characters note how Kris is smiling, laughing, shouting, looking scared or having another kind of reaction that is not conveyed by their still and stoic Sprite.

The thing about not being able to hear Kris is actually very curious, cause it’s also consistent with the Humans of ‘Undertale’. Frisk and Chara’s voices were also imperceptible to us, only gleaned from the reactions of the other characters. Even when it comes to a recording of Chara’s voice.

The only exception is our little ‘conversation’ with Murder-Route Chara, but this is when they became something not-quite-fully-human beyond our control and it still lacked voice-bleeps for the text, which might indicate that we’re still not quite able to hear them.

So… not being able to hear a character’s dialogue might be a side-effect of possession/sharing a body (since one could say we’re kinda controlling both Frisk and Chara throughout Undertale)…. Or it might be a feature of Humans in the Toby Fox Multiverse? That their voices are imperceptible to Unkillable Body-Snatching Time Gods? After all, we can’t hear Kris even when we’re outside their body.

Whatever it is, their lack of visible emotional reactions might be connected to it as well. Although, it is a lot less… absolute. While we never hear (read?) their voice, there are a few times where Kris’ sprites do have facial expressions and body language that clearly convey an Emotion. And there seem to be more and more of them in later Chapters.

Maybe these are just moments that are… so extremely expressive that they shine through the general obscuring mask of stoic-ness that usually hides Kris’ expressions from us? Are the expressions that are imperceptible to us just too subtle to show up on their Sprite? Or is it because these actions were technically taken totally independent of our possession?

...But also, despite it being sometimes hard to determine how much Kris is really talking and how expressive they seem to the characters in-universe, there are a few indications that they are seen as a generally quiet and stoic person from the other characters' perspective as well. Even if it’s not as exaggerated as it seems to us.

And if you combine that with the few more-expressive Sprites they have, and how these only occur as part of actions Kris takes of their own will, and they’re more frequent in recent Chapters as Kris’ independence from us is growing… it’s not unreasonable to assume their laconic deadpan-ness is purely a result of our influence, and without us they’d be a lot more emotional and expressive.

But… hmmm… the thing is that others do notice that Kris is kinda acting Out-Of-Character, but never really point out their quietness or lack of expressiveness as the reason for it. If anything, the SOUL’s possession of Kris makes them come off as uncharacteristically social and talkative.

Folks who have known Kris for their entire life (like Noelle), do seem to characterize them as a quiet person who does not show their emotions easily. The "Newest Girl Girl" shows us pre-Chapter-One Kris barely reacting to Susie's bullying, annoying her by not speaking before demolishing her with just a well-placed softly-said word and both it and the other Noelle Blog Post about Kris repeat the sentiment that 'who can tell what Kris is thinking'.

Most notably, I think, is how Weird Route Noelle describes Kris’ Real Voice (specifically contrasted against the SOUL’s ‘voice'), as ‘deadpan and mumbly’ - and that’s the thing that makes it feel real and familiar and authentically Kris for her. The SOUL’s voice was weird and unnatural because it wasn’t deadpan enough to be the Real Kris.

Also, in the Normal Route, when Noelle is trying to talk to Susie about Kris acting odd, which Susie doesn’t understand cause she hasn’t known the pre-possession Kris all that well, we have this exchange…

The implication, especially paired with Noelle’s Weird Route dialogue, is that ‘yelling’ is the default for the SOUL’s voice, while mumbling is generally for when Kris is saying things of their own volition, because deadpan mumbling is the honest expression of Kris' free will.

All of this does seem to paint a picture of Kris as a generally withdrawn and quiet sort of person with an air of Edgy Teen Apathy to them, albeit when they do allow themself to show their feelings openly, they can be very expressive and emotional. It’s just a rare occurrence even without the whole possession problem.

But… the complicating factor about that interpretation is Tenna. And specifically his secret bonus dialogue in the second Board of the Sword Route.

Which adds a lot of context to some his other dialogue aimed at Kris and his general anxiety about whatever they’re enjoying his games.

I said before that most characters talking about Kris acting ‘weird’ generally will not talk about their stoicism, but Tenna is the exception to that. He is extremely troubled by his inability to make Kris ‘laugh and cry’, seeing it as a failure on his part. If his Games were truly fun and engaging, Kris would've been more reactive.

This conversation with Susie especially, feels very much like a mirror of Susie and Noelle’s conversation in Chapter 4.

Someone who has known Kris since childhood is bothered by their behavior, while Susie, who has only really gotten to know Kris while they’re under our control, can’t understand what the problem is cause that’s just what seems normal to her with Kris.

Tenna thinks Kris should have a more emotional responses to their show, and that their stoicism demonstrates that they’re just not having fun. For Susie, Kris is just kind of emotionally withdrawn by default and has no reason to assume that they’re not enjoying themself just because they’re not expressing it as openly as she or Ralsei do.

So that makes me think, like… if Kris’ deadpan reactions are normal for Noelle but concerning for Tenna, that might still be a relatively recent development?

Well, if that's so, then Kris’ lack of expressiveness might still be related to their peculiar situation with the SOUL, and the reason why no one’s saying that they’ve only gotten really unresponsive recently is that….

Something has been going on long before we came in.

Or it could be just something totally mundane. Maybe they just became withdrawn and kinda emotionally-numb due to their parents’ divorce, or Asriel moving to college, or Dess’ disappearance or the mental exhaustion of following Evil Phone Voice's instructions all the time or some sort of combination of these factors? So for anyone who sees Kris every day and saw them gradually close themself off to the world, that is their normal behavior now… but Tenna still thinks of them as the happier and more expressive child who used to watch him regularly.

Or maybe this is some sort of a mix of the two options?