#i wish i could talk to toby fox for just like two seconds about narrative please god please i just want to LEARN

[pardy-dardy]

some thoughts on spamton

// SPOILERS FOR DELTARUNE CHP. 2, DUH

TLDR: Spamton scares the shit out of Kris not because he’s freaky and glitchy and plays off some classic uncanny-type tropes, but because he very closely represents how Kris feels about their own life. Watching Spamton try and fail (and go nuts in the process) to cut his strings is like watching a tragedy, starring you, where the ending realizes your very worst nightmare.

Kris doesn’t feel great about themselves or their future, and if you happened to read my last post about this beautiful thing Toby Fox has created, you’d know what I think on that matter. To give a little summary-- Kris played second-fiddle to their brother their whole life, they’ve grown up physically (they’re human in a town full of monsters) and socially estranged from their community, and thusly, they’ve turned into a bitter, isolated, awkward preteen.

That kind of living situation, even in the face of a loving mother and a generally jovial community to be around, can twist your outlook on life pretty hard. It shouldn’t be a stretch to assume that Kris would feel like they’ve never been the one in control. They’re Toriel’s Kid, and they come to school every day with their mom. They’re Asriel’s Sibling, and they go everywhere with him, the poor thing.

And I think, personally, that we’ve come to inhabit Kris at one of the apexes of that feeling. We, as the Player, quite literally are able to take hold of Kris while they’re in a Dark World (aka a World of their own creation, fueled by their own imagination + others’ influence, alongside environmental bits and bobs). As soon as Kris believes they’ve got a good thing going in the creation of the Dark Worlds, it’s choked by the realization that though they can provide the options, they’re not the ones choosing the outcome in the end while they’re in there.

Rough shit doesn’t begin to describe it. All their life, they’ve gone by feeling like they’ve gotta cling to what’s good (Asriel). That person goes off to school, Kris is left with nothing. But then, they find a way out through the Dark Fountains. Everything is cool, even if their first encounter with it is with the class bully-- and all of a sudden, they realize that it’s not really them. By letting us into the Dark Worlds, Kris has given not themselves, but US, freedom. And that fucking stings. It stings so bad that they’re willing to rip us out every time they want to do something alone, something without our guidance. It’s why we hear about them acting out, even before we’ve inhabited them. They want attention, and by proxy, control. It matters less how they get it than the fact that they’re getting it at all.

You see where I’m going with this? Spamton is literally a puppet. From day one, he realized that he was never truly in control. But he wanted that control. He wanted to be a Player, not an NPC. And thus, he had to rely on outside help to get [[ Big ]]. When the outside help left high and dry, both his mental state and his bank account sank like a stone in a lake. He starts living in the garbage, rotting away with every waking moment he spends there. Then, he just so happens to come across the motherfucking creator of the world, and he seizes his opportunity the only way he knows how. He’s going to convince Kris to help him get [[ Big ]], so that he can truly see what it’s like to Play, and not be Played. And even with all the power he could want short of US, he’s still bound by his strings. When Kris cuts them (whether out of mercy or self-defense is a great question), he falls flat on his back, entirely unable to function without his puppet master keeping him up. The only option he has left, in the end, is to tag along with Kris on their journey to get [[ Big ]]. Again, just being a piece in someone else’s game.

Think about it this way-- imagine your worst fears. Now imagine someone else living through it, in front of you, on a theatre stage. They lay it all bare for you to see, even going so far as to parallel some of your own life experiences. You want the best for this character, but in the end, even though they grow strong and powerful (at the cost of their friends and sanity), the play you’re watching turns out to be a tragedy. You see the character you relate with most trying YOUR solution to YOUR OWN issues ending up flat on his back, dead to the world without his strings.

    Spamton is Kris’ cracked mirror, their worst case-scenario personified. It’s why after the Pacifist Spamton NEO fight, Kris freaks the fuck out completely independent of our choices. They have just watched themselves fail catastrophically, only realizing in said failure that they are nothing without that which binds them.

    And you know what? I can’t help but wonder whether Kris would’ve let Spamton take us if we didn’t intervene. We’ve been a help at best, but an existential nuisance at worst for them. I don’t think it’d be a stretch to say that Kris would’ve considered just getting rid of us, hoping that without our involvement, our “strings”, they can go back to living the way they were (no matter how shitty that way was).

        God. See, Jevil wasn’t like this. That guy just got Jokerified through realizing that his world is but a figment of someone else’s imagination, a game. He realized that the only way to exist is to play, and if he’s going to play, he’s going to have a damn fun time playing it. Perhaps he mirrors some ideas Kris might have about the world itself, but I think that Jevil’s purpose is to let Kris know that things aren’t quite what they seem.

    Spamton, on the other hand. Whooooo baby, Spamton is fucking terrifying. 

If in creating the Dark World, Kris thusly created Spamton? Holy shit, that means that there’s aspects of this whole “life creation” thing that the angsty preteen still doesn’t fully grasp, and that their deepest fears are beginning to physically manifest. 

If folks like Spamton and Jevil aren’t being created by Kris (in the form that they are in), but rather being manipulated post-creation by an outside force? Holy shit, that means something even outside OUR jurisdiction is trying to fuck with the psyche of an angsty preteen. 

Pulling back a little before the end, god, I just have to praise Toby Fox again on his writing. It’s so goddam impressive how he structures his narrative leads and themes. If you were just playing thru the story normally, you’d pass by the Spamton stuff and think to yourself “oh wow that was weird haha what a funny guy”. But that fucking dog does such a good job of allowing you to peek behind the outer curtain, get a glimpse of the flesh mass underneath, then tell you where you can find more of it, that he’s one of the only storytellers to this goddamn day that I think I truly get envious of sometimes.

I thought I was out, man. It had been a month or so since my last post. I thought I had gotten it all out. But here I am again, thinking about that dirty, grimy, ad-flinging tragedy of a salesman. Writing it out in a goddamn essay like I’m back in undergrad. 

I want to shake your hand and give you a kiss and punch your teeth down your throat you fucking dog, let me pay you for the best piece of media I’ve consumed in just about ever. I am running out of room in my dresser for skeleton merchandise just please god take my money i just want the gaming experience you have to offer