#spamton's whole purpose was to fall and to forever be a puppet

[manofthepipis]

These characters are both great examples of this theme and their matchup is truly a difficult one to pick a victor.

And with that said, I still think out of the two, the most doomed by the narrative is Spamton.

I was an avid reader of the hunger games, reading all the novels over and over, and Prim was the first character I've read about that introduced me to the concept of a character being doomed from day one. from page one. No matter how much katniss goes through, she is unable to save prim, and prim dies at the end anyway (and because of the people on her side, no less). It's a tragedy that I could go on about forever.

However, Spamton takes it a large step further, and deltarune as a whole really focuses on this concept with darkners in general, but what Spamton has over Prim is his awareness in the narrative. Deltarune is very meta when the plot progresses, and Spamton is nothing more than crappy spam email, and that, in its ENTIRETY, is his very being. No more, no less. He's introduced as a one-off fight, that you (if playing blindly) have the option of not progressing with his plotline, introducing his FIRST ending– being ignored/overlooked and thus treating him EXACTLY how the regular person treats spam email. (as you should though. Spam email sucks)

That's because, in Deltarune, essentially you're the one overseeing the narrative, and you make the choice to encounter him as a boss or not. While other darkners of cyber city have some sort of purpose (from ms.paint-esc programs to computer viruses etc), Spamton has none. He is not liked. And the one moment in his life he was admired, he wasn't the one that got himself to the top and he fell from grace anyway due to his help mysteriously leaving him to fail (again).

So how does this all make him doomed by the narrative? Well this gets to him, drives him to aspire to have purpose and get to [Heaven], but no matter what he does he's always set to fail. Even with the help of a higher power than he is, he falls anyway. He fails to get NEO without player intervention, and when he does, there's only one ending for him. Every. single. run.

It doesn't end there. The point of deltarune is that your choices don't matter/won't change the story. Despite that, if you DO somehow find the Snowgrave Route (giving the player the opportunity to radically alter the story), Spamton does get the upper hand in this route for a short bit, but even STILL his only ending is his failure.

(shown before noelle absolutely destroys his ass)

This is all because he has absolutely no control. His very existence is that he will never have any control. He gets one ending, no matter how much change YOU as a PLAYER can possibly make. No matter how much dust he stirs up trying, begging, pleading for something to change.

I've mentioned this before in the spamton vs light poll, but I do want to mention it again as this is just how deep his doomed-by-the-narrative status goes.

In September 2022, the Spamton sweepstakes had Spamton (outside of the game) market various products that people could win if they donated to the charity event. At the very end, we were faced with this:

We, as the audience, players AND non-players of deltarune, could donate to either free spamton or silence him. That's how little control he has as a character. Inside AND outside the narrative he has a place in, his only ending is out of his own manipulation or power. His entire character is that the narrative exists without him being a key in its overall ending, and he is doomed to witness his own downfall no matter how many endings it takes.

(Also, may I add, Toby Fox creator of deltarune, donated 15k just to silence him. How hilarious is it that the person that basically WROTE YOU INTO EXISTENCE wants you dead. Ever since then I can't get over that)

Spamton's tragedy defines him in his motivations, his dialogue, his endings, and EVEN his appearance (being depicted as a literal puppet). His design, lore, and character is completely about how he IS doomed by the very game he has a presence in, and nothing, not even the player, not even YOU, can change that.

@doomed-bythe-narrative

Doomed by the Narrative: Side A - Round 2