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cozza-frenzy · 3 years

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SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 2: Thoughts on Deltarune as a Long Metaphor

Basically an essay summing up where I think Deltarune is going, and the story it's trying to (slowly) tell. Text is under the cut. Content warning for mentions of suicide, self-harm and abuse.

Okay so, I saw someone's post about Kris' goals being at odds with the player - and since as of the end of Chapter 2, it's pretty much solidly established that Kris is not only able but WILLING to make Dark Fountains, creating new Dark Worlds, a lot of people are assuming this makes them evil. Our "job" as the player is to save the world. Meanwhile, they want to destroy it - an act that understandably comes across as "evil". However, this largely ignores the nuance of the situation; or not to put too fine a point on it, tl;dr Kris' life fucking sucks, and their actions in Deltarune might just be a "long metaphor" for suicidal ideation. But let's back up a little. Why does Kris' life suck? Well, starting at home, we can already see signs of incompetent parenting from Toriel and the now-absent Asgore. Don't get me wrong, these two love their kids very very much - but they definitely seem to have a problem dealing with negative emotions. And that's become extremely toxic when dealing with Kris, an adopted kid who seems to be emotionally disturbed for reasons that aren't the Dreemurs' fault. But what is their fault is, instead of trying to tackle them head-on, Toriel seems to blame outside influences and Asgore is just plain ignoring them. And for Kris, no matter how much they love them, it won't compensate for what they're unintentionally doing. By talking to various characters, we learn that Toriel has (had?) a tendency to drag the family to church when Kris acted out. Additionally, Kris's phone only seems to be a "dumb phone" (capable of sending and receiving calls and texts only), the TV has been hardly used for a long time, and the only person who has a computer (and a video game under his bed) is Asriel, now at college. I don't think Kris is being punished for acting out per se, but given their access to media is being resticted, and Toriel shows other signs of "helicopter parenting" them (she insists on driving them to school even though it's close enough to walk, she holds their hand on the way to the classroom) it seems like she blames outside influences for Kris' strange and defiant behavior. Her approach seems to be that if they're only exposed to what's good and pure and right, it should influence them positively - but instead Kris is left seeking whatever escapism they can get, even illicitly. This might be why all of the Dark Worlds are media-themed - like how Ralsei is the perfect companion for Kris' happiness, resembling the brother they miss so much, the Dark Worlds manifest what they desire the most. Getting to Asgore - I don't have AS much to say about his parenting because he's been pretty uninvolved for these last two chapters, but like in Undertale, his go-to seems to be just plain denial. He still gives flowers to Toriel even though she doesn't want them. He still acts like everything's okay in his life, even though there's little food in the fridge besides eggs (which Sans is selling for a low price - more on this in a second) and he doesn't even have a spare bed for either of his kids to sleep on if they come visit. We get a glimpse of just how deep his denial is when he comes into the shop to get his free pickles - he asks Sans "what kind of flower will make her remember how she felt about me". So he's not only ignoring his current situation, he's also ignoring how Toriel feels, how his actions (probably) led to their divorce, and (again, this is just probable) how Kris might be blaming themselves for said divorce. And, of course, there's the more obvious things... like school, the other monsters in town, and the fact that Kris has shown signs of desperately wanting to fit in (like wearing fake horns). Kris is either socially ostracized or bullied relentlessly at school. Around town, other adults and kids outright call them "creepy", comment on their weird behavior, ask them uncomfortable questions about being human, or just talk AT them about their own lives without showing any interest in theirs. I feel like this last point is particularly important - from our perspective it's just typical

NPC dialog, but nobody except Noelle takes notice of how little Kris is actually contributing to these conversations. Needless to say; as much as their family is trying to help them feel at home, there's no doubt that Kris is an outcast. They're lonely, miserable and socially awkward, and their attempts at trying to connect with people have repeatedly blown up in their face. So, we've established that Kris' life sucks. From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, they're surrounded by people who are overly controlling, outright cruel, or just too incompetent to help. The only other person who seems to understand this is Suzy, who is racking up more and more implications that she comes from a more "obviously" abusive/neglectful home (has a food fixation, seems to be imitating violent/aggressive behavior, doesn't call her parents when she's sleeping over) but she's too young and too busy dealing with her own shit to actually help them. Kris' internal thoughts might even be reflected in what people are calling Chapter 2's "Weird" Run - repeatedly calling for help when they've reached the limit of what they can handle from Spamton NEO, But Nobody Came. Not even Suzy. The only way to get away from this pain is escapism - but with their access to media restricted by the well-meaning but emotionally incompetent Toriel, that need to escape has turned to its most extreme form. The idea that the world would be better off without you, or you would be better off without the world. In the real world this would be suicide, but Deltarune might be showing us Kris' metaphorical suicide. By ending the world and all the people who in it, who from Kris' perspective kinda suck anyway, in the best case scenario the "next world" - what some Darkeners are explicitly referring to as the "Angel's Heaven" - will be better. In the worst case scenario, they're dead and there's nobody left to suffer in their grief for them. From Kris' understandably jaded perspective, it's a win-win... if not for one small problem. They're being controlled by the player. Who, in the Pacifist Run at least, is using them to close the Dark Fountains they keep opening - thwarting their attempts at ending everything. But them wanting to do that doesn't necessarily make them evil, and us "using" them to achieve this goal doesn't necessarily make us evil either - instead, maybe it's our "job" as the player to show them why they shouldn't be doing this. To help them make friends. To show everyone their potential, and show them life is worth living. It's unfortunate that in order to do this we have to take away their freedom to choose - but while there's a big part of them that's already chosen death, there's a smaller part that hasn't. Why do they put "us" - the SOUL - back inside them when they're done doing things outside our control? The same reason someone calls 911 when they're standing on the edge of the bridge. There's still a part of them that wants to see what happens if they don't jump. As anyone who's played Undertale knows, there was one troubled kid in that game who was already gone by the time we showed up. They grew to hate the world so much they thought things would be better if they were dead, and we were too late to SAVE them. But maybe we can still SAVE someone else.

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