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the best part bar none about kris being involved with the antagonist is that they are so fucking dogshit at being evil. "throw this fight it's a scripted loss" okay. "your teammates are down it's good as over why are you hitting me harder now" my friands..,.,.. "you need to keep the guitar away from susie" okay. "what the fuck do you mean you lost a brawl with your own soul and she took it out of your own fucking hands" you don't understaaaaaaand,,,.

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I'm thinking of kris repeating berdly's name in shock when you try to tell ralsei that you are going to the festival with berdly of all people. Thinking about the conversations we only get to hear half of, where kris presumably tells ralsei and susie that ralsei and asriel don't look that much alike. Thinking about all the times where kris changes the prompt we give them into something that they'd prefer to say.

Kris talks. They chatter, even, but we as the player don't get to hear it. They don't get a text box. We only ever know that they spoke at all from the reactions of other characters, and even then, we rarely know exactly what was said.

And part of this is that whoever the deltarune narrator is seems intent to pretending like kris doesn't exist. You check the mirror, and it says, "it's only you". Kris plays the piano and it says, "your hands begin moving on their own." If kris speaks without your permission, the narration doesn't acknowledge it at all, committed to the lie that kris doesn't exist beyond their role as our vessel. But that's not what this post is about.

This post is about how it's entirely possible that kris has tried to talk to us when no one else is around. They could have tried to tell us their plan, or begged us not to make certain decisions, or explained that we don't actually need to steal asriel's 5 dollars because they have a piggy bank buried in the front yard. Kris could be asking us questions, or asking us not to look for the bunker password because they have a plan and we should trust them, or asking us to let them sleep a bit longer, and we the soul just carry on the same regardless, their one-sided monologue falling on deaf ears. We would never even know, because of how thoroughly the narrative of deltarune has denied kris a voice.

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Kris is THE nonbinary character ever.

They’re human in a town of monsters, an allegory for being nonbinary. They’re not Frisk or Chara but a secret 3rd thing. They’re a walking commentary on how nonbinary game protagonists get treated as “self-inserts”. They’re weird and it’s portrayed as a good thing. They have a secret life their parents can’t understand. They’re working for the enemy (literally playing both sides). They have a kickass storyline and personality.

Their life is a prison. Their body is a prison. Their gender plays into the overarching theme of the game, that being determinism. The struggle to choose who you are when God and religion already chose for you.

Well, player? Which do you choose?

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This is gonna be a Deltarune blog for now, sorry. Got obsessed over the past couple weeks

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Og E-Soul and Zero >:D (I am in stupid mode fkfmngkd)

Being a faceless hero has its implications. Not only for you but also for your poor coworkers

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yang cheng got so much trauma he started working out because he needed bigger tits to protect his fragile heart

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I do want to mention that a key part of this theory is X having good intentions.

The orphanage dean also technically did, since he often mentioned how many people Cyan could save. So even if X is causing trauma and anguish for the top 10, it might be more of a “lesser evil” situation.

OK can someone tell me if this theory holds water or if it’s just batshit insane

So this is probably X here meeting Cyan before she joins the top 10. It can’t be a coincidence that this encouraged her to play her guitar in public to make money. And we can also link the animation changes in Lin Ling’s and Yang Cheng’s arcs to X due to the snapping sounds.

—Is X personally choosing/supporting heroes to join the top 10? If that’s the case, it would make sense as to why none of the top 10 we’ve seen so far have been evil/corrupt, but rather innocent and kind.

But you know who that also sounds like? The orphanage dean.

He chose to turn kind-hearted children into heroes, but it cost them their happiness.

And look at the slicked-back hair, the glasses, the white clothes—is this guy trying to look like X or is this an intentional narrative parallel??

X is an antihero grooming the top 10 into sad heroes theory?

Look, if I had omnipotent power and had to choose a successor through a top 10 tournament, I wouldn’t be leaving that shit to chance, that’s all I’m saying—

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OK can someone tell me if this theory holds water or if it’s just batshit insane

So this is probably X here meeting Cyan before she joins the top 10. It can’t be a coincidence that this encouraged her to play her guitar in public to make money. And we can also link the animation changes in Lin Ling’s and Yang Cheng’s arcs to X due to the snapping sounds.

—Is X personally choosing/supporting heroes to join the top 10? If that’s the case, it would make sense as to why none of the top 10 we’ve seen so far have been evil/corrupt, but rather innocent and kind.

But you know who that also sounds like? The orphanage dean.

He chose to turn kind-hearted children into heroes, but it cost them their happiness.

And look at the slicked-back hair, the glasses, the white clothes—is this guy trying to look like X or is this an intentional narrative parallel??

X is an antihero grooming the top 10 into sad heroes theory?

Look, if I had omnipotent power and had to choose a successor through a top 10 tournament, I wouldn’t be leaving that shit to chance, that’s all I’m saying—

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OK can someone tell me if this theory holds water or if it’s just batshit insane

So this is probably X here meeting Cyan before she joins the top 10. It can’t be a coincidence that this encouraged her to play her guitar in public to make money. And we can also link the animation changes in Lin Ling’s and Yang Cheng’s arcs to X due to the snapping sounds.

—Is X personally choosing/supporting heroes to join the top 10? If that’s the case, it would make sense as to why none of the top 10 we’ve seen so far have been evil/corrupt, but rather innocent and kind.

But you know who that also sounds like? The orphanage dean.

He chose to turn kind-hearted children into heroes, but it cost them their happiness.

And look at the slicked-back hair, the glasses, the white clothes—is this guy trying to look like X or is this an intentional narrative parallel??

X is an antihero grooming the top 10 into sad heroes theory?

Look, if I had omnipotent power and had to choose a successor through a top 10 tournament, I wouldn’t be leaving that shit to chance, that’s all I’m saying—

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Call me naive, but I genuinely don’t think it’ll end this way. Maybe there will be a scene where he considers it, but the show itself? I think it’ll at least end on a hopeful note.

I say this just based on what we’ve seen. There are the characters, their personalities and interactions. Look at Wreck’s love for Nice and Lin Ling’s love for Moon. Look at Cyan and Luo. Yes, these stories likely have tragic endings—but these relationships are important. Tragedy has no meaning on its own. Even scenes like Nice’s suicide practically invite the audience to wonder and care about Nice as a person. To understand that Nice was his own person; that he’s different from Lin Ling. The show wants us to hope.

There’s also the glaring fact that none of the top 10 we’ve seen so far are purely evil. In real life, I’d 100% believe people with that much power would be corrupt. But in TBHX, they’re not! They might make the wrong choices, but we can clearly see their goodwill and heroism underneath.

And of course, X exists. The everyman hero, tied to no corporation, not reliant on believers, who has everything and seems to have lost nothing. It can be done. Why would suicide be the answer for Lin Ling if there’s proof that he could be free?

So call me naive but I think TBHX has a hopeful and optimistic core. I don’t think it will end that way.

You cannot tell me to be hero X won't end where it started, Lin Ling was already going to kill himself if Nice didn't do it first and everything that happened after that only made it worse, him having to replace a dead man and watching people around him die and Moon literally gets shot in the head in front of him, I promise you the last episode is gonna be him being a top rank hero, stepping on the same rooftop where it all started as he sees another man looking like his age standing there about to jump and the last scene is gonna be him jumping as he says "good luck" knowing what will happen, The commoner didn't die that day, but Lin Ling did

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just caught up on tbhx eps 5-7 and like, Much To Process. right now tho im kinda obsessed with yang cheng and his doomed polycule situation but particularly how like, BEFORE it was tragically doomed, it kinda struck me as the funniest thing ever. yang cheng essentially gets adopted by his crush at school and this other student whos entrepreneurmaxxing and BOTH those individuals are WHOLLY obsessed with him but yang cheng is too nerfed by his low self-esteem to notice. really giving me the vibes of "ot3 where two people already in a relationship try to coax in a 3rd party into the arrangement but that 3rd guy thinks everybody hates him so it's like coaxing a traumatized stray dog into the house for some treats" exquisite dynamic, no notes.

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Yang cheng and inescapable grief

I have seen many people express confusion as to why yang cheng went after the original E-soul and as to why he was acting the way he did in this episode, and the answer to that is grief.

Yang cheng lost his parents at a very young age, yet from what the show tells us, we can infer that this memory heavily haunts him and is one of his earliest memories in childhood. The loss of his parents inadvertently led to him being bullied, viewed as worthless, and what caused him to have such a low trust value point as well as having low self-esteem. All of that suffering because E-soul was too slow. All of that grief and the ability to have a normal life snatched cruelly because the system was broken because no one helped him in time.

However, even with that, the fact that E-soul still managed to save him and even asked for his name acted as a shining hope in Yang cheng's heart a cure to the ache of loss and a small reassurance that there is more to come and the future is bright. It is that encounter that fully solidifies the faith that Yang cheng has for E-soul and makes him want to become like E-soul.

E-soul haunts Yang cheng's narrative, and at this point, he is all that Yang cheng has. The doll that his parents got him was an E-soul doll. His parents wished for him to be as brave as E-soul. He was saved by E-soul, and everything around him revolves around E-soul, even his job. In a way, it's like a symbol and its believer. E-soul and Yang cheng.

Even the first time in a decade, Yang cheng forms meaningful relationships they are centred around E-soul in one way shape or form. Little pomelo sticks to Yang cheng due to his interest in E-soul and him applying to the competition, xia qing is captivated by the Yang cheng behind the E-soul mask and Shang chao makes his move after realising that the E-soul actor with now a rising trust point is Yang cheng. Even if E-soul failed him in not being fast enough, he saved Yang cheng, gave him hope, and manifested that hope into a reality where Yang cheng finally gained those he cares for. A reality where he has trust value points, a reality too good that he still deems it a dream.

After years of loss, Yang cheng finally gains, and it's sweet too sweet to last. At this point, yang chengs self-esteem and sense of self-worth and overall self has become so hooked and revolved around being the perfect E-soul. He could truly act himself and show a side he couldn't when he wore that E-soul mask when he was acting. Yang cheng found gain and solace in being E-soul his whole self worth depended on it. The more people he was able to save, the more he felt worthy of love, trust, and felt useful. The more Yang cheng embodied the role of the speedy electric hero, the more he felt worthy the more society deemed him worthy. In a way its like a worshipper being rewarded for their devotion to their deity.

And then it all comes crashing down with shang chao's death. Shang chao's death acted as a catalyst for yang cheng in multiple ways. Yang cheng wasn't fast enough to stop the shooter. He hesitated and failed to save his friend. While yang cheng sums this up to him being jealous, I don't think it was just jealousy keeping him back, but I believe that yang cheng fully views his failure being due to jealousy. Yang cheng is an unreliable narrator!! His failure was because he wasn't fast enough, but jealousy causing hesitation isn't the only factor that could have caused it and he didn't want shang chao to die he spends the rest of the episode beating himself up over it to the point that he drives himself to insanity trying to avenge shang chao in anyway possible.

Shang chao's death caused Yang chengs self-esteem to come crashing down. He is a failure of a hero, and he couldn't play the role of E-soul properly. He was too late, and his increasing hatred of himself manifested in his newfound hatred for the original E-soul. A hero who failed, a hero who caused death first it was his parents now shang chao. How many more have to die due to heroes' selfishness? Yang cheng loses all trust in himself, and that causes for him to also lose all trust in E-soul, which is only regained when he beats E-soul and deems himself as worthy of that role.

Another reason as to why shang chao's death acts as a catalyst is because he also starts to believe that his hero is the reason he lost. He starts to believe that it was his deity that caused him to lose his friend, and it drives him over the edge. Human loss due to human greed and capitalism and with the truths that Enlightner states yang cheng is driven to the edge, claiming that he must take full responsibility and challenge the original E-soul who in his eyes represents the flaws of the system.

The looming sense of responsibility and duty that was once what made Yang cheng feel useful acts as a crushing weight on his shoulders that makes him vulnerable,desperate, and easily manipulatable to the point he views that it would be much more simpler for everyone to become weights and play a role in society for it to function perfectly.

Due to his overwhelming guilt, Yang cheng chooses to become a puppet and advises the public to follow in his footsteps so society can run smoothly. When asked by xia qing if this is the path he is willing to take he tries explaining that this is the only path he has (unreliable narrator) indicating his sense of responsibility and duty has encompassed him to an unhealthy degree that he fully believes that challenging E-soul and killing him or being killed by him is the only way possible to serve justice.

In the end, even if Yang cheng was killed by og E-soul (which wasn't the case), he would have died knowing that he tried. He didn't hesitate, and he would have attuned for his mistakes, leaving the world with no guilt.

Alas, I believe that the reason yang cheng didn't react to finding out that Uncle Rock is the founder is because he has accepted himself as a puppet a simple weight that is moved to balance a horrible system and it is why he probably accepted orders and killed moon because that's what a puppet does it follows orders no matter what so society functions smoothly. Yang cheng doesn't want to suffer the conceuqnces of breaking the rules because the cost was too great, the cost was shang chao, xia qing and everything he gained that was then painfully ripped away from him and sent him spiralling like a mad man.

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If Lin Ling’s thesis statement is “anyone can be a hero”, then Yang Cheng is the rebuttal that it comes at a price.

LL got handed his position because of Nice’s death, but YC had to literally claim his through murder. They did very similar things; Yang Cheng’s story just showed it all in its full ugliness.

That’s why Moon had to die. Heroes need to sacrifice. Lin Ling doesn’t just get to “cheat”—he has to suffer in order to earn it.

That’s Yang Cheng’s argument, and that’s also why Yang Cheng had to do it.

(It’s also why if LL kills YC in the end, he’ll only prove him right.)

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hero tower is full of people who remind people of other people and I think thats very funny

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Lin Ling and Yang Cheng would have been great allies and thus they must be enemies

The two characters are pretty straightforward foils to one another, both of them had dreams of being a hero that were dashed through life and they resided themselves to just being nobodies, but had the opportunity of a lifetime to become heroes (through stolen identity lol).

These characters are very much each other in different fonts, hell, they are literally the 2 scenarios in the frog in boiling water. Yang Cheng was slowly, meticulously, and gradually led down the path to his corruption arc (the frog who is put into temperate water first) meanwhile, Lin Ling was kidnapped and was hit with "you're legally dead now so you might as well be Nice" (frog thrown straight to boiling water). So, in that sense, Lin Ling always had an easier path to realizing how Miss J had been manipulating him, unlike Yang Cheng who would have to uncover a grand conspiracy.

Another big difference between the two is that Lin Ling didn't want to be Nice, the most Nice was to Lin Ling was a way to get to his actual favorite hero, Moon. In that sense, Lin Ling "finally achieving his dream" was flawed at the end of the day cause he had to pretend to be someone else. Meanwhile, Yang Cheng *wanted* to he E Soul, he had loved E Soul since he saved him and devoted his life to being an impersonator for small events.

And then there’s the big Trust Value in the room. Yang Cheng is essentially marginalized by his 0 trust value score. I've seen a lot of people question how Yang Cheng trust value never grew, but think of it like this:

Say you meet this person, and before your introductions are even done, your best friend suddenly pops up and says "literally no one trusts that guy." The general public in TBHX truly believes in the trust system, so if someone is deemed untrustworthy they are untrustworthy. It is not just an arbitrary number to them it is the "person" they trust the most telling them something. And say you see the guy your friend warned you about doing good things, would you automatically trust that guy, or would there be a thought in the back of your head that he had ulterior motives to being good?

That's why Yang Cheng could never get his trust value to go up. Every good thing he did as Yang Cheng was seen as *at most* a spectacle to his classmates, his good deeds only counted when he was E Soul. Little Pomelo didn't cry out for Yang Cheng, he cried out for E Soul.

Together Lin Ling and Yang Cheng show a lot of the flaws in the trust system. Lin Ling's arc shows how the public can be tricked so easily to the point where a popular hero is replaced by a guy who looks enough like him, and Yang Cheng shows the impossible climb of gaining trust from a true 0. So, anyone who wants to keep these flaws from becoming too prevalent in the public's eye must keep these two at odds from one another.

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I think Yang Cheng’s motives are left ambiguous on purpose, which lets us come up with our own explanations.

Due to Enlighter saying someone high-up caused Shang Chao’s death and E-Soul benefiting from it and not denying it, YC concluded E-Soul was the culprit.

YC blames E-Soul for not doing anything to help Shang Chao (and for not fighting villains recently, and not saving YC’s parents) and thinks E-Soul no longer deserves to be a hero.

YC genuinely thinks he himself would be a better E-Soul and doesn’t want to let his believers down.

YC thinks that with E-Soul’s power, he can prevent something like Shang Chao’s death from happening again.

YC felt so guilty for hesitating that he instantly went for the 1st stupid idea he thought of.

YC was blinded by revenge.

As the director said, Yang Cheng is a layered character with inner conflict. I actually love how weird his actions seem from the outside!

anger sadness and self blaming about shang chao's death -> wanting to get the murderer -> knowing who's the murderer -> ????????? -> announcing public duel with old e-soul and killing him??