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electrodasher · 3 days ago

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Ok so! Here’s a four page analysis of the themes of forced and obligatory romance in Deltarune. Including my own thoughts and various additions from the obscure toby fox discord.

These themes permeate the entire game, beyond just the main cast. But first off, let’s look at Kris’ romance routes, because there are three, and there’s a LOT to analyse here. Starting with Ralsei.

Ralsei is very much set up as an expected romance option for Kris, someone for them to neatly pair off with while Susie and Noelle get together (a good example of this is the dark world in chapter 2 pairing them off into their romantic rides). Their relationship is also packed with cliche idealistic romance tropes, particularly in regards to fantasy RPGs. They’re the prince/princess and the knight, the kind healer/mage and the heroic protagonist. However, Kris shows zero romantic interest in him, and the romantic aspects of their relationship are often instead portrayed as uncomfortable. Let’s take a look at the acid tunnel scene, which is a direct parallel to the ferris wheel scene.

Susie and Noelle ride on a cute heart-covered ferris wheel over a beautiful city skyline. Kris and Ralsei are in a barren acid tunnel with sickly green lighting, a very uncomfortable version of a typical tunnel of love (not to mention that acid is literally toxic, the symbolism does not get more heavy-handed than that). The song Ferris Wheel is cutesy and romantic, but Acid Tunnel of Love seems intentionally written to sound awkward and uncomfortable, as well as having musical storytelling in the instrument usage (particularly the piano) and leitmotifs that implies discomfort, which I have an analysis of that a mutual also added a lot to here. Susie and Noelle are either sitting side by side or facing each other as they talk, but Kris’ default position is facing forward, so Ralsei is just talking at their back and looking towards/away from the camera depending what you pick. Not to mention the extremely conflicting dialogue prompts. There is a clear contrast between these two scenes, as well as how both of these romances are portrayed in general. There’s more examples like these, such as the various scenes where Kris and Ralsei are constantly pushed into a romantic context: pushing buddies, Susie trying to make mini Kris hug Ralsei, etc., along with other little examples across the game, like Susie saying “What, you gonna serenade Ralsei with that?” if you play The Legend on the dark world piano.

Next, let’s look at Kris and Noelle’s relationship. Like Ralsei, Noelle is set up as an expected pair for Kris, mainly because of the sheer amount of, again, cliche idealistic romance tropes that these two are practically drowning in. Like with Ralsei, there’s the healer/damsel and knight/hero/protagonist stuff, but there’s also the trope of childhood friends who grew up in a small religious American town (hence Noelle’s theme being named Girl Next Door, a common name for this romantic trope), and the very blatant angel and demon symbolism (a very popular romance dynamic). However, the only time their romantic dynamic is explored is in the weird route, where it must be forced and where typical romantic gestures like rings and ferris wheel rides that are otherwise portrayed as cute and sweet with Suselle are instead put into a disturbing horror context. As such, one the main themes of this route is amatonormativity (the idea that everyone is looking for, and prospers in, a monogamous romantic relationship, as well as relationship hierarchy (such as the idea that romance is inherently stronger/more important than other relationships)).

While manipulating Noelle in chapter two of the weird route, you also go through the process that a typical monogamous romantic relationship does. You ask her to go on a date on the ferris wheel (read: pressure her), you get her multiple rings (symbolizing marriage), you make each other stronger. The player also employs manipulation/abuse tactics that are common in romantic relationships, such isolating Noelle from any support system (e.g. killing Berdly, her friend who immediately notices something is wrong and tries to stop you), making her believe that you’re only trying to help her, and that you’re the only person who can make her “stronger”, giving her the illusion of control while ripping it away. The idea of “getting stronger” is also a running theme in this route, and marriage/romance is considered the “strongest” a relationship can get (saw someone mention this aspect on Tumblr (I think @/sorrybutiforgothowtomakecontent?) and thought it was very notable…). It’s no wonder, then, that the ideas of strength and romance are so heavily intertwined in this route. This also works as a commentary on how romance typically works in RPGs—relationships are typically depicted as being on a sliding scale, with romance being the “strongest”, and romantic relationships also often give the player benefits that other kinds of relationships don’t.

The closest the normal route comes to explicitly implying anything romantic between them is when their childhood ferris wheel ride is brought up, which Noelle specifically describes as “forced”, a direct parallel to their forced ferris wheel ride in the weird route as well as the general themes of that route. I doubt that’s a coincidence. It’s possible that these two were perhaps pushed into romance a little as kids, which would explain where those weird route prompts come from. Going with the theory that they’re Kris’ intrusive thoughts, they had to come from somewhere. Regardless, it is notable that there are no sweet or wholesome romantic options for Noelle—anything involving romance with her is either required for the weird route or heavily associated with it. There is no way for the player to make a romantic relationship work or be willing between these two.

Of course, there is also the possible cisheternormative reading of this route—including such aspects as Kris, nonbinary and likely amab, being pushed into a more masculine role in this relationship very reminiscent of typical abusive patriarchal marriages with Noelle, presumably a lesbian. However I still believe the theme of amatonormativity is much more prevalent here.

There’s also the stuff with Berdly—you can try to push Kris into a romance with him but while they’re clearly friends/rivals they don’t actually show any romantic interest in him, and to be quite honest I don’t think Berdly likes them either. But Berdly is a whole other can of worms (I could write an entire analysis on how he approaches romance… it’s all forced/obligatory).

The last person in the group is Susie. Susie, who seems to currently be Kris’ closest friend/ally, and who is the only one of the main group whose relationship with Kris doesn’t have any weird romantic baggage, and for whom you get pretty much zero romantic options. (The closest thing is the festival question at the end of chapter 2, which could easily be taken as platonic). (This is also interesting to me since all (or at least most) of our prompts are implied to come from Kris’ thoughts, regardless of if they’re intrusive or if Kris would actually want to enact them).

You can also see this binary of choosing a romance route from the expected options in many other places too. Like the festival question—you’re given a binary choice between Ralsei and Noelle but Kris doesn’t seem interested in either option. They’ll either stay silent or ask Susie instead, and again we don’t know their exact reasoning/feelings there. (But it being intended as platonic is an interesting angle I feel since it continues this theme of forced romances, as well as breaking rpg stereotypes, by simply refusing to pick a romantic partner).

(In regards to Susie, this is kinda off-topic but there’s also the constant parallels between Asriel-and-Kris and Susie-and-Kris. Susie is always coming over or asking to come over, She wears Asriel’s church clothes and goes to church with them and Toriel, her and Kris’ dark world rooms are direct mirrors of Kris and Asriel’s, she sees Toriel as a sort of mother figure or at the very least a trusted adult, they re-enact Kris and Asriel’s diner tradition of sitting in the corner booth and drawing on the window after church, Susie is constantly picking up and carrying Kris and we hear Asriel used to carry them to school, she bakes a pie with Toriel with pie being portrayed as a metaphor for family connection across both games, Toriel buys her a hot chocolate at the diner like she used to do with Kris… it’s interesting that she seems to be taking Asriel’s place here, especially since her own home life is Pretty Bad and Kris’ home seems to be becoming a safe place for her to stay instead (at least, until the end of chapter four, where Toriel seems to possibly remind her of her past family issues….))

Now, since I already brought up the festival, I’ll talk about that a bit. I think it’s notable that the festival has been set up as something that is also platonic in addition to being romantic. Susie in particular primarily sees it as a platonic thing, a place where she, Kris and Ralsei can hang out together, and the context only really turns romantic when it comes to Noelle. The festival may be a climax of a lot of the romantic stuff like Suselle, but that’s not its only context.

But the themes of forced/obligatory romance extend beyond just Kris’ relationships. This is present throughout the entire game,

First of all, there’s a running theme of assuming things are romantic when they aren’t. Examples include the addison who assumes Kris and Noelle are a couple just by looking at them, saying they “look together” (and still offers divorcing shoes if you say you’re friends. The assumption of romance is still there), Rouxls assuming the fun gang is a polycule, Berdly assuming gestures are romantic and that people have a crush on him, etc etc. In particular this seems to be a running joke with Kris and Susie, e.g. when Alphys silently smirks after asking what they’d been doing all day, assuming it’s romantic when they were actually adventuring. Susie seems completely oblivious any time this happens, such as going along with Kris’ excuse of “hanging out alone in the closet together” and not seeming to realise at all what that could imply. Another example of this is the joke in chapter two where Ralsei assumes Kris and Susie are each thinking of their respective romantic rides, but both are actually thinking some stupid unrelated stuff instead (which also draws an interesting parallel between Susie and Kris)

There’s also the running theme of romance done out of obligation, even when one or both parties aren’t interested. Examples include the possible cisheteronormative themes of the weird route, Berdly trying to date Noelle even after saying he doesn’t like her because he thinks he has to reciprocate her “crush”, and the weather duo only staying with Rouxls because they think the other likes him. Rouxls also only goes after the weather duo in the first place for reasons unrelated to romance or actually liking either of them (power, one-upping the fun gang).

Finally, everything I’ve just said can all be rolled into the general theme of forced romance (which of course ties back to the main theme of autonomy). Another example of this I didn’t know where to put is Asgore trying to get back with Toriel with uncomfortable and unwanted romantic gestures even though she’s clearly not interested.

Anyway it seems like something is being set up here. I don’t know what but it’s there.

To finish off let’s look at the only main romance that ISN’T portrayed as bad in some way! Suselle. Suselle is pretty much only portrayed in a positive light; the closest it comes to being portrayed negatively is in the weird route of chapter two, where Noelle is much more forward than normal. Suselle is seemingly the only relationship between the five main teens that’s fully willing and reciprocated on both sides. The only forced aspects are the ferris wheel ride in chapter 2, and the prophecy. Despite the ferris wheel ride technically being forced, it’s not really treated as such by the narrative or characters, not in the same way things like the acid tunnel or weird route are. It’s acknowledged as forced in the closet scene, but both Noelle and Susie agree it doesn’t really matter, and what matters is instead “how the two people in the wheel, feel”. We also don’t know if the prophecy is referring specifically to Susie and Noelle, or even if it’s referring to romantic love at all, rather than a different kind of love or something soul related. Regardless, Suselle being almost fully by the character’s own choice tracks with Susie as a character, and how she is constantly making her own choices and decisions and breaking fate/the narrative/tropes/mechanics/etc. It could also track with Noelle’s own game-breaking tendencies. Suselle also seems to be encouraged by other characters as well, though, including Kris who, if the rose scene and suggesting they visit the Holiday manor is any indication, seems to be setting the two up. (I could get into how they hand Susie the rose upside-down only for her to present it to Noelle right-side up, but… I may be overanalysing at that point…)

Annnd thats all! Thank you if you read all of that haha. I'll just reblog this if I have anything more to add...

#yeppp you put together a lot of threads here #deltarune analysis #romance #electrodasher reblog

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electrodasher · 5 days ago

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yippee! apologies if my takes are horrendously bad

my personal take on the matter is that i definitely think the dark worlds can work as a metaphor for escapism without undermining the darkners' personhood. it can be more than one thing, yknow? the darkners are important, their lives matter. and the lightners do go to the dark world as an escape from the problems they face in their own life. but that's not the darkners' whole PURPOSE, yknow? i mean. according to the laws of the universe of deltarune yes darkners' "purpose" is to serve the lightners but like it's not their whole purpose in the STORY.

it's sort of like how, in UNDERTALE, LOVE represents how distant you've become, how easy it is for you to hurt people. but it also literally gives you the power to destroy the world.

i think the biggest reason i believe escapism is at least a part of deltarune's narrative is queen.

queen's whole speech in both of her fights is about how she intends to provide escapism for the lightners (so that they will worship her but also so that they will he happy). she wants to turn the whole world into a dark world, so that everyone can live in bliss and not have to worry about the woes of the light world. she mentions "Staring, Tapping, To Receive Joy. Staring, Tapping, To Avoid Pain." which is like pretty much the definition of escapism

she wants to help Noelle with the problems she faces in the light world ("Noelle. Who Will Be There To Help Her? Her Strange And Sad Searches" and "My One Idea To Help Noelle, Failed") by just... shoving it away for a blissful fantasy world ("Wake? No, She Has Already Awakened Too Much. Let Her Close Her Eyes And Sleep Away, Into A Darker, Darker Dream.")

...i forgot the rest of what i wanted to say!

well first off, thank you for your ask! I'm going to get extremely in depth in my answer, so bear with me here. sorry it took several weeks to write this. the escapism reading of deltarune is pretty deeply entrenched in fandom, and to refute it, I felt it required a full-length essay to completely explain my viewpoint.

yes, "the lightners desire escapism" does not automatically translate to that being the darkners' actual narrative purpose. escapism can be a theme without dehumanizing those who are used in order to escape - in fact, I've read a number of stories that use someone's desire to escape to HIGHLIGHT how they're hurting others in pursuit of that. I believe that toby fox is definitely capable of telling a story about kids having a valid desire to escape, and about them grappling with having inadvertently created a world of real, living people as a result.

(I'll reiterate again that this is not the story arc that most people who espouse that escapism is a theme believe will happen. most people seem to believe that the game will end in an omori-esque "growing out of" the dark worlds. it's why I have a huge dislike of the fanon escapism reading, given that the darkners are shown as people whose lack of agency parallels kris' own. it would feel cheap if the resolution to that plot was that the darkners were actually never meant to be agents in their own fates. but this is a digression.)

the reason why i DON'T believe that this is a story that toby fox is telling is because of the way the world, themes, and characters are written. put simply, it just doesn't come across as congruent with the story being told.

deltarune's main themes are agency, fate, identity, and control. this is a conflict that shows up in nearly every major character, is baked into the worldbuilding, and is the central struggle involving us, the player. the protagonist of deltarune is literally possessed by us against their will. the darkners are objects that have no choice but to serve and be discarded. over and over again, there is emphasis on roles that characters play - and crucially, roles that are imposed on them.

what would escapism mean, in this thematic context? in real life, escapism can represent any number of things, but in a story, a major narrative theme generally has to dovetail with other major narrative themes in the work. I would argue that escapism in deltarune would likely mean going to a place where characters are able to choose for themselves what roles they embody, or even to discard the notion of roles altogether. a fantasy of control is the only way to escape a reality where you have no agency. and honestly, it's hard to imagine that something could count as an escapist fantasy if you don't even get to choose whether or not you participate in it.

let's talk about kris.

I see a lot of discussions around kris that say that kris goes into the dark worlds to escape. the dark worlds are posited as kris' fantasy of heroism. it's a world where they can seem heroic and cool, a world where they can have friends. what i find interesting about these discussions is that they seem to ignore the extremely basic fact that kris is being controlled in order to go into the dark worlds. and it is not a control that they appear to welcome.

if those worlds represent kris' fantasy, then why don't they get to choose what happens in those fantasies? why are they being controlled by an external force, one that they actively push back against? if it's really an escape, then why does everything about this world reflect their lack of agency? if they really think this world is just a pure fantasy, then why do they care if spamton falls when his strings are cut?

because they're being deliberately obscured to the player, it is hard to say how kris actually feels about many subjects... but I do seriously doubt that they view the dark worlds as an escape. they don't act in a way that is consistent with that. they resist their lack of agency, and what little we do see of their reactions to darkner characters doesn't suggest that they view those characters as part of a disposable fantasy, either. they seem to have complicated feelings on ralsei. and of course, one of their biggest emotional reactions in the game is to the spamton fight. I would argue that that suggests they have empathy for spamton, which is a hard emotional reaction to have if you believe he's just part of a fantasy. not impossible, mind you, but it seems unlikely that kris believes that all this is simply fantasy.

also, considering that snowgrave both actively discredits the idea that the dark worlds are mere fantasy and is actively traumatic for kris... I seriously doubt they'd open another dark world in chapter 3 on a snowgrave run if their motive was purely to escape. on that route, they've seen the damage we can cause in a dark world. they know that berdly has sustained lasting damage due to our actions, assuming he's not outright dead. why would they want to try and "escape" to a place like that again now that they know what can happen?

the only answer is that they have a motive that isn't escapist.

now, as for ralsei... what part does he have to play in all this?

ralsei does play a lot to the fun, fantastical elements of the dark worlds. he delivers the prophecy that kickstarts the adventure. he flatters both kris and susie endlessly when they act appropriately heroic. he welcomes them into the castle and even makes nice rooms for them. he initially seems tailor-made to enable a fantastical experience where no real issues can ever complicate anything, and where the pain of reality can successfully be hidden from. but there's a lot of complications to the idea that he might represent an escapist fantasy.

the first, and what honestly seems the most important to me, is that he doesn't encourage kris and susie to remain in the dark worlds. he is welcoming and kind, but once the adventure is over, he prompts them to return to the light world. he wants them to deal with their more "real" problems like homework. that doesn't feel like he is trying to facilitate escapism in them. a real fantasy would encourage you to stay in it, wouldn't it?

and while ralsei is definitely invested in making sure the lightners are happy, there are always cracks that show. he isn't able to make kris ignore what happened in the spamton fight. he isn't able to convince susie to be peaceful and kind. and in his very essence, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas. very importantly, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas to kris.

this probably ain't your first fandom rodeo, so I'm not going to explain all the different ways that ralsei interacts with kris' personal issues. there's plenty of posts on it out there. what i will point out is, once again, it feels odd that a character who seems tailor made to bring up kris' most uncomfortable associations with their lack of agency and their outsider status in their own family would be part of a fantasy of escapism to them. you'd think that they'd prefer something that didn't have an inbuilt hierarchy, a prophecy that denied them autonomy, or especially a person that reminded them how little they fit into hometown.

that doesn't mean kris doesn't care about him at all - it seems very likely that they do. what I mean to say here is that he just seems ill-suited to an escapism reading, both behaviorally and on a conceptual level. it doesn't seem like that's at all part of his servitude towards the lightners.

of course, there is another non-lightner entity that ralsei seems diegetically engineered to serve. but I'll discuss that later.

now as for susie...

yes, susie definitely views the dark worlds as more fun than the light world. and why wouldn't she? the light world sucks for her, and she doesn't seem very aware of the fact that the dark world can also suck. you could definitely make the argument that she views the dark worlds as a fantastical escape from reality... were it not for the fact that she treats her darkner friends with just as much importance as she does kris and noelle.

can someone treat components of an escapist fantasy as real and important? of course. but given deltarune's themes of agency and control, as well as the fact that darkners exist in servitude to the lightners, I feel like you'd have to make escapism tie into forcing others into a lack of agency if you wanted the theme to feel coherent with the rest of the work. this would require susie to be limiting the agency of the darkners around her. and obviously, she doesn't do that. her presence around them might be inherently limiting, just by simple virtue of being a lightner, but she isn't aware of it, and clearly is uncomfortable with the idea of limiting anyone's agency. she encourages ralsei to make choices. and she supports lancer in basically anything he wants to do. her treatment of lancer is integral to chapter 1's narrative, and it seems like that treatment of ralsei is integral to the ongoing narrative as well!

her preference for the dark world feels very rooted in her engagement with it as its own reality. rather than trying to avoid her real-life problems by engaging in a pretense, she seems to simply want to spend time with her friends in a place that isn't cruel to her. she isn't ignoring any of the dark world's problems in service of that, either. she notices when things don't line up. if she thought of it as a fantasy, wouldn't she be inclined to ignore issues that impede the fantasy?

and critically - like kris, she does not intentionally choose her imposed role in the prophecy at first. she steps into the role of bad guy to resist it, but that role is limiting too, and she eventually acquiesces to being a hero. it's never something she's completely on board with, though. she actively pushes back the limitations that the role places on her. I find this important to reiterate when we are discussing the notion of the characters viewing the dark worlds as fantasy.

noelle has a complicated relationship to the dark worlds. susie tells her that it's a dream to make her accept the strange reality she finds herself in, which works well on her. she continues to think of it as a strange dream throughout the chapter. (though, like the others, it is not a 'dream' she entered of her own volition!)

it is also a markedly unpleasant 'dream' at times. she has her agency restricted, is kidnapped, has to evade a controlling monarch, and is even tied up in a weird evangelion cross thing on the hand of a giant robot. it's not purely fun. noelle does like scary things, and while it might be healthy for her to have an experience where she stands up to a controlling adult figure... again, the circumstances make it difficult for me to assume that this is a fantasy she would choose for herself. not impossible, mind you, but it's not the first reading of the situation that comes to mind.

and while she does say she wishes she could dream like this every day in the normal route, that does happen specifically because she was talking to the girl she likes. it makes sense she'd find that pleasant. I don't think that necessarily equates to her finding the dark worlds escapist.

and importantly, this isn't the sentiment that she expresses in every route.

again, there's a lot of analysis on snowgrave, so I won't bother regurgitating it much here. but it's nightmarish for both kris and noelle, and very likely fatal for berdly. noelle needs to believe that the event is a dream, for her own psychological safety, but one of the most important parts of snowgrave...

...is that its events, and the world it took place in, are very, very real.

noelle wants to have the strength to face her problems, both in the regular route and in the snowgrave route. rather than escaping from them, she views the "dream" as a chance to practice dealing with her day-to-day issues. it's just that in the regular route she finds that strength authentically, and in the snowgrave route, that desire is manipulated and pushed until she is forced to kill berdly. she doesn't interpret snowgrave as an escape gone wrong. she views it as a dream that became a nightmare. and those are two extremely different things.

but i haven't even gotten to the biggest thing that undermines the concept that the dark worlds are a metaphor for escapism! which is: this fucking guy is dead wrong about everything.

so full disclaimer - I really love berdly. I think he's slept on a lot in the fandom because he's annoying and weird. which is fair, I suppose, but I think ignoring him hinders a lot of people's understanding of deltarune's overall narrative. because berdly often illustrates a lot of concepts in the game, but his narrative framing as a joke (usually...) prevents the player from taking it completely seriously. he has things to say and ideas to show off, it's just that he's often very loud and kind of dumb in his expression of them. which is kind of the point!

ralsei brings up the idea that the darkners are meant to serve the lightners very seriously in chapter one. by extension, and by way of the literal mechanics involved in a dark world's creation, we can infer that this logic is probably something that also applies to the dark worlds themselves. they are allegedly worlds and characters that only are supposed to fulfill a dream of the lightners. but due to narrative framing and deltarune's themes, we know that that's not the full truth. however dark worlds and darkners are created, they deserve to have their own agency. they can't just exist to fulfill a higher being's wishes.

you know who else undermines that view of the dark worlds? berdly! berdly does!!!!

because berdly is the only lightner in the game so far who does take the dark worlds to be an escapist adventure! he wants to turn cyber world into smartopia. he views this as a chance to be a cool hero. he believes he's going to get the girl, he's going to shape this world to his own liking, and maybe also he's going to get queen to acknowledge him or something so he stops being a forgettable little bluebird. and not only does none of this happen, his steadfast belief that it will happen is continually a joke within the narrative!!

berdly's wishes for uncomplicated escapist fantasy are flat-out denied by the dark worlds themselves. as a lightner, those worlds should be serving him. he should have the power to do whatever he wants within the bounds of an escapist fantasy. these npcs should be singing his praises!

but he doesn't have the power. and this world doesn't sing his praise. because it just isn't an escapist fantasy. he isn't right to view it that way. his wishes for heroism are always going to be thwarted.

so now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let's swing back over to the subject of your original ask. queen.

because, like berdly, queen's entire character arc is about how she's completely wrong about what the lightners actually want.

queen would in fact like nothing more to place the lightners into an escapist fantasy. she believes that that's the best way to serve them and make them happy forever. as a darkner, queen has very much internalized the idea that a lack of control is what actually makes people happy. since darkners have no choice in their destinies and are supposed to be happy in it, and since she personally finds her role as a darkner fulfilling, she believes that that's true of all people everywhere. if you want to make people happy, you just have to remove that pesky personal agency!

so she spends the story trying to force the lightners and particularly noelle into situations where she controls them in order to make them ostensibly happier. she does genuinely believe that this is the right thing to do, but as she finds out eventually, she's just wrong. noelle doesn't want that. queen believes that escapism is why the lightners use the internet... but that's totally wrong too.

while there are other searches mixed in, noelle is trying to use the internet to find her sister. instead of trying to hide from whatever happened, noelle wants to figure it out. queen's thesis about noelle and the lightners is proven wrong even before she personally encounters noelle in the dark world. it's just that queen doesn't realize it due to her limited perspective.

the concept of escapism being brought up with both queen and berdly is not there to say that the dark world is escapist. rather, it's there to say that it isn't. despite the dark worlds being a fantastical place, they are extremely real. to view them as a means of escape is foolhardy at best. you cannot act as though you are above consequences within them.

themes and ideas exist within the story for a sake of an audience. so let's get into the final character I need to discuss here. hopefully this will tie my thesis of deltarune together neatly.

that character is of course us. the player.

when creating a piece of fiction, an astute author will often identify and anticipate an audience's reactions to certain things in their work, and write things in such a way that they elicit the desired reactions. in essence, a writer is directing the "character" of the audience. how we feel and how we are anticipated to react to things is an integral part of nearly every fiction.

that effect is far more overt when dealing with metanarrative fiction that diegetically involves the audience. since the fiction is saying a lot of things about the general 'you,' the audience in aggregate, your reactions to certain things in the story have to be finely cued and anticipated by the author, so that the author can thus commentate on the reactions that you have to the story. the "character" you are assumed to inhabit is posited by the author to have certain traits.

to explain what I mean in plainer terms, I'll use the player of undertale's no mercy route as an example. because undertale is commenting on the way rpgs generally work. the player's behaviors in no mercy are attributed by characters in the story to be the result of us acting like a typical gamer. we kill the characters in the game because we want exp. and more than that, it's because we want to see everything the game has to offer. the role we inhabit in this role-playing game is that of a completionist. you could say that that's assumed to be our "character" in no mercy.

deltarune also posits that certain things are true of its audience. by being written to evoke certain cultural ideas, rpg tropes, and references to undertale, it guarantees that its audience will probably have certain traits, and spends a large amount of its conceptual focus commenting on those traits. one of those traits is nostalgia, which is probably an idea that I'll expound upon in a further essay because it's quite integral to my reading of deltarune. but the main one I mean to discuss here, and why I went off on this tangent about how audiences are dealt with in metafiction, is that we are posited as someone who believes in the logic of certain narratives.

deltarune's writing evokes a lot of portal fantasy narratives. alice in wonderland, narnia, pretty much every story where it's revealed at the end to be all a dream... the story of deltarune superficially resembles a lot of those. this, I think, is responsible for the popularity of the escapism theory. because those stories are often at their end about a child learning to put away fantasy and grow up, people tend to believe that deltarune must be about the same thing. but I truly don't think that deltarune is trying to do anything with that aspect of portal fantasy narratives, at least not directly. its main characters aren't involved in that exact type of coming-of-age arc.

instead, deltarune is very concerned with what happens to characters in fantasy, and specifically fantasy rpgs. if your world is deemed to not matter because it's a dream, what does that mean for you, who has no choice but to live in it? if you are an npc whose role has been predetermined for you via script, then can you ever decide for yourself what you want? what if you want to matter? what if you want to be your own person?

as the major controlling force of deltarune, we are initially cued to believe that deltarune is like a dream. it superficially fulfills so much of what we want from undertale fanon. hometown seems like it's a perfect idyllic town, at least until you start noticing the obvious cracks. and remember what I said about ralsei earlier? he is so reminiscent of asriel, and extremely eager to help us. it's not a stretch to say that making us specifically view deltarune as dreamlike and idyllic is probably part of his purpose in the game.

I would not say that we are posited as escapist. but the idea of escapism as brought up with queen and berdly is meant to strike at the heart of a much deeper idea that deltarune is trying to deconstruct. because if we view deltarune as a dream, escapist or otherwise, then we are inclined to write the internal realities of the characters inside off. the dark world can disappear without it mattering. we can control kris without it mattering. if it's all a dream, what does it matter? why should we care to let its characters go free? aren't we supposed to be in control?

if deltarune is an rpg... what is the significance of us interacting with it?

#this is pretty on point #deltarune analysis #electrodasher reblog #undescribed

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