Whatever kind of person Kris is, and however much agency they’re left with, one thing we know for sure is that they really did grow to care about Susie on their own:
since they do all these things without prompting from the player.
so, deltarune becomes kind of horrifying if you assume the player is
possessing kris. We save over THEIR save file at the beginning with our own name.
Kris can’t move or defend themself unless we tell them to. They even
noticeably didn’t contribute a team name idea, even susie did that!
Kris
often just stands blankly during cutscenes like a Good Protagonist, but
it’s especially jarring when literally everyone in the scene reacts but
them:
more disturbing than that tho, is when the player relinquishes control and kris lifelessly ragdolls, because they literally can’t do anything.
when susie grabs them:
when the floor falls away:
when the king hits and subsequently drops them (Admittedly they were pretty badly hurt here):
Notably, Kris DOES seem to be able to break control occasionally:
when the supply closet door scares them, they take a step back.
they bow along with the others to protect lancer, in direct contrast to the above instances where they just stand motionless during “group” actions.
THEY were the one who was scared when the guards surrounded everyone, the only time they “show” any emotion at all:
They seemed to be in control during the thing with the Fountain, which makes sense since the soul was otherwise occupied.
Finally, THEY WERE THE ONE WHO CHOSE TO PROTECT SUSIE.
I don’t really have a nice pithy way to close this, but it seems like only extreme fear can free Kris from our control for a short time. Nice happy fun game.
Thinking that way, i think they CHOSE to rip their heart out trying to avoid to be controlled again. What do you think? You are the soul, they are your vessel. With no soul, the vessel is by itself. The funny part is that the game says that your choices for them don’t matter, and suzy says the same about Kris’ choices, but at the end, the choice to rip their fucking soul out of their fucking body was theirs.
Yeah, i definitely think the ending was Kris finally breaking through enough to cast us out. the most horrifying part? the cage being the ONLY thing on their side of the room implies this may have happened before.
ALSO:
@catgirl9696 pointed out in the notes another crucial moment where Kris helplessly watches us do something: throwing out the ball of junk at the end.
Kris has exactly ONE item that actually belongs to them.
if you use it, they admire it and nothing else happens. if you DROP it, on the other hand, this happens:
if you choose no:
if you choose yes:
I am 100% convinced that Kris’ lack of friends, lack of belongings in their room, etc, is because Players have tormented them before, and they’re scared to have anything that belongs to them that Someone Else could just take or destroy on a whim.
In my view, Undertale and Deltarune are both games about choices, agency, and meta in video games. Undertale explores the idea of making choices as a ‘player’ playing a ‘game’ in a way that affects the world as a whole, which we can see in both Flowey’s actions and our own. However, Deltarune seems to be more personal, exploring how a ‘player’ playing a ‘game’ can affect an individual.
I’m so excited to see where this goes.
The “It’s Only You”makes a LOT of sense in this context. It’s only you as in you the player, I’m guessing. Since you’re essentially trying to ( even if its unintentional ) force Kris out of their own body
A good amount of people have probably realized all of this already, so I’m not sure what compelled me to make this, but ever since I connected the dots with the music, I’ve been slightly obsessed.
… I have a feeling that someone really doesn’t want us to forget that they’re with us in the dark.
My students are up to something. They keep coming up to me and handing me pieces of fruit, and when I ask why, they just smile cryptically and say, “Don’t worry about it.”
Like, the apples I get. That’s a teacherly thing to give. But one of them just straight up handed me a grape.
I took a sick day today and sent an email to the first girl to hand me a piece of fruit, asking if I could have an explanation now.
Her response was to send me this meme:
That clarifies exactly nothing, thanks.
Walked into school today to an email from her saying: “There’s more to come, hope it doesn’t leave you *sour* (you’ll get that later).”
Ominous.
Just before my first class of the day, one of my students came floating in, a black cloak billowing behind her, hood pulled low over her eyes.
“An offering,” she said, handing me a plain white bag with a green ribbon.
Inside is this:
Life gave me a plastic lemon.
WE HAVE AN ANSWER!
Apparently this was the result of a number of my students playing Truth or Dare at a birthday party. I’m not sure which one of them came up with “I dare you to confuse Magistra by handing her a piece of fruit without explanation”, but I 100% approve of any thought process that ends with me getting free food.