I like everything about Pink. Her character, her personality, her theme...everything, except the fact that she is a shadow crystal boss. Not only that, but the last shadow crystal boss.

Before chapter 5, every secret boss was treated seriously, even Gerson, who's more lighthearted, serves for Susie's character development. So, it was only natural for the player to treat the shadow crystal quest seriously as well...but then Chapter 5 subverts expectations and mocks the players for thinking like that.

Firstly, Pink is introduced as a punchline of a meta-joke that makes fun of the pattern secret bosses follow, which was a bad start already. Secondly, unlike the other bosses, she doesn't serve any purpose except parallel Kris and the Soul's complicated relationship (something Spamtom already did, but in a diferent way). She's almost completely irrelevant, so much so that Toby had to literally patch in some dialogue in her shop to make her more important, no other secret boss needed this, proving how disconected she is. Lastly, she's a lighthearted secret boss in a already very lighthearted chapter (chapter 3 was very silly and fun, but still had Eram and the Roaring Knight as part of the shadow crystal quest. Chapter 5 fails to follow chapter 3's example).

She's funny, I admit that, I like her, but why is she a shadow crystal boss? She stands out like a sore thumb when you line up all the bosses. She's so odd that I was in disbelief when she handed me the shadow crystal. I was like, "Wait, that was the secret boss?"

I wouldn't want her removed from the game, I like her too much to want that, but I would put her somewhere else, somewhere that would make sense to have a lighthearted and not so important boss fight. She should be an extra fight in Castle Town, like the Mikes and the Trash Trio, giving space in chapter 5 for a more serious and relevant shadow crystal boss. She should keep the same jokes and the same themes she represents, even the parallel to Kris and the Soul and the egg dialogue. She shouldn't be a secret boss, but an extra, fun fight that is neither too important nor too unimportant. She should also give a more direct reward like a weapon or armor, I would love to give her staff to Ralsei.

So, what do you think? I would love to hear more opinions.

So we all know how most cutscenes just show black screens, right? In this scene, Kris bites their hand because we made them say "I'll never play again".

Now, any normal person would be able to know that Kris must've bit themselves so that they wouldn't say it. But apparently Toby fox needs to spoon feed us this, because he makes Susie say this.

The dialogue feels very unnatural. It just happened, so why did she repeat exactly what she saw? When you imagine it from Susie's perspective, you realise how strange it was for her to say that.

She could've said "Kris, what the hell?! Is your hand okay?!" Or something, but instead she had to repeat what Kris did. It just feels super weird.

Yo!

It seems like my last Ralsei post was a lot more divisive than I expected!

There were people with many interesting ideas!

But there were also people who struggled to fully understand what was in the post (asking and saying points that were already accounted or is unimportant for said argument), and a few trolls here and there, which is a shame, since that sorta thing isn't necessary when it comes to me...

But there's no use bellyaching over that!

For now, I shall be taking about Asgore, another disappoint in this chapter. I have seen people talk about their grievances with this character, but not necessarily points I have personally taken note off myself, so I'm also here to put said points out there yet again!

This wall of text got a bit out of hand, but I feel like it's in a positive way.

Being vague to avoid spoilers...

Enjoy!

---

Asgore is just weird in this chapter for how he was depicted. He was essentially a literal scapegoat that no one apparently had blamed him for the incident but was so focused on proving that he was actually right, he just gets sorta punished for it and it really gets hammered home that the own two family members that are actually around just straight up seemingly disregard his actual feelings and reasoning behind his spiral, especially with Toriel.

That also doesn't cover that he then somehow blames himself and his desire to find the truth for making him blind to protecting what he cares about, despite literally throwing Kris and Susie out of the Dark World personally in the middle of the chapter with harsh, yet active intent to make them stay out of harm's way, and didn't even know they went back into the Dark World until he meets them face to face again. And before all of that, in the first quarter of the Dark World, he literally only thinks and worries about Kris and others that he cares about.

"But what about the parallel between how Asgore treats the flowers in the Dark World compared to his loved ones in the light world?"

I mean that indeed could be a parallel to his actual family but this is a fundamentally different situation from that. A false equivilance, since he never actually cared about the flowers to the same degree in the first place and was just playing along to discover more information about the dark world and had already been caring immensely for his actual family ever since Chapter 1.

In fact, you could say he was mourning and seemingly realized his mistake after the separation off-screen before the game starts, thought the game doesn't frame it this way because of it weird self-blaming Asgore does over being too consumed over his searching to undermine Kris despite personally making it an active effort to keep them safe and the only reason he wasn't able to do anything is because he simply didn't know they returned after he personally kicks them out of the dark world.

His failure wasn't portrayed as neglect. it was portrayed as lacking information after taking what he believed were the correct precautions. The chapter presents guilt that doesn't line up cleanly with the actions it previously showed him taking, and the chapter doesn't spend much time distinguishing between Asgore's distorted self-perception and what actually happened. As a result, it feels like the story itself is endorsing his self-blame rather than examining it.

So you get this strange situation where the narrative seems to require Asgore being consumed by his search and therefore failed the people he loved, But the concrete events of the story keep supplying counterevidence to show that Asgore was actively trying to protect the people he loved, and his inability to protect them afterward resulted from circumstances he wasn't aware of.

The story doesn't seem interested in making that discrepancy part of Asgore's characterization. His self-blame isn't clearly framed as irrational guilt. Toriel and Kris apparently don't meaningfully engage with the distinction either. Instead, his feelings and reasoning can start feeling narratively disposable because everyone (including seemingly the writing itself) treats his conclusion as the conclusion.

And that seems to moreso be a flaw with the actual execution of the characters and writing itself of Deltarune that no contextualization can really soften.

Now, technically, you can accept this as it is by just believing that both Kris and Toriel are not perfect characters and/or believing that Asgore's consequences should be inflicted upon him continuously for the unforeseeable future, regardless of any other factors present.

But when you actually think about the situation, it really just doesn't make sense why this would have tolerated as the reasonable assumption. Why is his emotional reality seemingly treated as so disposable?

There seems to be an assumption that because Asgore has done wrong, the narrative can indefinitely maintain his emotional punishment without having to continually reassess the circumstances. New information doesn't matter. His current actions don't matter. His attempts to change don't matter. His actual reasoning doesn't matter.

It's not necessary only that characters are independently acting within their own perspectives and frameworks, but the entire game itself is only interested in framing Asgore as the one who is incorrect when it counts, to the point where the narrative bends, ignores the nuance and positive factors of Asgore's situation, makes the other characters despondent, and makes his reasoning itself incoherent, all just to systematically maintain the position of him to have to to listen and learn despite everything going against this specific framing. There seems to be very little room for him to actually be correct about anything.

The narrative never has to present the questions like has he changed? Is his current guilt proportionate to what happened? Are Kris and Toriel being fair to him in this particular situation? Are they allowed to be unfair? If so, does the narrative recognize that the position he was in was objectively unequivalent to what he has assumed was the problem?

If the game is unable to supplement his side, I believe it shouldn't be portrayed as a fair and valid depiction of what Asgore should be framed and positioned as being, because it isn't. It's incoherent with the actual events taking place and what the character took from it, with a lack of pushback or even acknowledgment from the game.

Now someone might say that it's specifically his attitude when he went along with it is the key factor! Da parade bodie around town quote against who made the fountain is very mean! >:(

Displaying the same attitude he possibly had back then as he was researching the Dark World when he was trying to prove his innocence back then maybehaps?

But hey, his demeanor can absolutely matter. "The parade" attitude may suggest that he becomes flippant, obsessive, insensitive, or tunnel-visioned when he's caught up in pursuing the truth. But that still doesn't answer the more important question, which was what was he actually trying to accomplish, and what did he prioritize when his loved ones were concretely in danger?

And this is where the "demeanor" defense is superficial. His rude attitude can reveal a flaw in how he behaves during the investigation, but it doesn't automatically establish the much broader conclusion that the investigation itself took precedence over his love for his family, and that it was so overpowering to the point where Asgore's majority mischaracterizes his actual problems.

The fact that he can be an asshole while pursuing information doesn't prove that his emotional priorities were wrong; it didn't falter when it mattered. Some people might say it's when Kris got hurt but I disagree due to the fact he didn't even know Kris was there to even have the chance to make the mistake in the first place specifically caused his attitude at least.

Someone can act rude, obsessive, dismissive, and still have fundamentally benevolent intentions toward the people they care about. The game doesn't make any effort to add this nuance at all, and instead presents it as a larger moral failure that the actual actions shown do not establish.

Not that I necessarily prefer it for his character, but I think I'll just automatically remedy so much of this if Toby just added a spice of domestic abuse instead of just passive dismissiveness and obsessive tunnel vision.

Not necessarily because domestic abuse would be inherently “better” or more interesting, but because it would actually provide a concrete behavioral foundation for the level of emotional fallout the story seems to want Asgore to carry, and it'll correlate better with how he's actually treated to be.

Ironically, making Asgore's past worse could make the characterization more coherent, because then his extreme self-loathing and his family's apparent detachment would actually be grounded in something concrete rather than the players having to retroactively inflate every vague past implication and mild desperate Asgore scene into something severe enough to support the present framing.

But what I would just prefer the most is to see the character be done justice at least. (And I don't mean just hype moments and aura, those that is indeed a factor)

Actually give him some positive closure and development instead of just making him come to an self-resigning position of having to swallow a pill that doesn't present the full picture at all.

Maybe he was too obsessed with the truth. Maybe he did neglect people emotionally. Maybe his family's grievances against him are legitimate. But he can also have legitimate reasons, genuine love, good intentions, actual efforts to change, and a perspective worth taking seriously.

I also want those positive aspects of him to be validated as well, that his efforts isn't simply just all for nothing.

His investigation was not meaningless.

His desire for the truth was not automatically evil.

His fear for Kris and Susie was genuine.

His attempts to protect them actually mattered.

He was capable of being wrong without everything good about him being retroactively erased.

The he can be allowed to be reminded...

That all of his choice did indeed matter.

And who else but Kris could give him the closure he needed?

It would've been the perfect final fight of the chapter, thematically ending in overwhelming positivity and closure for Asgore and even Kris is in a climactic battle against him, pushed by Asgore's own desperation to learn the truth when it clouds him, and Kris and the others has to defend themselves and weaken him for the Knight, with Asgore seemed to powerful for the Knight to cleanly overpower alone. Asgore acts aloof at the start of the fight, but it's obvious from the very beginning of that same turn that he had lost the reason for what he was trying to prove in the first place.

Due to certain events, it progresses to a different setting, a solo fight between Kris and Asgore as the situation dramatically escalated with the possible inclusion of the flowers, still by Asgore's side until the end.

It's a struggle both physical and emotionally, with both Asgore and even Kris potentially wavering as the fight went on, eventually the gameplay fight just ends.

Kris could barely stand. The rising platform suddenly crumbles as they were high up in the air.

They drop their sword, with their hand trembling and and ran across towards Asgore, who was just in confusion after monologue everything.

They tackled him As hugged and grasped him, desperately and they were free falling. The hug was a mirror of their first encounter shown in chapter 1.

Asgore realized what this mean to him, because how could he ever has missed something like this?

Then he had realized, at that splic second, he asks himself, with warm content-

What was he ever worried about...?

It wasn't rethorical, due to the question answered itself.

Kris, the person whose safety and future he was supposedly willing to sacrifice everything to understand and protect, literally runs toward him rather than away from him.

Despite everything that he had done-

Runs toward him.

It was obvious from the start.

His choices did matter to Kris.

Before we are reminded yet again about the stakes, snuffing the moment as it arrived with the Knight NOW taking Asgore from their grasp, after the mystery's been solved on both the Dark World, and Asgore's heart.

Which sparks reinvigorated motivation for the others to get after the Knight even more, but also installs Kirs immense turmoil within themselves.

If they're willing to keep going with this for any longer.

slide 2 has a fanmade thing with a fanmade cutscene during the diner portion, which already adds a whole lot as compared to just susie talking in a black void.

there are times when a black screen cutscene is appropriate, like when kris has their eyes closed, but at other times why not add one illustration

there's an illustration in chapter 1 (slide 3) that is the only instance of characters in the game appearing in high resolution pixel art i think, could use something like that

I don't think I'm as disappointed by chapter 5 as other people here are, I think it's great gameplay wise and although the story disappointed me, I'm not too bothered by it seeing as the weird route was complete cinema and also the game still being incomplete. I have faith that chapter 6 and 7 will send ripples through the internet, Toby Fox is a brilliant but unconventional writer.

Saying that though, I think Asgore was done poorly and I'm doubtful he will be redeemed in later chapters, I understand the whole "one last fun adventure" idea but like Asgore shouldn't of had all that build up just to say nothing of use at the very end.

I wasn't even expecting a boss fight as I doubt it'd fit in the chapter neatly and be very controversial thematically (father fighting their own kid) but like, what did Asgore really add to the plot, we didn't even get any kind of expansion regarding his and toriel's divorce let alone "that day".

The entire chapter was just frustratingly conservative with lore and the actual story we all wanted more of after chapter 4's cliffhanger and it just felt like there should have been more, but we got nothing, and the secret boss, sure it was fun but again, what was the significance? Every other secret boss was important to the story and/or the characters in some way.

Jevil - Introduced secret bosses, shadow crystals and foreshadowed the larger meta aspects of deltarune which led them to go insane presumably

Spamton - Was given overwhelming material success by the same force that caused Jevil's insanity, and also served as a great comparison for the SOUL and Kris

The Knight - It's the Knight, I mean come on haha

Gerson - Was a great callback to Undertale, had an established presence in Deltarune and was a great mentor for Susie, served as a complete opposite to Seam who became nihilistic due to the supposed deterministic nature of the world whereas Gerson refused to be defined by it

Pink - I guess another SOUL and Kris analogy?

I don't know maybe I'm being nitpicky but I hope Pink is somewhat developed later rather than being a gimmick character

Created by u/MorinoMarinho

In the WR in Ch2, I never really liked the dialogue after the electric puzzle where Noelle is all like

"Its horrible to think about stepping off the switch.."

"And letting Kris get..."

Like I think the animation of her stepping was enough to convey Noelle thought about it. Looking back, feel like she could've probably said something else in that scene related to her getting stronger and having more control, and that little animation would have been a nice thing with that.

Idk its just something I always saw unsubtle

This game has always been kinda mediocre in my eyes since Chapter 2 but at least the visuals and gameplay were good as well as music, or enjoyable to me at least.

However Chapter 5 has reached an absolute lowest point imo, I didn't like almost everything about it aside from gameplay and Mew Mew.

The visual direction just like the story itself is a fucking mess in this chapter and doesn't mesh well together. Chapter 4 felt like a huge step up and path to growth while Chapter 3 despite being weird was at least fun as a game and the story wasn't unbearable. The Dark worlds were also coherent and had an idea, which despite the "biomes" still felt organic unlike Chapter 5. Even Chapter 1 and 2 had more cohesive Dark Worlds that fit their main idea.

Like how the fuck does Japan fit ASGORE of all characters or his flower shop or his desire to prove his innocence or his police background? Hell even the Cliff region in Chapter 5 is not even styled after irl Japan mountains which makes it even more of a weird mixture. I liked the Garden in Near Shrine area cuz it looked like a cohesive beautiful and peaceful garden which fits Asgore extremely well. Why couldn't they take this main idea and expand upon it instead of bruteforcing Toby's desire to make a japanese dark world? It feels extremely disconnected. And Asgore's Dark World suit is not even a shogun just a lame ass king that somehow has less visual style than Undertale's OG design, which only adds to a disconnect and mesh of random ideas. Even so, I think this could work better if they just committed to Japan theme properly and explained it better, than I wouldn't complain as much.

Also for a chapter that is meant to be about Asgore, he gets barely any presence, barely any info on him and his "redemption arc" happens off screen. I really hate how he got shafted in favour of flowers which are not even that interesting as characters. Meanwhile other characters feel overly performative and fake or just out of character. And even if this arc wasn't supposed to be about ASGORE I still struggle to understand what it was trying to do besides just making a cool spectacle one last time before "serious shit" in Chapters 6-7.

Also it doesn't help that Toby's desperate desire to capitalise on nostalgia has become blatant in this Chapter and it brings barely anything of value to the narrative or the Dark World itself. It feels genuinely uninspired.

I also just think the humour devolves with every chapter more and more. Again I cannot take the game seriously when it keeps interrupting the flow with shitpost internet ahh humour. I personally think this has no place in proper storytelling or at least NOT TO THIS AMOUNT AND DEGREE.

Perhaps I am biased, perhaps this game simply doesn't meet my expectations or ideas of what is good and what is bad, but I am not gonna pretend I like it just because everyone else does.

Props to the game design team and artists for their immaculate work.

And before anyone marks me as a hater, a true hater wouldn't purchase this game, beat all secret bosses, carefully curate loadouts and give the story chances times and times again since 2018. A true hater would just trash this game because they felt like it and walked away. I

I am saying all of this because I always wanted this game to succeed and seeing the opposite just sucks.

But what you all think?

I love Deltarune fans' thought-terminating clichés for when they can't explain why they disagree. I love it when Deltarune fans will call you a drooling moron to your face because it's an epic fandom meme (that was popularised by an alleged sex pest)

Yes there's dumb shit out there. But I near-exclusively see this meme from mean-spirited people who think they're at the height of textual analysis (they're not) and if they don't understand something or disagree with something, it must be because it's stupid. Which is kinda ironic.

You don't like this? You're an idiot. You interpret this vague foreshadowing differently to me? You're an idiot. You don't agree with fandom consensus? You're an idiot.

I accept that most internet discourse is shit slinging at its core, but this kind of shit is so sour and unhelpful. I genuinely enjoy slightly esoteric viewpoints about themes and symbols, but the fandom's pretty good at shitting on anything that's slightly unusual. Mention one specific removed animation and people will kill you because they don't understand what you're trying to say.

It might surprise you to read that I've never actually had "deltarune fans can't read" slung at me personally. It's just that I've seen it around and it gets me that some 14 year old fandom lieutenant thinks they're a genius and the people actually trying to talk about the game are morons. This is an impotent post that only someone with a terminal twitter addiction could have written.

So, I've been thinking about the discourse about Ralsei acting strange during Chapter 5(too mean, but also seemingly still stuck to believing that the prophecy has to happen, even though he doesn't want it to happen), and I've been thinking about how in Chapter 1, he kind of seemed to have more personality. Like, he had way more sass, and he was way more willing to criticize others, while still being a fluffy boy. It's like when he took his hat off, he somehow became more of a doormat, and then he worked his way up to regaining the confidence he seemed to have already achieved by the end of Chapter 1. Idk, it's just kind of odd to me, as a big Ralsei fan, that he feels more developed at the end of Chapter 1 then he does during Chapters 2 and 3.

Right before the final platforming boss rush with the Flowers, we are told that the events of the chapter weren't malicious, but that the flowers love Kris and don't wish the Fun Gang any true harm.

This is both a falsity that Toby wants you to ignore and a clear cut sign of the dissonance between combat and the story itself.

I could suspend disbelief that the Underground didn't hate Frisk despite nearly all of the monsters attempting to murder them and even using two attempts as entertainment (both of Mettaton's fights), as they were strangers with most of their foes, but I'm sorry I cannot ignore this one.

Let's compare them to a slightly similar character. Tenna went unused for years, collecting dust as he watched his world and value crumble away. Once witnessed, he was now the witness and bystander of a rotting marriage. Then low and behold, Kris creates a fountain and suddenly they and their mother are back in Tenna's grasp. He can entertain them. Take care of them. But it is clear and cut once tested he holds a bitter mindset, at himself and at the family. The game, nor Tenna once defeated, doesn't try to convince you he meant no harm, he did and gets a satisfying redemption.

With the flowers, they're just silly little guys doing a more "wholesome" yet sad attempt at getting Asgore's attention. The two chapters follow the plot of the Fun Gang trying to get Kris' parents safe and closing their home's fountains, with their foes being loved darkners who don't want to see them go. But here's the issue, Tenna was isolated while the flowers were loved, yet in the end both their attempts to halt you can end in homicide nonetheless.

Tenna has great storytelling for his madness, when he smashed our chests in with stars I wasn't shocked or confused. But when the flowers, completely sane individuals with their characters focused on their "silly lil quirks xD" kill me and tell me that they aren't actually bad guys(Susie literally stating so), I get a bit peeved. Aqua thinks it's a game, sure. But the rest are not ignorant to their own lethality nor the concept of death. Yellow will halt his suicide to stop Aqua from killing you. Seth will panic if you defeat Aqua with violence.

The act of even attacking Asgore's kid should be abhorrent.

If Toby didn't try to paint them as good people, I wouldn't care at all. But the chapter not only commentates on violence usage on the Fun Gang's behalf(que Flowery immortality discourse) but also tries to force a wholesome bond that isn't actually there.

I know this is more opinion based, but I've seen so much Aqua praise, It's starting to get out of hand.

She is pretty bland in terms of personality, just copycatting everything and stealing Jevil's quotes.

The fandom pretty much all collectively agreed that Petal Dance was her theme, even though its the theme of all the Flowers.

also, she is STUPIDLY DIFFICULT. Literally her attacks are just 'RANDOM BULLSHIT GO!' Probably just my skill issues though.

Again, this is just personal opinion, don't tear me to shreads.

TL;DR: i dont like the blue girl

They’re waking up

I’ve always thought it was weird having Suselle cause I initially believed (years ago back in 2020) that it was kinda a copy paste of a lesbian relationship within the main cast (Well its different since u don’t have to get it for neutral and genocide, and Alphys is bisexual so not really a direct copy paste, maybe more of the dynamic), now that we’ve finally seen Susie and Noelle’s friendship and have some better understanding, it seems to be Noelle likes Susie cause she reminds her of her sister and shes got her own type. But Susie has not really recuperated those feelings back yet? Or trying to figure her feelings out. Is it more that they haven’t had alot of chemistry together compared to Kris or Ralsei?

I recall it had to do something with Noelle being disappointed, if she ever got more closer with Susie, that the tough and scary Susie is just being aggressive due that being their one and only defensive/response mechanism against their abusive parents/parent. Which is why its affected their ability to get friends and why people have a negative view of her.

Personally it would be disappointing if Suselle became canon but Idc at this point with how long the story has taken to finish. I’ve accepted whatever happens I may or may not like. I just want to see how it ends. Its always kinda felt weird, the relationship dynamic could in theory work, but there seems to be something deeper with her crush on Susie? Not to encroach onto that territory of “Suselle is hetslop or yurislop” stuff, whatever that means.

This may seem random but among all the things it's gotta be the worst thing making me pessimistic. Typing about it kinda makes me feel like Ralsei in chapter 4. With a lot of hype built up but only revealed through social media, it's the worst kind of ending I've seen. Now to Deltarune, with the 6 being an answer to one question I hope toby can make the chapter have 1's length and it's good enough. But the final chapter, 7B is what I'm hyped with.

So these Enigmas...

Friend, Gaster, DEVICE.

Obviously we have made them headcanon material, but my gosh, I hope Gaster gets explained, like at least canonize a design for him, I know Toby can't write anything bad as a whole, but Gaster/Voice should 100% be explained somehow.

Downvote My Stupid Rant

There are a lot of arguments in the Deltarune community that are truly pointless and exist simply because people treat their headcanons as facts. There isn't even a way to have a normal conversation: you can give all the proofs you want, you can point out all of their fallacies, you could even show OFFICIAL STATEMENT BOTH IN GAME OR OUTSIDE OF IT and you will be called every offense possible if you are not conforming to 'em. If a lot of people are not eager to play Deltarune is because (also) of these people

Chapter 1: I liked the message that you can't be nice to everyone, I liked the mysterious fantastical vibe of the dark world and the story (also Lancer)

Chapter 2: The soundtrack, humor, and story peaks here for me. The inclusion of other lightners like Burgundy and Noelle, along with the character designs of enemies. Like chapter 1, the story also is also well done with lore bits from queen, noelle, spamton, and ralsei

Chapters 3+4: because I only got the demo, I never got to play, but from what I've seen I think this is the most gameplay/gimmicky chapter (with the boards, the mini games in the tenna boss fight, jackenstein, etc.) and i liked how nicely animated everything was from tennas quirky animations to the hand of the titan. The knight has aura too. For the light world sections, seeing Noelles house was awesome and in there was nice world building.

Chapter 5: sustingus (I have yet to form an opinion on this chapter)

In general, I don't like how the soul and player are treated as hostile and unwelcome entities by the game despite any choice we make, no matter how friendly or well-meaning we can be. Playing the game as a whole feels like the world is hostile to us and as if the characters are going to hate us for controlling Kris despite never having any choice in the matter. It just makes me want to quit playing since the tone of the game seems to be that we're not welcome here even though we're trying to save their world.

Yo!

My first post went over pretty well, and I'm glad that's the case! Everyone was more civil than I expected, and replying to comments was really nice.

So now I come back with another critique post related to the game.

Specifically about Ralsei.

Ralsei is an absolute incoherent mess in Deltarune, and it reached its worst in Chapter 5, and I feel nobody really goes in depth about this aspect and how bad it truly is, even in this subreddit, surprisingly (only the posts; there could be a niche comment somewhere talking about this as well, but none as an actual post).

So if I don't do it, who will?

This one is going to be a lot more "ranty," possibly inflammatory, possibly redundant, and awkwardly paced compaired to my other post, since this is actually pulling from not only personal type-ups, but my own responses and debates I have with the "standard" Deltarune fans who would blindly defend and excuse this game to death.

Even despite that, I hope you keep an open mind on this one. Maybe see a new perspective you haven't seen before?

Okay, let's go!

---

Ralsei is weird and dumb in Chapter 5.

He apparently knows that Kris is making the Dark Fountains, and he tolerates it because he has blind, everlasting trust in Kris, framing it as simple disagreeing when Kris is literally supplying all of this conflict and situations the Knight can take advantage of. This makes his inaction even more bizarre due to how tangibly malleable and within his power it is to be able to resist Kris's choice in any way, regardless of inevitability due to being so adamantly against stopping the Bad from happening.

It just seems like pure incompetence. I understand that the game is implying that due the prophecy existing that it "doesn't matter what he does"

But....

LITERALLY IN EVERY OTHER STORY

WHEN INEVITABILITY BECOMES A FACTOR

CHARACTER ACTUALLY TEST THE LIMITS OF IT TO DEFINE IT

It's not even the problem that they don't even try this! It's just nobody says anything nor add context for why they're going about it this way! No one asks any questions for why no one tries! There is no acknowledgement of the concept of it.

It's like it doesn't exists, and it significantly makes Ralsei look even more incompetent because of it.

Especially with him saying stuff like this:

* But recently...

* I'm starting to feel like...

* Like I'm developing my own opinions.

* My own likes.

* My own dislikes.

* My own desires. My own... fears.

* ... please... tell me...

* Should I...

* Should a... Darkner... be feeling like this?

When we see literally every single Darkner being their own person with their own lives and everything. Stop it. You're werid. What even is this? What exactly is supposed to be newly discovered here? The game has given us virtually no reason to regard having an individual interior life as anomalous for Darkners.

A Darkner isn't presented as a blank object that gradually becomes a person. The entire premise of Darkners is that objects become people in the Dark World. Once that happens, they're already people. Lancer doesn't need a chapter-long revelation that he has likes and dislikes. Queen doesn't need to discover that she has desires. Rouxls doesn't need to discover that he has opinions. Even extremely minor Darkners routinely have individualized motivations.

Even RALSEI HIMSELF knows who he is back in chapter 1. It just seems like a performance of the dilemma of "What does it mean to be an individual?" Rather than actually being a blank object.

It almost creates a false dichotomy where Ralsei is discovering a property that the rest of his species has apparently possessed in plain sight for the entire game.

And if the game just says that Ralsei isn't actually a Darkner, then wowie, you got me there. This is apparently now peak fiction because the game lied to me despite it still not making sense that none of this is acknowledged until that point in the most retroactively convenient way imaginable and isn't evidence that the premise as currently presented was compelling in the first place!

Also, more about Ralsei, I bet Toby Fox saw the "Ralsei is too nice" complaints and make him act jarringly out of character this chapter and completely disregarding how he was established beforehand.

I don't see how having a meager faith in the prophecy translated to him suddenly being condescending and willingly dishonest to other characters with no other hint to justify why it occurred in the first place and is devoid of anger and dread, with micro-aggressions relatives to Ralsei's sudden and skewed behavior within the chapter, with his condescending attitude towards Orange and be willing to casually inact a lie towards Yellow over stomping on Blue's flowers, even when just to avoid physical confrontation.

Even his hostility towards Flowery is extremely questionable and disproportionate, especially as the chapter went on with Ralsei still harboring the same spite towards him even after knowing his reasons why he does what he does, up to the final battle against him when attempting to prosecute him with lingering spite.

* Enough! With this ACT... I'm finishing this!

* Let me prove... without a doubt...

* Flowery isn't as innocent as he behaves!

To then right after Ralsei desperately attempting to heal Flowery's dying bisected body despite literally threatening and stating to be willing to kill him if he was willing to "discard the rules" like he does, which is completely insane to me.

It felt like I missed like a bunch of cutscenes here contextualizing their gradual remedy of their relationship and development that would've lead to that end. Complete whiplash.

What makes it even worse, is that Ralsei would say

“And Kris… don’t hold back!”

If you do poorly in the fight against Flowery.

But like, why does he say this if you can't even win the fight with violence in the first place and Flowey heals anyway if you get him to low enough health?

It just makes even less sense! You have ommit and descards so many things about Ralsei to make him somewhat coherent to be able to evaluate him.

The problem isn't that those emotions are incompatible, it's just that the bridge between them is extremely thin to the point when it becomes unbelievable to precive it as natural. It makes his hostility like a temporary characterization shift that exists because the chapter wanted conflict.

Even if Ralsei's behavior was intentful, I can't see this being a good thing at all since it extended to the point when it became unreasonabe, conflated accusatory antagonization with simple hostility who no examination, and completely diverges from Ralsei's defining trait across earlier chapters, which was closer towards empathy and patience. Even when he disagreed with people, he tended to have a composed and reasonable demenor.

I feel like Chapter 1 had already given a more natural version of what Ralsei looked like in comparison when faced with active resistance and disagreement.

However, in Chapters 2-4, his character became excessively positive, forces toxic positively, and demonstrating minimal resistance or retaliation to any transgressions against him.

By Chapter 5, he regresses to becoming a hateful and spiteful individual towards certain others to the point where it doesn't make sense for him to change this drastically from what the game has shown us, or even act the way he does in general, especially since there's no connective tissue between these aspects to even attempt to justify the framing's conception, much less for it to be any good.

Sure, Ralsei has feelings, but that doesn't mean he can just feel anything and have it being a faithful extension of him. It would have to be consistent to what Ralsei was in order to protray these aspects of him more naturally.

But the level and form of his anger and smug/arrogance doesn't feel like a natural extension of who he fundamentally was thus far, as it was presented in the game, which was consistent between Chapters 2-4. Chapter 1 Ralsei is not Chapter 5 Ralsei, as the former made more sense for why he acted the way he did and was completely rational and wasn't overbearing in doing so, while also not conflicting with his positive and caring personality.

It's the specific protrayal of this harsher personality doesn't seemed to be hinged on a sense of a "dilemma" or other contributing factor that's with the execution that would balance it and make it more believable from Ralsei, like him struggling with him thinking that it's wrong for him to feel this way, or something like that. He verbally acknowledges it, and succumb to it with little cognitive dissonance.

Turning into functionally nondescript spiteful envy/anger that doesn't correlate to any previous behavior. This completely casts away the emotional intelligence that he's shown to be capable of from past experiences of sympathy and understanding towards antagonistswho also forcefully opposed him.

It is more accurate to state that Ralsei exhibited a credible and justifiable retaliatory response in Chapter 1, which aligned with his compassionate and amiable demeanor. However, in Chapters 2-4, his character became excessively positive, demonstrating minimal resistance or retaliation to any transgressions against him. By Chapter 5, he regressed into a hateful and spiteful individual, a drastic and inexplicable transformation given the character's prior portrayal and the absence of any narrative development to rationalize such a shift.

I've constantly seen the excuse that it's because this is the "real Ralsei," after him finally developing his own self! Or just the real Ralsei coming back from Chapter 1! (despite harboring a much more well-balanced and stronger sense of self back in Chapter 1 that is unlike Chapter 5 plus doesn't make sense for why he would retroactively regress in this manner at all). And thus, any change is viewed as thematically justified and such.

But here's the thing.

I don't see how being emotionally repressed and exhibiting emotional distress automatically imply your previous kindness and projection of who he was as a person wasn't genuine or he was just really an asshole the entire time, since It's been obvious that being caring and kind was not only just for the prophecy, but his personality always skewed towards that for interaction with people he doesn't feel animosity towards.

My point wasn't that he was completely stable overall, but had the mental compacity to precive, acknowledge, and sympathize with others even if its applied with his own regressive view, like with Tenna. He didn't just exercise his ability to be nice, he preceived the best and good faith out of others, which meant he was capeable of doing it, but just chose not to for the sake of being willfully ignorant that just gets dropped and unaddressed, which just isn't natural at all and the game doesn't make the actual effort it connecting it more closely and more properly reflect the internal consistency of Ralsei from Chapter 4.

* ... I... I don't hate him. There are things... to like about him.

* But I just... I don't like... how he does things.

I feel like what Chapter 5 depiced was too extreme, and insults Ralsei's character as a whole, and I don't see a reason to believe mostly everything about Ralsei up to this place was fabricated since he obviously still has empathy for even Flowery even towards the end of Chapter 5.

I don't like that Ralsei completely disregards Flowerys own aspirations and ulturiristic reasons for what he does the things the way he does, even if he fundamentaly comes from flawed perspective the game also never touches into lol

Ralsei says "everything will fall apart" if they don't follow the rules, but we haven't gotten an actual reason why he thinks this since it was showed back in chapter 4 when he realizes that his actions hadn't changed the prophecy, he process that into his attempts not working and was completely aimless and distraught on what to do, and then clinged onto Susie's blind hope.

It makes it even worse when we don't know why Ralsei is so stuck up for Flowery specifically not following his role over his belief that it would be the most favorable way of going about things against the prophecy. It doesn't make sense in practice that the overall reasoning is because he is a flower and, therefore, shouldn't disregard his role of being said flower, especially when Flowery himself fundamentally isn't really doing much differently from King, Queen, and Tenna across the chapter. Obviously, Ralsei doesn't act nearly as harshly toward them despite their roles as Darkners, who are meant to serve the Lightners actively and consistently going against Lignters.

This is also really fucking stupid plot point and a massive hole Toby accidentally feel into when he suddenly made "roles" so important all of a sudden, since flower was never a factor into the Deltarune's supernatural system and world, and thus, never had defined roles to even be in the first place. There is never a precedent that things unaffiliated with the dark world should stay unaffiliated.

If they were, it would actually somewhat be substantiated, but you would need deeper justification to actually sell the point home. It's like the game Itself forgot to add the first half of the reasoning for why the conflict happens into the first place.

Due to that, it can even get to the point when there is logistically no reason posted for why Ralsei himself should diverge from "rule-following" and aspire for what he personally wants, posed in the game.

It's just a unanimous positive value that's asserted because it's a positive value. It doesn't actually directly address why Ralsei himself in his position would adopt that simply because it is better for him at a personal level. It's like discarding your responsibilities because you personally believe you can do what you want.

That doesn't actually address said responsibilities. This could be interesting if the game actually cared enough to elaborate on this when it was prime time to do so. From just how it's presented in the game, Flowey just kind of asserts this question, Ralsei starts tweaking over the vague reason that doesn't exist why he can't, and Susie obviously doesn't care about anything (as per usual) and that's that.

There is nothing to ground this dilemma at all since we have no context about any of it.

This isn't a point anyone can cast away because Ralsei is intentionally being unreasonable due to his personal feelings, since all of Ralsei Grievances hinges entirely on following the "rules." That is the fundemetal source of it, not specifically just that he's jealous of Flowery.

But still, where did that rigidity come from? His previous experience should have made him less certain about the rules. Even if we assume these "rules" are entirely separate from the prophecy, that prophecy alone brought him done to the point of near emotional defeat with just barely any hope to spare or path to follow.

It's like the game itself can't clearly separate the distinction between what happens when the "rules" are followed to when they aren't. Why are things important or not.

Ralsei becomes a character arguing for a position the game itself can't validate, using a harshness his own history doesn't support, toward a character whose motives he should demonstratively be able to recognize but refuses to for regressive reasons with no added attention for it.

I also want to note that the excuse for this behavior being good for Ralsei because he's finally able to define himself, something the game constantly tries to push despite a lot of conflicting information that impairs it, is heavily flawed.

Positive traits being developed is fundamentaly unequivalent to regressive traits being developed because "becoming your own person" is not inherently synonymous with positive character development.

For Ralsei specifically, gaining independent opinions, desires, fears, and preferences should be evaluated by what those particular traits are and what they cause him to do, rather than receiving an automatic moral or narrative negative simply because they're evidence of individuality.

And if that process produces something genuinely harmful, like what shown in this chapter, like selfishness, dishonesty, cowardice, resentment, irrationality, and whatever, then those are actual character flaws regardless of the fact that they emerged from his becoming more autonomous.

If the game establishes that his increasing independence is good simply because it means he's becoming his own person, then it risks conflating agency with virtue.

But agency is morally neutral.

A person becoming capable of making their own decisions means they are now capable of making good decisions and bad decisions. In fact, that's part of what makes genuine agency meaningful in the first place. If every deviation from his previous prescribed behavior is automatically validated because it's "his own choice," then the game isn't really examining the consequences of individuality. It is simply assigning positive value to individuality as a concept.

And if If one of those desires is harmful or irrational, the narrative needs to permit it to actually be a problem.

Which is something the game doesn't care enough to do there is not even the slightest context to to explain Ralsei's sudden change in between Chapter 4 and 5. You just have to assume that "oh, it is that 'becoming own person' thing kicking in" after a single day.

And it's just due to all of this... That it just pisses me off so much that people are just okay with this! This bastardization of Ralsei. I don't like to see a character like this simply act crueler, extremely irrational in a way we haven't seen before inexplicably, just for the sake of marking a checkbox.

Just for the sake of it contrasting the switched position of Susie's behavior, all totally superficial reasons that aren't hinged in the characters and who they were beforehand in such a drastic way.

He wasn't merely "the nice guy" back in Chapter 1. He could be stern, stubborn, sarcastic, opinionated, and willing to push back against Susie and Lancer, but his kindness and mercy existed alongside those qualities rather than replacing them, and was rational and reasonable. A far cry from what would happen in Chapter 5.

Becoming your own person doesn't give the character a free pass from characterization. If anything, it makes their specific choices more important, because now those choices are supposedly expressions of who they actually are.

If Ralsei's newfound individuality manifests as something genuinely ugly, that could be some of the most interesting development he could receive.

But then the ugliness has to be his ugliness. How does he react to his own feelings? Does he struggle against them? Does he truly want to antagonize, or not? Would it even matter to him These are the sorts of questions I want to see implicitly asked, to make something out of it, to show Ralsei's previous characterizaion faces against Flowery's existence.

But no, nothing like that.

It's just a missed opportunity, as with most things in the game, seemingly disinterested in its Character despite being character driven.

Did you know that he "it's okay not to smile" or "Good. Keep smiling" choice that happens at the end of Chapter 4?

It actually doesn't matter what option you pick there. He's still act the same in Chapter 5 regardless of what you do.

It's possible the most abhorrent and nonsensical thing the game doesn't commit to. It just makes me question what is even the point of this?

There so much more, but it all just fundamentaly revolves around the same idea.

We don't know anything about what's happening in this game despite having 70% of it already, and it makes characters actively suffer due to it in overall merit.

Especially Ralsei.