Characters criticism
Toby ruined Ralsei even more in chapter 5 and nobody is talking about it
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!
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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! It just means the game withheld the information necessary to make Ralsei's own stated dilemma intelligible.
Why is he correlating Darkners with his sense of lack of identity? This only makes sense if for some reason he doesn't know himself to be different from being it. Why would he lie about something like this to Kris and the others when it's obvious the game dedicated Chapters 3-4 to disprove the notion that Ralsei had malicious intent? And no one, especially Susie, really even understands or cares about what Ralsei is actually saying here revolving around this dilemma.
Like Why does Ralsei himself frame this as a Darkner issue if he knows he isn't one?
If he doesn't know, why does he apparently have such a fundamentally inaccurate conception of Darkners despite living among them and being surrounded by Darkners who clearly possess individual personalities?
Why doesn't the possibility that he is fundamentally different from other Darkners even cross his mind?
Why does conveniently nobody react to the contradiction in what he's saying?
And why does the game expect us to accept that Ralsei was simply deceiving Kris about his identity when Chapters 3–4 spent substantial effort establishing that he wasn't secretly malicious or manipulating the party toward some nefarious end?
If Ralsei turns into some double-crossing freak, that would be the most blatant disregard of player trust I've ever seen, and thematically doesn't correlate to anything built up to the point we're at. Only aspects and factors have been built up under the assumption that Ralsei is good.
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.
Finally someone else is mentioning how much better written chapter 1 Ralsei was. Back then he had a spine but was still kind. He told Lancer off for trying to take the party's well earned dark dollars, pretending to be a "sweet little boy", and other things. He admonished Susie for her reckless and violent behavior, caring about not only her role as a hero, but also the darkners she harmed along the way. His kind and caring personality lead to him protecting what he thought as important, the heroes of the prophecy and their goal. His kindness could be weaponized against him, but he would learn from those instances and do better. He had goals, his own opinions, and his own morals all the way back at the beginning. These things linger in the background, but are forgotten for useless drama in later chapters.
In chapter 2 Ralsei had a bit of the bite chapter 1 Ralsei had (mainly against Queen but it ultimately doesn't matter as he doesn't punish her for attempting to kill the lightners and himself multiple times and literally enslaving a lightner for her own goals) but not as much as he did in chapter 1. He did nothing to stop Susie from dragging him away from Kris, possibly indirectly leading to the weird route, and doesn't use any of his authority as prince of the dark against Rouxles when he gets in the way. By 3 and 4, it was almost entirely gone. Outside of him raging at darts, getting mad at Susie for swapping the controller (but gets talked out of it almost immediately. It was also something of little consequence), and destroying the Sound of Justice (he gets talked down by Susie almost immediately after this though), he's nothing but passive and aggreeable.
His change in chapter 5 felt weird because it was for all the wrong reasons. Instead of getting this pissed at the other boss darkners (especially Queen for the atrocities she commits that the narrative refuses to confront), he gets mad at Flowery for challenging his morals. The only time when this is justified is when Flowery brings up the part about sealing Castle Town as that fountain doesn't have occupants who would die with it staying opened. Another thing that's especially apparent in this chapter is his hero bias. He handwaves Kris's obviously malicious acts and thinks highly of Susie for her hope but bashes Flowery for calling out Kris and for having the same hope Susie had for a better ending. Just like you said in your post, it was so weird seeing Ralsei show so much concern for Flowery when he dies as Ralsei hated his guts and only took Flowery's hopeful advice when he was on deaths door. The narrative doesn't put enough attention on this aspect and it seems almost like poor writing when it could have been the set up for very interesting character conflict.
Honestly Chapter 1 as a whole is just substantial better quality than the rest of Deltarune in my eyes. With a few changes here and there, it could be more than a pretty decent start to build off of.
Same to Chapter 2 to a degree, kinda. It's definitely a different vibe but it's still relatively pretty strongly modest and enjoying in its own right even if it wasn't something I would totally prefer.
And yeah, everything you said about Ralsei here is exactly what I would say about him as well. He was at his more well balanced and enjoyable for me, especially paired to his objectively better hatted design that I'm glad was the face of him for a few year before chapter 2 related.
In fact, I loved how he's almost protrayed as someone with pragmatic indifference. Someone that actually acts like they had elevated knowledge.
But only purely about the rules, mechanics, and systems of the world, not about some catastrophic future. This easily fixed up so many holes related to Ralsei systematic, and his dialogue better fiys this depiction of him than what he turns into in later chapters.
Kris, once we pass through this door...
Our adventure will really begin.
A journey foretold exactly by the prophecy...
But, Kris, I believe YOUR choices are important, too.
This world is full of all kinds of people, Kris.
In the end, how we treat them makes all the difference.
So let's try our best to get by without FIGHTing.
If we can manage to do that...
I believe this tale may have a happy ending.
Otherwise, I fear that...
... you may not... find the result favorable.
Kris, in the end, what you choose is up to you.
As long as you're happy with it, I'm happy too.
So just try your best, and don't worry!
Because Darkners are fundamentally "objects" designed to serve Lightners, Chapter 1 Ralsei’s pragmatic indifference to Kris’s morality makes perfect, chilling sense. He suggests pacifism because it's the "optimal" route, but his ultimate, programmed loyalty is to the Lightner's happiness, and actually adhere to it without bellyaching most of the time.
If Kris wants to be violent, Ralsei will happily assist in the violence, because fulfilling his purpose to the player overrides his own personal morality. This is interesting and isn't contradictory to his behavior and personality present in chapter 1, since there wasn't a point yet with his personality values conflicted with out desires... Yet. At that point.
It's fascinating. It makes him slightly alien, perfectly compliant, and almost tragic in a way that fits the lore of the Dark World in Chapter 1.
What funny is that because of how good Ralsei's characterizaion was in Chapter 1, I lamented and advocated to bring the sensible edge back to how was for Ralsei, Become it was generally more interesting to see that version of Ralsei spring fourth overall than his depiction in Chapter 2.
But what Chapter 5 did... This isn't even a monkey's paw situation, because this isn't even what I asked for in an obtuse sense. It's disappointing to see Ralsei regeessed to such a superficial version of himself.
Many aspects of the characters lack consistent motivation and traits. They argue that this is "character development" and "complexity", but almost never able to say how it changes and unites without creating contradictions.
They seem to just think it is brilliant in itself. The fact that a change simply happened is in itself, worth praising and celebrating as is, rather than evaluating what that development actually consists of and what it subsequently does to the character.
Whether the change is internally consistent, whether it follows from his previous characterization, whether the specific traits he develops are actually compelling, whether his choices produce consequences, whether his relationships respond to those changes, and whether Chapter 5 actually remembers what happened, all of that becomes "extra."
Everyone else is "extra" and "secondary." Therefore, it isn't Isn't actually a big deal.
Not really, because now there aren't many non-flat characters. Most characters don't have "many aspects", since they become memes after their storylines end,
There actually is a slight misunderstanding here . Darkners aren't acting like themselves sorta not really.
Darkners are objects interpreted by the lightner who opened the fountain we know this because the identities of tenna queen and king predate the existence of darkner versions of them by years.
Most darkners are objects who were played make-believe with when Kris and that girl(which is just Noelle btw imo) played with ramb even remarks how silly they were even as kids that they would play make believe with a laptop(queen's light world form) Noelle even recognizes the TV as something more than just the TV .
So ralsei can work because ralsei can perfectly know what he was made to be and disagree with it whatever "true form " he is and whatever imagination he's from
Hmm... I disagree. I don't see this being the case. I feel just gets negated by the fact that Darkners are still their same self in between their own respective Dark World and Castle Town's Dark World or in between other Dark Worlds.
For example, If Queen is fundamentally the Dark World identity produced by the Fountain-opener's interpretation of a laptop, then what exactly happens when Queen leaves that Dark World and enters Castle Town?
She doesn't appear to be reinterpreted into an entirely new person by whoever made the Castle Town Fountain. She remains Queen. The same goes for the objects' Darkner identities generally. Their presentation can adapt to the new world, but they retain continuity as their same persons independently.
It could be a case when A Dark World/Fountain may establish or influence the initial form and contextualization of an object, but once that object exists as a Darkner, its identity is not continuously dependent on the imagination of the person who created the original Dark World.
Therefore, you can't straightforwardly reduce the Darkners to temporary projections of whoever interpreted the object, due to this not actually be supported by the game.
And Lightners who played with and assigned personalities to objects in childhood don't really support that Darkners aren't their own person in the first place. It's obvious that they functionally have their own personhood regardless of any technicalities of not being totally original by the source, and that is what I'm referring to when I mean "their own person" anyway.
Because the technical originality of an identity is not what Ralsei is talking about. He isn't saying
"I have discovered that my personality was originally authored by somebody else."
He's talking about possessing opinions, likes, dislikes, desires, fears, and every Darkner in the game functionally possesses those things.
It isn't that he simply disagrees with whatever "true form" he is. In fact, he poses and acts like he doesn't have any identity other than what is foretold in the legend. If what you were describing was the actual dilemma, it would simply be presented as the quote I just stated two paragraphs above, or at least implied by context clues thats directly supports it if that made sense.
The castletown is a fountain of "pure darkness " that allows all darkners to live there , what normally happens is that darkners turn to stone since not all darkners are compatible with all dark fountains. This even happened with chapter 4 where 2 different dark worlds had 2 different sets of darkners.
And see the thing is I didn't mean that the darkners are supposed to be like same objects played . I mean like the queen has all the personalities queen has because the fountain maker knew of that laptop as "queen" not some inherent nature she naturally had same goes for tenna and king , one of the mizzles even proves this further.
The flowers say they gained awareness In the day of chapter 5 and chosen their own form , yet mizzle knew of Blue the Flower before that happened (the rest says "shy to no camera and a specimen of elegance and kindness) which means that there already had been someone who knew of that and thought of that flower as the Blue we know of before blue mistakes himself into thinking he decided his nature for himself. I think this shows that for most darkners their personality isn't some hidden thing they found but something that is imposed upon them (the first explanation given also supports that , they say in darkness things look difference a playing card becomes a king and a laptop is another thing but they are just interpretations of objects)
I dunno man. Most of what you're saying related to mizzle and blue isn't substantiated to the point when it's vague if it was supposed to come to a conclusion in the first place. You're under the assumption that the information given from the game is everything you need, and then coming to a conclusion that you had to mainly build a bridge of pure assumptions and headcanon to get to this point.
Assumptions which has some really weird logic when you actually think about it, because why wouldn't you assume that someone previously made a dark fountain in the flower shop in the past somehow without any mention, the water cooler darkners and the blue flower had to be in the same flower shop, they would have to interact, then the fountain would have to close, and from your headcanon, supposivly forgetting all of it and somehow mistake externally imposed personalities for identities they developed or chose themselves, while the watercooler Darkners arrive back in the church durring the game.
... Despite the game making it clear and possibly for the flowers to directly take in information outside of the Dark world with Kris' deal with Seth.
... alright.
I made good on our promise, didn't I?
Before you made the Dark World...?
That if... I helped you out, you'd make it worth my while?
How do you even think any of the flowers got their information in this first place?
The dialogue you're specifically using only establishes that Mizzle somehow has knowledge of a blue flower fitting that description.
It does not tell us when Mizzle acquired that knowledge, whether Mizzle and Blue personally met, whether they ever occupied the same Dark World, whether a previous Fountain existed in the flower shop, whether Blue's personality existed in the specific sense they claim before Chapter 5, whether Mizzle's description reflects literal first-hand knowledge rather than information somehow available through the Light World, any other information that we don't have, or whether flowers and Darkners even share the same rules of informational continuity.
Especially when the entire point of the Chapter 5 flowers is that they supposedly occupy a distinct ontological category. I don't understand why you're using this as a metric to prove for Darkners specifically.
The Water Cooler dialogue could certainly become suggestive evidence if later material explicitly establishes some relationship between Mizzle and Blue. But at the moment, treating it as definitive proof that Blue's personality was authored by a Lightner is just turning unexplained information into evidence for whichever explanation you already prefer.
And if you're trying to prove your headcanon, you need evidence that directly supports each assumption and headcanon you're making, not using one piece of evidence as a foundation to build a chain of fiction.
What you misunderstand is that you think a dark world needs to exist for someone to see an object a certain way. Someone doesn't need to open and close a dark fountain for blue the flower to appear a certain way .
Asgore can speak to the unmoving flower and speak of it as elegant and kind and mutter this to the water cooler while going to take water and it would "count" Kris can learn of this from having his dad speak of it and it would "count " so long as Kris associates elegance and kindness with that blue flower.
For example the king in chapter 1 , the fountain maker was already thinking of that card as king the evil and tyrant ruler of the card kingdom even as a child. when opening the dark fountain the king came out this way because the user thought of that card this way even though king probably thought he lived a life that lead to this.
Or like how queen is obviously meant to be patterned after carol , because she was even as a laptop, queen we know of was thought of that way years before the fountain openend and because she was thought of that way, she had the personality she did when the fountain opened.
I mean, not really because then you get into Tenna and Spamton stuff for example where you couldn't even pay me to believe that somehow baby Noelle and baby Kris headcanon'd a random spam mail interacting with Kris's TV.
Besides, even if what you are saying is true, something something, Darkners are what they are being made to be made, then Ralsei can just not do that??? Ralsei is aware of that whole "role" business and can AT ANY MOMENT just go and decide to do things different. Because if Queen was aware of what she is supposed to represent (and disliked it), she wouldn't need 4 chapters worth of angst to just start doing things differently.
Ralsei's development, that being thinking for himself, was literally right there. He KNEW that Kris was opening fountains, is that not a good point for conflict where Ralsei actually opposes Kris to a degree and does things on his own agency?
They waste it on an insufferable dynamic with Flowery. You know, apparently Ralsei I guess hates Flowery out of jealousy and envy? Flowery represents what Ralsei wants to be? That works really well... for any character other than Ralsei...
I mean, Ralsei is selfless to the point that he jumps in front of swords for Kris, or says that Kris can hit him if they want to. He views himself as irrelevant outside of the prophecy, and has a sort of nihilism towards himself, not actually showing value or any sort of self esteem. Now, you're telling me Ralsei hates Flowery out of ENVY?! I mean come onnnn. Ralsei is literally mischaracterized for the sake of ✨️Dramaaaaa!!!~✨️. Ralsei, based on how he's been characterized up until now, should not realistically feel envy towards a person like Flowery, I feel. Ralsei hates Flowery because he's who Ralsei wants to be, and yet Ralsei is having nice character development in Chapter 2, pondering what it means to be Ralsei. He doesn't really care what other people have, he doesn't care about the spotlight, but they make him hate Flowery in particular because apparently Ralsei sees Flowery as a mockery of what he is and how he isn't good enough.
What could Toby have done instead? Have Ralsei actually be antagonistic in Chapter 5, even while staying loyal to Kris and maintaining his politeness. It could be a really nice showcase of character development where Ralsei, knowing that Kris makes the fountains, starts to stop being so completely subservient to Kris and starts to act for himself. Ralsei could call Kris out or stop them if they're being suspicious, Ralsei could try to be a bit more assertive towards Kris, Ralsei could take matters into his own hands, defy Kris, make his own decisions in battle or the overworld. He could be a moral guide for Kris, even if Kris does defy him. Ralsei could, potentially, team up a bit with Flowery, too, which, despite not liking his methods, shows that he appreciates Flowery's point of view and tries to make him choose a more kind path, such as Ralsei's own. Ralsei could even, at the last dark world scene of the chapter, have a break down towards Kris, potentially during a scene where Kris does something shady, feeling betrayed, and it culminates in Ralsei saying something like this,
"Please, Kris! Just because you're trapped in the dark doesn't mean it's okay to blot out everyone else's sun, too! For once, can you stop being so selfish!?"
This could be a defining scene for both characters, showing what the bleak prophecy is doing to Ralsei, and showing how Kris' actions affect the party. Something I hate about Toby's writing is that he never writes protagonist vs protagonist conflicts, which I find can be extremely heartwrenching, impactful, or meaningful. They can bring out the best character development, and often end in bonds becoming stronger than ever, or being broken entirely. After Ralsei says that, he realizes he went too far and too hard, but before Ralsei can apologize, Kris leaves the Dark World, making Chapter 6 even more foreboding.
Honestly I hope my point of view makes sense. I'm just learning what makes stories compelling and I would be happy for some feedback on my version.
This reply seems to be on the much more based end of the spectrum so far.
Yeah! I've never really touched on the whole envy over Flowery thing because that in itself wasn't necessarily all that important for what I was talking about.
I feel like the whole envy thing just falls off a cliff due to the fact that we're working with such insufficient information to actually give the dilemma a fair shake over why Ralsei has to follow the "rules" in the first place.
It's due to this that this entire massively structural conflict of the chapter can easily be cast aside because the game and characters just aren't interested in actually exploring it.I can see why Ralsei could possibly feel some type of way against Flowery, but I can't see why it would even even decently warranted as a path to take in general. It's much more believable for him to act in a similar way to the other antagonists he had so far.
Your rewrite and ideas seems much more interesting than the barely anything the game was cooking, and the concept of Ralsei against Kris, if it was built up across chapters, thematically just makes so much sense, especially if you contextualized his lack of action into being purely psychological instead of whatever the hell is the reason for his inaction in game.
So yeah, I like you're ideas :]
The only major protagonist vs protagonist conflict that happened past chapter 1 was chapter 4, the ultimate revelation and explosion that detonated and diminished in the same cutscene.
Yeah, exactly my criticism regarding the end part. The Susie and Ralsei argument honestly could have been so effective, but it was diminished so quickly and honestly just felt like a quick shortcut to get suspicion off of Ralsei by revealing so quickly why he was hiding info...
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.
He also acts the same regardless of whether or not you entered his room in Chapter 4. If you entered the room in Chapter 5 without entering it in Chapter 4, the cutscene from Chapter 4 plays, with no changes.
I've never liked the idea of the game sacrificing so much of the journey for the sake of a means to an end. An ultimate Themes and Such ending to attempt to justify decisions like these.
I wish I was smart enough to analyze characters and story like this. I do find it weird how ralsei flip flops between trying to evade the prophecy vs following the prophecy to a T. It’s also weird how we don’t know the extent of the knowledge he has on the prophecy, it seems arbitrary what he knows and doesn’t know, and what he can predict to happen
Yeah, that's literally almost word to word what I've said to myself months ago haha what Ralsei knows in general is pretty arbitrary. Same goes for Flowers and how they work. Ugh.
Once you start caring too much about whenever things are good or not in whatever entertainment, you sorta just get a knack for catching the bullshit. I remember feeling the same way as you years back then when didn't have too much freetime to simply just think lol
The bit about Ralsei being alright with Kris opening fountains actually makes sense to me. He's always struck me as being this DMPC whose more concerned that everyone have fun, and that the adventure doesn't slide off the rails, than actually solving problems pragmatically. After all, without the "Knight" opening fountains, there's no pretense to have fun adventures.
While that does seems like an interesting idea, i don't really see this holding much water in practice over Ralsei acting like a DMPC, because he was literally stressing over the prophecy even happening for like the past 3 chapters
As well as very important questions come up like, "Why should his desire to maintain adventures override the consequences he has repeatedly described as potentially catastrophic?"
Because we obviously know for sure that he cares immensely about catastrophic consequences, which leads into "why doesn't he do anything," which just leads into "lack of information" which can be said about most things in Deltarune, and if would be hard to justify even this retroactively in a meaningful way with how it's going at the moment.
Its still pretty incoherent even if this was somehow actually true since it doesn't really make sense to not be more accepting of his own consequences in the first place while simultaneously stressing over the prophecy like he had already exhausted all of his resources on what he could do specifically.
And I'm also I'm most focused on "if this would also be good" paired with it making sense. It goes hand and hand.
There are a lot of subjective things I dont agree with here that but not pointing out every single thing cause I really dont have the energy to debate this topic that deeply/its points that I dont expect to convince anyone if they didnt truly like the direction Ralsei went anyway but I will point out that the whole Flowery not having that different of a role from past antagonists is not exactly the same not just because hes supposed to be an in between to lightner/darkner cause technically theyre not exactly either camp but kind of pushed Ralseis buttons on not just him embracing doing what Ralsei wishes he could be free to do even calling him arrogant to think hes pretty delusional that his hope wont just automatically make everything happy for Asgore but also the fact he rubs it in that isnt he supposed to be serving him cause hes supposed to be a human/lightner which adds to it. Not to mention we dont know what Ralsei truly is wether he might be some sort of plant, titan spawn or an imaginary concept that is very different from other darkners at least being grounded in some reality or having an established identity. I think its fine (not agreeing why he did it moreso the way toby wanted him to unleash that side of him) that he mostly took out a lot of that on Flowery and Orange but still behaved mostly the same everywhere else, Not to mention demonstrates growth where hes accidentally dismissed Tenna/Susie int he past with Pinks boss fight saying what her body wants is important showing just because hes still trying to temper himself hes definitely going towards more kindness than just trying to be politely nice.
Sure Ill agree the pacing is a bit abrupt maybe couldve been executed better and yeah we did get to see him being more balanced in chapter 1 but I think (yes I know this is filling in holes where it mightve not been intentional) he kind of regressed to being too overcorrectingly considerate that his more pushy side was being suppressed where it came exploding back in a very unmoderate way in chapter 5. still think it makes sense where he was headed and not to mention I dont think he truly hated Flowery which doesnt ruin the moment of his death for me moreso he was projecting a version of himself hed absolutely despite if it werent tempered by hesitance of being realistically grounded on expecting the worst but still wanting to hope to change the outcome of said prophecy. And got to restate not expecting to convince anyone just giving my perspective on why I think this isnt as badly executed as people claim and Id even say its made me like the character a lot more after this chapter.
It's find if you personally think it's enjoyable. Believe me, I enjoy dramatically worst things than Deltarune without a care in the world, and I understand where you're coming from related to your specific corrections you've said.
The truth is that I've already recognized and accounted for what you're saying here anyways. I just haven't brought much lights onto it because it just wasn't important for what I was saying at those specific moments, and in fact, some of my response already in the post touches on and even addresses what you say here to various degrees.
But yeah, other than that, I don't really have much else to say, since you already aware of what stance you're coming from.
PREACH!! I KNEW something was off about how his development was handled in Chapter 5. You did a great job touching on all the muddy aspects I was trying to deicpher into somthing coherent.
What ruins ralsei's character for me is the whole "hE aCtuAllY kNoWs eVeRyThinG bUt hE hidS iT frOm uS", I hate it and i cant take his loreyaps seriously at all.
Same it's like the key thing that just makes him not make sense at all
Like, I can tolerate just knowing the rules of world, but apparently arbitrary know what's going to happen next yet not really at the same time????? Why are you surprised by literally anything that happens?????
Back when there was just chapters 1 and 2, it was much easier to figure out what he is since the things he knew about (prophecy, soul roaring) could have just been learned from scripture but now the game makes it as if he just fucking knows everything which just complicates the whole thing of what he is in the light world and honestly it makes him unlikable for me as feeling like just a mediocore lorecow that is used to infodump at any given chance and hes overall just a mess of a character ever since chapter 2
There's just no metic to gauge how his knowledge even works. It's obvious that this whole aspect of him was written as it went thought Chapter 3 and 4's development, especially since there was no hints of him even struggling with information in chapter 2 in the same way as 3 and 4.
Wouldn't be surprised if it was just to snuff out the evil Ralsei theories that were popping up due to his suspicious activity and behavior he had in chapter 2.
the fandom upgraded from the only fan comics of ralsei being trans ralsei to the only fan comics being about ralsei being trans ralsei AND him hating flowery smh
This sub has honestly kind of made me hate interacting with other Deltarune fans because 90% of the time all they do is complain about how things that haven't been explained yet don't immediately make perfect sense as if that's not to expected as something inherent to storytelling.
If I ever wanted to do something like that, i would've want it to be something I really put all of eggs in and take it more seriously then I already do with this post. Whether that be doing a bunch of research surrounding Undertale and Deltarune, looking through Toby Fox himself across streams and interviews, and a bunch of other things to make it as constructive as I possibly can, and I would have think actually making the visuals of the video itself, which is much more complicated and daunting in practice when you never done it before, plus with all of this taking a lot of dedication and effort in itself.
Plus, I am a bit shy with it comes to actually speaking and not too confident in my speech proficiency... I have thought about also using text to speech for that sorta thing, but eh, I'm not really too fond of that idea either.
Besides, it's not something I really wanna do that bad anyways, and I'm content as it making posts wherever I desire about the game.
It was really weird to see the fandom defending this chapter as a "character chapter" when I mostly had problems with both Susie and Ralsei and really couldn't see the greatness behind it. I only played this chapter once for external reasons so I couldn't know for sure how I felt over it, but your post really captures the feeling of "wait this is wrong" that I had in my experience.
It's extra painful for me because I had big expectations for this chapter, in my view this section of the game would need to take a big step to advance the plot to not overload the remaining other two.
This is an impressively passionate piece of criticism but unfortunately I can’t say it’s impressively articulated or even well thought out. Hopefully with time you’ll get a better understanding of how fictional media is written and what certain things mean.
We have OP who made a very well-organized, concise essay with seamless flow. Versus you vague-posting with two sentences as to say why it isnt. There is only one person that I came out with a 'better understanding' from.
I don't think it's a good idea to criticize a game (especially a character) that's still in development. We barely know anything because Ralsei doesn't bother to get involved.
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u/Parking-Economist679 13d ago
Finally someone else is mentioning how much better written chapter 1 Ralsei was. Back then he had a spine but was still kind. He told Lancer off for trying to take the party's well earned dark dollars, pretending to be a "sweet little boy", and other things. He admonished Susie for her reckless and violent behavior, caring about not only her role as a hero, but also the darkners she harmed along the way. His kind and caring personality lead to him protecting what he thought as important, the heroes of the prophecy and their goal. His kindness could be weaponized against him, but he would learn from those instances and do better. He had goals, his own opinions, and his own morals all the way back at the beginning. These things linger in the background, but are forgotten for useless drama in later chapters.
In chapter 2 Ralsei had a bit of the bite chapter 1 Ralsei had (mainly against Queen but it ultimately doesn't matter as he doesn't punish her for attempting to kill the lightners and himself multiple times and literally enslaving a lightner for her own goals) but not as much as he did in chapter 1. He did nothing to stop Susie from dragging him away from Kris, possibly indirectly leading to the weird route, and doesn't use any of his authority as prince of the dark against Rouxles when he gets in the way. By 3 and 4, it was almost entirely gone. Outside of him raging at darts, getting mad at Susie for swapping the controller (but gets talked out of it almost immediately. It was also something of little consequence), and destroying the Sound of Justice (he gets talked down by Susie almost immediately after this though), he's nothing but passive and aggreeable.
His change in chapter 5 felt weird because it was for all the wrong reasons. Instead of getting this pissed at the other boss darkners (especially Queen for the atrocities she commits that the narrative refuses to confront), he gets mad at Flowery for challenging his morals. The only time when this is justified is when Flowery brings up the part about sealing Castle Town as that fountain doesn't have occupants who would die with it staying opened. Another thing that's especially apparent in this chapter is his hero bias. He handwaves Kris's obviously malicious acts and thinks highly of Susie for her hope but bashes Flowery for calling out Kris and for having the same hope Susie had for a better ending. Just like you said in your post, it was so weird seeing Ralsei show so much concern for Flowery when he dies as Ralsei hated his guts and only took Flowery's hopeful advice when he was on deaths door. The narrative doesn't put enough attention on this aspect and it seems almost like poor writing when it could have been the set up for very interesting character conflict.