Abel G. Abel

Deltarune is a game about many things, but cruelty is perhaps one if its central themes.

There's the more outright, obvious cruelty brought on by the prophecy and the tragedy it brings, but i think even more importantly and impactfully a lot of the cruelty showcased in deltarune is incredibly subtle - there's a cruelty in casualness, and a cruelty to thoughtlessness. And oftentimes cruelty can come from the people that care for you (or Should care for you) the most. When play stops being fun and becomes violence.

Through the very start of the game, before we get into the meat of things in the dark worlds, we see almost immediately the cruelty characters offer to one another. Susie, although healing and becoming better, is probably the most obvious example as a bully. But many of the other kids are bullies too (many of them in fact targeting Susie, such as Snowy, Catti, Berdly, and Monster Teen). Even Kris is known to have a mean streak. And it's not like any of these kids are irredeemably evil, or even doing these things by complete intention to Be a bully. It's something that happens when behaviors go unchecked, when children go unsupported by the adults in the systems around them, and what happens when the cycle of cruelty perpetuates itself without intervention

as for darkner's role in this....

Darkners as a whole are a group that is. Doomed. Badly. every single one of them is doomed to suffer by forces beyond them because they are objects. tools. toys. Many of which are incredibly fragile or small, easy to lose, replaceable. Once they've been used up, they're tossed away. Why should it matter when we know items can be replaced when broken? When there's something better or cheaper or faster to use? Lightners don't think twice about it because they (minus Susie and Kris and Maybe? Noelle and Berdly) literally do not know of their existence.

The classroom on the right in the school is abandoned not because the lightners took issue with the darkners there, but because Gerson Boom passed away and they couldn't fill his vacancy, leaving the classroom as is and leaving in its wake a dark world left abandoned and to its own devices. The library's dark world is one of the ones that is least abandoned as it is a public space, but even so Queen and her denizens get a taste of what being left behind is like when the internet goes out. Tenna after chapter 3 is tossed out by Toriel, not because she hates him, but because she does not know he exists - and he is an object that has seemingly passed his expiration date.

Objects made of paper are easy to rip, easy to stain, easy to crease and lose (i remember reading this post by @/duskwingmoth pointing out Card Kingdom as a group being doomed due to being marked, having missing cards, and generally being unfit for playing any normal card game. and its a post that been making me go bonkers i think about it a lot).

Lines of code are easy to mess with and easy to destroy and while you can fix something like a laptop, but once its met its servicing and warranty date, what then?

While technology used to be built to last, newer technology comes with a manufactured service date to keep you buying new things. And older technology that Was built to last stops getting parts made, stops being serviceable.

Its another cycle of cruelty perpetuated by systems that are failing in all the ways that matter, by people at the very top who are careless and spare no thought to anybody below their rung.

i think a lot of people struggle with or feel uncomfortable with having a role in deltarune's narrative as an invading, intrusive, and sometimes violent force in these character's lives. i dont believe deltarune is straight up saying "You are a bad person" for playing the game. at the end of the day, deltarune is a work of fiction that is a conversation about narrative structures and the audience's role in that said structure. it is a game created to be played, to be watched and engaged with.

This being said, though, it is very obvious that even within friendlier playthroughs that our presense is an Unwelcome one specifically by Kris (our wonderful and unwilling protagonist) who is probably the Biggest victim of our purveyence of their life. and i think thats very very intersting. We are placed into a position of power over these characters.