=]

He's bad for her, right?

Sure, I'm protecting her from you! might be the option that lets you abort the Weird Route, but every unchosen dialogue option casts its shadow over the ones you do select. He's a bad friend (and he is; he admits it). She deserves better. She deserves to fix things with Kris. This unresolved state, this tension, isn't it better if we define it? If we rekindle that intimacy? Because nothing outside that little Holiday-Dreemurr mythos could possibly matter to her, right? Not really.

...Deltarune frames Berdly's self-concept as Kris's Rival, in a sort of classical JRPG sense (direct competitor and counterpart and the Childhood Friend's other romantic option) as kind of pathetic: his protectiveness is a symptom of his own insecurity and need for validation; we're not stealing Noelle from him, Noelle's not his.

But there's still this pervasive sense among fans, or at least in fic, that as Noelle gets more confident she'll naturally start to find Berdly as annoying as the presumptive audience does. Rekindling her old friendship with Kris comes as a part of building a new relationship with Susie, and so does not being friends with Berdly.

See, you know what? Berdly is annoying. And it's frustrating to see his characterization backslide after Chapter Two. But he's a friend Noelle made on her own, and despite the rockier aspects of their dynamic, she's perfectly willing to call him a friend. She's building something new for herself. If you want to say Berdly's not your Rival, you have to mean it.