the first thing which really struck me about the episode was how the runtime was divided up. we have these two plots - carol taking a break and manousos making the journey to her - and they don't get to meet in the episode. the two plots do not collide. so, what's the point - to draw comparisons between the two? well, yes, sort of; but this begs the question. why, then, lay it out as they did? 15 minutes of carol, then manousos, then carol right at the end. if we were just meant to compare and contrast it would've made more sense to cut between each plot.

let's say they did it that way, then; what changes? i think the answer is quite obvious: the dramatic irony (manousos going so far to find the person who gave him hope, carol losing hope and giving up) would've been the most salient thing about the episode. instead, this only hits you at the end; it's not fully obvious that 'losing hope' is what carol is doing in the first fifteen minutes. we, the audience, expect her to be up to something; she's getting all these fireworks, she seems to be acting more casual with the Others... and then cut to manousos. by delaying the irony, the knowledge which separates us from them, we are allowed to experience the situation as the two characters experience them.

the first fifteen minutes, i think, are almost designed to bore you a bit; there's setup, but little payoff. there's these brief peeks into carol's character, her life prior to the joining (she herself hasnt had much time to indulge since the joining) which are briefly interesting, but ultimately it doesn't seem to go anywhere. this boredom, naturally, occasionally punctuated by the brief reminders of life prior to the joining - her own, but also the songs, the lottery tickets - is pretty much exactly what she's experiencing. hell, we're even waiting for her to do something, and implicitly so is she - until she gives up.

now obviously there's plenty of signs of their personality in chapters 1 and 2, and if you're fandombrained enough to be reading this i figure you're well acquainted with all of that. but chapter 3 is where it really takes off. chapter 1 does give us some background information, and whilst chapter 2 (more solidly) introduces the central premise upon which their character is based (i.e. they're not the player) it left the rest mostly up to inference; people were highly uncertain about what them making the fountain at the end meant for their character and allegiances. chapter 3, admittedly, only gives us our answer at the very end - kris is working with the knight - but the rest of the chapter builds the context required to understand their motivations. it's elegant story-telling, really; kris wouldn't be the same character were they not a 'silent protagonist', so placing us in a dark world they created is a very natural way to give us insight into their mind without breaking the fundamentals of their character.

another thing which made people disregard the chapter as filler: it starts by easing off the tension created by the end of chapter 2. insofar as i simply believe it had to do this for the structure of chapter 3 to work, i do think that tonally this also serves as our introduction to their internal conflict, wherein the lighthearted scenes with tenna and the gang palling around makes sure you don't get too used to the creepiness of the sword route (presuming you are doing it. i s-ranked both boards first try and didnt have to use a guide to find out about their existence or anything so i probably had a better first-playthrough experience than most). the whole tv theme, tenna, and the initial light tone reflects one part of kris's character - a sense of nostalgia, a wish to go back to how things were with dess around - and yet this does not dominate their character in the same way it does asgore. it at least seems to me that kris is somewhat disillusioned with the past as tenna paints it; notably, if you have them say 'games are fun' at the end of the sword route, kris lowers their face more, which they notably do not do if you just opt for 'no'. tenna also repeatedly attempts to get kris specifically to have fun and seems frustrated by the fact that it's not working; tenna even asks about this during his fight. the sword route variation on this dialogue is particularly poignant for me - "You... you want to have fun, too, don't you!? Isn't that a little bit why you..."; followed immediately by the knight fight, who kris remains loyal to despite it fatally wounding Tenna.

and so we have the contradiction: presumably, kris's involvement in all this has to do with 'finding' dess. and whilst that nostalgia fuels part of the motivation, they are seemingly more dedicated to their mission than to the escapism provided by the dark worlds that may otherwise be more appealing to them. indeed, their adventures in the dark world have provided something far more important to them than merely 'an escape': susie and ralsei, the first two people they've really connected with in a long time. by the time chapter 3 starts (potentially even prior to when we meet them in chapter 1), nostalgia is no longer their primary motivation. to get particularly deep into this requires speculation that it's difficult to be certain of, but they seem to be beholden to the promise they made to the person on the phone (carol, one presumes). i think there's a very strong case to be made that they keep going out of moral obligation and guilt; 'kris was there when dess disappeared' is not a new theory at all, so i won't review the evidence, but with this assumption we can understand the internal conflict that creates their unique position in the narrative. it's not just that they're stuck between the past (carol, the knight) and the future (the fun gang) but that they're both brave/foolish enough to play around with potentially causing the roaring just to save one person, and self-sacrificing enough to put themself at the stake for the sake of everyone they care about.

i think the fundamental misconception carried over from the pre-3&4 fandom that's still prevalent is that kris's plot relevance is mainly defined by their status as the servant and resident pinball for all of the actual major players in the plot (the player, the knight, carol, add anyone else you feel like). my suspicion is that, for better or worse, they've placed themself in this position, and their true loyalties don't necessarily belong with any singular discernable 'side' (whatever those sides may end up being). one of the first things we learnt about them was that they're a bit of a schemer. more specifically: a lot of people believe kris has a burning hatred for us, and insofar as this isn't based on false premises, it strikes me as missing the forest for the trees: we are but the latest intrusion on their life in search of dess, and it's a distinct possibility that they were the person who interrupted the vessel sequence in the first place. during the quiz segments in ch3, kris actively guides the player towards the right answer when it relates to their past - coughing, moving to the correct answer if you do nothing - so it's not as though they're entirely unwilling to cooperate with the player.

one: as souls are to humans and monsters, so the dark fountain is to darkners. this is a fairly easy inference to make: whilst the exact nature of the soul is difficult to pin down, the main function it seems to serve is being a container for determination.

two: identity exists independent of a soul. there's nuance here; both flowey and kris retain their identity free of their souls. flowey degrades from who he was as asriel, though, and whilst kris displays more personality without their soul than they do with, this is because our identity is taking charge with the soul inside; additionally, the human souls in undertale are bodyless but still have enough personality to accept kris's cry for help. the case of kris and the humans is easier to dissect: humans have physical substance, presumably the same inner working as real humans. the identity, then, can remain in either the soul or the body as required. flowey is trickier, but we'll return to that. three: therefore, whilst the dark fountain disperses determination to the darkners in a particular region, they're still 'alive' when it closes. they just lack any agency. that being said, by nature of the dark fountain being an expression of a lightner's determination, there are some notes to the agency they're granted in a particular dark world. it seems to me that a dark world is not the fiction of a single person - there's a set list of darkners, objects, etc per location. lancer doesnt stop being lancer just because you take him to a different fountain. that being said, the dark fountain does adjudicate exactly what's getting agency when opened; not all of the darkners that could be in a location will actually be in an individual dark world, based on who's opening it. additionally, the features of a particular darkner or asset can be accentuated or diminished, but something that isn't already there can't be added. presumably the fountains in chapters 1 and 2 were opened with "block the progress of the heroes" being part of the intent; hence both king and queen do, but whilst king also just hates you regardless, queen doesnt and is still more reasonable even with her worst qualities being drawn out. more obviously the bookshelves become the floor in the second sanctuary and theres all the statues

four: (in undertale,) monster bodies are entirely a projection of the soul, as is magic. whilst monster agency is self-sustaining, their existence otherwise is similar to darkners; they're a fiction-made-reality. this is why asriel returns as flowey, despite there being nowhere for his identity to go at the time of his death; the fiction of his life lives on strongly in the minds of his parents and the minds of the whole underground. everyone knows about it. there's a statue of him in waterfall. the mettaton fountain in hotland used to be a memorial of him until just a week prior to the events of the game. this is the same way gerson revived; his life and death hangs in the mind of not only his son, but all of hometown; alvin opens his sermons with passages from his writings, Lord Of The Hammer is on the church bookshelf next to the actual religious texts. five: so, whilst identity exists separate to souls, the soul seems to be the meeting-place of identity and determination. maybe it's better put as the freedom to both have and chase your own dreams and fictions. darkners are soulless, so they lack the ability to open dark fountains; queen has her idea of utopia, but she needs someone else to realise it for her, and even then it may be closer to noelle's dream that she inherited (edit: and was then distorted by the fountain and queen herself, given that a large part of chapter 2's plot is that noelle absolutely doesn't want what queen is offering). flowey could explore the existing underground, but had no ability to create himself, hence his frustration; the only times we see him use magic beyond his basic 'friendliness pellets' are when he has souls in him, and whilst the friendliness pellets could be seeds, they intentionally seem to be generic as far as bullets go. kris is harder: whilst they need the soul to live, they can still open fountains without it, albeit the soul is required to then close said fountains (and potentially to enter the fountain in the first place? that's speculative, though; i don't necessarily buy into it myself). regardless the process seems to be very taxing on their body, seeing as they're forcing themself to do things they usually would need a soul for. thematically, whilst kris undoubtedly has their own desires and agenda, they are not free even when soulless, following the command of carol or the knight. the only time on-screen that they entirely create in their own right (being that chapter 3 is ultimately another step in the plan) is when they play the holiday's piano.