something...i think

I love this 'Ralsei being a tree/root system under the hometown' theory. It does make sense a lot to me especially how he "teleported' between Dark Worlds and such.

And... Bonus (?)

Choice

Alone

you can think about it from the perspective of Characters In A Story maybe. noelle was written to be noelle. courteous, kind, passionate, but also a bystander, a weakling, a doormat. of course, in the universe of the game, she wasn't 'written' to be any specific way, she was raised by her family to be the way that she is. protected her whole life by dess and rudy, held to high standards by her mother, pushed down by berdly, terrorized by kris, etc... she's been trapped in this glass mold, wrapped away and painted on the outside with so many layers that you forget that there's another noelle in there. SHE forgot there's another noelle in there until we used kris to break that glass.

if we had never interfered with anything, the weird route would not have happened (obviously). even if kris did see her for who she was -- through the box that she and everyone in her life had constructed -- they were probably never going to do anything about it. they would see her, but not do anything to break her out of it. because, of course, that's something she should ideally do herself in the normal route, albeit with susie's help and encouragement.

but that alone is a detail pointing to how "kris" has to do "kris things." kris doesn't do non-kris things; they mope around all day, sleep through class, maybe pull a prank or crack a joke if they feel like it, and then go home. "non-kris" things include talking to noelle repeatedly. becoming "bossy" and pushing noelle to do all these puzzles, to cast dangerous spells. It's to take a 'prank' so far that it's not a prank anymore. kris found out how to stop being "kris" because it quite literally wasn't them, it was us.

Marching down my path.