👎★CAIMAN★🫀

Tenna art by @9Aaaalt29 on twt

he needs so much help and he isnt going to get it at mettatons he needs his castle town healing arc!!!

Exactly! Giving him to Mettaton is confirming his belief that his only path to survival and worth is being useful as an object!

More people need to learn not to take it at face value when something seems like a good outcome or situation, especially with a character like Tenna, who puts on a smile and pretends like he's fine even when he's miserable (at least in front of Lightners), who consistently settles for bad options, and who believes his only possible futures are "be useful" or "be thrown away", because he doesn't think he has any worth as a person and would only be kept around if he's serving his purpose. (Susie doesn't fully understand his situation, hence her being positive about giving him away and not realizing that this could be bad for him.)

The reason he acts like staying in Castle Town is only a temporary thing for him isn't because he wants to leave behind the Fun Gang and all the Darkners he knows (as someone who gets strongly attached while also struggling to develop and maintain friendships, which isn't gonna change if he's given away), but because he doesn't believe the Fun Gang would want to have him around long-term.

His low self worth and social isolation/rejection by others (which fuels that low self worth), including his experiences in Chapter 3, leads him to believe that no one likes him as a person or would keep him around if he's not being useful, and that he can only survive through his purpose as an object. He's also physically very big in both the Light and Dark World, so he's anxious about taking up space if he's not useful; that's why he responded so weirdly to Susie asking "...aren't you normally way bigger?"; he saw his size being pointed out as confirmation of his fears that he's "too big" and needs to become useful to justify taking up space (hence him immediately asking the kids to find him a new owner).

As for him settling for bad options, he wanted to stay with the Dreemurrs/stay in the house that has been his home for many years, but when it was made clear that this isn't an option, he settled for being given away to someone else and surviving that way. King doesn't like Tenna as a person and only liked laughing at his expense, but Tenna settled for this and accepted it as validation. Tenna wants to hang out with the real Mike, his actual friend, but in the absence of Mike, he settles for the impostor trio, despite clearly being unhappy with the way Small Mike treats him; not enough people recognize that the reason he's spending time with the trio is that he struggles with making real friends, so he settles for this game of pretend, in which there is no genuine mutual bond being formed, and in which at least one of the three people he's playing with (Small Mike) consistently infantilizes him.

Also, like. Are we forgetting how precarious it is for Darkners to be property of Lightners who don't know they exist? Toriel is a sweetie, and she was still going to throw away the TV, because she didn't know that Tenna existed and that doing this would hurt him. The TV was just an object to the Dreemurrs, and Mettaton isn't any better; some people just like him more as a character, so they want to believe he's special. But no, the TV is still just property, just an object whose only worth is its usefulness (if the TV is broken, Mettaton won't take it, because it's useless). It's baffling to me whenever anyone thinks there's a real bond being formed between these two if the TV is brought to the Ghost House. No, the TV is just an appreciated object, Tenna is not being appreciated as a person, which is what he actually needs. (Even if you think they'd get along if they got to meet as people, in the absence of a Dark World, that isn't happening; there's a barrier preventing any real communication between them.)

It's also worth mentioning that, at least as of now, we don't know if giving Tenna away would prevent a Spamtenna reunion, and Tenna very clearly needs Spamton. He's still talking about Spamton in the Chapter 5 cutscene, still grieving, and what happened to Spamton is a major source of his misery, and the only person who can help him heal from that is Spamton himself. Spamton is also the only person who truly understood Tenna and connected with him deeply; Tenna needs him in order to not be so alone. Plus, having Spamton back could help him rebuild his friendship with the real Mike.

The other day I was talking about how we, as the player, are supposed to be picking up on the themes of autonomy and freedom surrounding Darkners, which are most obvious through Ralsei, Spamton, & Tenna himself — that Darkners don’t actually need to “serve Lightners to be fulfilled” as Ralsei says they do in chapter 1 (this idea even makes Susie very uncomfortable when it’s brought up), and that it’s actually making them even more unfulfilled.

I’m sure Tenna is convinced that even the Fun Gang couldn’t possibly actually want him to stick around because of how he treated them in chapter 3, let alone his employees, who had just quit and left him on his own despite him begging them to help him. (Even if they decided to work with him again, that doesn’t erase the fact that they clearly don’t like him very much & can still do the exact same thing again at any time.) So Tenna’s only option to ever actually be wanted again, in his mind, is to go to a new Lightner and start the cycle anew. Maybe if he’s just good enough and entertaining enough this time, they won’t want to throw him away… right?

Tenna is clearly someone who is so used to being unhappy and unsatisfied that he thinks that’s probably how it’ll always be at this point. He’s never gotten what he really wants for very long — to be kept and loved forever by a version of the Dreemurrs who are happy together, to spend his life doing something he loves with Spamton at his side, even just to be liked and respected by his employees; why would Tenna get what he truly wants now? He just has to “close his eyes and imagine” — to play pretend, like he does with Mike — that he’ll finally be happy once he’s given a new home, or if he’s still able to make other people laugh, even if it’s because he’s getting hurt.

I think a lot of people who believe giving Tenna away is his real happy ending don’t recognize — or refuse to accept — not just the themes surrounding Darkners that Deltarune is trying to get us to understand, but also just how important Spamton is to Tenna and his entire story. Spamton obviously is such a huge part of Tenna’s life and his state of mind, and Tenna deeply cares for him & worries about him, even after 10 years of absence; the chapter 5 Castle Town cutscene even specifically drives this home. Everything we’ve seen so far (even references from outside the game itself, like Toby-approved Fangamer merch & certain parts of the 10th anniversary version of Undertale — which I personally fully believe are meaningful) points to the fact that a reunion with Spamton is the most satisfying and happy ending for Tenna, even if some people don’t want this to be true; we can’t know at this point if that will happen if we give Tenna away (and I’m sure those people would prefer it not to).

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"Oh but Tenna says serving his purpose made him happy/was fulfilling" it may not be explicitly spelled out that he's unhappy just being a TV/just serving his purpose, but it's not even that subtle:

He may try to hide his true feelings, in some cases behind comedy, but he has indicated multiple times that he clearly wishes to be more than just a TV, even if he doesn't believe he can be. Even outside of his relationship with Spamton, Tenna shows that he wants things outside of his purpose (not to mention him and Spamton being intentionally similar characters, and Spamton literally tried to escape being a Darkner altogether); he's not getting that if he's given away and has to serve his purpose again to survive (while in Castle Town he can still be an entertainer, but doesn't rely on it for survival, and not having that stress attached to it may actually make it more enjoyable for him; also he'd probably have greater freedom with what and how to perform, rather than just fulfilling the wishes of whichever Lightner owns the TV).

The idea of Darkners being merely objects who don't (or at least shouldn't) want anything more than to serve their intended purpose is questioned even by the way Darkners are written with the same depth and complexity as Lightners. We also see other Darkners being content with staying in Castle Town, where they aren't serving their purpose and have greater freedom to do what they want. It's not like Tenna is the only Darkner who ever felt attached to a Lightner either; Queen cares about Noelle, but she also has a life outside of being useful to her; in Castle Town, she quickly adopts Lancer and develops a mutual bond with him, and so far she seems content just living her life. Darkners are people who like living like people, and Tenna is no exception; he's not content with being nothing more than an object, he just doesn't believe that better options are possible for him.

"Oh but Tenna isn't happy in Castle Town" Tenna just generally isn't happy. He's traumatized and lonely, because the one person that truly understood him suddenly went missing years ago, which ripped away the thing that actually, truly fulfilled him - a close bond with another Darkner. There's also this thing called "character development", and his arc is not over yet; there are still three Chapters left for his mental state to improve. And as both of us have said, Spamton is clearly important to him, and a reunion would be his true happy ending. The nose that Tenna copied from Spamton is still right there in full view (it's the equivalent of tattooing "I love my husband Spamton G. Spamton" on his face), he's still keeping their egg baby, he generally talks about Spamton a lot, and the Chapter 5 cutscene has made it clear that his life has felt empty and fake since Spamton went missing; take the hint.

(I do wonder if we'll see Tenna again if he's given away in Chapter 4... He's a pretty important character, so it'd be a bit odd for him to just disappear from the story like that. The idea of that route maybe being a lesson about how serving his purpose isn't actually a good option for him (or Darkners in general) is an interesting possibility.)

Not the focus here, but I think Tenna's social isolation/ostracization, low self worth and him being used to being unhappy is why he's the way that he is as a boss. It's the belief that "we're all just objects meant to serve Lightners, so none of this Dark World stuff really matters" combined with "even if I try my best, I'm still all alone and none of them care about me, so why even bother trying to be liked" (this likely won't change if he's given away, but if he's kept in Castle Town, he already seems to be starting to improve). I think he was and would be a better boss with Spamton around, since he'd have emotional support and understanding and would feel like it's worth the effort to treat others better; he wouldn't feel drained/empty and would actually have something to give. Susie used to pick on others when she was alone and ostracized, but she softened once she found friends, and she drew a pretty direct parallel between herself and Tenna in Chapter 3.

GET A ROOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the "something" in "something evil will happen soon"

underrated castle game