I’ve heard the term twice now. What is The Pet Bird Theory?
Much like many other things I’ve written on the elusive Berdly Deltarune, the pet bird theory (if you can even call it that), started out as a shitpost before I decided to see what happens if you take it seriously.
A while ago I made an observation on the Kawkaw encounters from Chapter 5, which are cute little dog-bird things that show up in a dark world formed by Kris. Upon being asked if it may have anything to do with Kris’s birdcage suggesting they had a pet bird or something in the past, I jokingly responded with Hey Maybe Berdly Is Actually That Pet Bird…
and then I began thinking. and realized that as strange as it sounded, Berdly being given a “higher purpose” like the Seven Flowers explains so many odd details about how Berdly is treated in-game.
On a player level, Berdly is obviously an NPC character. He’s never in the party, he isn’t given much backstory beyond the spelling bee story and his gaming sessions with Kris, he can be fought or spared like any other encounter…
But on a deeper level, it’s just so darn strange how he seems more in line with how Darkners get treated as part of the game’s deconstructive metanarrative about role playing games, NPCs, and player choice/consequence.
He’s seemingly the only Lightner thus far who is damaged by dark world actions, compared to King, Tenna, Jackenstein, and Flowery.
His character exhibits strange similarities to Ramb and Tenna with how he believes his meaning comes from how others see him, like Queen and Flowery the driving force behind his actions is doing something for a specific loved one who doesn’t quite see him in the same light, like the Flowers he dreams of being more human (with Seth in particular being aware of Berdly to the point of admiration)
In the Sword Route minigame he’s never given a player sprite unlike the fun gang, with even the “White Cloak” at least being humanoid compared to the plain generic bird sprite. He’s constantly compared to food like frozen chicken or fried chicken nuggets, which gets used to dehumanize him on the weird route by reducing him to a literal piece of meat.
While Noelle and her story is given a greater level of focus in later chapters, with Berdly you’re given the feeling that Chapter 2 was all we’re going to see of him and he’ll just be background comic relief for the rest of the plot. And on the Weird Route, which deconstructs the idea of player autonomy and treating people like objects through Noelle’s treatment, Berdly is simply considered another encounter, and even aborted weird route hardly acknowledges his treatment, he’s just Gone.
Even outside of this fridging, characters on the normal route seems baffled when Berdly gets considered. Giving the gift in ch2 is met with sheer confusion, Ralsei is perplexed when you choose Berdly in ch3, Kris seems to be the only one acknowledging his state in ch4, and in ch5 his absence from the festival goes unnoticed. He’s not in the prophecy, he’s absent from Queen’s visual of “all Lightners” near the end of ch2, and all in all it feels Berdly is treated more like a Darkner according to the skewed view we’re given of the world. The whole reason he acts like he does is because he derives his meaning from what others want. A smart student, a bold knight, a rival gamer, a date to impress… all to serve what he sees as someone else’s idea of who he should be.
And yet, he’s somehow always appeared in the story. His presence is directly involved in unskippable cutscenes from chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5, the NEO battle is fought on a rollercoaster much like the one from the Smart Race, he directly foreshadows Pink in Chapter 5, and his desk is used to collect the eggs in ch4. Not too important, not too unimportant.
With Chapter 5 blurring the boundary between Lightner and Darkner, Ralsei all but confirming Device Theory, and the weird route plus the Ferris wheel indicating that something is not right about the state of Hometown. Meaning that the separation between Light and Dark may in fact be an artificial creation imposed onto an existing location (hence why hometown has been cut off from any sort of outside world), much like the Barrier from Undertale trapped the monsters underground.
And I thought about Flowery, a being that are neither human nor monster, neither Lightner nor Darkner, and how Flowey’s existence was only really explained near the end of the game through the True Lab. Initially presented as a surface level annoyance to antagonize the player.
And I thought about a line that’s stuck with me ever since I replayed Undertale.
Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming.
And I wondered if perhaps, like Flowey, Berdly is what happens when a non-human, non-monster life form tied to the Dreemurs ends up being given an absolute line-of-sight name based on the thing they are.
It’s just a really silly way I figured you could connect those details and it’s got more holes than a termite colony, but I decided to throw it out into the world to see what others think about it.
Just in case my joke predictions end up closer than I expect.
…also this makes him a literal Teacher’s Pet lmao.
