Rei Ayanami

there's been a lot of work done on deltarune, but i think i have an angle that's not been too heavily looked at so far: is deltarune actually saying escapism is bad?

what follows is my interpretation of deltarune thematically, and what it might be saying as of chapter 5; obviously, there are spoilers for that chapter, and the below may turn out entirely wrong at any point. i'm also assuming familiarity with deltarune here.

deltarune is playing with the idea of escapism on a fundamental level; the protagonists are different people in the light and dark worlds, down to their designs, the dark worlds seem much more welcoming and accommodating to susie and kris, oh and the first three are patterned after different forms of entertainment (toys, computers, and TV - with a side of video games).

so what about the next two chapters? do they break the theme here? well, chapter 4 focuses on religion and duty, and escaping through the inescapable prophecy; the world cannot be changed, so why bother engaging? of course, through gerson and ralsei, it rejects this premise outright - falling into the idea that your role is set brings nothing but despair. it's also interesting, narratively speaking, that the sanctuaries are the most hostile-feeling dark worlds so far; they are our first and so far only instance of the "constricting darkness" mechanic and they feature the titan spawn encounters in the dark rooms.

chapter 5 is where things get even more interesting; chapter 5 is escapism through conspiracy.

it's not been a secret that asgore and kris both feel extremely responsible for some incident that happened in the past, probably related to the disappearance of december holiday and the dark worlds. since then, asgore has been neglecting his family, even while pulling stunts to try to "win them back" and "make things normal again"; instead of talking to toriel and kris, he retreated into trying to prove himself right, even entering into a seeming conspiracy with the mayor to continue his investigation despite being discharged from the police force. and, when a dark world conveniently opens up in his flower shop, he immediately rushes head-long into his work, and while he humours the inhabitants of the dark world, it is not until he sees kris being physically harmed that he chooses to stop pursuing the creator of the first dark world.

why is this so interesting? because the dark worlds, for the most part, are fun. they're filled with fun characters to interact with, with fun game mechanics to play with, and they are, generally speaking, filled with a sense of being friendly; their bosses may carry resentment for being abandoned, but even here this is tempered by tenna still wanting to be used.

chapter 5 is no different, except here the inhabitants are all trying to appeal to asgore, specifically. and, in a rather clear metaphor for asgore's life, he only humours them for a moment, fixated too much on what everything means and being proved right to enjoy his time in the dark world with people who want to spend time with him. and, ultimately, this gets flowery hurt and asgore kidnapped, ironically advancing the very plans he was trying to stop.

from a surface reading, there is a temptation towards a very simple reading, right? "escapism is bad if you go too far". except, that doesn't really work with the above or the other themes going on. ralsei ("make some friends in the real world" personified) is happy to have susie stay multiple nights in castle town, and it seems pretty clear that whatever else happens, kris, susie, and to an extent noelle and berdly, have all been helped by their time in the dark worlds (on the normal route, and arguably on the weird route for noelle specifically). nor do i think there's an element of "the dark worlds are fictional and should be engaged with on that level"; leaving aside the above, ralsei's entire character arc, especially in chapter 4, is about how he is a person beyond being a convenient tool; and the events in the dark worlds matter on both emotional and physical levels to the people who experience them.

so, what is it saying? here, we need to look at one of deltarune's other major themes: trauma, its consequences, and responses to it. again, it's pretty obvious that something bad happened in deltarune's past, and it hangs over kris, noelle, and the rest of their families like a cloud. noelle spends her time fruitlessly searching for dess in games and on the internet, kris has cut themself off from the rest of hometown, asgore and carol have both begun their own search for what happened, and the fallout from this hasn't just harmed these characters' relations with each other, but caused harm to the darkeners too; queen, tenna and flowery are all clearly harmed by their owner's problems.

as i said above, the dark worlds - one of which was probably the source of that trauma - seem to be helping them move past it. kris makes friends with susie and ralsei, and begins patching things up with noelle; this is saying nothing . noelle gets to interact with her crush for the first time in a dark world, and learns to be more assertive. asgore realises, eventually, that his obsession needs to be tempered, if not come to an end. the lighteners even start healing the trauma they've caused to the darkeners... until the knight shows up.

(on that note: we're told the shadow crystals are fragments of shattered dreams... and if we go with the idea that december is the knight, or is somehow influencing the knight's manifestation - there's a good theory on youtube positing that the knight is specifically the song "don't forget" - what could be a greater shattered dream than a lost life?)

to bring it to some sort of conclusion, i think deltarune is using escapism as a lens for healing, not condemning it; at worst, it treats escapism as a way for trauma to manifest.