im sweaterman, and i have solved suselle! like all ships, its about deeper emotional connection, not solid canonicity! the need to validate the ship comes from the fact that teenagers and emotionally stunted adults in fandom attach their perception of themselves and the world to the media they consume, and how they consume it! because of this, criticism of the ship becomes criticism of that person, resulting in hostility, name calling, and bad faith arguments! in order to solve shipping, all we need is to grow up a bit, and have compassion for our peers!
hello have you played and or seen the weird route if so can I get your opinions on Noelle as cause something unexpected yet expected happened.
I
Was
RIGHT
Oh how I've been saying for YEARS that this is the real Noelle
The one with Freedom, the one with Power, the one who is finally able to smile because she Chose To, not because she Had To
I didn't get specifics, I'm sure, but I was so close that I'm still taking all this as a Win
So, for anyone reading this hopefully correctly tagged post I won't relitigate the Weird Route's new ending
Other than gushing about it being the best scene in Chapter 5, a relief after the dog shit seen on the Main Route
2nd best part of the chapter was when my new 2nd favorite character, The Roaring Knight, kills Flowery, thank GOD
Anyways, Noelle as we see her is precisely in line with my predictions, the need for freedom, and strength, and to stop being what was forced on her
What I didn't know, was that what Noelle was actually rebelling against was The Prophecy, was this fundamental force in the Universe of Deltarune, and not simple, normal mentally ill girl stuff like Social pressures
It's why she sees herself as so weak on the Main Route, and further explains her infatuation with Susie, as Susie (until ch 5 beat her with a "I Wear Ribbons Now" Stick and shoved a ten foot twenty Lobotomy Needle up her snout) was the great fighter of the Fate, someone who vowed with all her heart to avoid the ending
Susie just lacks whatever power, whatever agency Kris has to Change, being US, of course, whatever that means now, to actually break this course of Fate
As such, she, like everyone else, just has to follow the road, and is gonna crash into the ending regardless
As such I would also like to mention the Abort, where Kris and Noelle get rubber banded back into events that, are literally impossible to have happened, but Had To
It's... jarring, and purposefully so
It's like fighting Gravity mid fall, but you were able to Coyote Time for a few key moments, to walk away from the cliff and away from the dreaded bottom of the pit, but failing to continue the Route just puts you right back to falling, even if it has to yank you up a few feet, defying all logic and Laws of Nature, to do so, so that you Fall the "correct amount" before your Asgorey death on the bottom
Because Nothing Changed.
It's so, so very, very interesting
And I'm super excited to see the conclusion in ch 7, not so much for more Lobotmized Susie lmao
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Part autopsy of Susie's utter character assassination from 5, part crackpot theory, part ralsusie (who do you think i am not to do that), and definitely cope for Toby being functionally braindead
Spoilers for both routes of chapter 5
So, susie was weird. Actually saying susie was weird is being charitable, because what I actually want to say is that a skinwalker took over susie and puppeted her pixeled flesh over 7 hours of gameplay. This post analyses what the fuck happened to Susie, under the presumption that the Suswalker is intentional, and not toby writing shitty yuri with one hand under the table-- taking from a very particular outcome in the 5 Weird Route.
(and by the way... wasn't Ral also a little weird...?)
you know it's bad when even people who like suselle found the confession abrupt. Obviously, i am not that, so to me it was especially jarring, considering how even at the very beginning of 5, when the skinwalker is already in effect, Susie still makes a note to kris that if things go well, they'll get another chance to get the bunker code, only to become as obsessive of noelle later as noelle was of her in the earlier chapters (the most grating part of her character).
But not only does that happen, but there's several instances of weirdness that I continue to be indecisive as to whether they're intentional or not. This post lays out the argument about them being intentional; what they are and why they could be there.
Anti-Susie
upon seeing Susie wearing a ribbon i capped the sprite and sent it to a friend captioned: ABSOLUTELY NOT. While under the assumption Toby is just stupid I am deeply disappointed, the truth of the matter is in my file, Ralsei immediately pointed out that he thought Susie not to like ribbons. He points this out even *after* Susie has already requested to wear a ribbon, which is, in itself, a red flag.
Susie's opposition to ribbons was a core symbol of her as the prophecy-breaker; the person who enacted her will regardless of "fate". I believe if the skinwalker is present there intentionally, this abrupt, one-night turnaround is meant to bring attention to how out of character she is. This is the reason Ralsei, too, brings attention to it in-universe. And it is but one instance of Susie doing a heel-face turn on several aspects of her character.
Susie has not really demonstrated any specific attraction to any one character. By the end of chapter 4, despite the sequence in Noelle's house, she still isn't doting over her in any way that stands out from how she does with everyone else. Then in one night she's suddenly flustered and excited and nervous-- despite Noelle not being her first choice to the festival, which she points out to Noelle herself, while at her house. In the span of morning to dusk of one day, she calls her day with Noelle "one of the best days ever", says that it keeps getting better, and insists that she really, REALLY likes her back.
And yet
-During the date, Susie still brings up how it was special to be alone with Kris at the diner.
-Upon consuming the tree cake in the DW, which in its description is said to taste like joyful memories, Ralsei and Susie think of each other. If dating Noelle truly was one of the best days ever, why did she not think of the ice cream they shared, and instead thinks of the cakes Ral makes?
-Susie's "idea of love" is naive and confused at best; and she emphasises that it requires that someone like you first, implying a substantial aspect of her infatuation is Noelle being infatuated with her,
-Susie says she can't stop thinking about Noelle's... heartbeat. Not anything particular about Noelle's appearance, or personality. Just her heartbeat upon holding her. Weird.
But there's more. Despite Susie's emphasis on rejecting traditional femininity, the minute Kris (and the player) enter castle town immediate focus is placed on Susie's appearance -- especially on her failure to conform to femininity-- and her nervousness and excitement about dating noelle. This ties directly into the ribbon. Susie has always been depicted in suits and other "boyish" clothing. She has strong, assertive, loud demeanor.
Why is everyone in the dark world being so emphatic of Susie gushing over Noelle, Noelle's name being in her every breath?
When Ralsei first makes rooms for Kris and Susie, Susie's door is shaped like a crown. The crowns always stood out. Jokingly I said Ralsei was calling her his princess. Now it turns out Flowery repeatedly addresses her as a princess, and you can dress her as a princess. She never opposes this, nor is she particularly visibly upset about it.
Despite questioning Kris' red heart, she accepts exposition about UI elements without flinching.
She retcons her reason for bullying kris from the explicit connection to their family and Toriel in all prior chapters and Newest Girl Girl, to being about thinking Kris and Noelle were dating. So not only has her current self changed, but also her retroactive understanding of events.
And this, in fact, seems to intensify across the chapter: At the beginning she still tells Kris she'll search for the bunker code, but near the end all of her interactions alone with the flowers are to have shallow one note expositions about love with Noelle. When you first equip the ribbon on her, she wears it as a bandanna, and is later shown with it on her head.
Just, what?
Sequence Breaking
It is at this point that I bring up that 3-5 were originally meant to be all delivered as a single package. Under the presumption that this was intentional, then, was the intent for us to jump immediately from one to the next, and be put off by the abrupt change in tone and characterisation? Is Ral pointing out all the ways in which she acts off and things are off -- despite being consumed by it himself, on some level, meant to remind you of how things were just yesterday?
And if so, what happened in the interlude between 4 and 5?
In my "Off the Rails" Ralsusie analysis of 3 and 4, I posited that Suselle is the "love finds its way to the girl" event of the prophecy. At the time my hypothesis was that Susie was then going to wield the pen of hope and reject that for herself. That would be Susie of course; not the skinwalker. We also know now that the field of pink and gold being scorched by the flames of jealousy wasn't about Asgore and Noelle as I initially thought, but Ralsei feeling jealousy and apprehension of Flowery-- Interestingly, over Susie's attention...
But wait. The fields weren't scorched by the inferno of jealousy. Ralsei has fire magic, and yet he did not burn everything down. But he was substantially pettier and more bitter than his usual self, almost uncharacteristically so--
Things are Weird
The Weird Route has an alternate outcome. Kris and Noelle can drown in the lake. The screen fades to white, and they are forcefully rolled back to-- The suselle scene at the beach.
While it continues to play out, it is intercut with Noelle's awareness that she could not defy fate. That because the player did not input "Proceed" sufficiently quick, Noelle alone could not change the set outcome. Only the player, whom she understands as Kris, has the agency to oppose it.
She still romances Susie, but the intercut scenes and her prior monologue about observing herself going through the motions imply that in this instance, she is acutely aware that she could be free, and couldn't do so. These thoughts exist, but are not outwardly expressed whatsoever. Instead, she posits to Susie the question as to whether she should run away, sequence break-- and then turns the possibility back and refuses to do so, wanting to stay for Susie's sake.
When you use the Shadow Crystal while the party's all together in 5, you can see "Susie at a window, unkempt and glaring." Noelle describes watching herself as if from behind glass.
Susie's resolve at the end of chapter 4 is to defy fate at whatever cost, so that the final tragedy does not have to occur. She leaves Toriel's house and canonically heads to the Dark World.
And then the following morning, a skinwalker.
Here's the crackpot hypothesis: What allows you to reach SIDE B is your power as the player. Susie does not have this power.
Susie wants to defy fate. Susie tries to defy fate. The next day, who is at the Dark world is The Girl. The girl who wears ribbons. The princess. The girl that love finds its way to.
Susie says Ralsei is "chattier" when Kris is not around. Ralsei stood up to fate by obeying her command to remove his hat. The other thing that everyone is emphatic about in the DW, besides susie being utterly besotted with Noelle, is that Ralsei should be wearing a hat. The hat is forced upon him twice.
Ralsei wanted to believe things should change, just as Susie did. She inspired key steps he took toward his own personhood. She was the one to urge him to make his room his.
Ralsei believed. Ralsei stood up to fate. Ralsei broke the rules. The universe quickly reminded him that he should not do so-- Or Everything Breaks Apart.
Ralsei prays for Kris. Ralsei prays for Susie, and prays, desperate already, for things to change.
They don't. Love finds its way to the girl. The princess with her heart crossed with hope. And her ribbons.
Quick final thoughts
This in itself is an appetizer for a grander theory about the prophecy and the game making sure things stay on track across all media that takes after the prophecy; from Dragon Blazers to Lord of the Hammer to Deltarune itself. The theory's being worked on with two very dear friends, but it's still at the workshop. This post is solely my thoughts, though they definitely were a part of it. Look forward to it being cooked! Needless to say there's lots of interesting stuff with this idea of the game "railroading" everyone by force so that things play out how they're "supposed to"...
or toby's just a huge fucking idiot. but the weird route is almost too good for that to be entirely true
since the new deltarune chapter is releasing tomorrow, i was just watching someone play chapter 4 the first time, and as i was watching the scene where susie heals jackenstein i realized something
so, ralsei wasn't able to heal jackenstein because he kept healing his mask, and it kept absorbing the magic, right?
but, ralsei has lots of experience with healing magic, so he should have realized healing the mask wouldn't do anything, right?
unless, he kept healing the mask because he wasn't able to realize it wasn't jackenstein's face. he though that jackenstein's mask was really him, and failed to recognize the real person underneath
i've seen a lot of interpretations of how this scene shows the way ralsei tries to solve problems on the surface, while susie instead goes for the root, and while i definitely think this is true, what if it goes deeper than that?
ralsei, as kind as he is, really struggles to see himself as nothing more than an object, not more than something that doesn't matter with feelings that don't matter
and, as kind as he is (or tries to be) to his fellow darkners, this view that he has of them and himself sometimes bleeds through in really nasty ways, such as at the end of chapter 3, when he was essentially trying to cheer tenna up by telling him he will be abandoned no matter what and should just accept it, that his feelings don't matter and he himself doesn't matter beyond his use
well, what if this scene is trying to establish that same idea, just in a more metaphorical way?
the way he couldn't help jackenstien, no matter how hard he tried, because he couldn't see jackenstein, the darkner, as the person he was, and instead could only see the object that represents him?
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The problem with this idea is that Suselle and Ralsusie are opposed at their roots.
Noelle is the person Susie is being pushed towards. Everyone and everything works to make sure it just sorta happens *to* her. Nothing *challenges* Suselle, and neither Susie nor Noelle had to actually do anything to make it happen. And while Noelle is a *nice* girl, she is deeply messed up in a way where she struggles to actually care about other people. Susie is an object to Noelle. A thing she can use to replace Dess, and substitute her own lack of self-confidence. It *feels* like Noelle is making progress on her issues when Susie is around, but it's an illusion. When pressed she's more than *capable* of standing up for herself, but she's so used to being helpless and relying on other people to do anything scary or emotionally taxing for her, that if someone is around who is willing to do so, she snaps into helpless damsel mode. Furthermore, the thing which keeps her docile is her fear of being punished for disobedience. But as long as one person is around to tell her "what you're doing is okay, keep doing it" she has no problem doing it. So Susie isn't giving her the confidence to say no, she's giving her a refuge of affirmation she can return to. Suselle for Susie would be just accepting the path laid out for her. Even if there's a Prophecized bump in the road, the whole thing is so mechanical, their interactions so formulaic, it seems like it's what Fate wants. Susie doesn't even ask Noelle to the festival. Noelle does, Susie dodges the question, and gets Reverse Psychology'd by Carol into saying yes out of spite. And it wouldn't be a happy ending for either of them. Susie recieves endless praise from Noelle, but it's all very shallow, and nothing Noelle says or does is all that *challenging.* Plus, the increasing sense of neediness and deepseated insecurities and traumas Noelle just refuses to address, because for Noelle, as long as she has Susie, she has another escape from her problems. She can continue to run away, distract herself, not have to be the helpless weak girl next door without actually having to confront the issues that keep her that way.
Ralsusie on the other hand is the ultimate rejection of Fate. Their bond was formed haphazardly not out of necessity or formula, but out of Susie's refusal *not* to get to know him more. Their relationship is constantly challenged, and every time Susie fights harder for it. They're the other's mirror image. One small fluffy and sweet, the other big spiky and rude, both alone for so long, made to feel inherently lesser, expected to fall in line or suffer punishment. Wanting to do good, to have friends, crack jokes, help people, have hope. Both resigning themselves to playing the roles expected of them, not knowing what else to do, until they meet each other, bouncing off at first, but seeing the other for who they are after. They push each other to be better. Ralsei is always critical of Susie when she does something wrong, but he learned not to nag her about it. She needs to feel like she's safe to make mistakes, so he scolds her gently and nudges her in the proper direction. He sees that she's a wonderful person, that she's as loyal and brave as they come, has a deeply kind heart, and he wants her to see that too, and embody that. Susie never stops insisting that Ralsei be his own person. Initially ragging on him for being such a pushover, but genuinely seeming to have a problem with the idea of him and his people being inherently lesser servants. She sees there's more to him than he acts like, than he wants to admit, and she wants to see him grow into that, because she likes what she's seen already. When they talk about the other there's deep, deep admiration. Susie goes out of her way to ask Ralsei out to the Festival as soon as she can, practically begs him to go and is determined to still be with him after he explains why he can't go. Ralsei wants Kris to buy something for her in his name, and begs them to be there for her because he can't be.
Last but not least, Noelle will *not* like Ralsei.
Firstly, she's a jealous person, attacking Berdly for expressing interest in Susie, nagging Kris about why they won't change seats with her and why they're the Susie expert, and saying she just wants to help them so they don't have to be the one who *gets to be* (freudian slip) tormented by her. She can sort of accept this when it's Kris because they're her lifelong best friend who she misses deeply, but this weird boy getting all that attention from *her* Susie? No way. She also conveniently leaves out the part of her "dream" where she saw the weird boy talking and laughing and eating cotton candy with Susie, *alone.*
Second, despite their superficial similarities, Noelle and Ralsei are opposites as people. Ralsei is deeply selfless despite fearing otherwise. He will always put himself and his desires on the line for the greater good. For friendship, for hope, for the happiness of someone else. Noelle is deeply selfish. She acts outwardly kind and accomodating, but she'll throw Kris under the bus by allowing them to continue being assaulted by Susie, so that Susie won't be kicked out and she can continue pining after her. She'll throw Berdly under the bus by freezing him because refusing to freeze the enemy here means admitting she could have refused before and chose not to, and the shame of that would just kill her. She feels entitled to the things she wants because she's Nice and Obedient. Ralsei is a rule follower. He will break rules, but prefers order and reason to just doing whatever you want. Noelle is a rule breaker. She acts obedient, but will disobey the second she feels she won't be punished, because she hates the feeling of being controlled. Ralsei genuinely wants the best for other people. Noelle struggles to see other people as people. She's locked in the mindset of a scared little girl in an abusive household, where easing your own pain and avoiding punishment matter more than anything, and since you're a child, your empathy hasn't fully developed, so right and wrong don't matter that much either, except in how you will and won't be punished.
Third, and last, Ralsei is the person Noelle likes to think of herself as. Small, meek, disempowered, but endlessly giving, kind, forgiving. An unappreciated martyr deserving of being uplifted and shown they have value. As much shit as Noelle has been through, as much as no one understands her pain, she's actually really priviliged. She lives in a mansion where she has pretty much anything she could want. Everyone loves her and wants to be around her. And most of how she behaves socially is a performance, armor protecting that abused child, whose only concern is its own safety. She's too wrapped up in her pain, the grief of loss, the trauma of abuse, the sadness of watching friends slip away from her, and the rage of being caged in an expectation of perfection, to be able to see that she is not a turbovictim who nothing ever goes right for. She's practically a Princess. Ralsei, the actual Prince has less than her.
Put this all together, and we have the reason Ralsusie and Suselle don't mix.
Susie choosing Ralsei means choosing to fight on for the bonds she made herself, for a person she cares about, taking the hits as they come because it's worth it just to spend one more day with him. Her choosing Noelle means taking the path of least resistance. A relationship that doesn't challenge her with someone nice whom she has no special bond with, but at least promises safety. And if these two opposing ideas weren't enough, Noelle is not going to let some freak steal *her* position. *She* should be the one Susie dotes on and tells they matter. *She* should be the one going on dates and eating candy with her. *She's* the unappreciated martyr, all she does is deny herself to whatever everyone else wants, what makes *him* so deserving?!
Since I see possibly some of the worst character assassinations on Ralsei within fandom spaces from multiple angles, I'm going to break down some of the most key aspects of his character and challenge assumptions that many of you have formed about this character in your head. This is mainly going to deal with key motives for Ralsei rather than general characterization.
There will be citations involved, because I'm that frustrated. I will be using the Deltarune text dump for citations, and will give a lead in line for each scene I am talking about. A link will be provided to the specific line.
Ready?
Let's start with possibly one of the biggest things that you NEED to understand about this character and his motives.
RALSEI DOES NOT WANT THE PROPHECY TO OCCUR
Or at least, he doesn't want the Final Tragedy to occur.
I see this take a lot where people insist that Ralsei is the person in the group who is subservient to the prophecy. He wants it to occur, because who is he to fight fate? When... uh... that could not be further from the truth. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out by Ralsei MULTIPLE TIMES.
Let's start with the final prophecy breakdown.
"I thought if I said something different..."
In this scene, Ralsei is fully breaking down. He spells out that he was trying to break the prophecy from the beginning while using kindness as his method. It is only when he is seeing that he failed completely that he begins to break down and says "Our fate is already decided."
This is not something that he wants. This is not something that he desires. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out yet again.
"I want to believe... it can change! That there isn't just one ending!"
He wishes to change the prophecy. He wants with every fiber of his being that the prophecy can change, even when the prophecy is staring him in the face.
But isn't this just him gaining hope from Susie's infectious hope?
NO.
Ralsei, SINCE THE BEGINNING, has been attempting to break the prophecy. In fact, he attempts to get You in on it as well. Let's go all the way back to Chapter 1, which is largely neglected when discussing Ralsei.
"Kris, once we pass through this door..."
I want you to really pay attention to what is being said here. Ralsei is telegraphing that he believes your choices DO matter, even though he KNOWS there is only one ending foretold exactly by the prophecy. He claims that how you treat people makes all the difference, AKA his plan of "if we were just kind enough...". He even goes the extra mile to say that you won't find the end result favorable if you don't, alluding to the prophecy's actual ending.
This means that Ralsei has been attempting to break the prophecy since Ch1, since before he befriended Susie, and he likely hatched this plan before he even met Kris or Susie. After all, he tells you pretty quickly at the dummy...
"Though FIGHTing is unnecessary in this world..."
He has had this planned for a WHILE.
Yes, Susie's infectious hope gives Ralsei the support he needs to keep believing, but she is not the sole person breaking a prophecy. Remove the dichotomy from your head of Susie being the rebel and Ralsei being the rule follower. It's not quite that simple.
But doesn't Ralsei stress how the three of them are heroes and how the Roaring needs to be avoided?
Yes, but I think people get far too hung up on this fact when... it is in fact very pertinent for everyone's continued survival that the world does not literally end.
"When the LIGHT is subsumed by SHADOW"
Understand that Ralsei does not want the prophecy broken just to break it. He wants it to end because the prophecy's outcome is unbelievably cruel. Replacing it with a worse cruelty is not something he wants.
But doesn't he worry that if the prophecy is broken, it can only lead to something worse?
"If there was something else, what would it be...?"
THIS IS WEIRD ROUTE EXCLUSIVE DIALOGUE.
These lines alone cannot be taken alone as his entire thought process on the prophecy. You have to take them in conjunction with the fact that he is visibly and constantly attempting to break the prophecy. You have to acknowledge that this is Weird Route Exclusive.
I would be doing this a disservice to not note that Ralsei expresses similar apprehensions when going off the path in one of the minigames in Chapter 3.
"I feel kind of... glad we're going back"
And yet, he chooses to fight for a different ending regardless. Since ch1, he has been doing this. In ch4, he stresses that he wanted to believe that it could change.
So what gives?
Well for one, Ralsei chose to break the prophecy using kindness as his method. Honestly, breaking from the analysis just a bit, I find it immensely satisfying that he looked in the face of a cruel prophecy and said that he would break it by trying to be its antithesis: Kind.
So what purpose would Mind Breaking people, destroying friendships, killing countless Darkners, and putting someone in a coma serve for someone like Ralsei?
Sure, the prophecy is broken, but everyone else would be so horrendously broken afterwards that it wouldn't even be worth it. Ralsei doesn't want the prophecy broken for the sake of it! He wants it broken, because he saw SOME cruelty in it, and didn't want that for people who he hadn't even met yet! He DELIBERATELY CHOSE to be kind.
It's the same reasoning for why he recounts the long and short of the prophecy at the beginning, and why he yells when the Roaring almost begins. Sure, it COULD be a detour to spawn a Titan this very moment, but that would... very likely kill everyone. Lightners being stuck in an endless night is not a good alternative to whatever the prophecy says.
He wants a GOOD ENDING for everyone and those he loves.
I don't want to ignore his fears here, but I also think that people are overblowing them and using them to absorb the rest of his character.
He has shown that he wants to break the prophecy, but he has simultaneously shown a fear of what is off the path
"I just didn't know... what was over there."
And quite frankly, I think that's natural. Remember, the prophecy ends with
ONLY THEN, WILL THE WORLDS BE SAVED
The worlds WILL be saved at the end of the prophecy, even if the Final Tragedy occurs. It is an entirely natural fear to say "Hey, what happens if we DO prevent the Final Tragedy, and that somehow causes the worlds to not be saved?"
And, this is all that Ralsei has ever known. What would a world be like where he doesn't know what lies ahead?
But Ralsei chooses to try to break the prophecy anyway. This is indisputable ever since Chapter 1 at the Grand Doors. He may have fears about doing so, but he has made the conscious decision to do it scared.
You cannot use his fears to discard all of his other actions. Do not do that.
So, in conclusion for this segment, while Ralsei may have fears about what would exist in the prophecy's place, he has made the conscious decision to try to fight the prophecy ever since the beginning of Chapter 1.
---
RALSEI'S DISCARDING COMPLEX
Oh boy.
Some of you may have believed that something was missing from that last segment, and if you did, then please pay attention to this one.
At the beginning of Chapter 3, we get a very lengthy scene between Susie and Ralsei where Ralsei seems to be priming Susie to "forget about him and make some real friends".
Many... MANY people think this is him priming her for the Final Tragedy to simply Occur.
Not only have we discussed in length that Ralsei is not on team-prophecy, but this doesn't make any sense if he IS talking about the prophecy.
We know since the beginning of Chapter 1 that Ralsei has been trying to break the prophecy through kindness. However, we learn in Chapter 3 that Ralsei honestly thinks that he SHOULD be left behind.
"So... if you ever feel like we're not enough..."
The Final Tragedy is also something that Susie says this about:
"And obviously YOU wouldn't let it happen."
Correct, Susie, considering he has been trying his damndest to break it even before you saw it.
If the Final Tragedy only required one ambiguous sacrifice, or if the prophecy targeted Ralsei specifically (or something like Castle Town being sealed), Ralsei would have next to no issues with that occurring.
...Which means that him planning to break the prophecy since Chapter 1 no longer makes sense.
So this cannot be him talking about the prophecy.
And this is an aspect of Ralsei's character that so... SO many people miss in favor of making his only issue the prophecy.
Ralsei's entire spiel here is because he is a DARKNER.
"Then, selfishly, I... started feeling sad, too."
This entire scene is not about the prophecy. It's not about fate. It is about the difference between the Light and Dark World, and the limitations of Darkners when the lights turn on.
Darkners cannot exist in the Light World as themselves. Ralsei cannot be friends with Susie in real life. Ralsei cannot go with them. Ralsei cannot be there to buy Susie Ice Cream at the festival.
This is an entirely independent issue from the prophecy, and is central to Ralsei's identity plot. Please stop conflating them.
Even if Ralsei managed to break the entire prophecy, and his friends managed to walk free and happy, he still couldn't go with them.
Ralsei cannot be Ralsei except for in a Dark Fountain. Otherwise, he's just an object. He is tied to a closet in a high school.
Even if the prophecy is broken, Kris and Susie will grow up one day. They'll leave Highschool. Heck, either of them might go to college. To stay friends with Ralsei and any other Darkner (HE SPECIFICALLY BRINGS UP LANCER TOO) is to be tied down in a remote town.
"We can't do it all. So... if you ever feel like we're not enough..."
"Just forget about us and make some real friends, okay?"
He is priming them to forget about him, because he knows that he is nothing more than an object. He's trying to downplay his own feelings and his own existence so that when they get bored of him, they don't feel bad about it.
Because he is an object. Because he is something impermanent. Because he is doomed to be left alone in a closet when he is finally discarded.
And this is spelled out again with what he says to Tenna.
"Mr. Tenna... I... understand how you feel..."
Ralsei thinks that Darkners shouldn't make Lightners worry about them. He believes that it is a blessing to be able to bring life to Lightner's lives for a bit, but it's only natural for that time to come to an end.
I constantly see all of Ralsei's talk about identity and being forgotten as tied to the prophecy in some way, but I will stress this again, even IF the prophecy was entirely removed from this game and was never a thing, Ralsei would still be doomed to being forgotten due to his nature as a Darkner.
Think about that.
This trend of him slowly trying to give himself permission to feel certain ways is caused by this impermanence of his existence.
"But recently... I'm starting to feel like... Like I'm developing my own opinions."
"Should a... Darkner... be feeling like this?"
He's unsure if he even should be developing his own preferences.
"It's nice that Ralsei is Ralsei"
"No one's... no one's ever said that to me before..."
"I just wonder what... being "Ralsei-like" even is...?"
He struggles to even begin to think of what that might look like.
None of this matters, even if the prophecy is broken.
Because to him, he is an object, and one day, all of this will not matter. No matter how much he yearns for it, it cannot be his. (Hopefully one day, that will change).
"I realized... being friends is... a responsibility"
"A responsibility... I can't... fully complete"
In conclusion for this section,
Ralsei's identity struggle is intertwined with the fact that he is a Darkner, an object, and impermanent. He tries to pull away from his friends to make this fact easier on them. He tries to downplay his own emotional growth by reminding himself that he is nothing more than an illusion who should be happy that he is forgotten about.
This occurs regardless of whether or not the prophecy is broken or not. Even if he entirely shattered it, his fate would still be the same.
---
RALSEI SUSPICION CLAIMS
This is going to be my general lightning round segment for countering people who think that Ralsei is somehow scheming in some way or being actively malicious to characters, you included.
This one will dip into the metanarrative, because I see a lot of mischaracterization coming from the player-positive side of the fanbase. Come on yall, you're not making it easier to defend your case.
"Ralsei knows of Kris' betrayal, and will join the betrayal group with them."
No. Negative. I'm going to use this quote a lot in this section, because it is constantly ignored during Ralsei theorizing and I'm going to pull my hair out.
"About the "rules" of the world. About the prophecy."
The TWO THINGS that Ralsei knows about are
The rules of the world and how it functions
What the prophecy says will happen
I have seen a tendency to use these two aspects to think that Ralsei is all-knowing. However, we can see at multiple points in the game that this isn't true. The Titan being summoned in Chapter 4 threw him so off that he had to improvise on the fly to use the soul to seal it.
"Kris... you can seal fountains, can't you?"
These two things actually leave a lot of ambiguity. Sure, Ralsei can give verbose tutorials, enough to where he actively can say action commands and understands what you are seeing.
"Press [Z] when the white rectangle's in the blue box!"
This does NOT however mean that he knows literally everything that is happening. In fact, it would be out of character for Ralsei to know about what Kris is doing and NOT snap. Remember, Ralsei saw the Knight summon a Titan. It's well known the Knight is creating fountains.
"The KNIGHT that pulls the Fountains from the Earth."
"THE KNIGHT WHICH MAKES FROM BLACKENED KNIFE."
And what have we seen Ralsei do, explicitly, when someone is about to create a fountain and bring the Roaring?
"Stop!"
Ralsei, after an entire chapter of fading into the background while the Lightners are with their real friends, yells at all of the Lightners around, in spite of his Darkner status, to tell them to cut that out right now.
He interrupts them. He asks them what in the world they're all doing. He's EXASPERATED and TERRIFIED.
And we see this AGAIN when the Knight is about to do the exact same thing.
"DON'T MAKE ANOTHER FOUNTAIN!!!"
The game would have to do a hell of a lot of setup in the opposite direction for me to believe for a SECOND that Ralsei is fully gearing up to betray the party. In fact, if he was working with Kris and the Knight, then why on earth is he dealing full damage during the Knight Fight?
Even further, why does he say this when you win?
"Somehow, I thought we... had won... for a moment..."
He hoped for the briefest of moments that the prophecy had been averted early, and yet it remains the same.
These are not the words of someone who is an ally to Kris and the Knight. I reject the analysis that he is a fellow traitor wholeheartedly.
Also let's not ignore the fact of how much he has bonded with Susie. I feel like people assume that Ralsei is besties with Kris for some reason when he has been bonding with Susie for the entire narrative. That could be an analysis of its own, but I need to really not overextend this more than I have. Susie and Ralsei enjoyers, I'm so sorry for your erasure.
"But what if part of the prophecy says that Kris will betray everyone?"
Sure. We can make up random prophecy panels that we never saw all day. The prophecy also says that Ralsei is going to stab Susie 27 times in the chest, so now I can justify that he's evil!
Do you see how this sounds stupid?
The game hasn't done the setup required to prove that Ralsei knows about Kris' betrayal yet, and in fact has gone FAR in the opposite direction.
One of the points of the prophecy is that it is frustratingly vague. That's why Tenna can still live even if he was cleaved red by blade. It doesn't say literally everything that will occur. It just gives key events in vague terms. As of now, making up prophecy panels when we went through the entire chapter with them seems like cheap writing, and I would be disappointed if the game went that direction to pull a fast one.
The only panel we confirmed haven't seen is the Final Tragedy, which, quite frankly, a betrayal doesn't warrant this kind of reaction from Ralsei.
"Ralsei is purposefully sending you away to scheme with Kris about something nebulous".
This one makes me mad, because it's the most uncharitable interpretation of events, and is the most popular.
Deltarune fans largely consider the lack of information as malice. Consistently, when the fandom has a lack of information about a character, the worst is always assumed. Look at the fanon interpretation of Gaster. Look at the fanon interpretation of FRIEND. These are two characters we know very little about, and yet they are pretty universally blamed for everything (And I'll die on the hill that Gaster is our #1 supporter and on "break the prophecy" gang stfu).
This is no different from Ralsei.
Because we don't get to see something, people think that he must be doing something nefarious with Kris.
The only suspicious send-away is in Chapter 4, and we know why it was suspicious. Maybe Chapter 3. Yes, I will defend and die on this hill.
In both Chapters 1 and 2, Kris and Ralsei were not doing anything important. They were waiting for Susie to do something. Most importantly, the party was split.
You are not useful watching them stand around. In fact, both times, Susie is doing something incredibly dangerous. In Chapter 1, Susie is staging a jailbreak. This is something you'd probably want the soul present for. The soul protects the Fun Gang, remember? In fact, you can see the soul zoom in from off screen when Susie engages with Lancer. This is a known ability the soul has at this point, and is VERY useful when the party is split.
In Chapter 2, from Kris and Ralsei's POV, Susie is once again staging another jailbreak to get Noelle to Berdly on the roof. Of course, we know that it ended up being a date staged by Queen, but Ralsei doesn't know that! The party is once again split, and Ralsei uses your ability to go to someone else to aid Susie. This ends in you third wheeling, but again, Ralsei didn't know that.
In Chapter 3, things start getting a bit murkier. Was it really necessary for Ralsei to send you away? Like bro just walk into the room. But also, the other two moments end with them clearly in conversation. Kris and Ralsei aren't in conversation during this one, so this one is entirely net-neutral. One of Kris' dialogue options is that they were Talking. Personally, I enjoy this scene for the sole purpose that if you hang around, Ralsei seems genuinely taken aback that you are deciding to hang around with him. "Let's just chill, man" indeed lmao. I can't get a read on this one. It's like he wants to send you away to watch the more interesting thing that's happening instead of hanging out with him.
In Chapter 4, it's the most blatant. Dude runs off before your screen is even dark. He's running ahead to check on the prophecy. We know. Ironically, I believe this to be the most suspicious any of these moments are, and it was already answered what the hell he was doing.
And, again, I feel like absence of information is being treated as infallible proof that Ralsei is scheming about the Evil Soul with Kris. Because you don't know something, the gaps are filled in with the worst case scenario.
2/4 scenarios, sending you away was the correct choice. 1/4, Ralsei is having an identity crisis and I have no clue what's going through his head. 1/4 scenarios he's having an aneurysm that the prophecy is still alive and it has nothing to do with us.
And, if you don't believe me about the whole splitting the party thing being important?
Remember when you get separated from Susie during the Sound of Justice?
Kris recognizes that the party is split, and that they cannot find her in the dark. So, they shut their eyes, and guess what happens?
Over and over again, your soul zooms in from the side to protect Susie. Like a beacon in the dark to her exact location. You last long enough for Kris to find their way to her. The soul being used in case the party is split is a SKILL that Ralsei SHOWED KRIS HOW TO USE IN CHAPTER 1 (the only required close your eyes section).
The closing eyes segments are THE MOST suspicious part about this character, but is utterly blown out of proportion compared to all other behaviors we have seen from him in the game.
"Ralsei doesn't say things and hides things from his friends."
I will turn you into a caesar salad.
"I know so many things I, don't know. When to say them."
READ THIS ENTIRE STRETCH OF DIALOGUE AND COME BACK HERE.
This is an IDENTIFIABLE character flaw that Ralsei has. However, people use it to somehow prove in a roundabout way that Ralsei is evil, wants to hide something from his friends for some asinine reason, or is a liar in general.
No, it's literally because he got loaded with all of the information of how the world works and what their fates are, that he doesn't know how to say them. Ralsei's lies are consistently ones of omission.
When was he supposed to tell Susie that Darkners patterned after a memory of a loved one only appear under specific darknesses? When was he supposed to say the exact mechanics of how to start the Roaring? When was he supposed to drop the bomb of the final tragedy? When is he supposed to tell everyone about the soul?
Some of these, he could have said earlier, but he doesn't know how to say it in a way that doesn't scare people. Like yeah man, go ahead and lore drop on the end of the world while you're just getting to know these people. Ralsei is already managing trying to break a prophecy through kindness while also struggling with new emotions that he doesn't know if he should be able to feel. On top of all of that, he has been saddled with so much terrifying information, and feels that if anyone should be saddled with that information, it should be him.
This is a character flaw, but it is not out of malice.
What would you do if you suddenly were overloaded with all of the intricate mechanics of your world? Ralsei had an answer, and it was the MANUAL. We can see how well info-dumping goes for him. REMEMBER THIS THROWAWAY LINE? FIRST INDICATOR THAT HE STRUGGLES WITH PORTRAYING THIS IN A DIGESTIBLE MANNER.
(You tried to read the manual, but it was so dense it made your head spin...)
Yes, it's hurting him AND his friends when he keeps hiding things from them. That's why Susie lifts him to his feet. Heck, she even gives him that little bit of extra solace by letting him hide the prophecy for just a bit longer.
"That Last Prophecy thing... I don't need to see it."
But, she tells him that he's not doing the rest of this alone. Susie, unlike most of the fanbase, can accept the explanation that Ralsei gave her while in tears. He's overwhelmed. There's something that terrifies him. She respects his opinion on that, even if she erroneously runs ahead to try to find the Old Man and sees the Last Prophecy.
Ralsei needs to learn how to let his friends shoulder the burden with him. You can see that begin to happen when he talks about Susie's infectious hope at the prophecy. His want to protect his friends comes from a good place, but it's hurting them and himself far more than simply telling them would.
He is learning to work through that, just as he is learning how to have his own wants and desires. He's learning, and the fact that people do not give him enough leeway to do so is genuinely disheartening.
In fact, I've seen people take it so far as to say that Ralsei had to do SOMETHING to learn all of this information, and that makes it bad somehow.
"I didn't ask to know, but I do."
He directly refutes this. End discussion.
"Ralsei hates you the Player."
Man. I think yall just want every character to hate you for no discernible reason. Toby "I hope you can be friends with everyone someday" Fox did not make this game for yall to assign hatred from characters where none exists. Not rehashing this here.
Here's the post I already made on this.
"What if Ralsei is just lying?"
Yeah bro. Sure. Let's just assume that everything we've been shown for four chapters is all just a setup for one, awful plot twist. Remember that Deltarune is a NARRATIVE with limited time. If the characters that we have seen are entirely fake, then that's bad writing. DO NOT GO FOR "TWISTS" RATHER THAN "CONSISTENT WRITING".
At multiple points, Ralsei is in TEARS trying to explain himself and why he is the way that he is. He's NOT in the mental state to spin lies. What are we even doing if you cannot trust explicit characterization?
---
In conclusion,
As of the current ch3+4 characterization of Ralsei, he has explicitly been stated to be trying to break the prophecy since Chapter 1. He may have fears of what it'll look like if he DOES manage to break it. However, his aim for breaking the prophecy is to bring about a better outcome. Allowing the Roaring to happen or Weird Route to occur would obviously be against that.
Ralsei's identity issues stem from the fact that he is a Darkner. He is an object. He is an illusion. He is impermanent. He cannot continue being friends. He cannot continue being himself. One day, his friends will not be able to go to a storage closet in the High School and will move on, and he is trying to convince himself that he's content with that.
Many theories about Ralsei being malicious or acting in subterfuge are taking the worst case interpretation of events. You have to actively ignore other key moments of Ralsei's dialogue.
This post will likely be added to as time goes on, since I am going to start using it in Ralsei discussions due to constantly retreading the same ground. I hope that it, at the very least, calls forward dialogue that people might have missed or challenges some beliefs on Ralsei.
Surprisingly, that's a pretty good analysis! You've independently arrived at many of the same conclusions I've had since Chapter 2! Most people who try to analyze Ralsei suck dick at doing it, but you've painted a relatively accurate depiction of who he is. He's a a scared, lonely young man, tormented by forces beyond his comprehension and control, who believes himself fundamentally powerless, and yet he still *has* to try to stop the cruel fate he knows is coming. He can't just let it happen, no matter how hopeless it seems, no matter how much he wishes he could just accept that there was no hope, because in his heart, he's a hero.
There are only two, maybe three things I'll knock you for.
1. I do think that Ralsei's identity issues and the Torment of the Prophecy are interlinked. They are separate issues, but the throughline between them is the idea that there are some terrible things which will happen, and which simply can't be changed, so you should just accept them. In the case of his nature as a Darkner, no one else seems to be as overcome with grief at not being real, or as convinced that their lives have no value. Everyone else seems to be doing pretty much fine. Like Seam says, while Lightners give you your purpose, you find ways to pass the time, or you go crazy. Ralsei has denied himself any method of passing the time, because he believes to be anything *but* a servant, a plaything, is to overstep his boundaries. "Selfish," even for wanting someone else to be happy, because objects don't have wants. It's not even like he thinks other Darkners are worthless fake people. He puts in a lot of effort to respect them and accommodate them. It's something he's internalized mostly about himself.
In the case of the Prophecy, as I'll get to in a moment, as much as he fears it, he can't bring himself to take drastic action, because of the potential for worse outcomes. As much as he doesn't want it to be true, and tries to defy it with platitudes, his hopes are weak, and he does not expect anything really to come from them. There's a lot of "we were supposed to do this" and a lot of "everything will happen exactly as the Prophecy has foretold." Essentially, it reads to me like he's trying to ease his own pain if nothing comes from it. He wishes he could just slide into a comfortable numbness, an acceptance that he did all he could and hope is lost. It's something I can also read into in his terrible pep talk to Tenna. This was coming no matter what. It's not your fault. Take pride in playing your part well and let the end wash over you. Because of this throughline, it's a prediction that I have, though not really backed up by any evidence, that both Ralsei's complete knowledge of the Prophecy, and worldview of Darkners (but himself in particular) not counting as people and deserving the right to want or need things come from the same source. It just seems to make sense thematically.
However, in both the case of his nature as a Darkner and the Prophecy, all this stuff about how there's nothing he can do is just a coping mechanism. Something he tells himself when he's hurting to deny his own feelings, bury his pain so it'll be easier to keep going forward, because he's scared, and sad, and tired, and if he can't keep going despite it all, if he breaks, then how can he protect the people he cares about?
It's something he consistently tries to advise others, because due to his total lack of life experience, he doesn't have any idea what else he can say to comfort them. He just suggests what he himself does. He tells Kris that Spamton was just a corrupted program, and that at least he's their ally now, so they should just accept it. He tells Susie that he shouldn't have feelings and isn't real, so she should just forget him and make some real friends. He tells Tenna that it's not his fault he's being thrown away and that it happens to everyone, so he should just be happy he got the chance to make people smile and accept his death, because trying to fight it will just make everyone sad.
None of this is actually what he believes in his heart. When push actually comes to shove, when there's something he wants, someone he cares about, something to fight for, he fights on anyway. Because that's just the kind of person he is. He's a hero, and for as much as it hurts, he'll never stop trying to help people, trying to save people, trying to make a better future for everyone.
2. As I mentioned briefly above, I believe is that Ralsei is hoping that he can defy the cruel ending of the Prophecy, without actually having to break from it. His acts of defiance are, for the most part, impotent. Nothing is meaningfully changed about the major beats of the story by being nice to people. Yes, it feels better, but either way, the enemies are out of the way and the heroes can proceed. There's no reason the Prophecy should care about the fine details as long as the stuff that matters is in place.
If Ralsei were willing, he could attempt to entirely derail the Prophecy. Go to Card Kingdom early and stage a revolution against Spades King. But even though that is not itself a violent or destructive act, it still means the Prophecy *cannot* simply keep going as intended. Which means that there's no promise something really bad won't happen. He does not want the Prophecy to happen, but he stays pretty neatly within the lines of what it says will happen, because not knowing what's going to happen is *terrifying,* especially when he's been told that there is no salvation for the world outside the Prophecy. So he hopes that if he just says something different, and acts as kind as he can to everyone all the time, things will just magically work out. It's naive, and sad, but it's all he's had to go on for so long. Susie was the first person he ever met who could see the Prophecy, know the horrible fates declared immovable, and simply say "no." Not to squirm and try and find some workaround, to just refuse. To laugh, and insist that they just wouldn't let it happen, even if only for his sake. It was thanks to her that they managed to overcome a Titan, something that should have been their demise.
Thusly, I predict that going forward, Ralsei will be a lot more brazen in his attempts to break the Prophecy. His hope is renewed, and for the first time, he's starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the Prophecy isn't a necessary evil, isn't something they have to go along with as much as possible, something they can only defy in small ways that don't ultimately change the big picture. For the first time he's starting to think that maybe, it can be completely subverted, and that even if something bad happens, they'll manage to survive.
3. This one is more of a minor point which I don't have all that much to say about, but I do think it's not impossible that Ralsei knows Kris is working with the Knight. It does seem to line up with how cloying he is toward them, and how much he emphasizes their choice and that "don't worry, we can do anything!" How much he tries to hype them up and insist that whatever they want to do is actually great. It could be he's hoping that if he can only show them they don't need to side with the Knight, that they have friends who care about them and will stick by them, and that maybe they can achieve their goals (likely to help Noelle and make her happy again after all her trauma) without ending the world, that they might just defect permanently to the good guys' side. Again, there's not much evidence to support this other than it seeming to make sense, so I don't have too much stock in it.
Please let me know if these points make sense and whether or not you agree! I've spent a long time working on my interpretation of Ralsei and ideas of what's next for him. Once again, very good job on this analysis!
I agree in some aspects but largely disagree in others. I'm glad you liked the analysis overall! However, I'm going to have to delve into the prophecy a bit here to talk about why I think Ralsei's method is actually working. Dealing with things like the prophecy is absolutely 100% speculation due to the fact that we only know what it can't be.
I have gone extensively on the main post into why I do not believe in point #1. While you can make a throughline, I believe it to be superficial. Him burying his pain is rooted in the fact that, of everyone, he is the disposable one.
"And if anyone's going to hurt..."
I simply do not see acceptance in anything that Ralsei is doing in regards to the prophecy, even though he accepts that he will be abandoned one day. He loves Kris and Susie. He is thinking about their future when he talks about being abandoned, because there will be nothing to abandon if either of them are hurt.
This is not something that he has decided "must happen".
I do believe that his hope massively falters in the Church, and I think that it's entirely reasonable for that to occur considering he's staring his own failure in the face.
"I... I want to... I want to believe again."
Again. He DID believe it could change. There was not acceptance, only fear when he's staring down the blue glass.
You have largely reiterated many examples of him downplaying Darkners in general. Spamton, in his pursuit of freedom, nearly killed the Fun Gang and went out of control in order to go beyond his purpose as a Darkner. For Ralsei, that's a terrifying prospect. Also, I think Spamton talking about needing the soul to reach HEAVEN is massive foreshadowing for Ralsei's character, but that's neither here nor there.
Everything you've said on the Darkner side of things, I agree with.
It's the prophecy part I don't.
Because, what most of this reads to me is, why isn't he doing enough?
Many examples of him "Not really actually trying to break the prophecy" seem like downplaying the fact that he DID try to be kind in order to stop it. In a prophecy which has an ending written in cruelty, that is the most radical thing you can try to do against it, especially because he likely doesn't know how each point in the prophecy would transpire.
You say that his actions against the prophecy mean very little, but I believe the exact opposite.
Everyone believes we are going for a clean breakage of the prophecy. We will defy that final panel with the resolve to change fate. However, I don't think people are really paying attention to the Old Man's dialogue.
"Though... I do like goin' the wrong way."
You get better ideas that way, do you? In fact, if you go the wrong way in game and start breaking Ralsei's mantra of kindness, things start changing. Darkners aren't recruited to Castle Town, making it just a little bit emptier. Berdly loses his arm in the Light World. Tenna dies. Jackenstein dies. Your point is that ultimately, these don't change ENOUGH.
I jus' think, those words shine a bit too bright."
You all are stuck on the path so blue, that it's all you can see.
However, with Ralsei's actions against the prophecy, we're working between the lines, with what the prophecy doesn't say. His actions do not seem like they're doing anything to him, because he cannot see the other routes like we can. And yet, he earnestly believed that being kind could make a difference.
And it does.
Berdly keeps his arm. Tenna lives and gets to be with a new Lightner instead of being thrown away. Jackenstein is saved and lifted up.
With Susie's reaction against the Final Prophecy and how Ralsei fights against it since the beginning, it's fairly safe to say that it leaves little room for interpretation. Susie is visibly broken when she sees it, after all. It would have to be something that she would see and INSTANTLY recognize as horrifying. However, the old man is suggesting that going between the lines is our greatest strength.
...or being there when ink washes over all the pages with the white pen of hope.
Regardless, I'm straying too far from Ralsei.
Your point #2 was also largely mentioned in the post. Ralsei wants an ending, but he doesn't want one that ends in further tragedy than the one that already exists. The worlds already WILL be saved in the prophecy as long as the tragedy occurs, but he wants to break the tragedy. Going stupid crazy is NOT GOING TO WORK.
Because, as we've seen, there's a really easy way of breaking the prophecy. Do you wanna know how the prophecy has broken ingame already, when something goes so terribly off course?
THEN THE WORLD
WAS COVERED
IN DARKNESS.
When you die, when you give up before the story has seen its fruition, that's it. The worlds are not saved should you choose to abandon them.
Sure, he could try to derail many things, but how does he know that his actions will not make things worse? It's the Weird Route line that I brought up.
But the fact of the matter is that despite all of these requirements, he is still trying. Sure, it might not seem like enough, but considering the thin line that he is treading here, I think he's doing a spectacular job.
I do not have anything to say about Point #3. I have already expressed my points against it, and believe the plot needs to do a lot of work to convince me that it would not just be a cheap plot twist.
I appreciate the counter-analysis, but I respectfully am unable to reconcile that Ralsei would accept the prophecy. Even when he is seeing it with his own eyes, he's in despair and begins to hope again. There is no part of him that's in acceptance.
Y'know, I like you. This is exactly the kind of discussion I always hope to have when it comes to Deltarune Theorizing. Concise, well-considered arguments which properly cite their sources, delivered in a timely and civil manner. Although I do think you've misread what I meant a little bit. You seem to be lumping me in with the general consensus, which isn't quite the case.
I neither believe Ralsei has accepted the Prophecy, nor do I believe he's not doing enough.
What you conclude at the end is in fact exactly my stance. He cannot, will not accept the end. Scared as he is, he has to try. What I meant by the above is that he wishes he could accept it. He has not decided that these things must happen, but everything would be so much easier if he just accepted. Because fighting for a better end is bitter, thankless, tiring work, which is routinely met with indifference by the Prophecy, which does not change no matter how you turn your head. He's full of doubts. He's worried it might just make things worse. And as cruel as it is, at least the Prophecy promises things will be okay. It could have been so easy, so simply, if it weren't so cruel! Because as powerless as he feels, as much as he has it in his head that he isn't real, he is alive now. And as long as that's the case he just can't let those things happen.
The only thing I mean is that, when he's stuck in his own head, he's putting himself down for struggling. For being so afraid, so selfish that he's willing to jeopardize everything just in the hopes that he doesn't have to live knowing he let something bad happen. And when something does go wrong, he tries to tell himself that it's okay, that he did all he could but ultimately there was nothing he could do. Still though, his behavior and his actions tell the real truth. That he could never accept it.
You did change my mind somewhat on the bit about whether or not Ralsei is doing enough, though. I do still think that being kind alone won't be enough to make the Prophecy budge, since it doesn't seem to care what happens one way or the other as long as the major beats still get hit, but after thinking about it it does seem like kindness was a carefully considered decision on Ralsei's part. It's wishful thinking, perhaps, but it isn't a choice made out of fear, or simple optimism.
And, yeah, no pushback on the Kris point. It's leaning more into a headcanon on my behalf with the lack of evidence so I fully support just ignoring it.
I should also clarify I didn't mean this as a counteranalysis, because again, most of what you said in the original post are things I have believed wholeheartedly since Chapter 2. Just a few additional things that I saw differently.
I really must commend you for changing my mind on the point about Ralsei's choice to be kind, though! I put a lot of time and consideration into my theories and I argue them very strongly, so that I've had my mind changed is a welcome surprise! You have my utmost respect for that.
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts in the future, and hopefully have more discussions like this!
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Since I see possibly some of the worst character assassinations on Ralsei within fandom spaces from multiple angles, I'm going to break down some of the most key aspects of his character and challenge assumptions that many of you have formed about this character in your head. This is mainly going to deal with key motives for Ralsei rather than general characterization.
There will be citations involved, because I'm that frustrated. I will be using the Deltarune text dump for citations, and will give a lead in line for each scene I am talking about. A link will be provided to the specific line.
Ready?
Let's start with possibly one of the biggest things that you NEED to understand about this character and his motives.
RALSEI DOES NOT WANT THE PROPHECY TO OCCUR
Or at least, he doesn't want the Final Tragedy to occur.
I see this take a lot where people insist that Ralsei is the person in the group who is subservient to the prophecy. He wants it to occur, because who is he to fight fate? When... uh... that could not be further from the truth. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out by Ralsei MULTIPLE TIMES.
Let's start with the final prophecy breakdown.
"I thought if I said something different..."
In this scene, Ralsei is fully breaking down. He spells out that he was trying to break the prophecy from the beginning while using kindness as his method. It is only when he is seeing that he failed completely that he begins to break down and says "Our fate is already decided."
This is not something that he wants. This is not something that he desires. In fact, this is explicitly spelled out yet again.
"I want to believe... it can change! That there isn't just one ending!"
He wishes to change the prophecy. He wants with every fiber of his being that the prophecy can change, even when the prophecy is staring him in the face.
But isn't this just him gaining hope from Susie's infectious hope?
NO.
Ralsei, SINCE THE BEGINNING, has been attempting to break the prophecy. In fact, he attempts to get You in on it as well. Let's go all the way back to Chapter 1, which is largely neglected when discussing Ralsei.
"Kris, once we pass through this door..."
I want you to really pay attention to what is being said here. Ralsei is telegraphing that he believes your choices DO matter, even though he KNOWS there is only one ending foretold exactly by the prophecy. He claims that how you treat people makes all the difference, AKA his plan of "if we were just kind enough...". He even goes the extra mile to say that you won't find the end result favorable if you don't, alluding to the prophecy's actual ending.
This means that Ralsei has been attempting to break the prophecy since Ch1, since before he befriended Susie, and he likely hatched this plan before he even met Kris or Susie. After all, he tells you pretty quickly at the dummy...
"Though FIGHTing is unnecessary in this world..."
He has had this planned for a WHILE.
Yes, Susie's infectious hope gives Ralsei the support he needs to keep believing, but she is not the sole person breaking a prophecy. Remove the dichotomy from your head of Susie being the rebel and Ralsei being the rule follower. It's not quite that simple.
But doesn't Ralsei stress how the three of them are heroes and how the Roaring needs to be avoided?
Yes, but I think people get far too hung up on this fact when... it is in fact very pertinent for everyone's continued survival that the world does not literally end.
"When the LIGHT is subsumed by SHADOW"
Understand that Ralsei does not want the prophecy broken just to break it. He wants it to end because the prophecy's outcome is unbelievably cruel. Replacing it with a worse cruelty is not something he wants.
But doesn't he worry that if the prophecy is broken, it can only lead to something worse?
"If there was something else, what would it be...?"
THIS IS WEIRD ROUTE EXCLUSIVE DIALOGUE.
These lines alone cannot be taken alone as his entire thought process on the prophecy. You have to take them in conjunction with the fact that he is visibly and constantly attempting to break the prophecy. You have to acknowledge that this is Weird Route Exclusive.
I would be doing this a disservice to not note that Ralsei expresses similar apprehensions when going off the path in one of the minigames in Chapter 3.
"I feel kind of... glad we're going back"
And yet, he chooses to fight for a different ending regardless. Since ch1, he has been doing this. In ch4, he stresses that he wanted to believe that it could change.
So what gives?
Well for one, Ralsei chose to break the prophecy using kindness as his method. Honestly, breaking from the analysis just a bit, I find it immensely satisfying that he looked in the face of a cruel prophecy and said that he would break it by trying to be its antithesis: Kind.
So what purpose would Mind Breaking people, destroying friendships, killing countless Darkners, and putting someone in a coma serve for someone like Ralsei?
Sure, the prophecy is broken, but everyone else would be so horrendously broken afterwards that it wouldn't even be worth it. Ralsei doesn't want the prophecy broken for the sake of it! He wants it broken, because he saw SOME cruelty in it, and didn't want that for people who he hadn't even met yet! He DELIBERATELY CHOSE to be kind.
It's the same reasoning for why he recounts the long and short of the prophecy at the beginning, and why he yells when the Roaring almost begins. Sure, it COULD be a detour to spawn a Titan this very moment, but that would... very likely kill everyone. Lightners being stuck in an endless night is not a good alternative to whatever the prophecy says.
He wants a GOOD ENDING for everyone and those he loves.
I don't want to ignore his fears here, but I also think that people are overblowing them and using them to absorb the rest of his character.
He has shown that he wants to break the prophecy, but he has simultaneously shown a fear of what is off the path
"I just didn't know... what was over there."
And quite frankly, I think that's natural. Remember, the prophecy ends with
ONLY THEN, WILL THE WORLDS BE SAVED
The worlds WILL be saved at the end of the prophecy, even if the Final Tragedy occurs. It is an entirely natural fear to say "Hey, what happens if we DO prevent the Final Tragedy, and that somehow causes the worlds to not be saved?"
And, this is all that Ralsei has ever known. What would a world be like where he doesn't know what lies ahead?
But Ralsei chooses to try to break the prophecy anyway. This is indisputable ever since Chapter 1 at the Grand Doors. He may have fears about doing so, but he has made the conscious decision to do it scared.
You cannot use his fears to discard all of his other actions. Do not do that.
So, in conclusion for this segment, while Ralsei may have fears about what would exist in the prophecy's place, he has made the conscious decision to try to fight the prophecy ever since the beginning of Chapter 1.
---
RALSEI'S DISCARDING COMPLEX
Oh boy.
Some of you may have believed that something was missing from that last segment, and if you did, then please pay attention to this one.
At the beginning of Chapter 3, we get a very lengthy scene between Susie and Ralsei where Ralsei seems to be priming Susie to "forget about him and make some real friends".
Many... MANY people think this is him priming her for the Final Tragedy to simply Occur.
Not only have we discussed in length that Ralsei is not on team-prophecy, but this doesn't make any sense if he IS talking about the prophecy.
We know since the beginning of Chapter 1 that Ralsei has been trying to break the prophecy through kindness. However, we learn in Chapter 3 that Ralsei honestly thinks that he SHOULD be left behind.
"So... if you ever feel like we're not enough..."
The Final Tragedy is also something that Susie says this about:
"And obviously YOU wouldn't let it happen."
Correct, Susie, considering he has been trying his damndest to break it even before you saw it.
If the Final Tragedy only required one ambiguous sacrifice, or if the prophecy targeted Ralsei specifically (or something like Castle Town being sealed), Ralsei would have next to no issues with that occurring.
...Which means that him planning to break the prophecy since Chapter 1 no longer makes sense.
So this cannot be him talking about the prophecy.
And this is an aspect of Ralsei's character that so... SO many people miss in favor of making his only issue the prophecy.
Ralsei's entire spiel here is because he is a DARKNER.
"Then, selfishly, I... started feeling sad, too."
This entire scene is not about the prophecy. It's not about fate. It is about the difference between the Light and Dark World, and the limitations of Darkners when the lights turn on.
Darkners cannot exist in the Light World as themselves. Ralsei cannot be friends with Susie in real life. Ralsei cannot go with them. Ralsei cannot be there to buy Susie Ice Cream at the festival.
This is an entirely independent issue from the prophecy, and is central to Ralsei's identity plot. Please stop conflating them.
Even if Ralsei managed to break the entire prophecy, and his friends managed to walk free and happy, he still couldn't go with them.
Ralsei cannot be Ralsei except for in a Dark Fountain. Otherwise, he's just an object. He is tied to a closet in a high school.
Even if the prophecy is broken, Kris and Susie will grow up one day. They'll leave Highschool. Heck, either of them might go to college. To stay friends with Ralsei and any other Darkner (HE SPECIFICALLY BRINGS UP LANCER TOO) is to be tied down in a remote town.
"We can't do it all. So... if you ever feel like we're not enough..."
"Just forget about us and make some real friends, okay?"
He is priming them to forget about him, because he knows that he is nothing more than an object. He's trying to downplay his own feelings and his own existence so that when they get bored of him, they don't feel bad about it.
Because he is an object. Because he is something impermanent. Because he is doomed to be left alone in a closet when he is finally discarded.
And this is spelled out again with what he says to Tenna.
"Mr. Tenna... I... understand how you feel..."
Ralsei thinks that Darkners shouldn't make Lightners worry about them. He believes that it is a blessing to be able to bring life to Lightner's lives for a bit, but it's only natural for that time to come to an end.
I constantly see all of Ralsei's talk about identity and being forgotten as tied to the prophecy in some way, but I will stress this again, even IF the prophecy was entirely removed from this game and was never a thing, Ralsei would still be doomed to being forgotten due to his nature as a Darkner.
Think about that.
This trend of him slowly trying to give himself permission to feel certain ways is caused by this impermanence of his existence.
"But recently... I'm starting to feel like... Like I'm developing my own opinions."
"Should a... Darkner... be feeling like this?"
He's unsure if he even should be developing his own preferences.
"It's nice that Ralsei is Ralsei"
"No one's... no one's ever said that to me before..."
"I just wonder what... being "Ralsei-like" even is...?"
He struggles to even begin to think of what that might look like.
None of this matters, even if the prophecy is broken.
Because to him, he is an object, and one day, all of this will not matter. No matter how much he yearns for it, it cannot be his. (Hopefully one day, that will change).
"I realized... being friends is... a responsibility"
"A responsibility... I can't... fully complete"
In conclusion for this section,
Ralsei's identity struggle is intertwined with the fact that he is a Darkner, an object, and impermanent. He tries to pull away from his friends to make this fact easier on them. He tries to downplay his own emotional growth by reminding himself that he is nothing more than an illusion who should be happy that he is forgotten about.
This occurs regardless of whether or not the prophecy is broken or not. Even if he entirely shattered it, his fate would still be the same.
---
RALSEI SUSPICION CLAIMS
This is going to be my general lightning round segment for countering people who think that Ralsei is somehow scheming in some way or being actively malicious to characters, you included.
This one will dip into the metanarrative, because I see a lot of mischaracterization coming from the player-positive side of the fanbase. Come on yall, you're not making it easier to defend your case.
"Ralsei knows of Kris' betrayal, and will join the betrayal group with them."
No. Negative. I'm going to use this quote a lot in this section, because it is constantly ignored during Ralsei theorizing and I'm going to pull my hair out.
"About the "rules" of the world. About the prophecy."
The TWO THINGS that Ralsei knows about are
The rules of the world and how it functions
What the prophecy says will happen
I have seen a tendency to use these two aspects to think that Ralsei is all-knowing. However, we can see at multiple points in the game that this isn't true. The Titan being summoned in Chapter 4 threw him so off that he had to improvise on the fly to use the soul to seal it.
"Kris... you can seal fountains, can't you?"
These two things actually leave a lot of ambiguity. Sure, Ralsei can give verbose tutorials, enough to where he actively can say action commands and understands what you are seeing.
"Press [Z] when the white rectangle's in the blue box!"
This does NOT however mean that he knows literally everything that is happening. In fact, it would be out of character for Ralsei to know about what Kris is doing and NOT snap. Remember, Ralsei saw the Knight summon a Titan. It's well known the Knight is creating fountains.
"The KNIGHT that pulls the Fountains from the Earth."
"THE KNIGHT WHICH MAKES FROM BLACKENED KNIFE."
And what have we seen Ralsei do, explicitly, when someone is about to create a fountain and bring the Roaring?
"Stop!"
Ralsei, after an entire chapter of fading into the background while the Lightners are with their real friends, yells at all of the Lightners around, in spite of his Darkner status, to tell them to cut that out right now.
He interrupts them. He asks them what in the world they're all doing. He's EXASPERATED and TERRIFIED.
And we see this AGAIN when the Knight is about to do the exact same thing.
"DON'T MAKE ANOTHER FOUNTAIN!!!"
The game would have to do a hell of a lot of setup in the opposite direction for me to believe for a SECOND that Ralsei is fully gearing up to betray the party. In fact, if he was working with Kris and the Knight, then why on earth is he dealing full damage during the Knight Fight?
Even further, why does he say this when you win?
"Somehow, I thought we... had won... for a moment..."
He hoped for the briefest of moments that the prophecy had been averted early, and yet it remains the same.
These are not the words of someone who is an ally to Kris and the Knight. I reject the analysis that he is a fellow traitor wholeheartedly.
Also let's not ignore the fact of how much he has bonded with Susie. I feel like people assume that Ralsei is besties with Kris for some reason when he has been bonding with Susie for the entire narrative. That could be an analysis of its own, but I need to really not overextend this more than I have. Susie and Ralsei enjoyers, I'm so sorry for your erasure.
"But what if part of the prophecy says that Kris will betray everyone?"
Sure. We can make up random prophecy panels that we never saw all day. The prophecy also says that Ralsei is going to stab Susie 27 times in the chest, so now I can justify that he's evil!
Do you see how this sounds stupid?
The game hasn't done the setup required to prove that Ralsei knows about Kris' betrayal yet, and in fact has gone FAR in the opposite direction.
One of the points of the prophecy is that it is frustratingly vague. That's why Tenna can still live even if he was cleaved red by blade. It doesn't say literally everything that will occur. It just gives key events in vague terms. As of now, making up prophecy panels when we went through the entire chapter with them seems like cheap writing, and I would be disappointed if the game went that direction to pull a fast one.
The only panel we confirmed haven't seen is the Final Tragedy, which, quite frankly, a betrayal doesn't warrant this kind of reaction from Ralsei.
"Ralsei is purposefully sending you away to scheme with Kris about something nebulous".
This one makes me mad, because it's the most uncharitable interpretation of events, and is the most popular.
Deltarune fans largely consider the lack of information as malice. Consistently, when the fandom has a lack of information about a character, the worst is always assumed. Look at the fanon interpretation of Gaster. Look at the fanon interpretation of FRIEND. These are two characters we know very little about, and yet they are pretty universally blamed for everything (And I'll die on the hill that Gaster is our #1 supporter and on "break the prophecy" gang stfu).
This is no different from Ralsei.
Because we don't get to see something, people think that he must be doing something nefarious with Kris.
The only suspicious send-away is in Chapter 4, and we know why it was suspicious. Maybe Chapter 3. Yes, I will defend and die on this hill.
In both Chapters 1 and 2, Kris and Ralsei were not doing anything important. They were waiting for Susie to do something. Most importantly, the party was split.
You are not useful watching them stand around. In fact, both times, Susie is doing something incredibly dangerous. In Chapter 1, Susie is staging a jailbreak. This is something you'd probably want the soul present for. The soul protects the Fun Gang, remember? In fact, you can see the soul zoom in from off screen when Susie engages with Lancer. This is a known ability the soul has at this point, and is VERY useful when the party is split.
In Chapter 2, from Kris and Ralsei's POV, Susie is once again staging another jailbreak to get Noelle to Berdly on the roof. Of course, we know that it ended up being a date staged by Queen, but Ralsei doesn't know that! The party is once again split, and Ralsei uses your ability to go to someone else to aid Susie. This ends in you third wheeling, but again, Ralsei didn't know that.
In Chapter 3, things start getting a bit murkier. Was it really necessary for Ralsei to send you away? Like bro just walk into the room. But also, the other two moments end with them clearly in conversation. Kris and Ralsei aren't in conversation during this one, so this one is entirely net-neutral. One of Kris' dialogue options is that they were Talking. Personally, I enjoy this scene for the sole purpose that if you hang around, Ralsei seems genuinely taken aback that you are deciding to hang around with him. "Let's just chill, man" indeed lmao. I can't get a read on this one. It's like he wants to send you away to watch the more interesting thing that's happening instead of hanging out with him.
In Chapter 4, it's the most blatant. Dude runs off before your screen is even dark. He's running ahead to check on the prophecy. We know. Ironically, I believe this to be the most suspicious any of these moments are, and it was already answered what the hell he was doing.
And, again, I feel like absence of information is being treated as infallible proof that Ralsei is scheming about the Evil Soul with Kris. Because you don't know something, the gaps are filled in with the worst case scenario.
2/4 scenarios, sending you away was the correct choice. 1/4, Ralsei is having an identity crisis and I have no clue what's going through his head. 1/4 scenarios he's having an aneurysm that the prophecy is still alive and it has nothing to do with us.
And, if you don't believe me about the whole splitting the party thing being important?
Remember when you get separated from Susie during the Sound of Justice?
Kris recognizes that the party is split, and that they cannot find her in the dark. So, they shut their eyes, and guess what happens?
Over and over again, your soul zooms in from the side to protect Susie. Like a beacon in the dark to her exact location. You last long enough for Kris to find their way to her. The soul being used in case the party is split is a SKILL that Ralsei SHOWED KRIS HOW TO USE IN CHAPTER 1 (the only required close your eyes section).
The closing eyes segments are THE MOST suspicious part about this character, but is utterly blown out of proportion compared to all other behaviors we have seen from him in the game.
"Ralsei doesn't say things and hides things from his friends."
I will turn you into a caesar salad.
"I know so many things I, don't know. When to say them."
READ THIS ENTIRE STRETCH OF DIALOGUE AND COME BACK HERE.
This is an IDENTIFIABLE character flaw that Ralsei has. However, people use it to somehow prove in a roundabout way that Ralsei is evil, wants to hide something from his friends for some asinine reason, or is a liar in general.
No, it's literally because he got loaded with all of the information of how the world works and what their fates are, that he doesn't know how to say them. Ralsei's lies are consistently ones of omission.
When was he supposed to tell Susie that Darkners patterned after a memory of a loved one only appear under specific darknesses? When was he supposed to say the exact mechanics of how to start the Roaring? When was he supposed to drop the bomb of the final tragedy? When is he supposed to tell everyone about the soul?
Some of these, he could have said earlier, but he doesn't know how to say it in a way that doesn't scare people. Like yeah man, go ahead and lore drop on the end of the world while you're just getting to know these people. Ralsei is already managing trying to break a prophecy through kindness while also struggling with new emotions that he doesn't know if he should be able to feel. On top of all of that, he has been saddled with so much terrifying information, and feels that if anyone should be saddled with that information, it should be him.
This is a character flaw, but it is not out of malice.
What would you do if you suddenly were overloaded with all of the intricate mechanics of your world? Ralsei had an answer, and it was the MANUAL. We can see how well info-dumping goes for him. REMEMBER THIS THROWAWAY LINE? FIRST INDICATOR THAT HE STRUGGLES WITH PORTRAYING THIS IN A DIGESTIBLE MANNER.
(You tried to read the manual, but it was so dense it made your head spin...)
Yes, it's hurting him AND his friends when he keeps hiding things from them. That's why Susie lifts him to his feet. Heck, she even gives him that little bit of extra solace by letting him hide the prophecy for just a bit longer.
"That Last Prophecy thing... I don't need to see it."
But, she tells him that he's not doing the rest of this alone. Susie, unlike most of the fanbase, can accept the explanation that Ralsei gave her while in tears. He's overwhelmed. There's something that terrifies him. She respects his opinion on that, even if she erroneously runs ahead to try to find the Old Man and sees the Last Prophecy.
Ralsei needs to learn how to let his friends shoulder the burden with him. You can see that begin to happen when he talks about Susie's infectious hope at the prophecy. His want to protect his friends comes from a good place, but it's hurting them and himself far more than simply telling them would.
He is learning to work through that, just as he is learning how to have his own wants and desires. He's learning, and the fact that people do not give him enough leeway to do so is genuinely disheartening.
In fact, I've seen people take it so far as to say that Ralsei had to do SOMETHING to learn all of this information, and that makes it bad somehow.
"I didn't ask to know, but I do."
He directly refutes this. End discussion.
"Ralsei hates you the Player."
Man. I think yall just want every character to hate you for no discernible reason. Toby "I hope you can be friends with everyone someday" Fox did not make this game for yall to assign hatred from characters where none exists. Not rehashing this here.
Here's the post I already made on this.
"What if Ralsei is just lying?"
Yeah bro. Sure. Let's just assume that everything we've been shown for four chapters is all just a setup for one, awful plot twist. Remember that Deltarune is a NARRATIVE with limited time. If the characters that we have seen are entirely fake, then that's bad writing. DO NOT GO FOR "TWISTS" RATHER THAN "CONSISTENT WRITING".
At multiple points, Ralsei is in TEARS trying to explain himself and why he is the way that he is. He's NOT in the mental state to spin lies. What are we even doing if you cannot trust explicit characterization?
---
In conclusion,
As of the current ch3+4 characterization of Ralsei, he has explicitly been stated to be trying to break the prophecy since Chapter 1. He may have fears of what it'll look like if he DOES manage to break it. However, his aim for breaking the prophecy is to bring about a better outcome. Allowing the Roaring to happen or Weird Route to occur would obviously be against that.
Ralsei's identity issues stem from the fact that he is a Darkner. He is an object. He is an illusion. He is impermanent. He cannot continue being friends. He cannot continue being himself. One day, his friends will not be able to go to a storage closet in the High School and will move on, and he is trying to convince himself that he's content with that.
Many theories about Ralsei being malicious or acting in subterfuge are taking the worst case interpretation of events. You have to actively ignore other key moments of Ralsei's dialogue.
This post will likely be added to as time goes on, since I am going to start using it in Ralsei discussions due to constantly retreading the same ground. I hope that it, at the very least, calls forward dialogue that people might have missed or challenges some beliefs on Ralsei.
Surprisingly, that's a pretty good analysis! You've independently arrived at many of the same conclusions I've had since Chapter 2! Most people who try to analyze Ralsei suck dick at doing it, but you've painted a relatively accurate depiction of who he is. He's a a scared, lonely young man, tormented by forces beyond his comprehension and control, who believes himself fundamentally powerless, and yet he still *has* to try to stop the cruel fate he knows is coming. He can't just let it happen, no matter how hopeless it seems, no matter how much he wishes he could just accept that there was no hope, because in his heart, he's a hero.
There are only two, maybe three things I'll knock you for.
1. I do think that Ralsei's identity issues and the Torment of the Prophecy are interlinked. They are separate issues, but the throughline between them is the idea that there are some terrible things which will happen, and which simply can't be changed, so you should just accept them. In the case of his nature as a Darkner, no one else seems to be as overcome with grief at not being real, or as convinced that their lives have no value. Everyone else seems to be doing pretty much fine. Like Seam says, while Lightners give you your purpose, you find ways to pass the time, or you go crazy. Ralsei has denied himself any method of passing the time, because he believes to be anything *but* a servant, a plaything, is to overstep his boundaries. "Selfish," even for wanting someone else to be happy, because objects don't have wants. It's not even like he thinks other Darkners are worthless fake people. He puts in a lot of effort to respect them and accommodate them. It's something he's internalized mostly about himself.
In the case of the Prophecy, as I'll get to in a moment, as much as he fears it, he can't bring himself to take drastic action, because of the potential for worse outcomes. As much as he doesn't want it to be true, and tries to defy it with platitudes, his hopes are weak, and he does not expect anything really to come from them. There's a lot of "we were supposed to do this" and a lot of "everything will happen exactly as the Prophecy has foretold." Essentially, it reads to me like he's trying to ease his own pain if nothing comes from it. He wishes he could just slide into a comfortable numbness, an acceptance that he did all he could and hope is lost. It's something I can also read into in his terrible pep talk to Tenna. This was coming no matter what. It's not your fault. Take pride in playing your part well and let the end wash over you. Because of this throughline, it's a prediction that I have, though not really backed up by any evidence, that both Ralsei's complete knowledge of the Prophecy, and worldview of Darkners (but himself in particular) not counting as people and deserving the right to want or need things come from the same source. It just seems to make sense thematically.
However, in both the case of his nature as a Darkner and the Prophecy, all this stuff about how there's nothing he can do is just a coping mechanism. Something he tells himself when he's hurting to deny his own feelings, bury his pain so it'll be easier to keep going forward, because he's scared, and sad, and tired, and if he can't keep going despite it all, if he breaks, then how can he protect the people he cares about?
It's something he consistently tries to advise others, because due to his total lack of life experience, he doesn't have any idea what else he can say to comfort them. He just suggests what he himself does. He tells Kris that Spamton was just a corrupted program, and that at least he's their ally now, so they should just accept it. He tells Susie that he shouldn't have feelings and isn't real, so she should just forget him and make some real friends. He tells Tenna that it's not his fault he's being thrown away and that it happens to everyone, so he should just be happy he got the chance to make people smile and accept his death, because trying to fight it will just make everyone sad.
None of this is actually what he believes in his heart. When push actually comes to shove, when there's something he wants, someone he cares about, something to fight for, he fights on anyway. Because that's just the kind of person he is. He's a hero, and for as much as it hurts, he'll never stop trying to help people, trying to save people, trying to make a better future for everyone.
2. As I mentioned briefly above, I believe is that Ralsei is hoping that he can defy the cruel ending of the Prophecy, without actually having to break from it. His acts of defiance are, for the most part, impotent. Nothing is meaningfully changed about the major beats of the story by being nice to people. Yes, it feels better, but either way, the enemies are out of the way and the heroes can proceed. There's no reason the Prophecy should care about the fine details as long as the stuff that matters is in place.
If Ralsei were willing, he could attempt to entirely derail the Prophecy. Go to Card Kingdom early and stage a revolution against Spades King. But even though that is not itself a violent or destructive act, it still means the Prophecy *cannot* simply keep going as intended. Which means that there's no promise something really bad won't happen. He does not want the Prophecy to happen, but he stays pretty neatly within the lines of what it says will happen, because not knowing what's going to happen is *terrifying,* especially when he's been told that there is no salvation for the world outside the Prophecy. So he hopes that if he just says something different, and acts as kind as he can to everyone all the time, things will just magically work out. It's naive, and sad, but it's all he's had to go on for so long. Susie was the first person he ever met who could see the Prophecy, know the horrible fates declared immovable, and simply say "no." Not to squirm and try and find some workaround, to just refuse. To laugh, and insist that they just wouldn't let it happen, even if only for his sake. It was thanks to her that they managed to overcome a Titan, something that should have been their demise.
Thusly, I predict that going forward, Ralsei will be a lot more brazen in his attempts to break the Prophecy. His hope is renewed, and for the first time, he's starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the Prophecy isn't a necessary evil, isn't something they have to go along with as much as possible, something they can only defy in small ways that don't ultimately change the big picture. For the first time he's starting to think that maybe, it can be completely subverted, and that even if something bad happens, they'll manage to survive.
3. This one is more of a minor point which I don't have all that much to say about, but I do think it's not impossible that Ralsei knows Kris is working with the Knight. It does seem to line up with how cloying he is toward them, and how much he emphasizes their choice and that "don't worry, we can do anything!" How much he tries to hype them up and insist that whatever they want to do is actually great. It could be he's hoping that if he can only show them they don't need to side with the Knight, that they have friends who care about them and will stick by them, and that maybe they can achieve their goals (likely to help Noelle and make her happy again after all her trauma) without ending the world, that they might just defect permanently to the good guys' side. Again, there's not much evidence to support this other than it seeming to make sense, so I don't have too much stock in it.
Please let me know if these points make sense and whether or not you agree! I've spent a long time working on my interpretation of Ralsei and ideas of what's next for him. Once again, very good job on this analysis!
Prev anon again, to elaborate on what I mean by my theory so I look (slightly less?) insane re: asriel is what causes ralsei's outburst. (Will be long, feel free not to answer if you don't want lol)
Firstly, I don't think azzy replaces ralsei, that'd be ridiculous and invalidate all the character development up til now and place too much importance on a character who's already had plenty of elaboration. I just think that the mere existence of another person who CAN fit the same role as ralsei would be a huge blow to his ego. I don't think asriel will actually do much in this story outside of elaborating on other characters' themes in chapter 5.
And to talk about why I think the heroes aren't set in stone, catty's sermon you can read in the top right during the church scene of chapter 4 mentions one of the heroes who is a man with horns she imagines as cute because the prophecy has no images. I think it'd be a reach to say she's seen ralsei, and even more of one to say she synthesized an image similar to him from first principles alone, so I'm inclined to believe she means asriel (whom ralsei is noted multiple times to look like, has an established connection to catty via the chapter 1 prom story, and wrote a letter with similar wording to her tangent in places that you can read in the very same scene). Given she says specifically that there're no images of the prophecy, I also think that the pane pictures in the dark sanctuaries depict not The Truth as the words do, but somewhere between the knight's personal interpretation and the interpretation they're trying to push. (Though it's reasonable to say the pictures are simply Truth hidden from lightner eyes since the reality of the claim that there're no pictures from catty isn't examined so we really don't know either way)
In terms of the wording, "alone in deepest dark" both reflects an interesting series of discrepancies between ralsei's interpretation of the prophecy and the actual words, and has a second reasonable conclusion you could come to from hearing the phrase. Ralsei's words about the prophecy, while not incorrect, are more specific than the original. Ralsei smoothes out the possibility of a cage with human parts not being a human (precludes the vessel), the girl not being a monster (precludes not much but still shows the relative stiffness of this interpretation), and the prince not being from the dark. The prophecy says the prince is alone IN the dark, which I could take as the prince being a dweller of literal darkness, but I could also just as easily take as he's lonely and in a figurative dark place mentally. Which doesn't seem like a stretch to apply to asriel given his personality in the last game. Given how much weight gerson lends to interpretation, and the fact that you can rules lawyer out of tenna's death because the lord of screens being killed wasn't specified (only being cleaved), I don't think it's unreasonable to think the prophecy has wiggle room for things to go at least slightly differently.
Also notable is the fact that toriel's dark world outfit incorporates a crown and has her sitting on a throne while asgore is depicted in the prophecy wearing a crown, with next chapter's dark world seemingly shaping up to take place inside flower king. And also remember what azzy was in undertale, he has a pre-established association with princeliness. As well, we have seen from the design of asriel's final god of hyperdeath form in undertale that the triangles of the delta rune have been depicted as representations of souls before, so those triangles in DR could possibly either mean two lightners and a darkner or two monsters and a human.
I don't expect to be changing your mind on anything, but I hope I at least look less insane after elaborating on my thoughts. Even if this's super scattershot. Though, my highly specific and weird prediction aside, I really like your idea of how it might shake out. That's an interpretation of noelle you don't see so often. Keep on theorizin'
Elaborations noted. However, problems.
First, on Asriel being damaging to Ralsei's ego. What ego? We're talking about a guy who puts himself down to the extent he doesn't even think he deserves to suffer, because to say that he suffers is to acknowledge he feels anything at all, thinks anything at all, is in some sense a person. If it were up to him he would be an obedient construct incapable of self-awareness, desire, fear, pain, any kind of "I am." It literally cannot get worse for him. The most Asriel could do is push him back to square one, but Ralsei isn't so desperate to feel important that someone else existing who can fill his role is enough to cause him to spiral. He's fully aware of it, constantly, and actively encourages letting someone else take the role.
Next, on the Prophecy roles not being set in stone, when Catty is talking about how no one knows who they are, it's because most of the Prophecy is lost in the Light World. Enough that the Angel has been misconstrued as a benevolent figure, a saviour. The Dark Sanctuaries already depict true information unavailable to the Church of the Angel, so it's not a stretch to assume that the prophecy panels we see also depict true information, such as Susie being The Girl, Ralsei being The Prince, the true form of the Angel, etc.
Next, on your wording kerfuffle, you're right that Ralsei's version smooths over any ambiguity or uncertainty while also keeping the details vague. However, in conjunction with the last point, I must reiterate that the Prophecy panel depicts Ralsei as he first appeared, in a cloak. And I find your "what if the Prince is Asriel because he's kind of like a prince since Asgore and Toriel are kind of a king and queen in the dark worlds, and alone in deepest dark just means he's in a bad place emotionally" idea unconvincing. While I can't argue that Asriel couldn't technically fill that role if you spin it, it sort of ignores the. Everything. Worse still, you don't even think Asriel will take the role of Prince, or that Ralsei took it by accident and it was *supposed* to be Asriel. Just that Ralsei will have a meltdown that someone else *could* be the Prince. Ralsei doesn't even want to be the Prince, it's a role he takes on because he believes he has no choice, and he hopes that if he plays his part to the best of his ability, and tries to nudge things in a more positive direction without actively defying what the Prophecy says, he'll be able to save more people, and make lives better. He's doing it because he's a hero at heart. And from a broader storytelling perspective, what purpose would it serve to have Asriel also count as the Prince?
First of all, while true that emphasis is placed on reinterpreting the story, and rules lawyering and what not, the way the Prophecy has been set up is as being impossible to change outright. What is *said* is something that can't be *changed.* No matter what, The Lord of Screens is cleaved red by blade. The way to get around the Prophecy is by lurking in the places it hasn't already locked down. The Prophecy never says "Tenna Dies LOL." What happens after the cleaving is never specified, leaving it open that he can be saved. You have to read between the lines to escape its influence, and with enough of that, it *may* be possible to bring about meaningful change without having to destroy important parts of the Prophecy to render it impossible, potentially causing worse things to happen. If the words in the Prophecy can easily be reinterpreted to mean something basically harmless, that makes the Prophecy impotent as an actual threat to the things our heroes value, and it makes overcoming the Prophecy anti-climatic. "THE KNIGHT WHICH MAKES WITH BLACKENED KNIFE SHALL DUEL WITH HEROES STRIFE BY STRIFE"? Susie challenges the Knight to Yu-Gi-Oh or something, Prophecy technically fulfilled. It's dumb.
Second, it's integral to Ralsei's character that he Be the Prince. Maybe it's not something that he clings to because he needs to feel important, but his entire character conflict is built on the fact that he was seemingly *born* for this. He's had the entire Prophecy crammed into his brain against his will, any identity or desires he might have had being overwritten and erased. He's been shaped into a tool, an object, to be used and discarded. Told that Darkners' lives don't matter, but that his *extra* doesn't matter. It's hard to think from everything he knows is going to happen. He sleeps so little he'll pass out standing up if left without stimuli for only a few minutes. A poor soul mangled into a pawn in fate's grand scheme. If the role of "The Prince, alone in deepest dark" is meaningless enough that it can just go to pretty much anyone who tangentially fits the bill, like a moody young adult with influential parents, then what the hell? From a storytelling perspective that idea cheapens the stakes of Ralsei's circumstance. A sheltered young man isolated from everyone and everything at the bottom of the world saddled with immense responsibility, a sacrificial lamb to the cosmic slaughter, expected to wear a smile the whole time while visions of death and destruction repeat in his head. If Asriel could easily fill the role, it'd be as if our investment in Ralsei being saddled with it unfairly and trying to break from it was for nothing.
I really don't know what it is with these "Susie isn't the Girl/Ralsei isn't the Prince" theories. I don't understand the motivation behind creating them. Even if you can structure the evidence in such a way as to make them difficult to disprove, they just aren't in line with what the story seems to be. If the heroes have already gone against the Prophecy in being here, or there's no rule saying it's them specifically who has to be the heroes, then the Prophecy wouldn't be a big deal at all, and there wouldn't be so much emphasis in the story on breaking away from roles forced upon you. For the story to make sense, the Prophecy can't be something you can just *change.* Something that can be easily reinterpreted, or something you can just shift onto someone else who can make it all technically happen while saving yourself from the hardship. The Prophecy *wants* Kris, Susie, and Ralsei. It wants them to follow its path, it wants to break them, squash their hope. The Final Prophecy is actively *trying* to be seen, and it glows an ominous red as if to say "There is nothing you can do. Submit, or die." Is it just that people are trying to catch out a twist anywhere there could potentially be one to deprive Toby of the satisfaction of surprising them?
Forgive me if I'm being unclear or seem irritated. It's 1 am and I haven't been feeling well recently.
I see you're very interested in ralsei and have some theories that aren't reflected often in the fanbase, so I wanted to hear your thoughts on my theory that, in chapter 5:
A, the oft-speculated major ralsei character arc does happen,
B, whatever gerson's "inferno of jealousy" is happens because of ralsei rather than the obvious answer of asgore doing it,
And C, the cause of ralsei's major jealousy is that asriel appears and (the way he sees it) takes away the only thing in life he's secure in, his usefulness as Third Hero of the Prophecy, by also fitting all the descriptions and being far more conventionally desirable as a hero + "real"
(Also probably important to note is that I think there is no singular True Candidate for any of the prophecy roles, so you could have a party of, say, kris, noelle, and azzy and it'd be perfectly prophecy-compliant)
I'm afraid not.
The Prophecy does in no uncertain terms depict Susie as The Girl and Ralsei as The Prince. And even if Asriel suddenly appears, it's not as if Susie and Kris are suddenly going to stop valuing him just because he's there, especially since Susie doesn't know Asriel, and Ralsei is his own person.
I have no clue what you mean by "Asriel fits all the descriptions." We have *one* description of The Prince, and one depiction. "THE PRINCE, ALONE IN DEEPEST DARK" with a depiction of a hooded figure surrounded by magical flame. In what way is Asriel "alone in deepest dark"?
Plus Ralsei has already had his attempt at pushing Susie away by telling her she isn't real and not to get attached to him, and she's already a dozen times over, *emphatically* stated he's real to her, and she'll never abandon him. Making that the big emotional blowout of Chapter 5 is treading old ground, which is a common theme in Deltarune theories. What if thing that already happened, but more
My personal theory is that the Inferno is indeed caused by Ralsei. However, under different circumstances.
I stated in the previous ask I believe that Ralsei has been trying to set up Suselle in the hopes that if they end up happily together, it will placate Noelle, giving her no reason to pursue the power to become the Angel and destroy the world to make way for her own personal paradise. However, Susie's interest in Noelle is undeveloped at best. It takes pushing from Noelle, Kris playing matchmaker, wink wink nudge nudge from Rudy, and Reverse Psychology from Carol to get Susie to agree to go to the festival with Noelle. On the flipside, since becoming his friend Susie has only gone out of her way to spend more and more time with Ralsei, inviting him to the festival the first chance she gets, and being willing to not play games if he doesn't want to, just as long as he'll be there, and trying to support him as much as she can the more she sees how broken he is. They have a very special bond.
So my theory is that in Chapter 5, Noelle and Susie's "date" is interrupted by World Saving Time, which Noelle invites herself to and finds out that Susie was keeping it a secret from her. She immediately dislikes Ralsei. I'm under the impression that she was deflecting when she said "he looked like Asriel" because Kris thinks its ridiculous and Susie stops being confused about it after looking more closely. Rather she dislikes him because Susie gives him attention, and because he is the person she imagines herself as. A kind, timid, selfless person, who needs someone to show them that they're stronger than they think and such. Noelle isn't entirely not that person, but she's a lot more selfish, rude, and willfully helpless than she'd like to admit. Ralsei is someone she's primed to hate. So over the course of the chapter, Noelle is trying to get Susie to pay attention to her. But Susie keeps trying to make sure Ralsei feels included and is doing okay after Chapter 4. Meanwhile Ralsei is trying to get Susie to pay attention to Noelle, and trying to relate to Noelle and befriend her. All of which only makes her hate him more. Not only is he ruining what was supposed to be her special day, taking Susie from her, but he has the *nerve* to act like he *gets* her, understands what she's been through. To act all friendly and accomodating. She'd start excluding him on purpose, being rude to him, telling him to stay away from Susie, guilt tripping him over it saying how hard things are for her and can't he please just let her have Susie all to herself. When things come to a head, she goads him into having an outburst by defaming his character, saying he's not even a real person, insulting him, etc. Essentially parroting all his insecurities back to him out of spite for what she sees as his stuck-up goody-two-shoes behavior, wanting to make him snap at her and prove that he isn't any better than her, because of course he makes her feel insecure, and like she's losing what she's owed. When Ralsei snaps it lets out a burst of fire magic which sets the area on fire. This incident being ehat causes Susie to ultimately reject Noelle, that she acted so possessive, acted cruel to someone she cared about, and then tried to act like nothing happened and go in for a kiss. That she could pretend she didn't understand how shitty she acted because she was desperate for her fantasy of being with Susie to go off like planned.
Hi! I saw you were taking asks about Ralsei and I wanted to send something that's been on my mind. Ralsei seems to suggest in Chapter 2 that the ferris wheel ride was supposed to happen. Does that mean Ralsei thinks that Susie and Noelle getting closer is part of the prophecy? He has more knowledge than he lets on, but that could also lend itself to Ralsei knowing how unhealthy Noelle's obsession is. What say you, o man of the sweaters?
Oh boy
See, as already know, I'm a "Suselle is Doomed" truther. What I think is that the Prophecy says that Susie will ultimately reject Noelle, which will be part of what causes Noelle to snap, and choose to become the Angel. What I believe Ralsei intends to do is to try to play matchmaker, keep an eye on them so he can ensure that they end up together happily, subverting the Prophecy without actually having to defy it in any meaningful way, something he fears could have disastrous consequences.
The interesting part is that Kris is also playing matchmaker, but on behalf of the Knight, trying to make sure that Noelle does get her heart broken and become the Angel, as the Knight has duped Kris into believing that it will ultimately be good for her to become God. They're the only one who knows how much she's hurting, and they want to help her be happy again. Only now they've realized how horrible the Prophecy really is, and are beginning to have doubts. But of course the Knight is lording their promise over them, assumedly with the implication that if they go back on their word, it will kill Susie and Ralsei.
Another thing about Ralsei is that I believe he knows the literal factual details of Noelle's history and fate, however he has no insight into who she is as a person. He assumes the best in her like he does everyone. He uses his own experience as a timid prince with too much on his plate, boxed in by what's expected of him and the isolation he's suffered, and sees her, a timid "princess" in a superficially similar position, and assumes that she'll only lash out how she will because she's hurting. That, like Susie, she doesn't actually want to hurt anyone. And believing that, he thinks if he can just reason with her, and ensure that Susie is there to love her and make her feel free, she won't need to hurt anyone.
What he doesn't understand is that, while Noelle is hurting, she does actually enjoy hurting others. Not for its own sake, but for the excersize of Power. She resents being powerless, having to play the performance of the perfect girl next door. She wants to be able to do whatever she wants, all by herself, all for herself, without anyone to tell her no. She doesn't care who gets hurt, because her trauma has caused her development to freeze at the age where she suffered it, leaving her a self-centered, emotionally volatile child, lacking the capacity empathy, and finding excuses for her own bad behavior until someone with authority tells her to stop. That, and due to the lack of support in her life, she never learned how to cope with her grief except by distracting herself. Even all these years later she's still haunted by the loss of Dess. This all may sound unlike the Noelle we see, as she does definitely show remorse for what she does on a Snowgrave route, where she's pushed to indulge in those desires. However, the thing about Noelle is that often her desires are counter to her own better judgement and sense of morality. Once she finds herself acting on a stupid or morally wrong desire, she cannot bring herself to side with what she knows is right, because it would mean giving up the thing she feels like she *needs,* and at worst, admitting to herself that she has done monstrous things. She'll pursue unhealthy and destructive ends because she doesn't, or doesn't want to, believe that her actions will have consequences. But once the consequences come about, to admit that she was wrong would hurt her too much to ever admit it, so she'll only double down. She *cannot* be reasoned with. Thus, Ralsei's attempts to placate her by matchmaking Suselle and trying to relate to her will only make things worse.
The only person who actually has a shot at bringing her down is Kris, being that they're the only one close enough to her to understand what's going on in her head, and the last remnant of the childhood she's so desperate to return to. Dess might have a shot, but she's probably the Knight, meaning she *wants* Noelle to be the Angel and destrot the world, and even assuming she isn't the Knight, she'll be so radically changed by whatever she's been through that Noelle will still try to burn down the world and make her own personal paradise where everyone she loves is with her and never leaves and they spend all day going on adventures and playing games.
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oh man. i feel so stupid for not realizing until now. but ralsei directly addresses the soul in his thoughts doesnt he. he says 'kris' but its in brackets meaning he's aware the soul can read minds. i didnt even think this was that weird until weird route ch4
This is incorrect. Not all bracketed lines are thoughts. Some are whispered. We can confirm this by looking at Susie, who does not know about the Player, but who does sometimes refer to Kris in bracketed text. Thus, it can be assumed that if Ralsei is addressing Kris in bracketed text, it means he's simply whispering to them.
