#deltarune analysis

Jevil as a darkner who learned too much and now views himself as equal to lightners

Spamton as a darkner who takes control of a lightners dream

The Knight

Gerson as a dead lightner brought back to life as a darkner

Pink as both a lightner and darkner at once

It all kinda sets up the twist about the flowers at the end of ch5 really well. We're already primed to accept that the boundaries aren't quite so clear, even though that's what everything else has been telling us. (And by everything else I mostly mean Ralsei but. He is kinda our only source of clear information.)

Those kinds of things usually go to the soft, romantic, dreamer characters. In most stories characters like Noelle or Ralsei would have these associations. But Noelle doesn't have any heart associations and the only rose association she had was removed (because people take things too literally). And while Ralsei does have a heart on his robe, the things that often symbolize him are the Delta Rune symbol or even flame and light.

So the heart and rose symbols went to a character who's emotionally restrained and keeps everyone at an arm's length. Kinda ironic, isn't it? It really makes you realize why Kris keeps their soul in a cage or in other things. Obviously it's so they could get a reprieve from our bullshit, but it's also so they could physically remove their emotions from the situation and actually do what they need to do. Because otherwise i'm not entirely sure they would be able to endanger their friends and family by opening dark fountains. They would probably start second guessing themself and then get caught.

As for the roses, they famously have thorns to protect themselves and need to be handled with care. Throughout the platforming sections you do get roses as obstacles you need to cut through. Also, a blue flower with red thorns? That's gotta be a Shrek reference right? Much like how Kris removes their feelings so they could do the damn thing, they also don't let people get too close to them as a way to protect their loved ones and themself. But that comes with being alone.

Oh maybe the 'seizure' part doesn't refer to that thing brains can do but literally being seized. As in like

with this, the krusie document is now officially up to date on literally everything! (chapters 1-5 and weird route)

if you're down to read 25k words of analysis for ch5 check it out :] some excerpts below

Well no. Her shoes are fitted for hooves.

But...She HAD shoes. And an awful lot of human-soul-shaped pillows and stuff.

I don't remember where I saw this take, but I have seen people suggest that Dess WANTED to be human. Much like Kris WANTED to be a monster. The shoes are Dess' version of the red horned headband.

Where Kris felt isolated from everyone around them due to being different, and wanted to fit in, Dess felt smothered by her overbearing mom, pressured to conform to a community that she didn't feel truly a part of, and wanted to stand out.

That alone would probably make the two feel particularly close to each other. I'd guess that Kris either became interested in music because of Dess, or straight up started learning the piano from her. And either case would strengthen their bond

Do I think Dess was the one playing pretend with Kris and the Darkners-to-be? I dunno yet. That would fit, but it still feels like Noelle would make more sense, if just because of their age and also being pretty close to each other. But at the very least, I do think Kris looked up to Dess a lot

SO THE NEXT TIME I SEE KRIS MIMICKING THE KNIGHT'S MOVEMENTS BEING USED AS ASRIEL EVIDENCE I WILL LITERALLY [type words on my keyboard]

This does make me wonder about the Asriel-Noelle dynamic, though. I wonder how close those two were back in the day