#deltarune speculation

It led to a lot of people speculating that Kris does need a SOUL to some level. Maybe the SOUL is Kris’ but we’re a foreign entity that has taken it over, or that Kris’ original actual SOUL has been removed and replaced with us. If Kris needed the SOUL to live, that would explain their slow, deliberate movements and also why they keep putting us back inside despite clearly hating being under our control.

So now, with Chapter 4 giving us a much better glimpse of SOUL-less Kris doing stuff… it’s notable that they seem… fully capable of moving ‘normally’. Angrily, but normally.

Even when they do the whole Creepy Zombie Walk thing they are notably faster than they seemed to be in Chapters 1 + 2

They can do things that require fine motor skills, focus and swiftness like playing the piano, handling glasses, and beating the shit out of us with a hockey stick and it's all animated as smoothly as most other Deltarune Animations. Not really implying effort or stiffness the way that original Creepy Zombie Walk animation did.

And while Susie only gets a brief moment to interact with SOUL-less Kris in the Normal Route

Noelle has prolonged interactions with them in the Weird Route (both on-screen in Chapter 4 and off-screen in-between Chapters 2 and 3) and... while she does note that they sounded 'weak and shaky' and obviously their behavior seems weird on account of the whole 'traumatized by the Unkillable Evil Time-Demon only they can see" thing

... There's nothing to really indicate that there's anything outright unnatural or 'zombie-like' about the way Kris moves and interacts with her while SOUL-less. Since this is the Weird Route, Noelle even note this is the most natural and Kris-like they've acted in the last few days.... until we take over again.

And now we know they can go without the SOUL for a fairly prolonged period of time. The Ominous Phone Voice of Probably Carol does tells them they need the SOUL, it seems unclear why.

So… what that means for SOUL-less Kris’ behavior before? It’s possible that even if Kris can operate without a SOUL, it still hurts like hell. So right after tearing out the SOUL they are in Maximum Pain and it's hard to ignore, causing them to move in a struggling and slow manner. But the more they go without it, they kinda get used to it and the pain fades into the background - allowing them to do stuff more-or-less normally.

(Basically Kris has Chronic Pain but the only Painkiller that works for them is Demonic Possession)

…Or, knowing Kris, maybe this… was all an act. They were only behaving like This because they knew we were watching. It is pretty notable that they walk around normally in the Holidays' Kitchen while we're eavesdropping on them and only swap to the Creepy Walk Animation once they notice us....

so i went back and looked at some of ralsei’s dialogue across every chapter so far to try and see if my realization had any merit and…

Ralsei’s dialogue from chapter 1 & 2 DIRECTLY alludes to the ending of chapter 5

I think the reason Ralsei wants us to spare enemies is directly for Susie’s sake. Shes like. the main person that this would affect if she’s beginning to view castle town as a home.

Im just wondering how this would affect the ending of the prophecy, especially with chapter 4 & 5’s dialogue in mind.

Agh I’m not exactly explaining this right.

It just. Really feels like Ralsei is trying to protect Susie from something that will happen later. Like. The final prophecy (or something else relating to the ending) will directly involve her (well i mean. obviously, but like… you know what i mean.)

It really feels like. The ending of chapter 5 being so happy is set-up for something fucking horrible happening immediately in chapter 6. we have. literally no idea what happened in hometown (aside from something bad happening to rudy) after we entered the dark world and it feels like theres a sword dangling above every character’s head.

Chapter 6 WAS the only chapter of lord of the hammer that Gerson just. decided not to describe in any way whatsoever. Like. apparently he did write it, since it was Chapter 7 that he never made— its just that he just. didn’t describe it to susie during the fight. which is. idk. worrying and ominous.

was watching mollystars's most recent deltarune stream and she pointed something out about friend that i havent seen a single other person in the deltarune theory sphere mention yet

i edited down this clip to only include the most important parts, but the full unedited clip can be viewed here (timestamped)

this implication is fucking TERRIFYING. if friend can physically edit the map and mess with meta elements/the device layer itself, then our potential future encounter with them is going to be SCARY AS FUCK. everyone start getting afraid

(btw if you cant see the friend face in the darkness click the readmore for a zoomed in image)

i was recently raving about the use of horror in deltarune because it is often the subversive space, it's the space where villains and final girls dominate the footprint of the genre, and it's famously historically (very problematically) queer. because it was always telling stories that stood in for cultural anxiety, it depicted characters who were different and it's become an affirmative and often reclaimed and celebrated genre in spite of and because of its history. carol clover's Men, Women, and Chainsaws explores the nuanced relationship of horror and gender politics — one of the things i remember is the androgyny of horror in killers and survivors alike;

The Final Girl is boyish, in a word. Just as the killer is not fully masculine, she is not fully feminine... (...) Lest we miss the point, it is spelled out in her name: Stevie, Marti, Terry, Laurie, Stretch, Will, Joey, Max. Not only the conception of the hero in Alien and Aliens but also the surname by which she is called, Ripley, owes a clear debt to slasher tradition. (40)

clover was criticizing the genre for this (for valid reasons), but i think it's also this semi-androgynous soup of heroes and villains in horror, plus the fact that villains become the face of the film and girls become the heroes, and the whole thing is always a bit camp and hyperbolic, that they attract the disenfranchised as an audience. for a brief moment, the gaze might be flipped on its head.

a movie like Evil Dead 2 which is the blatant real-world "Blood Crushers 2" (susie hasn't seen the first, and the protagonist's severed hand attacks... Basement), is the reverse case. you have a male protagonist named Ashley (whom clover considers a "Final Boy"). the movie is a cult classic with a comedic edge, and Ash is doing all sorts of looney tunes-esque gags against his own hand. it's not a movie that takes itself and its protagonist as seriously as a western or an average superhero flick. that noelle and susie are attracted to horror instead is reflective of their worldview, where things that are scary or strange might not be.

and, also, i recently watched Aliens so thinking of the blatant xenomorph inspiration with queen's design has been really hitting. like oh... of course. the xenomorph, a species with a queen mother... a character who represents a maternal horror. the queen xenomorph is not really an intentionally malicious force as Aliens presents it, rather, just a mother making the logical conclusion towards protecting and proliferating its species/its offspring, a simple survival calculation. the queen only actively attacks ripley in vengeance. for dess and noelle, who watched horror together, and who both certainly have complicated relationships with their mom, the xenomorph imagery on queen comes through in what it means to have a monster mother. and it comes through in queen's behaviour, as she makes a calculation seemingly to do what's best for the lightners, even if it doesn't hold up under the human morality microscope.

just so much to think about with how horror and movie monsters get employed in deltarune, how they weave themselves into the story. how they stand as the angle through which noelle and susie can put a subversive worldview to words. susie aligns herself with the movie monster only to find out... she is maybe the final girl. i am also led to think about the framing of the girl as a second hero alongside the contradictory prophecy panel "And last, the girl / at last, the girl". I don't think i have a central thesis for this analysis, but it's very fun seeing the bits and pieces of a genre leaking its way into this game's story and having it mean something... quite subtle.