#dramatic irony

So when they are killed on their own grave, after arriving at the funeral where a large group had formed, and as skizz talks to them, the entire rest of the server slowly backs away until it’s literally just them, and they’re all blown up at the exact same time, they assume that this must be a coordinated effort. Clearly, this is a genius trap. An incredible kill. How much communication must have occurred for cleo and martyn and the cabin crew to silently slip away and into safety without any of them noticing? How clever of them to lure them forward, and onto what was clearly some elaborate trap?

After being killed, they see the entire server on one tiny little platform, gloating, and well, of course they were all in on it! It’s the reasonable, rational action: put aside their differences to take out the biggest threat - ideally killing 3 greens: after all, with a trap so clean, they probably started working on it before Pearl lost all her lives. So clever of them to then group together, forcing Pearl to come to them if she wants revenge, positioned so that any approach would be clearly visible. Pearl’s good at pvp, but against a large group, she’s forced to rely on her weaker, long distance skills.

Of course, watching the reject povs makes you realise that no, that was not what was going on. Jimmy was impulsive, and literally willing to kill everyone. Skizz almost died. The cabin crew didn’t get any tip off, but they did see Jimmy, and they got the hell out of there. Jimmy doesn’t even really understand how tnt minecarts work, and messed up multiple times. Everyone is convinced that the villies are splintering, and most of their plans were about exploiting that non-existent weakness. There was no alliance, everyone came to the platform despite the risk of being stabbed because they wanted to congratulate Jimmy. The fact that this looked intimidating was entirely accidental. There was no plan. It was just a bunch of people messing up and acting impulsively.

Garp: "A good man who's about to lead you to the gallows."

"But I trust you won't do the same to my son."

“A scarecrow. My counterpart is a bleeding scarecrow” Hunk finally found his voice, and Fiyero laughed at the statement, before Boq gave him a punch to the shoulder;

“Be nice” the munchkin reprimanded his friend

“Oh come on, it’s objectively hilarious” the Prince chuckled 

“Shut up” Hunk chided the Ozian, though his tone was good-humoured, despite the faint redness on his cheeks

“Well I don’t see anything wrong with your counterpart being a scarecrow” Dorothy entered the conversation

Yeah, I noticed that too! Good eye!

Honestly, one potential detail I LOVE about this scene, and the whole idea behind it, is that it's a rare example of the concept of Dramatic Irony completely flipped on its head. Normally, dramatic irony describes a situation where the audience/player knows something the characters in a story do not know, and that lends extra emotion/weight to that situation, because we can infer what will happen while the characters have yet to realise what's in store for them. It makes tragic stories that much more tragic, because we see what's coming and are powerless to avert it or warn the characters about it.

In THIS instance, however, it is the CHARACTERS who know something that the AUDIENCE/PLAYERS do not know. This doesn't even have a name, as far as I know, and I did look to see if it was defined or had a term associated with it, and could find nothing. If anyone DOES know what this is called, do let me know!

Anyway! We have this fascinating situation where AT LEAST two of our three protagonists are aware of the final prophecy and are behaving with that knowledge in mind. Now! A conventional story might have Susie and Ralsei clumsily explain what it is they know, as if explaining it to someone who doesn't know (i.e. us), and it'd come across all stilted and awkward... but of course, we're NOT supposed to know what the Final Prophecy says, and so... they DON'T discuss what it says. Why would they need to? They know, they know the other knows, discussing it further at that time would be pointless, and makes perfect sense for the scene and with regards to how actual people talk about knowledge they're already aware of.

This is especially unorthodox in this capacity, because it means that the characters we control have more knowledge about their own fates than we do, and that means we're flying completely blind. We might have to actually rely on and listen to what Susie and Ralsei say, glean what knowledge we can from them, and use that to inform our choices. But there's every chance we could end up unwittingly stumbling into the final tragedy without realising it, but the CHARACTERS would be able to see it, while being unable to avoid it or directly warn us about it! It's actually brilliant when you think about it, the way this makes absolutely perfect sense within the context of Deltarune's story, its themes, its plot, it's everything. It's a masterstroke, plain and simple, and it can't really be replicated in any other game, or any other medium for that matter.