#i like her...

this bit has been discussed quite a bit already in regards to carol's obsession with preserving the past. it's her own odd way of loving her family and noelle's creations, it just... is at complete odds with noelle's feelings. and this outlook on life cannot be easy when your own child has been out of the picture for the past few years. we see this with dess's (presumably) untouched bedroom no one is allowed in, and then her outburst at susie playing the guitar while noelle was just happy to hear it played again.

but rudy isn't at home either. he seems pretty important right.

like, when this dropped in chapter 2 it was kinda unanimously agreed that noelle would open a darkworld in the future to save her dad. and now that current popular theories include "carol is opening darkworlds to bring back dess" and "asgore will open a darkworld to bring his family back to the way it used to be", i'd REALLY like to see rudy's illness connected to that whole mess.

though, that being said, rudy seems to be getting fed up with her too?

doesn't want carol referred to as his wife. (divorce liker voice) Which i have normal opinions about

this is said immediately after noelle laments being alone at home with her mom. i try not to downplay noelle's neglect, because it's a serious topic that we frankly don't know very much about. the situation is obviously fucked for noelle, but i'd like to focus on carol's perspective for a sec.

as stated before, carol already had an odd way of showing her love that doesn't always come across. i can't imagine she's much better at that now that her oldest child is gone and her husband is on the way out. deltarune has already explored a lot of different ways parents can hurt their children with varying levels of severity and well-intentionedness. no matter where carol lands in all this, i think it'd be in line with the game's themes if carol was focusing so much on "preserving" dess and rudy that she failed to account for noelle's needs and feelings.