#stormofblades

"The Roaring Fraud/The Frauding Knight" is a term used for the eponymous Roaring Knight from Deltarune.

Despite being an incredibly difficult fight even by secret boss standards, the Roaring Knight has gained a reputation as a Memetic Loser in the fandom. This stems from the fact that it has to force a cutscene once its health gets low enough in order to win, which is fueled further by the interpretation that Kris in the ensuing cutscene bails out the Knight from being defeated too early. This, plus Susie's boasts as seen above, has led to it being characterized as a coward who isn't as powerful as they pretend to be, especially in comparison to Susie.

But are people and Susie right about them? Well, it's more complicated.

While it's pretty clear the Knight was kicking the Deltarune Trio badly, one has to remember that Susie was able to hold her own until the Knight used their cutscene-ending slash to incapacitate them. Plus, Kris is seemingly working with the Knight and holding back.

However, after the fight, it uses some rather shady, dirty tactics, and one could see them as cowardly moves:

When the Fun Gang confronts them at the end of Chapter 4, Susie believes that, since they were able to leave the Dark World from Chapter 3 and drag Undyne with them all the way to the Dark World in the Shelter, they must at the very least be a Lightner to be able to do so, and thus the source of their power must only exist in the Dark World. Cut them off from the Dark World, and they should become a powerless Lightner—and thus, by sealing the Dark Fountain first, they'd not only expose their identity but also take them down then and there. The Roaring Knight doesn't even give the group a chance to see if she's right, immediately summoning a Titan as a distraction and fleeing in the confusion.

If you aren't blown away by the Knight immediately, you can see several signs that Kris is sabotaging their team's efforts.

It's easy to miss, given that everyone's damage to the Knight is already reduced, but by default Kris' is lowered further by half. However, it will be doubled for each of Kris' teammates knocked out, thus making it higher than normal if Kris is the last one standing. Evidently, it's hard for Kris to hold back against someone who just viciously beat their closest friends.

When the Knight knocks out Susie or Ralsei, they get a special status preventing revival. Kris just goes into negative HP as usual, suggesting the Knight is holding back against them in turn.

The most blatant sign is only shown if the player somehow manages to get to the end of the Knight's incredibly difficult boss fight without taking a single hit. When this happens, Kris will cough while the Knight slowly tilts their head—a seemingly wordless signal between them that the SOUL is just too skilled to be defeated by attrition alone, and that they need to throw the fight now.

The Knight is seemingly untouchable and a Hopeless Boss Fight... but it is possible to survive and continue dealing damage until you get its HP below a certain threshold. While it's possible that it glitching out might've been an act to get Susie's guard down by pretending to lose, Susie did damage the Black Knife, showing that the Knight and its equipment can be damaged with enough effort.

This tendency extends into Chapter 4. When encountered in the Dark Sanctuary, they waste no time knocking Kris and Susie down into the depths of the Dark World, destroying the stairs from the atrium to the Fountain in the process. They reappear several times to rain down a Storm of Blades in an attempt to impede the heroes' progress. And when they're apparently cornered at the end of the Third Sanctuary, they dodge Susie's attacks with ease and create five Dark Fountains to summon a Titan.

However, "winning" the fight will show Susie and Ralsei being defeated in a single swoop while their guard is down, from an attack that doesn't even display visible damage. Likewise, their surprise attack against Tenna (which they evidently did bare-handedly, given the twin slicing attacks that tore off his arms) deals upwards of 5900 damage, further showcasing that the Knight didn't need to put 100% effort in against the heroes when fighting them.

"Winning" the battle with it in Chapter 3 by surviving its final attack does force the Knight on the defensive and to seemingly retreat. Then Susie and Ralsei are slashed from behind while their guard is down, and the Knight makes Kris kneel, effectively having the same result as losing the battle. On the bright side, you get a sick weapon and a Shadow Crystal to boot out of it.

I see your point and I agree to an extent.

First and foremost, I should clarify that it’s not my place to say if Hodor is a good representation/portrayal of a disabled person. I’m not disabled myself, and people with disabilities have their own voices and should be listened on the matter.

I do have a personal opinion, though. 

We should note that there are lots of tropes associating disability and supernatural/magic causes and/or special powers, and this often bothers real-life people with disability. That doesn’t mean you can’t write characters like this, it just means you have to take your time to consider why those tropes happen and how they relate to the way our society perceives disabilities.

It could be well done. Bran is a character with disability that gains magical powers just as he becomes disabled, and I personally give Martin a pass on this case because I think Bran is well-written. Plus, he had the magical aptitude regardless of the disability (just as all his sibling have it too, on different levels). On a different case, whatever Patchface’s condition is, it was probably caused by magical circumstances. Granted, Patchface is more of a plot device than an actual, fleshed-out character, but I think this explanation works for him.

So I agree, you can have magical permanent injury and it can work for your story. But disabilities don’t need a cause, let alone a magical cause, because people with disability can simply exist. They don’t need a reason for it. You don’t need a special reason to include people with disabilities in your story. They don’t need a secret origin. You seem to know that, but the fact that now we have parts of the fandom claiming that Bran was responsible for Aerys’ condition, or even for all “Targaryen madness”, tell me that a lot of people don’t know that. And if you wonder why, perhaps we could again look at how people with disabilities are perceived and portrayed.

About Hodor… In the books, I personally don’t like the way he’s used as a prop in Bran’s story. I believe it’s hard for a writer to show Hodor’s personality considering he doesn’t talk and we only see him through Bran’s POV. But it’s not like Martin is trying too hard? I mean, Bran has been in Hodor’s mind a few times. If Martin can describe a wolf’s mind in an interesting way, I believe he could do the same with Hodor’s. Okay, he may be trying to avoid spoilers, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been with Hodor for four books and we know very little about him.

Hodor follows Bran, protects him, carries him around… But does he want to do that? Does he have a say on that? We see Jojen and Meera go to great lenghts to help Bran and it never occurred to me they’re not doing this out of free will. If Jojen dies for Bran in the books, it’s gonna be tragic, but it’s gonna be a choice. Could Hodor choose? And would we, the readers, know that for sure?

You say causing Hodor’s disability would be good for Bran as a character… That’s where I disagree. I think this would be too traumatic for Bran (and the reader). I think a writer has tons of possibilities to explore the dangers of abusing magical powers without resorting to tired tropes. Bran and Hodor’s relationship as it is already deals a bit with that, because Bran is being a jerk and abusing his powers when he takes Hodor’s body against his will.

And it could be good for Bran as a character, but how about Hodor as a character? Have his disability caused by Bran, making him into the perfect servant for Bran, and then die for Bran? Doesn’t that sound at least a bit problematic? Hodor has to be his own character. Sacrificing minor characters to develop personal favorites is D&D’s way to write, not Martin’s. At least I hope not.

And, of course, this all got worse in the show because Game of Thrones is grossly ableist, as we saw multiple times. So their solution for Hodor’s name is not just ableist on itself, but fits a disturbing pattern.

We already know “hold the door” is gonna happen in the books, and while I’m sure it won’t be like the show, I don’t think Martin is above unfortunate implications. But a girl can dream, I guess? Anyway I’m not gonna blame him for anything until I see it. Maybe it makes sense for the character of Hodor, maybe it’s interesting, who knows.

just not breeding sheep isn’t genocide or human rights violations. Please, spare me. The genetics bred into the sheep are very bad, and yea I support NOT BREEDING those sheep anymore. A sheep is not going to be terrorized if you steralize her and let her live a comfy life.

Especially when your option is “we need to keep torturing sheep and slaughtering them along with any other animal we have bred to be nonfunctional without our help because GENOCIDE”

that’s a rather ridiculous way to handle it when we could just stop breeding them.