deltarune sideblog!

In recent months, a certain reading of Deltarune has been steadily gaining popularity within the community, particularly here on Tumblr. This reading has a pithy name: ‘Krissociation’, a portmanteau of ‘Kris’ and ‘dissociation’. Its analysis is premised on a denial of the player’s diegetic existence, and thus a denial of any overt, not-purely-allegorical metafictional elements within the narrative. It explicitly refutes the idea that Kris’s relationship with the SOUL is characterized by a supernatural possession, and instead presents it as a person’s relationship with their “alter”, terminology borrowed from the discourse of dissociative identity disorder (DID). 

The relative popularity of this reading is one that I’ve found interesting and, perhaps more to the point, quite frustrating, because it’s so obviously deficient, and yet it still somehow manages to catch on to some fundamental aspects of this relationship between Kris and the SOUL which the average, mainstream understanding continues to neglect.

This post is not intended as a systematic takedown of Krissociation – I don’t believe that’s actually needed. As far as I’m concerned, Krissociation doesn’t even manage to get its feet off the ground, because denying the overt metafictional elements of Deltarune’s narrative is, to put it a little dramatically, interpretive violence of such magnitude that it immediately disqualifies anything that could come after it. To me, the metafictional elements are so self-evidently a core part of the diegesis that any reading which denies that has automatically failed the most basic condition for gaining a useful understanding of Deltarune, which is presumably the goal of any analysis of its narrative.

Instead, my goal with this post is to independently analyse Kris’s character and how they relate to the SOUL (that is to say, to us) in order to make sense of the biggest questions pertaining to that relationship, such as how exactly they utilize us and how we utilize them, what the nature is of our control over them, how Kris and us are connected to things like the Shadow Crystal quest, the Egg hunt and the Weird Route, and, most important perhaps, which one of us is really in control.

But first, we need to take a look at our relationship with another vessel.

THE HUMAN IN UNDERTALE

In the introductory sequence of Deltarune, Gaster fashions a vessel based on our feedback. Keen-eyed players might notice a conspicuous detail about this Vessel, which is that their topwear always contains two stripes, calling to mind the player character of Undertale, in opposition to both Kris and Chara, who wear a shirt with only one stripe.

Lest you believe this connection is merely incidental, Toby has doubled-down on it with the single-stripe Important Person’s Shirt, a piece of merchandise which is listed under both the Undertale and Deltarune brands, alluding simultaneously to Chara and Kris’s clothing.

The double-striped shirt of Undertale’s protagonist, meanwhile, is sold separately as the Human Shirt and listed only under the Undertale brand.

Given, then, that the vessel is made to remind the player of Undertale’s protagonist specifically - and that the Vessel is discarded and defined in opposition to the game’s true protagonist, Kris - having an understanding of Undertale’s protagonist might, conversely, help us demarcate what is and isn’t going on with Deltarune’s.

In Undertale, your vessel is a human; the Human. The nature of the Human and their relationship to its two identities ‘Frisk’ and ‘Chara’ is and always has been one of the most contentious and knotty topics of discussion in the entire series. Suffice it to say that this post is not equipped to definitively solve the issue of Frisk and Chara, nor do I really think such a thing is possible, but I do want to establish a basic, functional understanding of the Human for the purposes of our analysis.

All else failing, the most important thing to understand about the Human, especially in relation to Kris, is that they are pliable.

Most often you’ll see people discussing this in terms of the Human being younger than Kris is, and thus more impressionable and willing to follow the guidance of the SOUL. This is a cute and relatively harmless idea, but I think it tends to paper over how strange the protagonist of Undertale actually is. The level of control we have over them, especially outside the Genocide and Pacifist Routes, is pretty staggering. Guidance is one thing, but we can mold the Human into either a friendly, benevolent tree-hugger or a ruthless killing machine with barely any resistance or preference for either shown by the Human. Notably, the fallen human - Chara - was presumably the same age as the Human that we control is during the events of the game. We know that Chara was extremely willful and set on their path, and we can see that in practice on the Genocide Route (more on that later), so it is clearly not the case that any child this age would unquestionably follow our directions.

We can say, then, that the Human is fairly unnatural in this regard. They don’t seem to be driven by any will of their own, they don’t show much in terms of disapproval or preference when we make them do things, and we are kept in the dark about any potential backstory which could help elucidate their ‘true’, independent personality.

Of course, this is actually not at all unnatural in story-driven games and JRPGs, which often have protagonists with deliberately ambiguous personalities and backstories which exist mainly for the player to project themselves onto. However, since Deltarune has introduced another protagonist to the series, one who decidedly does not fit this mold, and is contrasted with an empty vessel manufactured for us to inhabit - a vessel which is, again, symbolically aligned with Undertale’s protagonist - we can no longer take this fact about them for granted. We are forced to view Undertale’s Human as rather peculiar in their willingness to be our vessel.  

The how of that is ultimately not what's important. Whether you believe that the Human is just an unusually impressionable kid, or that they suffer from amnesia, or that they only came into existence at the start of the game, the end result is the same: the Human is pliable. It is ours for the molding.

Except in one regard.

It’s not entirely true that the Human has no will of their own. The Human is moved by one distinct will – one which is inherited from the fallen human.  

In a missable moment early in the game, the Human makes a rare display of autonomy and performs a concrete, significant action on their own. When Toriel tells you to go back to your room before her boss fight, you can actually comply with her demands. If you return, you can direct the Human to the bed to go to sleep. When you do, they have a dream, or a vision – the same one they have whenever they die:

And the Human gets up from bed. They refuse to sleep through to the next day. They refuse to let Toriel seal the Ruins.

And the reason why is clear: it conflicts with the purpose they are compelled, or rather determined, to follow: to be the future of humans and monsters, to set the Underground free. The Human harbors the seventh SOUL needed to break the barrier. They have been chosen by fate – willed into existence by it almost – to resolve the history of humans and monsters. To see the prophecy fulfilled. They must confront Asgore, who beckons them away from sleep, from death.

That is the only true purpose the Human has.  

Incidentally, it is also your purpose as a player. It is how you “win” the game. And it is derived directly from Chara, the fallen human. It’s their memories and their will which drives the Human forward.

Notably, in one of the scant few times the Human expresses themselves, they reminisce about Chara’s experiences:

Again, it doesn’t really matter what you think is happening here – whether the Human is Chara’s reincarnation, or revival, or whether they’re simply being possessed by their ghost. But it is clear that Chara is a living force within them – on all routes.

On the Pacifist Route, Chara’s will is given expression in a rather abstract way. The Human makes good on the ultimate goal of their plan - to free the Underground - and, in the process, saves their best friend. Asriel, who seemingly spotted Chara’s determination within the Human, ultimately emphasizes the distinct individuality of the Human from Chara, and in response, the Human christens themself with a name of their own: Frisk. The child comes of age, Pinnochio becomes a real boy, the monochrome copy is colored in with care. And the Human stops being our vessel. The curtains close and Flowey implores us: let this world go, this new future which is embodied in Frisk, this future you made happen with your will, your determination, your power, let it retain its independent existence, let it be “the end”.

Of course, a good player doesn’t let that happen. It’s on the Genocide Route where our relationship to the Human becomes clearer. As you systematically kill every monster in the Ruins, you awaken something which had been lying dormant within the Human. Much later, having fully completed their transformation back into Chara, they reminisce:

At first, I was so confused. Our plan had failed, hadn't it? Why was I brought back to life?

These lines are incredibly important. Chara says – speaking about the beginning of the game – that they were initially “so confused” after having been “awakened from death”. Their experience was continuous with their previous life – one of the first things they think of is their plan and how it failed.

It’s important to note that Chara is not talking about the player’s killing spree in the Ruins having awakened them. Chara mentions that separately:

You. With your guidance. I realized the purpose of my reincarnation. Power. Together, we eradicated the enemy and became strong.

No, it’s clear that Chara is referring to the very beginning of the game, after the player “calls their name” and inhabits the body of the Human in the flowers. In fact, Chara’s awakening is a very deliberate parallel to a certain other character who awakens from death in a bed of flowers:

I remember when I first woke up here, in the garden. I was so scared. I couldn't feel my arms or my legs... My entire body had turned into a flower!

The game eludes any easy logistical answers as to what has happened and why. Only the broad strokes are clear: the power of us, the player, awakened Chara from death, who then inhabits the body of the Human – a human with a red soul, which Chara says belongs to the player, and Flowey likewise calls Chara’s “stolen soul”.

This human, who possesses Chara’s spirit and memories, can then be molded by us throughout the game. The actions we guide them towards determine their disposition towards the world.

(You tap the dummy with your fist.) (You feel bad.) (You hit the dummy lightly.) (You don't feel like you learned anything.) (You sock the dummy.) (Who cares?) (You punch the dummy at full force.) (Feels good.)

This highly impressionable nature might have something to do with Chara’s “confusion” and professed aimlessness near the start of the game. Why had they been “reincarnated”? It seems the player is there to answer that question.

On the Pacifist route, you direct the Human towards actions quite unlike their past self. As the route progresses, they more frequently take actions of their own accord. Through your guidance they become the sort of person to never hit Undyne with anything but a pretend blow in their duel, regardless of how you choose to attack. They become the sort of person who can actually stir Asgore’s conscience during their battle, firmly telling him to stop fighting. They become the sort of person to smile when fleeing from a battle. And at the very end, as their final act of separation from both the player and their past self, they take – or perhaps reclaim – a different name from Chara: Frisk. In overcoming their past identity, they also help Asriel reach a fuller understanding of his best friend, allowing him to move on from his grief and hopelessness, which was largely centered around the presumed irreplaceability of Chara.

On the other end of the spectrum, you can guide the Human towards an accelerated, demonic form of their past identity in the Genocide Route. Though it’s correct, as Chara says, that it is us who guide the human in this direction, it is equally important to note that the impulse towards the Genocide Route was already latent within Chara, and that it is only something we bring to the surface.

My best friend's favorite number is nine. It's because there isn't a number that's higher. 9. 99. 999. 9999. If everything gets high enough, You become invincible. Nothing can hurt you anymore. Nothing can hurt anyone anymore.

They were the one that picked up their own empty body. And then, when we got to the village... They were the one that wanted to... ... to use our full power.

Chara was already very attached to the idea of becoming all-powerful. They were already a hateful, even callous person – probably the product of a whole lot of hurt and abuse themself. We can speculate about sympathetic traits they may have had in their time alive but if Flowey is anything to go by, those would’ve been burned away in the process of death and (soulless) reincarnation.

So by the time we guide them to slaughter the Underground, there aren’t any inhibitions left to stop them. They know what to do and eagerly play along. Hell, they start dictating the terms of the route to us. They take over narration, they inform us of how many and who to kill, they abort the route when we fail to meet their demands. We rub off on each other.

Fundamentally, Chara and us are aligned, and this is the root of our special connection. It’s why Chara is our player character. Their desire for power is analogous to the JRPG player’s conditioned impulse to increase their stats, a behavior naturally emergent from the game’s mechanics. Beyond this, Chara’s determination to fulfill the prophecy, which I believe the Human’s recurrent dreams of Chara’s dying moments testify to, is analogous to our desire to see a “satisfying ending” to the game.

And when we get either one of those “satisfying endings”, the truth is revealed that the player was never in full control of the Human, not any more than they control us.

The Human simply allowed themself to be guided by you. Even something like the Genocide Route is, as a potentiality, fundamentally immanent from the Human’s own nature.

But how is this relevant to Deltarune?

THE HUMAN IN DELTARUNE

The most notable fact about Kris is that they are not impressionable in the same way that our human vessel in Undertale is.

This is not just an arbitrary fact about Kris - it stems from their specific circumstances: Kris is an angsty, rebellious teenager who both has strong desires of their own and is also caught up in the machinations of others – but most importantly, they were aware of the nature of the SOUL preceding their possession and are deliberately using its powers in service to their own ends. This is completely unlike the situation in Undertale, where we take control of a mysterious vessel containing the confused, impressionable soul of a reincarnated child, who allows us to mold their personality. Unlike Undertale, that is, except for the Genocide Route, where some similarities start to show.

In the Genocide Route, Chara begins to develop their own plans which they dictate to the player, not unlike how Kris uses the SOUL to achieve specific goals. Kris’s forceful resistance against the player throughout Deltarune’s story feels like a deliberate mirror to Chara’s hostile reactions to the player disagreeing with them upon the fulfillment of a Genocide Route. In this regard, Kris and Chara are quite similar – they are willful and meticulous planners with specific ends in mind.

Somehow, I still occasionally see (even after Chapters 3 and 4!) the misinterpretation that we are wronging Kris by inhabiting their body, and that they are completely opposed to our control over them and in a constant state of discomfort and terror. This frankly does a disservice to Kris's character, who would probably overcompensate with some scary anime villain laugh if they heard this idea about them put to words.

It is clear throughout all of the Chapters not only that Kris is by and large more aware and prepared to handle us than we are them, but also that they frequently have no issue with how we choose to pilot them. They develop a deep and earnest bond with Susie (and eventually Ralsei) despite the fact that we are in control of them during practically all of their moments together. They often play along with gags or silly things we make them do and even improvise plenty on their own.

When Kris doesn’t like how we’re controlling them, they typically let us know. Not only does Kris act on their own more than Undertale’s Human does, but they also subvert our commands which Undertale's Human rarely, if ever, does. Our inhabiting their body seems to involve them needing to follow our commands in some sense, but Kris is aware of this and cleverly finds ways to work around it.  

If we make them say something they don’t like, they’re liable to drown it out with a cough or yawn, or deliberately alter the delivery to subvert our intentions.

Sometimes, Kris’s opposition to us goes beyond mere distaste or disagreement – sometimes our interference risks ruining some plan of theirs, which necessitates urgent intervention.

Other times, their emotions get the best of them.

And yet other times, Kris acts against us simply to keep us at arm’s length.

Of course, at the most pivotal moments, Kris goes beyond petty disobedience and simply rips us out of their body to ensure they can act uninhibited.

And of course, this can only be a temporary measure, because they need us for the Dark Worlds, as their mysterious caller highlights.

Note that four chapters in, we still don’t have any indication that Kris will die without their SOUL or anything like that – in fact, we’ve seen quite a lot of speculation in that direction explicitly undermined by Chapter 4! Now, it’s still totally plausible that Kris needs the SOUL to live, but my point is that this is not something the game highlights at all, which speaks to the fact that Kris lets us inhabit them for other reasons than self-preservation. We are useful to them.

So, in this sense, Kris’s control over us is quite overt and easy to see. Not only do they know plenty about how we operate, allowing them to predict our actions and deliberately interfere when we’re not aligned, and not only do they control when we inhabit their body in the first place, but they are also in direct contact and working with the individual responsible for the Dark Worlds which we spend the bulk of these games going through, and at times they even take on the responsibility of creating them on their own. Our experience of the game is heavily structured by all of these factors.

But this begs the question – aside from these very overt displays of control, are we at least free agents when we’re inside Kris’s body? We may be externally caged by Kris, but are we at least free to choose whatever we want, according to our own wills and desires, within those parameters, regardless of how Kris chooses to resist us?

Well, even here the answer is, in fact, NO! We are NOT free to act however we want. Our range of options is still very much limited! But in what way?

In some regards, the actions we’re able to perform seem constrained by the simple fact of how the game works. For example, we can only view the world through a top-down perspective. We can typically only damage monsters to the point where they flee, unlike in Undertale where we can kill them. Certain fixed events seem like they must always take place. Insofar as there’s anyone to blame for these things, it would presumably be Gaster.

This only gets us so far, though. Because other times, our range of possible options doesn’t seem backed by the same kind of necessity. For instance, take dialogue or inspection options:

These seem rather arbitrary – and in fact, they’re often quite presumptuous. Who’s to say wanting to hear more from Pizzapants is a “lie”? I personally know someone who I think would take issue with that judgement. And who’s to say that I want to say those specific things to Susie?

Well, I’ll tell you who.

It's what they call "you."

Yes, there’s really only one candidate for who would be the operating factor whenever a choice suddenly takes a clear disposition. It’s not Gaster, it’s not some AI in the “DEVICE”, it’s not a third entity, it’s not even Toby. It’s just Kris.

But how come, then, that the things you say and do sound so unlike Kris to those who know them best, like Noelle? How come Kris resists your choices sometimes, if they’re in control of which ones are presented in the first place? How come you sometimes get options which only seem relevant to the player, like talking to Sans as if you know him already?

Well, Toby has graciously already provided us with an answer.

It’s because Kris is us. And we are them. We don’t always act in perfect concordance. But we are in their SOUL, and we are one, for now.

This may seem strange. Isn’t the whole point of the SOUL and Kris’s relationship that they are distinct?

Well, to a degree, yeah. But to a degree, the point is also precisely the opposite. Even when we have different desires and goals, we’re chained to each other, and we influence one another. We are learning to become Kris and Kris is learning to become us. The result is internal strife.

Take for example, this scene by the lake. Kris and Susie have been battling with the Knight since the previous night, come within a hair’s breadth of failing to prevent the apocalypse, and were given a glimpse of the grim fate that is awaiting them at the end of the road. The town is quiet, and staring across the dark waters with your best friend, a prompt suddenly pops up:

The very appearance of the prompt cannot be taken for granted. The fact that it only triggers after minutes of waiting communicates something about the person you’re inhabiting.  

The outcomes are even more telling:

Kris subverts both choices, but steers them in the same direction. Make them say it and they will – with their mouth closed. Kris isn’t apathetic to the bond you’ve formed with Susie over the course of the game. They have a burning desire to tell her “the truth” – but they know they can’t. So they find the compromise – they say it without vocalizing.

Direct them to drop it, and they can’t. Instead of saying nothing, they literally verbalize the word “Nothing”, out of the blue, which Susie sees through. It's clear, then, that the urge to say something is coming from them.

This provides us with a good clue for how the dialogue and choice systems work. The prompts are heavily influenced by Kris, but they’re not necessarily what Kris consciously decides they need to express. They’re sort of like intrusive, or spontaneous thoughts. Whenever external circumstances produce a choice for your vessel, a prompt is fired up but not before passing through a kind of Kris-filter first (and remember that Kris is influenced by your inhabiting them!) which produces a list of plausible Kris-like things to say or do.

But these aren’t the only choices we get in the game. If we take a broader look, we can see that there are a number of optional decision paths we can take throughout. For example, we can collect the Shadow Crystals by seeking out strong – nearly impossible – enemies to battle. We can also exploit strange, glitch-like supernatural occurrences to hunt for “Eggs”, bequeathed by a strange Forgotten Man. Are these our will alone?

It doesn’t seem that way. As is revealed in Chapter 3, the Egg hunt is a deeply personal mission for Kris – far from an arbitrary decision stemming from our will, it seems that seeking out the Man is only something we can do because we are Kris. The Forgotten Island – the last place the Man is able to talk and the part where the Egg quest is properly “initiated” (with him guiding you to their locations in future and past) – is quite literally a materialized chunk of Kris’s unconscious.

The Shadow Crystal quest is not dissimilar. Before Chapter 3, many had already caught on to how the quest seemed tied to Kris’s personality specifically, with the circumstances of Chapter 2’s Secret Boss Spamton pointedly paralleling Kris’s. Spamton, like Kris, seems to have received gnosis of his own arbitrary yet deterministic place within the universe, and sought to combat his fate, pursuing “freedom” at all costs by augmenting his form into something more Powerful. For Spamton, this was the NEO Body, and for Kris, this seems to be the light inside their SOUL – us. And yet, the rude awakening for both lies in the fact that they remained chained – the NEO body is a puppet on strings, and the light, as Spamton says, is also a “Chain” for Kris's soul.  When the NEO Body falls lifeless to the ground after you cut its strings, it’s a nasty reminder of the Faustian bargain that Kris seems to have made – one which shakes them to their core.

Where many went wrong in interpreting Chapter 2 was in their assuming that the “freedom” Kris seeks is a freedom from us, rather than a freedom which they hope to attain through us (though they presumably would like to be rid of us eventually too). Likewise, Kris’s negative reactions throughout the quest had many assuming that we are pressuring them into a quest they have no desire to be a part of, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, Kris takes important measures to ensure that the plan can be fulfilled correctly. For instance – Kris honors Spamton’s deal, meeting with him, and retrieving and delivering the disk alone, without giving the player any opportunity to botch his requests by taking Susie and Ralsei with.

As with the Egg quest, Chapter 3 – which can very much be viewed as “Kris’s chapter” – clarifies matters further. Again we have a character personally connected to and paralleling Kris expositing a whole bunch about the quest’s central motif: “freedom”. Ramb doesn’t mince words – freedom is the thing which Kris wants.

 If what was happening with the Shadow Crystal quest wasn’t obvious already, the Mantle holder just spells it out for us. Despite being aware of a distinction between Kris on their own and Kris when they’re controlled by us, the Mantle holder positions the Shadow Crystal quest as something which Kris wants, something which is important to Kris’s plans.

But there’s one last thing we haven’t looked at yet. The clearest example, it would seem, of the contradicting wills between Kris and us: the Weird Route.

Yes, the successor to the Genocide Route, the part where the player gets to exploit a loophole in the game’s rules to break out of the cage the prophecy has placed them into, where the player gets to force different events to play out than those which are destined to happen on the main route, where the player finally gets to sublimate Kris’s will into their own and make some real decisions.

…Right?

I mean, look at how Kris fights back against it!

Obviously the Proceeds are the player’s will, and the other options represent Kris trying to talk you out of it, right?

Kris takes the opportunity to sabotage the Route and attempts to undo all of the damage you caused in Chapter 2 between Chapters 3 and 4 – isn’t that a testament to how clearly delineated “you” are from Kris?

Well, yes, except…

Except reading the Weird Route as totally separate from Kris and their will was always a bit strained. Look at who Spamton identifies as the instigator of the Weird Route:

Not the player, not the heart-shaped object, not “the Angel”, just you. Kris.

But a lot of people were content to ignore this, in part because Kris could never be culpable in any sense for something as horrific as the Weird Route, right?

And so a lot of people were pretty startled when the Mantle holder said this:

Even though the connective tissue between the Shadow Crystal quest and the Weird Route – that of “Freedom” – was ALWAYS pretty obvious, and set up from the very beginning.

Take a moment to consider this. Set aside the broader idea of “freedom”, which most players undoubtedly do seek (conditioned as they have been by expectations from Undertale), and ask yourself this: does it actually make any sense to view the specific actions which happen in the Weird Route as stemming solely from the will of the player?

For example, does it make sense as an organic expression of the player’s will that Kris would try to force a romantic relationship between themself and Noelle?

I mean, of course there’s a kind of brute logic to it – Noelle seems to be the one with the game-exploiting powers, but we are chained to Kris and their SOUL. Since matrimony is traditionally mystified as a union of souls (and since the practical purpose which has historically motivated marriage as a construct is the reduction of the woman to docile property), it makes some sense to have Noelle joined with our vessel in wedlock.

But is this something most players are consciously thinking about? Is marrying Noelle a strategic choice which players are actually making? Or is it rather the case that the Weird Route feels as if it unfolds almost on its own, often to the bewilderment of the player, who has maybe a vague idea of which direction to push things in, but is far from totally aligned with it in purpose – is in fact rather alienated from it by virtue of their continual surprise at the shocking developments which take place? (Observe how many people initially don’t “get” that you’re supposed to enter Kris again in the pivotal scene of Chapter 4’s Weird Route)

Then consider the fact that in the Genocide Route, not only was the basic undergirding motivation behind the route (the pursuit of absolute power) latent to the vessel’s own personality and will, but that whenever something not directly caused by the player happened, it had a readily identifiable diegetic reason – the vessel itself was responsible!

Okay, but Kris clearly is not on board with the Weird Route the way that Chara clearly is for the Genocide Route. I mean, that is indisputable. Kris is clearly in a lot pain during its events and they fight tooth and nail to sabotage you whenever they can. Don’t interpret what I’m arguing here to be a minimization of that – it’s an absolutely essential part of the route that Kris does not want it. In fact, the Mantle holder (again!) spells out exactly what is happening:

Pay attention to their wording. They don’t say that Kris loves the Weird Route, or that they want it to happen. They say that Kris specifically enjoys the fact that they can say to themselves that “it’s not really them”. In other words, the part which they “enjoy” is the idea that WE are doing the dirty work for them, and that Kris can wash their hands of it - even resist it.

But the unspoken implication is that it “not really being them” is something of an excuse. True, there is clearly a difference between what Kris wants and what we make them do in the route. But we and Kris are aligned in our pursuit of the ultimate goal: Freedom.

That is the narrative significance of Kris being scared to enter the shelter, that is the significance of Kris looking away as they kill their friends in MANTLE but continuing to play, that is the significance of Spamton saying that it’s Kris who tried to see to far, that it’s Kris who will be crying in a broken home.

It's conventional wisdom that people aren’t defined by their thoughts – especially not repressed, unconscious thoughts – but rather what they choose to act on.

In the Weird Route, you draw out and forcefully manifest Kris and Noelle’s unconscious.

“Snowgrave”, seemingly the memory of a traumatic snowstorm; the subconscious guilt over losing the person who mattered to you the most; the wish to become stronger, to overcome your fears; to eradicate that vulnerable part of yourself that you associate with the one you’ve lost, the part you may blame for not being able to prevent the bad things that have happened to you; the desire to have someone with you to tell you what to do.

Freedom; the ability to transcend destiny; becoming so powerful that nothing can hurt you anymore; asserting your autonomy on the world; the sublimated playful urge to hurt and destroy other beings; the conviction that the ends justify the means.... and, perhaps, an abandoned childhood crush (Take note of Carol’s call at the end of Chapter 4 - her odd, ominous support for a romantic relationship between Kris and her daughter, and Noelle’s memory of an awkward, “forced” ferris wheel ride in the past – there seems to be a history here).

These repressed drives are excavated on the Weird Route, lulled to the surface via a “trance”, carried out with dead-eyed, zombie-like resolve.

Are Kris and Noelle responsible? Of course not. They would never be doing this if it weren’t for you.

But it all comes back to the Important Person’s Shirt.