Homosexual by day, Sleeping by night

Here is where it calculates the Heal Value. Ah, I can see the problem pretty clearly. I imagine some poor programmer forgot they were working for Toby Fox and assumed that the stats array would be zero-indexed, and so assumed the party was Kris (0), Susie (1), Ralsei (2). But I imagine Toby is Toby and actually made it Kris (1), Susie (2), etc. So the programmer tried to access Susie's magic, but instead accidentally accessed Kris. So, the Wiki is right! Hooray. But... Wait, why would we want to scale the healing stat with magic, anyway? And that's when it hit me. Look at the first calculation there.

(MG * 5) + 15 + (2*Healing)... That might not mean much to you, but.. that's the calculation for OK Heal !! Exactly! And the second calculation... Well, that's not exactly what BetterHeal is. Betterheal is:

(7*MG) + 15 + (2*Healing)

And the calc that the game tries to do here is:

(10 * MG) + (2*Healing)

But the fact it's even multiplying MG at all here is telling to me. Here's what I think: I think that the Power screen is supposed to show you Susie's actual healing effectiveness. It's SUPPOSED to show you how much her Healing would actually do if you used it in battle.

BUT THEY MESSED IT UP IN THREE DIFFERENT WAYS.

It checks KRIS' Magic Stat, instead of Susie's.

It checks Kris' BASE Magic Stat, and doesn't account for equipment. This is why the fact it checks magic at all can't be observed in-game, because Kris' base MG is always 0.

They're using the wrong calculation for Betterheal. My bet is that at one point in development it used to be the 10*MG version but they nerfed/reworked it to the 7*MG variant.

And I'd BET that the reason this was never caught is because:

Nobody uses the Power Screen except complete nerds (me).

Even if playtesters did check the Power Screen, if you didn't KNOW what it was SUPPOSED to show you, you might just assume it's a general tracker for what Susie's healing is.

What the behavior ends up being is that the Healing stat in the menu shows you the *added boost from training* that the spell gets. The spell is 7*MG + 15 + [Bonus], and the screen is showing you [Bonus].

(This one is notable because "Go Back" basically interrupts the thought here)

Super contrived moment here where Susie has to tell us to go back and say goodbye to everyone

And, what is, in my opinion, perhaps the most telling and interesting case:

It is fascinating to me that "GO BACK" and "GO FORWARD" are presented as the choices here. Like, Toby needed to include definitions for what this actually means in parenthesis. Why aren't the options just "FIGHT AGAIN" and "MOVE ON"? I think it's because Go Back is important... It is also worth noting that Go Back is the "good" option here, it is the option that allows us to potentially beat The Knight. There's also this instance in Undertale which may be relevant:

Have you ever thought about Pacify? Really thought about Pacify? Why is this spell even here. In UNDERTALE, Monsters became sparable when low on HP. In DELTARUNE, this extremely niche mechanic almost nobody uses was elaborated into what we might call a Whole Thing, with the Tired mechanic.

As we all know, TIRED enemies can be spared with Ralsei's magic, Pacify. Enemies become tiredwhen they're on low HP, or when certain ACTs are used against them.

When Chapter 1 of Deltarune released, I thought this spell was extremely interesting, because it effectively gave us a way to spare people who didn't want to listen to reason. It made sense to me that making a story where everyone can be befriended is, perhaps, limiting, and so this spell was here to open a bit of narrative freedom and have characters who cannot, while still letting us show mercy regardless. In Chapter 1, this is how Pacify is used- It is the only method we can use to spare Jevil, and in a non-pacifist run, it's the way we beat king.

But then it kind of just... stopped being used in this way. Starting in Chapter 2, ACTs that enable Tired, or enemies that are already Tired, began appearing, and Pacify kind of fades away into being a mechanic first and foremost rather than a narrative device.

But... I don't think that's the truth. Pacify is still strangely relevant narratively, and after my Rude Buster analysis, I'm inclined to read more into the spell's existence and its potential importance to the larger narrative. For starters, in Chapter 1, Ralsei explains the existence of this spell to Susie:

Which is framed mostly as a joke and a warning to use the Warn action against enemies.

But... it's not a joke. In what is, personally, my favorite little piece of Susie characterization in the entire game, if you didn't spare everyone in Chapter 1, then the King fight ends differently. There is no crowd of people to sweep King away- instead, Susie distracts him, and Ralsei casts Pacify, leading to this exchange:

This exchange always stuck in my head, because it demonstrates that Susie pays more attention than we might think, and remembered the earlier conversation about Pacify. At the time, I thought this might be it, that this was just a neat way of Toby showing that Susie listens.

But the fact that Susie remembers this spell comes up again, in Chapter 4. Against the Sound of Justice.

This is, of course, does not end up happening- Ralsei comes in, and defeats the Sound of Justice, which was just a statue and not the actual Old Man.

But this instance really got me thinking. Maybe I'm just thinking about things too much, but it strikes me as important that, yet again, the fact that we can use Pacify to spare foes who are unwilling to listen to reason is a thing.

And so, I get back to my ultimate point: Why is this spell even in this game?

So far, we've yet to truly be in a situation that feels like it absolutely REQUIRES Pacify to work narratively, and in general it rarely comes up. Even in regular combat, it seems most players forget about this spell. Evidently enough, the game feels the need to remind you that this spell exists in chapter 4??

(Seriously, Toby. Were the playtesters that bad?? We know what Pacify does...)

Evidently, Pacify is pretty niche as a mechanic. It does add mechanical nuance to sparing enemies, and I really appreciate it, but... I find it hard to believe that its mechanical implications are the reason it's here.

So far, there have only been 2 characters who we need to Pacify in certain contexts. And really, only one of those is "real" to me, because I fully think there could've been some other way King was defeated. And even with Jevil, that could've been an ACT.

So... I think there's something else. I think the fact that we have the ability to Spare people who Don't Want To Listen is important. It's brought up as an option in Chapter 4, it's emphasized in Chapter 1.

My personal bet right now is that Pacify is going to be used on someone later in the story. Someone we don't want to hurt, but who will not listen to reason. Like how Susie didn't want to hurt who she thought was the Old Man but clearly he was unwilling to talk. My bet? I think we're Pacifying The Knight at some point later in the story. The Knight is explicitly someone we cannot ACT against, but given who the Knight most likely is... we kinda don't want to actually hurt it. At least Kris wouldn't want to.

Also, it's fitting for Ralsei to be the one to finish the fight, because that gives him more agency in our quest against fate. It feels fitting to me, at least...

It's also maybe possible it's someone like Asgore, I guess, or maybe a SOUL-Shined Pacify could put a Titan to sleep or something, I'm not 100% all in on it being The Knight, but that makes the most sense to me. Regardless, I'm confident this spell is important. Time will tell if I'm right, I guess...