deltarune suffers a bit from fandom's recent tendency to overanalyze and lore scrape that's surfaced since the inception of FNAF, and it makes it unnecessarily harder to like, engage with. i say a bit because it's not as if there's nothing to analyze; obviously there is. that'd be obtuse to pretend there's not. but the fact that a story is pretty clearly being told to us straight to our faces as we play the game—and yet everyone insists that all the backdoors and secrets are what's REALLY going on, what you HAVE to know to understand the TRUE meaning of everything—oh, never mind that you should also know how to get into the game's source code, do the ARGs, periodically review 7-10 year-old posts on toby's tumblr and bluesky—it's Disorienting! it's hard to follow! admittedly, whenever i see how much people theorize and expand upon one screen's worth of dialogue and stray pixels or an easter egg, and then i finally see the next chapter—and it's none of that? it's no where near as convoluted as any of that? it's jarring! after chapters 3, 4, and 5—it feels like we're literally doing too much and not even enjoying any of the actual story we've been given, which i can only imagine is frustrating for the deltarune team itself, never mind for the rest of the fans when we all but set ourselves up for being disappointed.

when it comes to dess specifically—it's crazy to think about how little she is even really talked about by name. obviously what happened to her is important to some degree—but if it came out that she really was the knight, would that be satisfying? carol is obviously a red herring, but at least what little we've seen of her character already spawns ideas for a motivation; classic 'i have to do whatever it takes to save my child', at the very least, if not more.

to be honest, i do like the idea of rudy as the knight; if the knight is meant to be a twist, there's something to be said about how kind he is—portrayed as the 'good' parent between noelle's two—and how much dialogue he has. and yet, hearing that people think this theory the more 'crackpot' one, or the one less 'narratively' driven than say, 'dess was split into two entities, one is the person trapped in the code, the other is the knight'—are we serious?

that said, i do think, also, that gerson's gimic as being all but 'revived' in the dark worlds temporarily is a great chekov's gun for rudy as well; if he does fall down and all but die in the lightworld, then it's a perfect set up to see him once again in the next dark world. even given the evidence for the potential of rudy as the knight—i do find it hard to believe that an injured/sick man that's been bedridden and hospitalized would apparently be able to grab and run off with undyne to the shelter.

i don't know, i just think it's frustrating that this idea of rudy gets written off as being "too out there" or "not narratively satisfying enough" when we truly don't have any more of a connection to dess as a character beyond the stray crumbs. we know noelle misses her, we know she was all but dating asriel—but what else? it's tragic that anyone would get stuck in a limbo dimension away from their friends and family; we don't yearn to see her because she's a cool, compelling character we miss dearly, too—we miss her because it's unjust that an innocent person would get seperated from their life. it's not that it's uninteresting at all, the idea that she's the knight—but i'd argue it's no more 'narratively interesting' or 'justified' than rudy.

on the other hand entirely, i admit i've been kind of reticent to accept transfem/'galsei' up til now—but not because i didn't believe it, per say; more that the largest conversations i'd seen around this topic all would, without fail, cite ralsei's affinity for pink, having long eyelashes, a soft-spoken personality, a proclivity for 'feminine' clothing—all as being inarguable facts pointing toward "actually, ralsei is a GIRL because she likes GIRL THINGS that're for GIRLS and she LOOKS like a GIRL"

that take, as a trans masc gnc person, is also frustrating!

given flowery's quip about 'princess' in ch5 though, i'd say i'm more—hopeful? that line, at least, is less "because ralsei LIKES PINK and BOWS" and is more plainly "here's a character simply using a gendered term as if it's the correct one, and the character receiving it all but accepting it because maybe they do like how it sounds." given this, no, i'm not against it; to gain any further trans representation in an overall positive light is a net good, in my opinion. i could maybe, if i really wanted to be a hater, argue about how the potential transfem character was still ultimately written into some gender-rolesy stereotypes to convey hints about their identity, but that feels a little nitpicky at the end of the day. like i said—the portrayal overall is relatively nice, so it still feels like a net positive.

a last unrelated bit; the interpretation of noelle's all but mental break in ch5 weird route are like—i don't know, 'troubling' isn't the right word. but the weird route itself, at this point, is pretty obviously sad to me, any way you slice it; noelle is at her wit's end because of the implications of the soul existing and what it's capable of, what you had her do, what she thinks the two of you are now capable of—and she's willing to basically risk, if not outright kill herself just to break out of the suffociating monotony of every day life that isn't asking her how she's doing after the disappearance of her sister.

to an extent, i get it; people love horror, they love an innocent nice character turned scary—maybe, if you wanted to read it a bit uncharitably and darkly, people who've struggled with feeling stuck in their lives and killing themselves about it feel seen by a character like noelle; all the fanart depicting her as a scary cryptid is the impact they wish they could've had or felt they could've had if they'd done it, or how they wished it could've felt.

on the other hand, people who make art of the reality—turning the horror angle into "what if they straight up just drowned and died"—even that feels almost tasteless, in a way. not that i actually judge anyone negatively for making fanart of any of this in these ways—it just strikes me particularly, because it's like. fucking sad, and yet being portrayed as almost, like, 'cool', 'impressive', 'powerful'.

kris and noelle are these kids who's parents are not doing enough to check in on them; dess's disappearance hit them so hard, and yet the town had felt like it moved on, went back to normal—and no one was acknowledging how horrible it made anyone feel, let alone them.

noelle's conclusion in the weird route read like—what just so naturally what happens when a kid isn't paid attention to, listened to, when their needs aren't met and they feel like no one would care if they, too, disappeared. noelle doesn't need to be made into a terrifying cryptid that's uncannily aware the game exists, she's a kid that needs someone to fucking check in on her, dude.

the way everyone takes away that noelle 'knows about the game' and the meta-narrative stuff—this, too, i get; it's not like the implications aren't there. but i wanna offer that—the town didn't just go back to normal and move on, at least not from what we saw. asgore lost his job over it, he and toriel got a very public divorce—everyone talks to you about asriel moving on to college because it's easier and more light-hearted than opening a converation with "how are you holding up since dess disappeared?", but she's still even mentioned here and there—still all but implied in most of the conversations mentioning just asriel, an uncomfortable truth of "... yeah, that happened too."

like, this is a small town; folks can't help but notice pizzapants's not-girlfriend, there's no way they aren't also aware and mourning dess in their own ways, but that's just—life. people have lives, they move on, they feel like they can't just come and talk to you about a family member or friend that disappeared; what if that hurts you more?

of course noelle feels trapped or like her life is on tracks; this is like, a very real thing that happens with grief, with death, with people around you who know about your grief or a related death. this happens with kids who don't know how to deal with grief!

tying this at least barely back to the whole rudy thing—with the scenes flashing back and forth, it could be interpretted that rudy falling from the ladder still happens in weird route, even though you can talk to him before the lake scene and he's not on it anymore. maybe he got on it after you left, who knows. we won't until the next chapters are out. but it would be fascinating if the paths diverged that much, that rudy falls down in the normal route but survives the weird route. hell, 'side b'? that sounds like a hell of a lot of potential for things to split sideways.

anyway this wasn't entirely about the fandom being overly theorypilled—but it does still weigh on my mind. i like trying to guess what's coming next as much as the next guy—it's fun to pour over the canon itself as much as find the secrets, but there comes a point where folks start treating these hypotheses as all but canon—i remember seeing in the comments section of a tiktok, "yeah it was obvious and basically canon that asgore hit dess with his car in a dui" LIKE????

we should analyze media! we should hypothesize, put together interpretations, headcanons—but maybe slow our rolls more readily on coming to expect these things to come true? already treating them as canon, or deriding people for liking the sound of a less-popular theory because you grew attached to the idea of another one already—when neither are even provably true or false yet??

i look forward to these last few chapters, however long they may take—but i admit, i won't be surprised if deltarune, for all its fandom and hype, ends up one of those 'had so much potential but ended kind of disappointingly' not because i think the writing will actually flop—but it is undoubtedly going to be harder and harder for it not to, the way its reputation proceeds it whenever any discussion about it happens online.

unrelated to any of that, and just because it's on my mind: i don't know what it is—i do like the writing, the characters, the plot—but i find it harder to attach to these characters than seemingly most everyone else who plays or gets into this game.

that is, i say that—i know a few people who are sutured to this game and its characters, and that's fine; i get it, i have favorite guys like that. i just wish i could muster up a greater feeling for any of them, myself, than a month-long "oh that guy was super funny, loved him" for tenna at most and a "i really like this characters writing/arc, i'm curious about what more they'll have to say or do in the future—that's about as passionately i feel about them" for most everyone else. interestingly, i know a few people like this too; that just find the overall story interesting, but none of the characters really starkly strike them, so the interest somewhat all-but wanes between chapters.

i've seen people adore the new flower characters in chapter 5, fascinated by their dynamics, what they represent, fawning over their characterizations and sad they'll be gone—but when i look at them myself, it's little more than "oh that's a fun design. yeah, strong characterization for as little time we get to spend with them." and then sort of moving on after chapter 5 ends, establishing that we won't see any of them again, even as castle town NPCs.

even flowery; perfectly good character. great dynamics with the other flowers, with the main squad, it was actually surprising when he didn't heel turn at the end—but while he died somewhat nobly, it didn't do more than evoke a sighing "yeah" from me when i saw it, even as ralsei clamoured to get him back to one piece for seemingly his own sake.

i guess this is part of why i'm afraid of the "disappointing ending" bit; where i stand, the fandom's in the throes of theorizing, headcanoning, deeply passionate about any and all the characters—meanwhile, i look at the story itself, and it's just a good story that doesn't do to stick to me personally. i wonder if that will catch up to others in a way, and i do hope Not; it sucks to see a series with so much potential all but land flat on its face for the ending. that's frustrating too! i don't think it's a guarantee, no, it's just something i worry about—not that it has any bearing on me. it would just suck if such a long legacy in the making, so much love—potentially became a catastrophic 'bigger they are, harder they fall' moment.