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Deltarune: Chapter 5

***Spoilers Ahead***

When we last saw our heroes, the crushing weight of ambiguous prophecy sat firm on their shoulders. Ralsei and Susie know something that Kris doesn't, and it seems to threaten the future of their friendship. For the first four chapters, these "side-characters" have blindly followed Kris's lead, with the player being the only audience to Kris's darkness. Ralsei believes the fountains to be a part of a prophecy, Susie sees them as a threat to her world, but the Player, peeking behind the curtain, can see that these outbursts of insecurity and pain are Kris's doing. When they can't bear to hurt themselves, they plunge a knife into the world and let the darkness pour out.

Many are quick to criticize Chapter 5 for a supposedly thin narrative, but the lack of Fox's trademark heavy-handedness opens a new door for subtle, blink-and-you'll-miss-it character work. Where the side-crew merely reacted to Kris's leadership in prior installments, most of this narrative sees them independently maneuvering the unfolding consequences of Kris's selfishness. Watch carefully and see Susie's sudden agency and relationship building as a clear consequence of what she learned in the sanctuary, while Ralsei seems to know more about Kris than he's willing to admit. After four chapters in the shadows, these characters have started to operate independently of the protagonist.

Speaking of Kris, we should consider that their role in the primary story route is as de-emphasized as ever [despite their father's major presence in the Dark World]. It's striking how frantically Kris's personality shifts between the Light and Dark world, almost as if their performative sarcasm and humor, faked as to not interrupt Susie and Noelle's date, overwhelms them, setting the narrative beats into motion. At the start, Kris's dialogue options are quite playful while third-wheeling Susie and Noelle, but as it becomes more clear that they've lost their claim to Susie, cracks start to appear. When Susie and Noelle ride in the Ferris Wheel, Kris ignores the player's request to imagine what happens inside, instead choosing to close their eyes and turn away. During the couple's romantic encounter at the lake, Kris faceplants into a table as if to hide themselves [or shield their eyes]. Something is bothering them, and in a desperate attempt to have some alone time with her "friend," Kris unleashes a Dark Fountain entirely focused on a retreat into familiar nostalgia.

This is the "vast garden charred in an inferno of jealousy." Not Ralsei's envy of another Darkener. Not Asgore's wish to be back with Toriel. Kris is willing to destroy everything to keep Susie close, and as she slips through their fingers, the world may have to pay the price.

"Will you really take away someone's fantasy just to keep your own?"

Am I just a sucker for Susie? Perhaps, but it seems to me that Fox wants to interrogate the way that cowards try to slip back into the familiar to avoid an uncomfortable future in Deltarune's fifth chapter. Just as the Undertale players subsume themselves in ceaseless references and crave some kind of resolution to that game's coffins, Kris forces everyone [including the player] into a reference laden-riff on not only Undertale and its fandom but inspirations from Fox's past. On a number of levels, Fox is manifesting the suicide-by-familiarity that plague obsessive yearners. For the characters, it comes in a rescue mission induced by the supposed hero. For the player, it's a futile grasp at stable ground before the foundation gives out.

Let's step back for a second. In a narrative sense, we know that something in the prophecy threatens our protagonists, and that nothing we can do can change this. In a character sense, we can see that Susie's pivot towards stability leaves the significantly more unstable, more dangerous Kris without someone to lean on. In a metatextual sense, the audience can see the forthcoming chapters as a guaranteed ending of a near-decade long saga, and might crave an experience without reminders that this story is coming to a close. Everyone has a good reason to stuff their ears with cotton and drown out the future with a scream, so Fox gives it to them. Hell, he might even be indulging in it to himself.

Deltarune is no stranger to gameplay variations, but the way Fox leans hard into his aesthetic roots rides a fine line between homage and a mimicry. Aqua's music and bullet patterns may have been the work of Touhou Project's ZUN, whose games inspired the combat mechanism in Fox's Undertale. This Dark World's aesthetic is an old-school weeb's fantasy, with many of the enemies referencing memetic and pop-cultural touchstones [see the sand girl, squeaky dog, etc.]. I can't place exactly what's inspiring the 2D sections, but they certainly afford the creator a unique opportunity to diverge from slow RPG and into Shonen, "teen-boy-core" more often than normal. Tying it all together is Flowery, an homage to Undertale who's introduced through stylized anime, constantly quipping like a Tumblr-kid, and ultimately discarded at the hands of the narrative's unstoppable forward momentum. As they say, Time waits for No Man... Flower. Thing.

Asgore has been at an arms length from Kris throughout the entire story, almost as if they find their Dad's groveling pretty pathetic. At the start, I wondered whether Kris pulled Asgore into the Dark World circumstantially, but perhaps there's a similarity in their weaknesses that demands a Fountain. Both of them are aware of the Dark World's influence on Hometown, and both of them harbor tremendous pain over things they can't change. For Asgore, it seems that the image we'd seen across previous chapters, a happy-go-lucky man of spineless kindness was a facade for a deep anger. He wants to take control of the world and get it all back, but his demeanor doesn't match his craving. Just like Kris, the desire for something manifests in internalized anger, and with it, self-destruction.

As the chapter ends, Kris discovers poison flower seeds and the passcode to the bunker in a flowerpot. In an acknowledgement that this fleeting self-worth is coming to an end, they try to rip the code into pieces before Susie takes the paper. They both walk outside. Susie ask's Kris to walk her home, and says that she has to talk to them about something. No directions are given to Susie's house; the player has to wander aimlessly forward with the threat of Susie's impending conversation clouding their mind. They make it to the school, and Susie begins to slip into the closet that bridges Castle Town and Hometown. Her home is in the Dark World, born from a Fountain of Kris's creation. She tells Kris that she's enjoyed their little adventure, but their time as a duo is coming to an end: they must to involve Noelle. Susie returning to Castle Town to build Noelle a bedroom, Kris finds themselves completely alone on the surface. They still have the poison seeds.

How the fuck did Toby Fox do this? I admire his dialogue and think his storytelling is profound, but this scene floored the fuck out of me. Any teenager has been in this exact moment before; when the girl tells you that the wave you've been coasting, a lucky chance to spend time together, was coming to an end. Why didn't you say try to anything before this? Why didn't you lock this down when you had the chance?

I feel like Dr Manhattan here. It is 2026. I am in my office playing Deltarune. The characters are manifesting my personal memories. It is 2014. I am in by bedroom watching Steven Universe. The characters are manifesting my personal reality back at me. It's one thing for a story to be interesting, it's another for it to be affecting, but it's an entirely different thing when the story sucks you in and refuses to let go, leaving you hanging on every ounce of dialogue like you're desperate for someone to stay another hour into the morning. I suppose this craving for the familiar is the point.

The weird route's [seemingly] penultimate chapter might be Fox's way of showing us that a reality where Kris intervenes on the narrative is less desirable than one might think. I'll leave the specifics to the TheoryTubers, but suffice to say, it's an overwhelming of Kris by the player [or perhaps it's Kris's outward expression of their pain] that pushes Noelle towards mutual suicide. In a textual sense, one has to wonder whether this is building towards a finale wherein our leads no-clip out of the game world, but meta-textually, this ending serves as the polar opposite of NormalKris's passivity. Try to control too much and watch the foundation crumble, step back and intervene too little and your life may just pass you by.

Threading the needle with Chapter 5 was always going to be a challenge, and I'm not saying that disappointment was the point, rather, this moment in the narrative was always going to focus on the ways Kris, the supporting cast, the player, and even the developer turn their backs to the inevitable. I wonder if Fox is surprised that so many crave finality and lore answers; it wouldn't surprise me if Fox is too busy clinging onto his "friends" to consider how their story ends.

Does no one appreciate that, once Deltarune is done, Deltarune is done ? You may want all your answers now, but once they come, there are no more questions. Characters that once felt alive, whose actions were completely unknown during your playthrough, become more artificial on each revisit. What once felt like a conversation becomes a recorded history, a rigid retelling of a story once unpredictable. Unlike most art in the current "lore-age," Deltarune is less about the answers, and more about the time with you spend with the characters and world. It's not really a mystery worth solving, having all the answers only rewards you with a tender goodbye.

The end is coming.

Don't let it end.

~rYi-L3igH <3

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P.S. My favorite music tracks are Festival, Garden of Hopes and Dreams, Rakkuichi Buster, Who Might you be? , Petal Dance, Flower Castle, Flower Man, Cutie Mew Mew Magic, and especially Sunset of Seven Suns. I've been replaying that one non-stop lol