the big lack of properly analysing kris and this aspect of them in the community is so frustrating to me, since its clearly such a huge theme in the game and something i really really like the potential of. i resonate so hard with Andrew's video and especially that specific bit you opened with. this was just a really refreshing video in that regard.
I'm really glad to hear that! Andrew's perspective of just understanding Kris is very important to me, and although I think it's good to compare how Kris works in their game compared to Chara and Frisk, they are at the end of the day their own person.
I mean, even if the being controlling me is wholly benevolent, it still does things I wouldn’t, and may do things I very much disagree with. Plus, nobody likes having words put in their mouths.
what could be an interesting piece of characterisation for kris is the fact that kris will fight against the soul's influence *regardless of the choices of your game;* which says, to me, that kris doesn't care if we control them for good or bad. kris just hates being *controlled.*
I think there is one angle on Undertale and Deltarune relation that I don't think I've heard a lot of people discussing. As we know, Deltarune was conceived before Undertale. Some theorist have pointed out that in Delatrune, Toriel's kitchen layout is remarkably similar to the Undertale's Underground layout - fridge for Snowdin, sink for Waterfall, stove for Hotland. A lot of Undertale's visual features start suddenly making a new sort of sense while viewed from this lens - water coming down in the Waterfall, garbage coming down the drain (even Asgore flowers seem to be in the garbage can), red and black features of Hotland being reminiscent of an electrical stovetop, you get the picture. It looks like what the kitchen COULD look in Dark World. Now, why would it be like that? If we are to remember that, again, Deltarune was conceived before Undertale, I think we can sorta trace Toby's steps. Imagine you are him, in front of this humongous JRPG project, as an inexperienced solo gamedev. Things are looking grim! But what if, instead, you just take ONE Dark World, and expand it to be it's own finished thing, using most of your character cast? You can probably make that! You should, it's never getting off anyhow. As a joke of it being sorta reused material, you are switching the letters of the name around, and call it "Undertale". (also, have you ever noticed just how vague and undefined Undertale's lore about stuff outside of Underground is? about humans-monsters war, human magic, etc? I suspect that this is the cause - ultimately these are excuses for the dangling threads where connective tissue used to be) Of course, I can't know if it's true, but also man does it feel like it makes a lot of sense! But what does this conjecture even mean for us? Why am I even going on on this all? Well, under assumption of truthfulness, this is a tool, one we can use to analyse Delatarune with. We can't use parts of Undertale as direct evidence - who knows which parts Toby have changed for this switch, and which would he change again for the new context of Deltarune - but we can use it as thematic evidence quite alright. And it's thins angle that I think gives this analysis of your more strength!
This is a really neat way to compare Undertale and Deltarune in a way that I hadn’t before. Looking at it like this, the thematic notes underscoring the endings of Deltarune seem almost… *obvious.* In Undertale: -True Pacifist: You extend universal kindness to literally everyone you meet, and in the process, set them all literally free from physical imprisonment. After this ending, the game outright encourages you to stop playing it. -Neutral: You do things your own way, and at the end of it all, you are the only one to escape the underground. The ending is satisfying enough to leave you room to put it down and be done with it, but gently encourages you to come back and do better. -Obliteration: You go out of your way to destroy everyone, and nobody gets to be free. You and Chara are now inseparable, whether they stay with you as you play another game, or you give them your soul to continue playing Undertale. If we extrapolate this metaphor to Deltarune, then we get: -Mercy Route: In spite of the choices we don’t have, we extend compassion to Lightners, to Darkners, and to Kris. In the process, everyone is free: the Lightners from their personal troubles, the Darkners from their rulers, and Kris from us and their past. We are possibly even restored of our rightful Vessel, with Kris and company maybe even leaving Hometown to enjoy their newfound personal agency. -Fight Route: You swiftly solve people’s immediate, practical problems with brute force. Things are changed as a result, but not all that much for the better, as they exchange one prison for another. In the end, you are free from Kris, but Kris is not free from your influence, nor are they free from their past. -Weird Route: You go out of your way to steal everyone’s agency, controlling everyone you can and killing anyone you can’t. In the end, you leave a permanent scar on the story that even saving and loading can’t fix, either damaging Kris in some way, or maybe even permanently destroying the Vessel such that you no longer have any means with which to leave Kris alone in the Mercy ending. This is all speculation, obviously, but if Deltarune is meant to be a more intimate and psychologically-driven story, as opposed to Undertale being more straightforwardly and impersonally positive, then I imagine it will play out a lot like that. Maybe this conflicts with Toby’s whole thing about there only being One(TM) Ending(???) but I imagine that it’s probably something along the lines of “the story doesn’t technically ‘end’ if you don’t leave it alone after doing a mercy run.”
13:50 I love this point. The only way to not hurt the characters of a game is to not play it. Toby may hate his early,, Earthbound hack" phase but the point there was the same. The only ,,real" choice you can make in a video game is to stop playing.
On the subject of Frisk, Chara and the player; the idea of Chara representing the player in this dynamic never sat right with me. Surely, it would be more accurate to say that Flowey uses Chara as a way of conceptualising the player, unaware of the actual distinction between the two and Frisk represents the player, at least from the moment we enter the underground to the moment we go through the barrier. I think a good chunk of the No Mercy route (and the other routes to a much lesser extent) seems to be designed with us, the player, thinking we are Chara and then the sudden realisation we're not at the end with the 'real' Chara appearing.
Sort of disagree, I don't really think the player is Frisk either. Imo Chara is more like a representation of our connection to Undertale than either a completely separate character or the player entirely. There are parallels between us and them, we wake up at the same time, we are addressed as them in the pacifist ending, blah blah. But I don't think this means the player IS them. In pacifist they are given the final choice to erase and start from the beginning or to leave everyone alone but never see them again, representing our emotional attachment to the characters or lack thereof. In no mercy they say at the end that they are the feeling you get when the numbers go up, when you see everything the game has to offer without considering the consequences. In all routes, Chara is the narrator LITERALLY residing in the UI, they are our connection, our INTERFACE with Undertale.
I like this way of seeing Undertale too. It hits harder to know we are separate from Frisk and Chara, knowing that we can't pin the blame on either of them for the genocide route. We were always the ones to keep killing everyone we saw, and the only time that freedom was taken away from us was when it was too late.
Frisk, Chara and Flowey all represent the player in different ways at different times, but none of them are literally meant to be the player or represent them the *entire* time
"Flowey uses Chara as a way of conceptualising the player, unaware of the actual distinction between the two" is a very good way of putting it I think. My first video goes a bit into how none of the characters themselves (aside from maybe Chara) don't realize it is a game, and Chara kind of contexualises yourself in the game.
As someone who *heavily* relates to Kris as a character, emotionally, and my sister who relates to Noelle, having done the Snowgrave route truly *b l a s t e d* me morally with some lessons that I needed to learn, and it was all thanks to the moral and philosophical ramifications of the plot of these two games. I appreciate your analases, and you've definitely gained a new sub for covering the topic about this game nobody else seems to be covering!..
I love the parallels you draw between kindness in Undertale and freedom in Deltarune, and how they're both thing that we can give by not playing the game.
It's worth noting that the save file we use un undertale is actually _Chara's_ file, file0 it has their name on it and everything. Frisk _does_ have their own file though; at certain points the game autosaves to file9 On another topic, I really don't get the sense that Kris is _that_ bothered by the player's influence (outside of snowgrave/weird route). I have the impression of them as someone who's not confident in their ability to connect with people, and i think we're helping them with that in an odd way. Honestly I'm more concerned with Ralsei's seeming disregard for Kris's feelings. Ralsei seems to be very much aware that we're controlling Kris, and on several occasions he ignores the signs that Kris disagrees with a dialogue choice by taking it at face value despite the strained way they say it. (the clearest examples of this are for saying "gaming is my life" just before the first punch-out minigame, and saying "yes" when asked if they're ok just after the spamton fight)
I feel like we just know way too little about any of the humans. But I might as well throw in my cent... Kris is probably some alternative Frisk (name and appearance), who led a life very similiar to Chara (I have a headcanon that their love for chocolate is related to being first taken in by the Dreemurrs, for example), but from a meta-narrative point of view that is irrelevant and they represent something else entirely.
frisk isnt a proper anagram bc kris doesnt have an f in it i dont think similar names immediately means kris is an alternate universe version of a character thats a really huge stretch
Kris is 100% slightly older Chara in 202X instead of 201X, because that timing in the Undertale intro is for Chara's fall. Frisk's counterpart isn't born yet.
That's what I'm saying! Kris is Kris. They are their own person, with their own wills. That's the whole POINT of them- the game is hammering home that Kris is their own self and we are controlling them. That could easily extend to their relationship with "fate". They're not Frisk, nor Chara, nor us. They're Kris.
This is a fantastic video, but your point about the "morality" of controlling Kris made me recall something rather important. Remember how exactly we, the player, got involved, at least within the canon of the narrative. We didn't just pick Kris out of our box of potential protagonists and decide to replace their soul. We were consensually participating in a "survey program," only to be abducted and placed in control of Kris against our will. We are no more culpable for the situation with Kris than Kris is for our actions, at least as far as the my SURVEY_PROGRAM.exe save file circa 2018 is concerned. (Ominous license agreements that don't exist in the final game notwithstanding...) However, we *are* culpable for the choice of abandoning the game. There is a huge lack of certainty that abandoning Kris gives them the same freedom to live their life as leaving a complete True Pacifist Undertale save file alone does for Frisk. Are they left with a pilotless Soul, stuck in place? Dying from a lack of Soul altogether? Trapped in the frozen time of a suspended save file? Perfectly fine? We don't really know, and because of that I'd say that there may actually be a moral argument to be made for seeing this through, to try and make damn sure that Kris gets to live their own life and that we aren't simply leaving them to a grim fate.
I disagree that the game is trying to create the idea that you should not play the game, because, if you do not play the game, all you are doing, is leaving everyone in a stasis of perpetual misery. If you never play Undertale, the monsters will stay forever, confined, and overcrowded, hoping for freedom that will never come. If you play the game however, you can free them, and end their misery. All the game argues, is that you should not play again after making everyone happy, because otherwise you'll leave everyone in a state of misery again, when you can just leave them happy. And with Deltarune, if we do not play the game, Susie will stay a lonely kid with likely serious home abuse issues, Noelle will be anxious and fearful, unable to stand up for anyone, Ralsei will never have a friend, the Spade king and its inhabitants will remain obssesed with revenge, and Kris if I am interpreting correctly with their background, will remain lonely, and without self-worth. And with a less optimistic interpretation of a stasis existing, the story will go on, and the world will eventually get covered in Darkness, as no one will be there, capable of creating a new future. And something that is also very important, we did not choose to control Kris in the first place. We were suposed to have a vessel, someone who would inheret our will and interact with the world, but we were instead forced to control Kris. If Kris does not want this situation, well, we didn't either. I am also extremely skeptical with the idea that Kris, does not want any of it or hates us because... well. They did not wake up panicking and resisting us. They probably think we can do something for them that they can't do alone, maybe for a miriad of reasons, but I think that it involves their lack of self worth.
I don’t think that the game is trying to say that it’s bad to play the game. I think it’s demonstrating the ideas of control over a protagonist and how it can change their life both for the better or worse. I think it’s a testament to the strength of the text with how much it engages you with it. This is a really well thought out and interesting comment, I enjoyed reading it!
Kris is in canon probably equivalent to Undertale's Toy Knife kid, they like knives so much they fell into the underground with a toy knife (Chara gets this knife attribute a lot but they did not fall into the underground with a knife, that was a gift for gardening) and their blue in the Dark World is the same exact shade of cyan as the patient soul. Seriously if you color picker the Cyan Soul & Kris' Skintone from the dark world, it is exactly the same color. [Interestingly, neither of Susie's purples line up with the Purple Perseverance Soul. But she's a monster and we don't know her soul color if it's even not just Monster White, so I'm not sure what to think about that] The reason we see so many similarities between UT and DR, is that The Red Soul [the narrator] knows about Undertale. We know they're NOT Chara because they do not care about plants like the Cactus inside of Kris' house. Therefore: THE RED SOUL IS *FRISK DELTARUNE* (Or literally any red souled human [except those who like plants] who could feasibly know about Undertale, like an assistant to Gaster or whoever you think managed to connect us to Frisk's soul in Undertale. But my mildly-cracked theory is that it's Frisk) Also uh, really good video! You caring about the exact opposite part of the lore from me made this a really interesting watch! I kind of just blurted that paragraph above me out on reaction to the intro about Kris being neither Frisk or Chara lol.
I think this is also a possible interpretation, given how a major theme of the game is gaining courage, and how the orange color stands as the opposite to the cyan color in Undertale, mainly in how you defend against orange and cyan attacks -- by moving vs. not moving. Orange can be interpreted as Bravery, while Cyan can be interpreted as its more negative opposite, Cowardice. Simultaneously, Orange can be seen as Brashness, while Cyan can be interpreted as its more positive opposite, Patience. How Bravery plays into Deltarune can be seen with Kris at the end of Chapter 1, standing up to King to defend Susie (and gaining one point of Guts in the subsequent chapter) and how the Snowgrave route increases Noelle's boldness (again, synonymous to Bravery) in Chapter 2. With Patience acting as the opposite to Bravery, it would make sense that Kris is a parallel to the Toy Knife kid, whose representative color is Cyan. There's even a possible interpretation of Spamton's lines, indicating that Kris' Soul may have turned red at some point, by whatever force was also in contact with Spamton.
And if you want to go even deeper into wacko theories, the orange color has a strong connection to hand-to-hand combat with the Tough Glove, and the Flowey Fight section of the Orange Soul, which involves a large number of circling hands, has a music jingle that sounds eerie and mysterious, kind of like Gaster's Theme. In other words, the theory being that the transition from Cowardice to Bravery, from Patience to Brashness, also indicates coming into closer contact to Gaster, the man who speaks in hands.
god videos like these really want me to get into themeing and narrative devices more. undertale and deltarune are so well written and with the way they play with the player on a thematic level and not just a literal level is really cool. its also really nice to see videos like this amongst theory videos and arguments on which role a character plays in the story (stuff like is kris the knight, is ralsei evil, stuff like that). its good to discuss things like that but it feels almost overlooked to analyze just. Narrative Conventions. (also what Cruxin said in a comment its really nice to see an analysis of kris here too). thanks
the fact that Kris has the same skin color and hair color, and the same general facial expression. I feel like the idea that this is a more grown Frisk makes most sense. The main difference physically is the shirt, which is the same as charas. But this is probably because they are being raised by the dreamers who bought the same shirt for them and they did for chara in undertale. It also could give more context for controlling frisk in undertale. Despite this i dont think it is frisk. Just that if Kris is any character from undertale I would say frisk.
Also many of the monsters are slightly grown up. The timeline makes a little more sense of Kris is a deltarune frisk rather than chara. Would any of the monster children even have been born yet when Chara fell to the underground? The only one we know of is Asriel. But at this point asriel is young. And here he is a teen. Do boss monsters grow slower than other monsters? I.. idk. I feel like frisk would line up slightly more
I see what you’re saying, but Kris basically has the same exact clothing as Chara. Furthermore, the red eye is definitely a Chara thing, and from what we know about Kris their personality is more similar to Chara’s.
@@romancat-holic7640 again the clothing thing doesn’t mean much to me. The red eye thing has merit though. I always assumed it symbolized possession but that’s just an assumption
@@romancat-holic7640 Chara has brown eyes. Frisk's eyes are red the only only time they open them. They're possessed at the time, sure, but there's no evidence that changes eye colour
Tbh Kris reminds me a lot of Gregory (from fnaf) they look like their previous game counterparts, however, they have small differences. I believe that Kris (appearance only) may be a reference to Frisk and Chara just like I believe Gregory is a reference to the Crying Child
This video is great! I think your analysis is pretty much spot on, although I will say that I think Kris serves a slightly different role than Chara. To me, Chara is our connection to Undertale, they are our choice to reset true pacifist or leave it as is, they are the feeling we get thay motivates us to do a no mercy route, if you believe narachara they LITERALLY reaide in the UI, they are our connection, our INTERFACE with Undertale. To me Kris is serving a more direct role, rather than being mostly a vehicle to represent our connection to the game, they more represent our connection to the protagonist. They don't have to be eirher Frisk or Chara because Deltarune is tackling different themes rhan Undertale and needs its own protagonist to do that. From my perspective where Undertale was interrogating the player's relationship with the world of Undertale, Deltarune is examining the player's relationship with KRIS. (Also 11:34 i know what you are)
13:00 God I hate the “player bad for playing the game” interpretation so much. It’s just so goddamn preachy and I’d hate if Deltarune actually took that route and criticized you for playing the game the way it’s intended.
(cool video! entire mother series spoilers ahead, so maybe don't read this) i haven't finished the video yet, but: it's interesting thinking about these protagonists through the lens of the mother series, which inspired toby. this came to mind because i saw the hover image of "frisk is ness", lol it was always weird to me that, whenever you control a character, they don't talk. all your party members will, but the character you play as will stay silent. earthbound beginnings has 1 consistent main character, and he only talks when...(should i put a spoiler warning for a 30 year old game??? i guess if you care about spoilers, don't read ahead). but, he only has one direct line at the very end of the game, which is when you stop controlling him. earthbound plays a bit more with this idea. there are two places where ness "talks": one of them being the 7th sanctuary lumine hall. there, he doesn't directly talk, but his words are projected onto the cave wall. the other time he talks is in his dream, magicant. ness meets different versions of himself, and they talk to him. and current-ness speaks once you get the huge power boost at the end of magicant. it's just interesting! i wish i could say more about this, but i'm low on time rn-might edit the comment after i finish the video. mother 3 also does this, but it feels even more blatant. here, you get to switch between characters in different chapters. the main character lucas doesn't talk when you're controlling him, but when you're playing as flint or duster? he talks just like a normal npc! that was always weird to me. i definitely feel like this aspect inspired UT/DR's main character stuff-i just _know_ that in a future deltarune chapter, we'll control another character (idk, dess or something) and we'll see kris talking like a normal npc
Great video! Some constructive criticism, those title cards are very short. They could easily be on the screen for a whole second longer without disturbing the pacing of the video, making them easier to read. Congrats on 2k!
Just happened to discover your channel from video on Darkness and Escapism, and subscribed to your channel, never though you would upload after finishing those two video
Kris and Frisk are only vessels for the player to handle, whatever it is, our participation in the events of the history of the games can be taken as a forced possession
well said! I think i may have met you on the acds, perhaps with a cynthia pfp? could be misremembering tho i assumed you were a woman of culture based on cynthia appreciation alone, but didn’t know you were this big brain. cheers for the video, looking forward to more!
DT!Asriel on the phone with Kris, seeing frisk and chara in an alley "Sib is this you in the alley right here?" Kris, on the phone "Brother if you see a bitch in an alley with a BAD BOB that is not me, go the other way"
Idk why but seeing a png of the knight at 4:03 immediately made me wanna jump around (i do know why-- it's the autism)/hj But seriously, really great video!!/gen im not rlly smart enough to add anymore words like other comments so I'll jus shut up now ':•]
in undertale you aren't frisk you are controlling frisk and frisk doesn't fight for control which in deltarune kris does which do leads to some theory's about frisk being already dead due to the fall and you're just possessing a corpse.
Im just trying to enjoy some Undertale / Deltarune lore and the first thing I hear is you saying other people's theories are bad. Instantly stopped the vid. Thx for ruining people's enjoyement. Just cause you disagree with someone else's theories doesn't make it "bad", that's just your opinion, not facts...
its not that big of a deal sometimes people just misunderstand a game or have shitty evidence if someone saying your theory is bad is enough to make you shit and cry i dont think you should be on the internet
@@salemmarz3809 I understand. However it's basic respect not calling other people bad & shitty. I'd rather speak my mind than ignore disrespect. Regarless, I hope you have a good day.
@@idontknow-sh4bj they aren’t calling the people bad, they’re calling the theories bad. like, if my girlfriend says the dumbest shit ever I’m going to tell her that she just said the dumbest shit ever, that means nothing towards them as a person. if my favorite streamer makes a bad play in a video game im gonna say that the move was ass, and then continue on loving my favorite streamer.
the theories are factually incorrect, they’re bad. deltarune isn’t undertale, and kris is a completely different person than frisk and chara. this means nothing towards the people who made the theory, it just means that the theory itself kinda sucked. there’s nothing actively mean towards the other people about this.
I didn't really understand why you said that Chara is being controlled by us and that Flowey was talking to Chara. As far as what I saw we are the ones controlling frisk and with gaining EXP we give chara more and more control over frisk. Also I will try to prove that frisk could be kris 1. Siblings with Asriel welp yes that one is evidence for Kris=chara 2. Adaptive child of Asgore and Toriel There is an ending where frisk becomes the adoptive child of asgore and toriel and they seem to be fine with adopting any human child 3. Only human in their environmen So is frisk 4. Likes playing pranks and chocolate Most people like chocolate and I don't know when chara plays pranks 5. Has their own knife Another point for charakris 6. Wears a green and yellow striped shirt That's three points that friskkris doesn't have Let's see the points for kris 1. Badically the exact same hair and skin colors and I think someone is more likely to be the same person if their body is the same than if their clothes are the same (It's specified at some point in deltarune that "you could wear whatever you want") +1 point 2. They both seem to have red eyes unlike chara +1 3. We control Kris and Frisk but not chara +1 If you can find more points for either character tell me them :D I mainly looked at it from a lore pov tho because it's 3 am and I... am tired
The way that I see it, Chara is kind of a mix between a way that the characters in-universe (like Flowey) can contextualise the player, as well as a way that we (as players) can see the consequences of our actions.
something i'd like to point out. Kris is not wearing chara's shirt. they are wearing asriel's. likely a hand me down. kris likes blues and purples more if we are to believe the dark world uniforms are in line with their personality as it is with susie
*DETERMINATION.EXC: "Undertale.exe" extends "UTMV"* This single statement makes Chara and, partially, Kris, to be more powerful than the hypothetical "player" entity