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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มี.ค. 2024
- While this is technically a theory, it's really more of a breakdown of the fundamentals of storytelling and how they relate to meta-narratives in Toby Fox's work! Hope you enjoy! :D
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![DELTARUNE / The Meaning of [Hyperlink Blocked] / All Theories Analyzed](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/G0A2tUahASo/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you all for the comments and feedback! I've heard a lot of (mostly) respectful arguments and standpoints, and it's been very educational! I'll try my best to phrase my literary analysis as "opinion" in the future, as the lack of that in this video seems to be a major source of contention. Beyond that, I think I made it clear that I have nothing but respect for Toby Fox in this video, but just for those who didn't quite get that: I totally respect Toby Fox! I'm sure he'll make DELTARUNE something fantastic no matter what! Maybe he'll do it the way I suggested, or maybe he'll find some innovative way of doing it that I couldn't conceive of! But no matter what, I'm sure DELTARUNE will be great, and I hope it's clear that none of this was meant to be viewed as criticism of Toby Fox. Hope that clears things up! Thanks again for watching! x)
For the future, arguments like this one would benefit from more textual analysis. For example, one major flaw with the red soul being the literal player is the description for the red wagon in Kris' room saying that it has "seen quite a few crashes". Meaning what we see at the end of chapter 1 has happened before the game even starts, making it a bit sketchy that the red soul and us are 1:1 (wouldn't all the other times Kris did that be shown since it's supposed to be stuff that happened to me?).
That is unless Kris was pulling their own soul out even back when things were normal which is huuh.. weird?
Oh and also Toriel saying "Kris... does this sometimes." when they lock themselves in the bathroom. Not really definitive evidence, but still.
Good 👍
@@godoatthegoat2884 You know, those are some really good points. I always forget about the wagon/cage line.
@@godoatthegoat2884 That's only if they're literally referring to the same thing. The crashing line could refer to anything, especially considering Kris has hidden their soul in several different places. Personally it doesn't make sense to me that this has happened before the start of Deltarune considering we haven't been controlling Kris right as whomever is possessing them began doing that. Could be a case of Occam's razor here, but still.
@@benshulz4179 All due respect, the tutorial explaining the controls is barely comparable to this.
I personally do not see the need for a distinction here. I believe Deltarune’s plot can combine elements of traditional narrative and meta-narrative without the world of the game crumbling or being made worthless. The medium of video games allows a player to become a part of the world presented in the game. From my perspective, this allows the player to become an actor in the plot rather than just a viewer. On the DDLC point you made, I personally have not encountered anyone among my personal friends who disliked or did not care about the DDLC+ side content. A lot of people I interact with personally found their stories compelling, which added to the tragedy of the main story. Just because a character or world is explicitly fictional doesn’t mean a viewer or player cannot empathize or enjoy them.
That's a fine belief to have! However, I'd argue that the Player being an actor doesn't change how the Suspension of Disbelief works. You're still investing in (roleplaying as) a fictional character, and so some degree of Suspension is necessary to be truly emotionally invested. And sure, some people can enjoy a story even if transgresses these writing rules, but that's because people can enjoy anything. Flaws don't make a piece of art impossible to enjoy, it just makes it flawed. You and your friends enjoying DDLC+ is valid, it's just not evidence of the rules being changed, imo. Thank you for watching and commenting. x)
I also think that there isn't needed a distinction. The example that comes to my mind is Oneshot, another indie game that I'm surprised it's not mentioned in the video. It's another RPG puzzle game that plays with the concept of the player "controling" the main protagonist, being two different entities and acknowledging that you are playing a game, but at the same time you can care about Niko (the protagonist) and the world they live in, helping them save their world.
I find it odd that so much weight is put in the suspension of disbelief, but I still find interesting the idea that there needs to be an in-narrative solution to Deltarune
@@JaruJaruJ I'd say that in that case, you're NOT roleplaying as a fictional character. You're playing as yourself. The suspension of disbelief here would just be centered around the impossibility of you existing in the game's world. I think Deltarune's intro really serves that purpose as your summoning is referred to as a "connection", and the creation of something explicitly named a "vessel" really serves the idea of you being summoned into the game's world, using whatever device you're playing on to connect to another world instead of running a game, the soul being the tool used for that connection.
It's similar to how Undertale integrated the saving feature into the game's lore, Deltarune would integrate running a game into the game's lore by making it a connection instead.
@@JaruJaruJ I agree with what @misadique845 says. Deltarune's narrative that explains the meta-narrative of playing the game is that you are connecting to another world using the Deltarune application. The suspension of disbelief isn't that you are playing as another character in a game, but rather that you are using a machine to connect to another world. And I don't think that this concept is flawed or prevents any investment in the narrative, and it can still follow all of the rules set out by the game.
It is possible that in the narrative it is an in world character that we play as, that is the one that has been connected to Kris. But I don't think that it's a neccessary explanation in order to maintain the narrative set out in the game, and personally I don't think it's as interesting a concept. And I especially don't think that theories that explore this should be viewed as less realistic because it might ruin suspension of disbelief for some people.
@@misadique845 Regarding your last point, the distinction being made is that saving and loading still exists within the narrative of Undertale and can be contained within it whereas in Deltarune, if the player is pulled into the narrative, then the meta-narrative is pulled along with us. Not even saying it's good or bad, just that there's is a distinction to be made.
All the respect, but I feel like deltarune does have an interlinking narrative and meta-narrative. And I believe that the way he’s written the meta-narrative actually enhances the narrative rather than taking away from it. Making me a character makes me care about the lives of the Deltarune characters even more as I feel like I’m having an actual impact on their lives
To each their own. Thanks for watching. x)
The game Oneshot shows that interlinking a narrative and meta narrative is possible, i think Deltarune is going for something similar
@@Nikola_M I don’t really think so, honestly. As Jaru said in the video, a meta-narrative is defined by the relationship between the player and the game. I think Niko is pretty much “the game” side of this. OneShot’s narrative reminds me more of the Stanley Parable - there is a narrative (returning the sun), but it’s there to explore the meta-narrative aspects of the game. OneShot is specifically made to emphasise the relationship of you and Niko (the game itself), while the other aspect of the narrative are, in my opinion, meaningless. Not saying it’s a bad thing though, OneShot is a fantastic game and one of my personal favourites, but I don’t think it really has that much of an important narrative while having an excellent meta-narrative.
Jaru already discussed that he said you can have the perspective of it being combined or separate
@@s333max2 hm, what do you think of the Secret Third Ending then?
37:24
Okay about this... that's... the point. Like, if you notice the meta-narrative undermines the regular narative and Monika feels the same way that you, the player, do after having your imersion in that world forcefully broken and having trouble getting re-invested in it, that's probably a sign it was taken into account by the developer and is therefore part of the meta-narrative. It's not accidental irony, the story isn't unaware of it. It's the point. The characters believe themselves and the world they live in to be real. Except Monika, who sees the nature of her world and knows you see it too. But she thinks she's just as real as you because she knows more than the other characters in the game, but she isn't. Monika ends up destroying the entire game in the end, it's not really meant to be revisted because it doesn't work anymore
BUT, you can download the game again and start over. As a conscious purposeful choice. To do that, you MUST be invested either in the in-universe narrative or the characters who take part in the overall meta-narrative. Maybe you want to play with the files to mess with the characters just to study it, or try to find a happier ending somehow. No matter what, investment is necessary, but it's not impossible like you make it out to be. I personally know the game did not waste my time with the characters. I grew to care about them and found things I related to in each of them, and the rerelease isn't wasting more time by adding more. It's giving more time and memories with the characters who deserve more time to be themselves. It's a game about how beautiful the worlds inside stories can be and what happens when you try to retroactively make it all meaningless. The game is laying itself bare and asking you to care about it anyway. It can be sobering, but for me it changes nothing about how I felt with the time I spent with the characters in the game
It's like the genocide route in Undertale, a lot of people criticize it for being boring and unsatisfying, when that's just the game discouraging players from pursuing the bad ending by making it shorter and more tedious than the normal routes with only a few exciting moments. You're not *supposed* to have fun killing your friends, but if for whatever reason you did then you still fit into the narrative. In DDLC's case, they get you to care, then tell you nothing matters and leaves you to decide what that means to you. Either you stop caring about the characters because they aren't real and "don't matter", or you let yourself care because it matters to you. And even more metatextually, it's asking you to confront your own existence. How would you feel if you had to realize nothing in the world mattered? Do you give up on it? Or do you care anyway because there's a lot of cool stuff to care about? It's not your average "it was all a dream" plot twist, it was carefully considered. To not fully examine this aspect of the story and merely see it as a flaw seems... maybe not necessarily media illiterate, but definitely negligent.
Now, if the story just doesn't speak to you on that level that's one thing, but as a *criticism* I don't think this holds water. If you have to discredit the people who made a work to say they didn't consider part of it, when they clearly made that part THE ENTIRE POINT, that's just a lazy criticism.
Feel free to add or contest anything I said, and I apologize if my agrument was too agressive. I feel strongly about the story in that game but I do still respect your work very much, Jaru. Thanks for reading if you did :3
The DDLC segment definitely left a semi sour taste in my mouth since it is a beloved game to me, and I think you got across why people praise the game and enjoy it so much. Ultimately, a story is not just about what the author is telling you, but also how you react to that information, and I think games' inherent deeper involvement with the player enhances the effect narratives have on us.
I certainly felt strongly after finishing DDLC years ago, even if I was still young. Grappling with that meaninglessness and especially the ending was difficult, but even back then, I came to a similar conclusion as you about how to handle it. I refused to let go of my attachment to the narrative and the characters, even if the game is supposed to end with it all being deleted. I invented my own ending in my head, where Monika is helped by the rest of the club and the player to rebuild the world even if it's all a fabrication. I couldn't make myself not care about them, even if I was told it didn't matter. I think my main problem with DDLC up until now was its ending: it does nothing to repair the narrative it slowly breaks down. It's a common thing in storytelling for there to be a satisfying, oftentimes positive narrative outcome at the end. DDLC does not do this, and for a while, the fact it left this convention unfulfilled led me to resent the game for denying me the good feels I expect for "beating the game" or "finishing the story". I can't speak for Jaru, but maybe he didn't like this "laying bare" of the game where it denies you any narrative resolution apart from literal destruction of the narrative itself.
I can look back on the game now, though (and after reading your very well put comment), and see what it was trying to do. In a lot of ways, it succeeded, I just didn't notice it since I was, in a sense, grieving. Grief not just at the characters (when they literally die/get deleted in the story) but at the narrative for the lost potential. Monika could control the game despite being a part of it. Think about what she could do if she figured out how to rewrite reality even more than messing with a few files or event flags. But instead, she gave up and got rid of it all. Similar to Sayori's suicide at the end of the game's first act, they both faced mounting psychological pressure that led to them ending things for themselves. DDLC is about mental health, death, and, importantly, grief. Even if the characters don't grieve much (either given no time to or no longer see a point to it), the player is meant to grieve throughout the game, first for Sayori, then Yuri and Natsuki, then Monika, and finally the story itself. Thank you for writing your comment cause it helped me realize a lot of this about DDLC. Can't believe this is on a Deltarune theory video.
The whole point of this video that meta narratives break your suspension of disbelief and prevent you from caring about the characters within that story is countered by the videogame OneShot.
Without spoiling it: Everyone Ive seen play it got attached to the main character, even though it has constant 4th wall breaks and the ending is insanely emotional.
I feel like Undertale, OneShot, and OFF(if you squint at it) are special cases tho
Cuz yeah, having the 4th wall be broken doesn't INHERENTLY break your suspension of disbelief (see DDLC). But basically having someone do the narrative equivalent of winking at the camera can shake that suspension for some people
What I believe this video is trying to get at is that yes the two can coexist, but they COEXIST; not fuse or take over one another.
You can read Undertale as a narrative AND metanarrative (due to the fact meta stuff is rationalized as in universe things)
But in Deltarune, if the player is a part of the narrative by possessing Kris, then that is an active fusing of the meta and normal narrative
Which isn't how Tobyfox usually rolls.
@@SappysappsterToby's only made one game. What's to say he doesn't want to explore different ideas?
I've no experience with OneShot, so I can't argue about it specifically. However, I will say that citing examples of people enjoying a narrative despite it having a meta-narrative isn't really admissible as evidence on its own. My arguments are based out of logical application of established writing rules, with my specific examples (Stanley Parable/IMSCARED/DDLC) being mere supplements. In order to prove that people's enjoyment of OneShot was based out of something more than pure subjective experience, you would need to provide a logical explanation for why my logic fails to account for that. Not to say that you're wrong! Maybe I've completely missed some aspect or exception with regards to the interactions between Meta-Narratives and the Suspension of Disbelief. But you, or someone else, will have to provide logical reasoning for why OneShot breaks the established rules in order for this conversation to progress beyond this point. Either way, thank you for watching and commenting! x)
@@ScradeCottontail Nobody is saying Tobyfox can't explore new ideas. As far as I'm concerned Deltarune is the biggest limit-test I've seen come from a game of its type (and honestly? I'm loving it)
But there's basic things like rules and consistently
I have no problem of "The player is controlling Kris" as a part of the meta narrative, as that fits Tobyfox's usual metanalysis writing style of dissecting how we gamers view games
I have a problem of it being THE main narrative for personal reasons. It feels too "How DARE you play the game" for my liking
If there was a middle man (narrative story reason) then that grudge gets thrown out the window for me
@@Sappysappster
That is only under the assumption that the player will be directly called out as a player.
In Undertale we had a stand in character in the form of Chara. Why cant we have the same in Deltarune?
In Undertale players are made to feel guilty about killing Toriel, expected to reload, and get called out on it by Flowey, without ever breaking the suspension of disbelief.
I dont get why people dont expect Toby Fox to handle the themes of Deltarune in similarly subtle way.
The reason why ddlc doesn't work for some people, is because the narrative is unrelated to the meta-narrative. The literature club and its members have nothing to do with monika being self-aware. The first act feels pointless because it is. But deltarune is different. The narrative and the meta-narrative is very much related. The meta-narrative is about the player controlling Kris, a fictional character and how that affects them and their world. The regular narrative is about Kris not being in control of their actions and how that affects them and their relationships with other people. The meta-narrative being non-optional would not harm the regular narrative because it doesn't make the regular narrative pointless, it's actually the opposite. When the meta-narrative reveals itself, it will be deeply tied to the regular narrative, because it was the player who made all of Kris' choices and decided how the regular narrative played out. It's the player that chooses to make noelle into a cold-hearted killer, and I fail to see how pointing that out would destroy the impact of the narrative. Maybe it's just me, but something being fictional doesn't stop it from being real.
tl;dr: Pointing out that the player is real doesn't automatically make the regular narrative pointless.
Said it better than I could, in so many words
As DDLC’s biggest fan, I gotta shut this down and say you are ABSOLUTELY wrong. Act 1 serves the purpose of getting you used to the club and its’ characters, you grow invested and perhaps even attached to them. The game wouldn’t nearly have as much of an impact in the later acts that it does if it didn’t have this, because you know how everything is SUPPOSED to be, and seeing it be twisted and twisted until it finally breaks is a big aspect of its horror. Also, you misconstrue its’ meta narrative. “Monika is self aware” is not the entire point of it, though even if it was act 1 STILL serves a purpose, it shows you that Monika doesn’t have a route or anything, and thus sets up one of her reasons for doing what she did, there’s also a ton of hints thrown in there from hidden messages in the files, poems little lines of dialogue down to her character portrait being the only one that stares directly at the screen to show you there’s more to her than she lets on. DDLC’s meta narrative is given its’ best explanation in the good ending when you get a message from Dan Salvato himself. It’s to push the bounds of interactive media, and to challenge the status quo of your traditional dating sim, a meta commentary on them. And to tell a story not possible using traditional media. Another aspect of its’ meta narrative involves the more let’s just say elements of the story that make it to where it would be hard for it to survive in the current TH-cam sphere, all of the girls issues are based upon real people and their real struggles, we don’t know who, but it’s Dan getting that personal experience from someone that makes their problems all that more authentic, and it is supposed to raise awareness of those issues and to be careful what you say and do, you never know who you may effect. Monika is the medium a lot of the meta message is delivered but it’s not the entire point, I’m tired of people misconstruing the game as a one trick pony where all act 1 is is just a cover of what the game really is and that it doesn’t serve a purpose it’s deeper than that.
@Crackedcripple I should have reworded it a little. I was responding to Jaru's claim that some people think the first act is pointless. Of course its important for setting up the themes and characters. I just think that the reason some people don't like it, is that the player doesn't have much agency, the choices more or less only affect specific dialouge. The player is more of a passive observer, which means the connection between act 1 and act 3 only relies on the investment you have for the characters. What also worsens this issue is that act 1 is relatively short. It's estimated to take abour 2 hours, most of which is reading, which might not be enough for some people to truly be invested.
Still, I personally think that ddlc works despite these flaws. I just wanted to rebuke Jaru's point by arguing that even if you grant the assumption that ddlc is bad, deltarune has the potential to not repeat its flaws (Chapters 1&2 are already 7 hours and both the game's structure and meta-narrative are more conducive to player agency). Jaru is wrong on both accounts, he just doesn't like meta, which in itself is fine, but he doesn't want to acknowledge that this opinion is subjective rather than objective. I hope his eventual oneshot playthrough can help with that.
DDLC act 1 doesn't work for most people because the majority of fans are meta-horror fans and not visual novel fans. The overlap is sadly small, which sucks when you're part of it. Deltarune sidesteps this because people who enjoy meta narratives and people who enjoy RPGs have a massive overlap.
Maybe I am misunderstanding him, but I don’t think Jaru is denying that the player is real.
I think he’s just trying to point out the follow up,
“If the player is real, then what is it from this world’s perspective.”
You first said that suspension of disbelief is caring about fiction in spite of it not really mattering, then pivoted into saying this means suspending disbelief in games is about forgetting we are playing a game. I don't think the second argument follows the first.
I think that's just us thinking differently. If I cried because a character died, I can still engage with the emotions, with the narrative even if I remember that it's just words on a page.
I don't see how it doesn't follow. In order to care about a fictional character, you have to ignore the fact that they're a fictional character. And if you're ignoring the fact that it's a work of fiction, then you can actually get invested in the characters and effectively "forget" that it's just a game.
He meant it in a metaphorical sense. As in, make your brain forget about it.
@@disappointedcucumberNot really. Consuming fiction about a diverse group of people has a similar effect on your brain as having a diverse group of friends. Your brain suspends the disbelief for you.
@@benjaminjenkins2384 Parasocial relationship are a thing after all. People especially became aware of them
nowadays with the rise of streamers.
While I do see your point, and how Undertale separates its narrative and meta-narrative, I fail to see why the non-existence of a barrier is to throw the narrative, to be a bad writer.
Even at some points of Deltarune, one could argue the point is that despite the fact that darkners are "fictional" the characters shoud care about them, I don't see why the game would not apply this to us and the lightners.
I really hope the narrative and meta-narrative bleed into each other, I think Toby is one of the only writers that could pull this off.
I mean, if Toby Fox wants to invent a new method of storytelling that dodges the issues I raised, then I'm all for it! But until then, I'm going to assume he's staying within the bounds of established writing rules. Thank you for watching and commenting. x)
@@JaruJaruJ but he... did. the theme of our control over the game IS what forever subverted the way we see stories, before if we chose to disengage with the story then that's it, we're not obligated to suspend our disbelief, but with undertale the very act of disassociating IS a part of undertale narrative which, i dont know about you but is seems that doesn't fit within the bounds of established writing rules.
@@JaruJaruJ I just want to say that video games in general ARE a new method of storytelling. And a fairly young one at that. Movies broke a lot of theatrical rules and surpassed the possible storytelling in a lot of ways. What is stopping video games? Toby Fox would not be the first person to try making the player part of the game and would argue not the first one that succeeds. But if Deltrarune does it right it would be probably the biggest proof of concept. Regardless I have full faith in Toby wheather he does it or doesn't do it.
I feel like I should mention that OneShot is an example of a game that has a lot of focus in its narrative while literally forcing you to search through your game files
I do think that there will be another explanation for the soul possesing Kris but the story could still work regardless of that
@@caison8759 Not a new idea at all, other games before UT have explored the concept of disassociating with the story and focusing on the gameplay as a player being a central concept. Notably Spec Ops The Line, but there's a few.
narrative and metanarrative are not mutually exclusive, the latter is a subset of the former, it's impossible to have metanarrative without narrative
I can't believe I had to scroll all the way here to see this. TH-camrs do this all the time, it's annoying. Undertale doesn't have a meta narrative and a normal narrative. It has a singular narrative with meta elements complimenting it's narrative. To divide the game into two parts leaves you with something half as good. It's the intersectionality of these elements that make it such a good story. And don't even get me started on the assumption that meta means no suspension of disbelief. The Stanley parable breaks the suspension of disbelief in order to establish a new suspension of disbelief that encompasses the whole of the game. A reframing isn't a shattering.
@@julianbello8376 yeah "meta story elements make suspension of disbelief impossible" was a real head scratcher
but thats the problem when you abuse technical language you don't understand, you ruin your argument and much worse you misinform your unsuspecting audience!! I have nightmares of teenagers stumbling into english class with definitions of critical literary concepts that come from a deltarune youtuber
*insert scathing remark here*
Noooo, I'm ruined! xD
lol
@@JaruJaruJ*insert scathing reply here*
@@JaruJaruJ Flowey only says the Line "Stolen Soul" once in the game and it's during the genocide route. He refers to Frisk as Chara because he thinks Frisk IS Chara brought back to life. He does NOT think that you the player possessed Frisk. No. He thinks that Chara Resurrected themselves to see him again. He refers to Frisk As Chara constantly throughout pacifist. Because he believes Frisk is Chara. But once Frisk is gone. Once Chara is gone. He refers to us when He talks about True Resets. I don't think you understand Undertale and Deltarune as much as you say you do. Sorry.
@@kindadumbtrashpile3705username fits
I remember hearing you argue for this on your theory tier list video, and I can't say i agree with you in the slightest. Still, its always healthy for a community to have theories opposing the generally accepted ideas, and i like that you stand by your opinion despite backlash
Personally, I disagree with the notion that it just being the player is equivalent to throwing the plot in a wood chipper. DDLC’s narrative doesn’t matter because it’s discarded by the end. The climax is nothing but Monika talking directly to the player and then being deleted. Even after things “go back to normal,” Sayori becomes self aware. Deltarune’s climax could still be focused on the narrative even if the player was the one possessing Kris. Though this would certainly be more difficult to pull off than keeping the narrative and meta-narrative seperate.
I'd argue that the baseline oppositional nature of meta-narratives and suspension of disbelief support my conclusion, so DDLC being a unique case doesn't undermine my overall conclusion, even if I agreed that it was unique. Regardless, thank you for watching and commenting. x)
DDLC has much thinner world building, the characters exist perfectly within both a meta narrative bc the story is solely character driven, deltarunes world just isnt built to address the player as directly as ddlc does
Doesn’t need to be as direct as DDLC, I wouldn’t expect Gaster to have a face to face conversation with us. If it does end up being the player, I would imagine it be more of a subtle thing than DDLC. DDLC’s main focus is the meta-narrative, while Deltarune has the narrative and meta-narrative at the same time
Nobody here actually understands DDLCS meta narrative or narrative and it shows.
This is kinda more how I feel. I definitely believe the player and the choices we try to make are part of the narrative, but I think in the end, there needs to be more to the narrative than just the Player vs Kris, as otherwise it removes the importance of everything else Deltarune has set up such as the prophecy, Noelle's past/cause for dissociation and missing sister, the dark worlds and the Darkners having established purposes rather than free will, the secret bosses and their mysterious Faustian deal making benefactor, Susie's growth from bully to noble heroine, Gaster, etc.
Looking at Toby's previous work (Halloween Hack), the way he describes his game doesn't match what your theory suggests.
When describing the linear nature of his halloween hack, Toby said
"You know why there isn't a choice there?
Because you already chose to make Varik go into the door. You already chose to go forward. The only real choice, as Varik realizes at the end of the game, is to stop or keep going. By "stop" he means "turn off the game," and that's all you can do. Anything you play is your own fault for playing, and that's the only real choice you can make."
Thinking about a more recent example ("Skies Forever Blue"), we see the same pattern. The singer, an NPC in the game, falls in love with a player in the game. "When you made my name, the same just as the one you love, then I knew." This line shows that it's the player behind the screen, and not just the player's avatar that she falls in love with. There is no "in-universe" explanation for why she would say these lines.
I also get the sense that by creating an "in-universe" force controlling Kris, it would lessen the impact of the player's actions, because it wasn't YOU telling Noelle to cast snowgrave, it's Chara/Gaster/somebody else. It absolves the player of any responsibility for their actions ingame.
I think Toby wants you to accept yourself, the player, as a character with a presence in his games, instead of a non-diagetic, detached force.
maybe its just personal preference but i find games wherein you kill npcs and the game goes "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE PLAYED THIS GAME" utterly boring, because thats only what you get with a solely meta analysis of a player's relationship with a game. Undertales double narrative opens you up to an emotionally invested discussion about your relationship with the game without punishing you for engaging with it, but you have to realize that's only possible through the player RELATING to an in universe counterpart, not being the direct personal target of criticism.
@@inkyquartz1797it's not saying "You shouldn't have" it's saying "You did"
I actually heard that toby doesn't like his own game earthbound halloween hack anymore.
I get your point with the Snowgrave route, but a lot of people keep forgetting that the birdcage already has stains or scrape marks (unclear) from how many times the soul has been thrown into it. Despite us only getting to see it happen once.
Which means that either Kris has been removing their own soul long before we took control of it, or someone else was in control before us.
Now granted, that still means that we the player could be in control now, but it still feels more likely that someone else is control.
Personally I'll be fine either way.
People also literally forget the Player is an entity in Earthbound
Can't say I agree with the idea that the separation of the narrative from the meta-narrative is integral to keeping suspension of disbelief. You just need to extend it to yourself, I like the idea of layers for example when it comes to Deltarune's world, the dark world being a layer under the light world, while our own is another one above it. That can allow for us to play as ourselves without being overtly mentioned. The real problem with games like DDLC, in my opinion, is that they're too obvious, that's what kills interest. I still think Undertale also has us playing as ourselves, as the genocide route clearly seperates us from Chara, but it isn't shoving it in our face, and I think it's possible for Deltarune to do the same. That's why I don't think it has to be an in-universe character.
The biggest problem with the "character from the Deltarune universe" interpretation is that Deltarune has us do things/pick options that only make sense in the context of having played Undertale, such as the dialogue options with Sans and Undyne, or the bake sale comment. I could wave it off if it was a one-off thing, but it's a reoccurring event, and it's especially emphasized when considering the Deltarune website used to say "This is intended for people who have completed UNDERTALE." ( shorturl.at/hoIQ8 ).
Clam-girl telling us back in Undertale's switch version that the day we meet "Suzy" is fast approaching, followed by the literal summoning of the red soul at the beginning of the game leads me to believe there isn't a lot of room for interpretation. If it were a character, it would have to be the same character in both Undertale and Deltarune.
I think it may actually be the same character! I think it's possible that our protagonist is actually that SOUL, and they can use their power of determination to inhabit the bodies of aimless beings and "determine" their behavior. The identity of this SOUL is usually overlooked and their history remains to be explored, though, as far as I can tell... which is great, it's a mystery that can be played with as the chapters go on.
@@niqothefox That makes no sense.
@@niqothefox Yup, that makes no sense because you completely misunderstood my points.
First off, the game clearly separates us from Chara. Their dialogue is them directly talking to us: "YOUR power awakened me from death." "YOUR determination", and the game separates us from Frisk at the end of the pacifist route by naming them and having Flowey directly talk to us.
If we are neither of these two, then what subject is "Your" referring to? You talked about determination itself but it doesn't even make sense from Chara's dialogue as they refer to it as our determination, meaning we own that determination and thus aren't it.
Secondly, your second argument completely misunderstood what I was talking about. The context is in reference to US, not the character. US having the option to tell Sans it's great to meet him again when neither Kris or we have met him in Deltarune, same thing with asking Undyne about Alphys, whom she never met, and lastly the reoccurring bake sale line directly referencing the spider bake sale line from Undertale.
Your logic is inherently flawed as you don't even understand what I'm saying.
@@niqothefox I already demonstrated why we cannot be Frisk, and it doesn't matter when it happens in a playthrough, that separation is made, meaning the implications remain especially considering consecutive playthroughs are canon- the next playthrough happens after the genocide ending in canon, thus the separation remains through a whole playthrough.
You do realize that those are options for either us or the character we're playing as, right? We're the ones picking it, not the characters, your argument makes no sense. I'm not talking about the characters we're talking to, but US. They respond with confusion at our questions, cementing the fact that it is NOT a normal thing to say/know.
You're completely misunderstanding my points and then condescendingly strawmanning my argument to make your own arguments that make no sense considering what you're responding to isn't what I said, how can I not be rude back to you? AND I did mention the possibility of it being a new character and argued why it couldn't be the case- we know and say things that only make sense in the context of having played Undertale.
I didn't change what I was arguing, you just didn't understand what I was arguing.
@@niqothefox Nope, you're not on the money. Deduction =/= assumption. If you don't want to see what's right in front you, be my guest.
The game separates us from both Frisk and Chara. Flowey talks directly to the screen about letting Frisk live their life, which could be talking to Chara if the genocide route didn't ALSO separate us from Chara.
How could Kris ask any of these questions without knowing about Undertale? How does he know Sans? How does he know Undyne has ANY relation to Alphys? You're deliberately ignoring what's right there in front of you.
Also, I never said it would be a character we MET, just a character we ALSO played as in Undertale, reread the original comment. Again, you're completely misunderstanding my points and strawmanning them to fit your narrative. I said that it is either the player, or the same character we're playing as in Undertale, which can be a character we've never met before.
I agree it's really pointless to argue with someone ignoring evidence. It's also completely pointless to shove your arguments then say we're done with the convo, don't reply if you're done.
18:24 What are you even talking about? suspension of disbelief is a choice the viewer/player makes. You are not forced to disregard characters just because it’s acknowledged that they’re in a game. (Watch Andrew Cunninghams video about flowey)
So basically there's a Doylist vs Watsonian explanation for everything in both games.
Sure! That's a valid way of looking at it! x)
@JaruJaruJ This is the timelines that sans was talking about.
The player being involved in the story doesn't break suspension of disbelief
I feel bad for Disbelief Papyrus, people always try suspending him.
Sans: hey Papyrus, do you want anything?
when the Disbelief of Papyrus is the Player
@@angelnati8297omg.... multiple interpretation is......
Jarujaru wouldn’t like earthbound I think cause it does have the player as a cannonical invisible friend who aids and helps guide the characters. Mother 3 also does this to a much lesser extent. 2 games that definitely were an inspiration for deltarune.
It's actually the peak of "caring even if you know it's fake" in a way, given that the only way you win in that game is by you yourself "joining in" praying for the kids to win against Giygas.
@@Galeforce017 And in Mother 3, the idea is that the new world created for the characters is one made from the player's heart. The end where you say goodbye to all the characters is left on a black screen so the new world has to be what you imagine it as.
I’d say there’s a VERY big issue with the idea of pivotal meta narratives ruining the regular narratives of the games they’re apart of, and that issue is that despite most of the community wholeheartedly believing that the meta narrative is pivotal to the story of Deltarune, everyone is still very invested in the world of the game. Like genuinely, who in the community views the characters as pointless? Everyone loves the characters, despite believing that the player is a pivotal part of the narrative. The player being a part of the narrative isn’t ruining the regular narrative at all.
I think you're overestimating the popularity of the player theory
@@Revacholiereyou mean the literal most common theory in the fanbase?
@@Flynnisthename the most common theory is that kris is being controlled by the soul that we play as, not that the player is literally actually controlling kris
it might seem that way because is such a small part of the scene.
I think people only care still because the game hasn’t confronted them about it being a meta narrative story only and that it’s fictional, so far the story has pretty much been entirely been about the regular narrative with no meta angles so far (at least that we know of until the game is finished), if Toby does lean into the Player and meta stuff people think he will, then there will be more controversy about the story then. This is why I think it’s not going in that direction.
a video by sock muppet claimed that gaster and goner kid are forgotten by being long dead not deleted from the world
when i heard you say the meta and regular narratives are layered it clicked
i came to the conclusion : the goners represent both being forgotten by time and scrapped/unused by the game developer
That could work for redacted since he's actually unused, but the goners were clearly never unused and created for the reason they serve, even having completely normal counterparts in the game.
Follower one's normal version does have an unused room where he talks about how he eternally trapped in one spot and has never seen what's in the next room, and it's possible follower 3 was unused before reappearing in deltarune, but the other 3 are unaccounted for.
Another big part of good meta narrative is to reflect reality.
EXACTLY
Okay, counterpoint: What if we just simply DON'T CARE if it's just a game?
I love both Undertale and DDLC, and the fact that DDLC goes out of it's way to emphasize the metanarrative didn't lessen my enjoyment of the game. Hell, the reason I love the characters in both games is because they're well-written and relatable. I don't value Monika's story over the other girls' just because of some pretentious sense of importance from the metanarrative; if anything, the game almost wants us to disagree with her way of thinking in the first place. Yeah, sure; the dating-sim stuff is a facade, but without its setup for the real meat of the game later, then what'd even be the point of the metanarrative?
Also, DO NOT undermine the Side Stories. I don't care if the horror fans were let down by them, they added more emotional weight to the game by showing exactly what Monika threw away by embracing the metanarrative. That'd be like saying the True Pacifist ending in Undertale is meaningless because it can just be taken away after a Genocide Route.
I'm sorry, Jaru, but I can't agree at all here. It just sounds like you're pushing for your view of the game.
THANK YOU. Also a game’s main narrative can be meta in the sense that it’s meant to be commentary on something the player cares about. DDLC does this which is why I mention it. Like. It’s supposed to seem like a flippant and shallow world where the MC is uninteresting and dismissive of Sayori and deep down does not deserve all the friendship they’ve been offered. That’s just a typical thing for a MC and childhood friend dynamic in a dating sim to have. But since people actually did grow to care about Sayori and the others, DDLC+ was made, which is kind of funny. I always thought DDLC+ was proof that they made characters that were TOO well liked for what they’re meant to comment on, and people definitely DIDN’T discard them as ‘oh this is a dating sim commentary and I’m above the toxic dating sim playerbase bc I like the psychological element’
I think there’s more gray area in the barrier I guess, things can be a commentary and be fictional, they can even be fictional in the context of the characters, I mean. I thought that was why everyone is on board with creating dark worlds in DR🙁 They care even if they’re TRYING to see it as a dream? A story can still comment on something in a meta way even if you purely look at it as a crafted story. Shrug emoji
You can always suspend your disbelief yourself, sure, but the creator is always open to criticism for weakening that disbelief in this first place. Breaking the fourth wall directly will always severely damage suspension of disbelief, its up to the individual if they want to suspend it again anyway, but that doesnt negate the fact that jaru was making a point about how the 4th wall was almost never directly broken in undertale through its use of double narratives because of the damage that does, and how we should expect the same from deltarune.
i feel like at that point you're going out of your way not to care because you WANT to like deltarune. what jaru is trying to say is that YES, the player is involved, but there will likely be a parallel diegetic explanation. feels way too simple to just have chapter 1 of the game go "BOOM it's the player you can go home now" and spend the rest of the game with kris despising John Player specifically instead of an in-universe character with a level of mystery to them. an in-universe character would be a much better reveal for a game that is supposed to be unpredictable and is currently *unfinished.* have the opinions you want, sure, but don't insult people because you can't acknowledge any other possibility than the obvious one. (all /nm and /lh)
Always makes me roll my eyes when people don’t understand DDLC.
Who says there is a seperation? I dont see it as a given that there is a barrier between metanaritive and narrative in undertale.
Because if there weren't a barrier it would break the way suspension of disbelief functions, as I explain in the video.
@@JaruJaruJ But the Meta narrative does exist. the only difference between Undertale and Stanley Parable is how frequently it comes up. The player possessing Kris in Deltarune is the exact same as the player possessing Frisk in Undertale (minus chara)
@@JaruJaruJsuspension of disbelief has no definitive way of working. It can mold and take on different forms for different stories and people.
@@JaruJaruJYou underestimate the suspension of disbelief.
@@meir2161 do you actually care for finding stanley friends?
So basically, the situation needs to be similar to Undertale in that the entity ("Chara") controlling the protagonist (Frisk) has both an in-universe representative that makes sense for the narrative (Asriel's adopted sibling) and an out-of-universe representation that makes sense for the metanarrative (the player). Either that, or Toby Fox needs to prove you wrong and show that he IS somehow capable of blending the narrative and metanarrative together without diminishing either of them.
You've summed up the entire video perfectly! x)
Chara "possessing" frisk is never even confirmed, flowey just thinks you are chara.
@@TheRealSuperKirby True, instead of "controlling" I should have said "inhabiting". We know for a fact that the soul within Frisk's body is "stolen", if Flowey is to be trusted (and we have no reason to believe that this particular claim is a lie).
@@jacquespaught Techincally not confirmed, but I absolutely agree.
But it's hard to tell if narrachara is because of the soul or the "ghost" that gets awakened since you do fall directly on top of where chara is buried.
Or, that you play as Kris's Soul as the Knight took over Kris's Body.
After much consideration after watching this video, I have to ask:
What's the problem here?
Why would Deltarune's narrative and character arcs be invalidated by intertwining both itself with a Meta one?
Why would that be a cardinal, indisputable flaw of the story? Why is this the drawn line for one's suspension of disbelief?
I know I'm honestly a bit confused watching this.
He asserts that Toby Makes games with some sort of hard rule in mind, when we have no way of knowing if that is the case. And even if it was in undertale, why would we assume it's the case for deltarune? The entire bases for this video seems unfounded
* also like the idea that the Evidence that deltarunes story wouldn't go down that path is that ddlc wasn't that good? It's completely unrelated. Why would the way one game handled a narrative have ANY impact on whether or not deltarune would explore a similar idea
I have one major counterpoint to the idea that Toby doesn't blend the narrative and metanarrative, ESPECIALLY within the context of Deltarune- The lines from Deltarune chapter 1 as follows:
Ralsei: "Press the boxes onto the switches with [Z]!"
Susie: "(Wait, who the hell is [Z]?)"
Ralsei, a character in the narrative who is clearly aware that Kris is being controlled, addresses an action that ONLY makes sense to the player of a video game at a computer keyboard. This is not an instruction that narratively makes sense to a character like Susie or even Chara, and in fact Susie questions it because Ralsei didn't only say it to the player- it was an actual, diegetic line of spoken dialogue in-universe to somebody who understands the meaning of "[Z]", which cannot be somebody in-universe.
In fact, this scene clearly demonstrates not just that the narrative types ARE blended, but ALSO that it was done intentionally. Remember, the text in brackets is meant to represent someone's internal monologue, not something they say out loud. If Ralsei wanted to communicate with the player and knew that they could read internal monologues- which we know he MUST know, because only one room earlier he uses an internal monologue to say "(Oh, Kris! I just realized Susie missed the tutorial! Next battle, we should show her how to ACT! I think she might really enjoy that!)"- then why would Toby have Ralsei speak it for Susie to hear and react to as well? Toby even reinforces the idea of the player being able to read internal monologues next chapter with the weird route.
"then why would Toby have Ralsei speak it for Susie to hear and react to as well"
As setup for the joke. I don't see why that specific dialogue would have a deeper meaning beyond simply being there to be funny.
@@disappointedcucumber it could have just been a mistake on Ralsei's part. It's not like it's unheard of for people to accidentally say something they were thinking out loud. Point is, no matter which way you choose to look at it, exclusively as a joke or not, Toby is deliberately mixing narrative and meta narrative components in this dialogue exchange, meaning we can't treat "he never mixes them" as a hard and fast rule like this entire video is practically predicted upon.
In regards to DDLC, I don't really feel this is as good of an example as you think it is because of the genre it disguises itself as. Ultimately, DDLC is a partial deconstruction of the anime dating SIM, and in particular, A female option centric one. A genre that has a reputation for being "trashy", A stigma that DDLC has no interest in shaking off (in fact, apparently the writer said he made the MC come off as a little bit creepy intentionally, which I feel like was a bad writing choice that could deserve his own essay, but it adds to that image). Ultimately, If you're not into slice-of-life, wifu-bait dating sims, then DDLC isn't going to change your mind, even if the meta narrative never existed. Because they're just not into this type of story, there are inevitably going to view the game trying to trick them into thinking it is this type of story as a waste of time.
However, if you're like me and have at least a partial interest in this type of stuff now, then I would argue the normal narrative is essential to the meta narrative, because it makes the other girls feel real, which not only adds to the sting of Monica corrupting and then deleting them, but also brings in the question if she is a hypocrite, given how she is ultimately of the same nature as the other girls. In fact, after deleting Monica, she reveals that she kept a backup of all of the other girls, because she couldn't bring herself to truly erase them, which goes against your point "if she couldn't be invested, then how could the player", because ultimately, even if the characters are artificial, they are still implied to be "real" in some sense. (In this way, there is still some need for suspension of disbelief, in the sense that you need to not acknowledge the fact that RonPi can't actually accidentally make sapient AIs. It is also implied that the only reason why Monica became self-aware is because she was the head of the literature club, And literally any of the other girls would have also became self aware if they were the head of the literature club.)
While I don't find it out of the question that some people legitimately feel that the reveal of the meta narrative rendered the normal narrative "pointless", as suspension of disbelief can be subjective like that, from how I heard most people talk about this particular critique, it really sounds like if the meta narrative never existed, then they would just hate the game. (It doesnt help that, honestly, the main narrative is just sort of alright. I would still say it's good, but it's nothing particularly stand out. Which makes sense, because it was ultimately written to be held up by the meta narrative anyway. They're kind of two sides of the same coin in this way, one cannot truly be great without the other.)
to be fair, like how undertale deconstructed the idea of having to kill monsters, ddlc deconstructs anime tropes. it takes things that are typical of waifu-bait anime dating sims but expands upon them in a way that most media in the genre won't bother with. sayori is devoted to making you happy because she's depressed, and views her own happiness as worthless. yuri is obsessed with you because she's mentally ill and is prone to self harm, and natsuki is only able to communicate her affection for others through being mean and dismissive because her father is abusive. what it seems like deltarune is doing is more deconstruction, this time the idea of how violating it would feel if an rpg protagonist who had a whole life were suddenly taken over by an alien force. i actually think the narrative of ddlc holds up monika's own metanarrative really well because that deconstruction is also present in monika. monika is not pursuable by the protagonist at all. monika is, in terms of the literal narrative, a side character. she gets fed up with that role, and becomes obsessed with you, not because she knows you (according to her she doesn't even know your gender) but because you're REAL. from her perspective, you are the main character who can finally save her from being unnoticed. back to deltarune, i think, if toby is doing the deconstruction i think he's doing, it could reasonably assist the narrative, because a; its more obvious so the commentary about the tropes it discusses wont fly over people's heads like it does with ddlc, b; the climax of the story can still fit within the literal narrative of deltarune.
So, this response turned out longer than I thought it would. But I have a lot of thoughts about this video. Normally, any issues I have with Jaru’s theories come from either them taking some wild logical leaps (which honestly isn’t that big of a deal, because the theories are just meant as entertaining possibilities while we wait for more chapters), or sometimes using very minor, unclear pieces of the games to put together a future plot point that would end up being really unsatisfying from a narrative perspective. But this time, I kind of have the opposite issue: I feel like this video is using misusing rules of storytelling as a basis for ignoring what we’ve already seen in Deltarune, and keeping it from truly building on what Undertale started.
Toby has already set up a world in which we see objects come to life, have personalities, goals, and emotions. He’s already made a scenario where we see the Lightners realize that the things they saw as objects, and even actual code in the case of Chapter 2, might be more “real” than they thought. Part of the reason why the whole player control thing is so interesting to people is because it is a direct parallel to this concept, but this time, with us and the Lightners instead of the Lightners and the Darkners. Essentially, we would have three layers instead of two. The narrative has literally been set up in a way that directly compliments the meta-narrative! Even if the player is fully aware that the game is just a game, they still have to contend with the fact that the game is depicting… a world where games aren’t just games. Kind of eerie, no? This gives the effect of forcing the player to consider that maybe this fictional world DOES matter, and it doesn’t make the characters’ reactions to the events that take place feel out of place. It’s still treating the world of the game as different than ours, but with enough similarities we don’t have trouble empathizing with the characters. This is kind of what happens in One Shot and is how it manages to pull off a character having contact with the player, even directly within the narrative, without it feeling “off”; Instead, it ends up being utterly heartbreaking because the player wants to help them, but still only has so much power within the game itself, as even they aren’t TRULY in control, the rules of the game itself is. (I know it’s probably annoying seeing this game come up in comments so much at this point, but people are mentioning it so often because it’s VERY MUCH an example of many of the things you said wouldn’t work with a meta narrative working. I recommend the game a lot, I think anyone who likes Undertale will also enjoy One Shot and vice versa.)
Essentially, the way that we see the story set up so far, I don’t think this meta-narrative weakens the narrative at all, because of how they play off each other. By separating the players wants from the characters, Toby Fox is giving them a sense of depth of self that video game characters are not supposed to have. He inherently raises Kris above how we would normally think of a video game character, so suspension of disbelief doesn’t even matter anymore! Even though we still know, logically, that none of Deltarune is real, you can’t help but think in the back of your mind, “But what if it was? How would I know, really, if they were real?” And that is only strengthened by the narrative, with how closely it parallels that thought in the background. And now we see all the other characters around Kris as more “real” as well. I honestly don’t see how this weakens the narrative in any way; To me, it only makes characters like Susie and Noelle feel much more alive. It makes the narrative feel like it really matters, because it matters for Kris, and we feel like THEY matter now that they’re more than just a character. But they’re still in another “world” than us, so it doesn’t really break our suspension of disbelief at all, it just makes them seem more real. This is probably why Toby has stated he won’t be making plushies of any of the Lightner characters; It’s to further this idea that they’re more like us than we’d normally think.
I agree that it’s annoying how a lot of theories tend to lean towards “player bad”, and I highly doubt that will be how the game pans out. I mean, Toby clearly has put emphasis on how important it is to choose to do good things in Undertale, and making a game that essentially has the core message of “playing this game is unethical” doesn’t really seem like his style, and it isn’t likely to be the whole point of the story, either. But that’s not necessarily what a “player vs Kris” story even comes down to. What if Kris is the one who summoned the player, for example, which is very much a plausible theory at this point? What if, even if they’re not happy with the arrangement now, they are able to figure out how to actively work with the player later down the line? Hell, the fact that Kris is often mentioned as being really good at video games kind of makes me think this will be the case.
I think you’re right that Deltarune will have more of a focus on what the player isn’t able to do, unlike Undertale, which focuses on what they can. Or, more accurately, what Undertale doesn’t directly emphasize; I think it’s still part of the subtext of the game. My guess is that Deltarune will have not just elements of how we are in control of Kris, but also how the game is in control of US. We may be able to control Kris’s actions, but we only have control to a limited extent; We can’t speak as them most of the time, we can only perform certain actions, and we ultimately only have control of them because of the rules that have been set up by the game itself. If the Goner body suddenly showed up and we could possess it instead, we absolutely would, but do we get the option? No, and I think that part of the equation will become much more important later on.
Also, with suspension of disbelief the burden is SIGNIFICANTLY on the audience and not the author; Yes, authors can do things that make it difficult to maintain, such as characters in horror movies doing stupid things, but they also know that the audience is capable of handling a little bit of fuckery. It’s ultimately on the audience to accept that whatever is happening is happening in the world of fiction. Personally, I find the idea of Kris maybe being a little peeved at being puppeted around in a video game… extremely believable, actually? I don’t even need to suspend my disbelief because I barely have any in the first place. That’s a reasonable reaction for a person to have in that situation, even though the situation itself is fantastical. Therefore it doesn’t break the logic at all.
In short, I agree with you that the player’s control of Kris will not be the main focus of the narrative, or at least will only form a part of that focus. But I cannot agree that its meta elements as an inclusion in the narrative would inherently weaken their story. Toby Fox has already created a fantastic game that broke many of the rules of storytelling, and I have no doubt he is capable of doing the same again.
I like your response. I have this saying, "It's gods / players / writers all the way down". ("And then it loops back around"). The idea of being somebody's original character essentially, it doesn't make me feel hopeless, instead it gives my life a meaning. I like my OCs and the idea of being written by someone for their entertainment, that somebody put some effort into writing me, that me being here, no matter what I do has a purpose. Even as just entertainment. The player will say "You are just a character in a game", and the character will respond "Did you have fun playing? Did it matter to you in any way? Was I your favorite?" Games as a way to take a break from your own, usually stressful reality.
I have no words to say how much I agree with your comment.
I mean, the game could also work with us being a character as Jaru said, that thought alone is not wrong at all. But us being a character is not necessary for the video game to work, and for me this is where he is wrong. There are many ways to make the player being diegetic work, and the player being diegetic doesn’t mean that Kris is going to say: hello player!! Emm no, there are ways to make it work without inserting us completely into the story, for example, us being the angel, or a superior being that they don’t understand. But at the end it is still you, the player.
Metal gear solid series already broke the 4th wall (that battle was actually a big inspiration for Toby Fox too), where a villain that you are fighting is capable of make your controller vibrate and also can see which other video games you have in your console and comment about them. Kojima was actually the one who started the thing of the video game interacting directly with a player, but he didn’t made his game revolve around that idea, and this is where Toby Fox comes. He loves that idea. If you see all of the video games he has done play with that idea and with Deltarune he is going to play with it even more profoundly than with Undertale. (I am not saying that UT is not relevant to DR, just that the themes of the player and game will be more upfront). I remember Toby Fox saying in an interview that he wanted to create a game that was so meta that nobody would doubt that game is meta. So, I believe this is what he is trying to achieve with DR. We are the same as Kris, Susie, Noelle, Berdly etc… we live in a boring and realistic world and we are looking for some escapism and meaning.
I see Deltarune as having a two level meta narrative. In Undertale we were as the lightners interacting with the Darkworlds, now we are one level above it, and we are not just interacting with a piece of media but interacting with a piece of media that has another piece of media inside it, that is also a representation of entertainment itself (this would be why darkworlds are also themed about this).
Spamtom saw becoming a lightner as going into heaven, so, the players of deltarune would see coming to our reality as ascending into heaven too. In this game we could be the angel, or something else entirely that is going to be revealed until the end similarly to Asriel being Flowey and the first fallen human being the character we named.
This was the response I wanted to make, more or less. Thank you so much for writing it
The whole time I was watching this video, I just kept thinking "but wouldn't it be so cool if there was a game that could combine the meta narrative and the narrative to make them one in the same", but then I was like "oh, that's just what Toby Fox is doing with Deltarune". Toby's first game was one that had both a meta narrative and a narrative, heavily intertwined with one another(the concept of Chara representing the player but also being their own character for one, as well as Flowey straight up going full meta as he takes control of your game itself to crash it and break the intro sequence), but also still being able to be analyzed on their own. It makes sense to me for his next step to be creating a unique game where the meta narrative and the narrative combine fully.
You don't have to like it. I can't make you like anything. But I really don't understand how a meta narrative intertwining with the narrative itself automatically destroys your suspension of disbelief. If anything, me being a character in Deltarune possessing Kris while also being a real human person playing the game just makes me invested in these characters more! It helps me to feel that my actions genuinely affect these pixels on my screen. It extends the universe of the game outside my computer to include me in it, and that's what makes meta stories like Deltarune gripping to me. In the example of Doki Doki Literature club, sure the game explicitly calling to attention how fake and moldable the reality is can make me lose interest in some of the girls, but it also has the effect of making me double down on my investment in Monika as a character. I can empathize with her plight to be real and make a real connection with the only other person she knows that is aware of how her reality is a game. I think it's kind of in poor taste to look at only one example of how a meta narrative and a regular narrative couldn't coexist and then declare that the two are completely impossible to combine. You can have that opinion all you want, I just don't think it's fair to assume that no one could ever do it right.
I think Toby is a deconstructionist storyteller at heart. He likes to take tropes and concepts that have been done and examine them in order to break them down into their finest details, and then he builds his stories off of that. Frankly, I don't understand why you assume that Toby inserting a meta narrative into his actual narrative is automatically a bad writing decision just because you haven't seen it done well before. If you went up to someone in 2010 and explained Undertale's plot to them, they would probably be confused at how you could be invested in a game that relies on the breaking of your suspension of disbelief to experience the full story of the game. After all, the Genocide route is a secret route that requires a lot of willing effort and determination on the player's behalf to see through, and is not something that would come as easily or naturally as a Neutral or Pacifist route. It only makes sense when looked through a completionist lens, and done by someone wanting to see every little detail the game has to offer, someone with a "perverted sentimentality" to quote our good buddy Chara.
Have a little faith in Toby, alright? He made Undertale, he knows his stuff.
(Side tangent, give Oneshot a try! It pretty much does the exact same thing I'm talking about, where you the player are a character in the game possessing(sort of) the protagonist, and your actions are both directly attributed to you and affect the ingame characters. In my opinion, it renders a lot of the points you made about DDLC proving meta narratives and regular narratives not being able to coexist. Granted, you may not agree with me or even like it, but I think it would at least let you understand this angle of Deltarune analysis more.)
Jaru, I know you get alot of hate for your theories, but I've always enjoyed watching them. You're clearly very passionate about what you're doing and I respect that.
Thank you so much! The support of my fans keeps me going. x)
@@JaruJaruJI usually think that your theories are very compelling and interesting and I enjoy the way you present your points.
the entire second half made me think this:
i disagree. but, please, continue
This is a very well put together video, you explained your points very succinctly and I could see myself being swayed into this thought if I didn't have any opinions on this before.
However, I really still disagree with your assertion that the player can't be a part of the main narrative of Deltarune.
Deltarune is a fundamentally different story from Undertale, so why should it follow the exact same rules that story did, where the narrative and meta-narrative are on equal footing? If the player is part of the narrative, that doesn't automatically mean all suspension of disbelief is gone.
You use The Stanley Parable and imscared as examples of meta-narratives that don't have a big focus on the regular narrative, and I agree completely! However, you use those two examples to express that the meta-narrative can't exist AT ALL in a story trying to tell a regular narrative, which I believe is just a fundamentally two-dimensional way of viewing things. OneShot has a narrative that heavily involves a meta-narrative, with the player literally being the God of the world. Does this mean the other stories unrelated to the player are automatically meaningless just because of the heavy involvement of the meta-narrative, or that Niko's own backstory and feelings can't be taken seriously either because of this? Of course not! In fact, the meta-narrative strengthens the regular narrative by fleshing out the world in ways that couldn't be done outside of the medium of video games, and comparing yourself to Niko in a way that helps you connect with them on a seemingly personal level.
OFF is another game which does this same thing. The game outright states you, the player, are controlling The Batter at the very beginning, the Batter talks directly to you at several points, and at the end, The Judge chastises you (and the Batter, but mostly you) for killing so many innocent creatures and people. You can even choose to take control of The Judge to defeat The Batter if you so choose. Once again, this doesn't ruin the main narrative OFF intends to tell, rather it strengthens it and increases its depth and impact.
I think using these as evidence for how the meta-narrative and regular narrative work in tandem, like how you used DDLC as an example of how it doesn't work, is a perfectly valid reasoning on how this could work.
This being said, why can't Deltarune do the same? Why does the entity controlling Kris have to be in the universe of the game, when so many signs in the games dialogue point towards a force outside of the entire universe controlling them? Especially considering all the evidence there is towards the player actually existing (Mystery Voice asking for the vessel name, then your own name; Noelle not recognizing the voice coming out of Kris; PLAYERTown; etc). I think if the narrative and the meta-narrative were separated exactly the same as in Undertale, then it'd just be crossing paths that Undertale already walked upon. I don't see Toby as the kind of person to use the exact same idea in the exact same way to express a similar point; rather, I feel like he's setting up a further deconstruction and analysis in the meta in a more direct way, corely tied to the player's involvement, rather than a more secondary viewpoint.
(edit) also, I think using the scene at the end of Chapter 1 as the ONLY piece of evidence for the Player Kris theory is... Rather disingenuous. There are so many more examples that point to it that you seemingly just ignore, and I don't think that's a very truthful reading of why so many people believe this.
(Miscellaneous note: I also feel like Gaster's Twitter Takeovers (tm) being worded and continuing with the game's own dialogue is a sign that it has to be us, the player, directly involved. Unless someone in the Deltarune universe has our version of Twitter and is reading the latest Deltarune updates or something like that lol.)
(Also, critics not liking the first hour of DDLC is almost exclusively chalked up to people who don't normally like dating sims playing the game just for the meta narrative. Deltarune is a much different situation, being much longer, having an already dedicated fanbase from Undertale, and being released in chapters)
I think he has a huge problem with making undertale a piece of evidence.
@@andrewmclaughlin1249i don't think it's bad to use Undertale as evidence, especially given its connections to Deltarune. I do think using it as the end-all-be-all for Toby's meta writing is acting a little too soon to really tell his writing patterns IMO
I have loved Jaru's content for a long time, I have always respected his way of approaching analysis of the lore and theorycrafting. It is because of these aspects that I think deeply about what I am being told. And this leads me to say that I think that his interpretation of this is flawed in a few places.
The Meta-Narrative and Narrative stories existing at the same time in Undertale does not make them separated. In fact, neither work without the other. Being called "saving and loading" in the narrative, and not any number of other words that could be used to describe it, only works like it does because the meta-narrative of the player literally saving and loading, and their expectations of those mechanics, and the meta-narrative is only a narrative because the story of game includes said meta-narrative aspects into it. These concepts aren't being discussed seperately because the narrative is not the only part of the games whole story, and similarly, the meta-narrative is not the game's whole story. Both have to be taken together to form the full game.
To use Jaru's buffet metaphor, sure you can only pick out the narrative foods, just as you can only pick out the meta narrative foods, and both parts can be equally delicious, but if you don't try both, you aren't experiencing the full buffet.
Jaru says that the meta-narrative stays out of the narrative of the game, but this isn't always true. For example, one of the most impactful moments in many playthroughs of Undertale is reloading a save to, well, _save_ Toriel after killing her in a first encounter. After the fight, when Flowey comments on both the narrative aspect of the human reloading a save to escape consequences, but this scene is only so impactful because it also applies to the player's actions meta-narratively. At the same time, Flowey's words have both a narrative and a meta-narrative meaning, Flowey is talking about both narratively reloading a save, and meta-narratively reloading a save. These aspects are also extremely present in the Photoshop Flowey fight, the final boss of the first ending the player will always get. When Flowey shatters the UI the player has been using to to save, the meta-narrative is pretty much all there is for the player to interpret, Flowey is breaking parts of the game as if they were physical objects. This is not to say any character is aware of their state of being in a video game, I don't believe any character is, but rather that the story of the game cannot be understood through a purely narrative or purely meta perspective.
This is not to say that the meta-narrative is ever present. But aspects of both the narrative and meta-narrative fail if they are not both taken to be present. Undertale uses the meta-narrative player's ability to reset the game at any point to double down on all the sweet, endearing moments of the game that drew many players in. If the meta-narrative isn't true at the same time as these narrative moments, that devalues the player's choice to reset/not reset the world.
The same rules can apply to Deltarune. When Kris not being the player character is first revealed, it is after a long story full of fun adventures. The story reveals the meta-narrative at the exact time it makes the player think about everything that has happened narratively in a completely new perspective. The narrative moments are twisted in a new light by the meta-narrative reveal, and the meta-narrative reveal is only so surprising and impactful because of the narrative up to that point.
The same criticism of Doki Doki Literatue Club that Jaru simplifies down to it being a problem with the meta-narrative can also be said about Undertale. Why does a player care about a fictional world if the story, both narrative and meta narrative, tells the player that their choices don't matter? Because the narrative along the way makes the meta narrative more meaningful, and the meta narrative reflects and gives more meaning to the emotional narrative.
Great comment!! Thank you for this, it put a lot of stuff I was feeling about this video into words that I felt I couldn’t say eloquently myself.
Are you saying chara and the player are both at the same time one entity?
@@ruedetectiveagency I am saying that one does not work without the other. "Chara" is a placeholder name, short for "character". In the actual game the name the player enters is always used for "Chara".
@@misumimi1557Same here, i’m glad there’s people who are able to express my feelings so well
I don't understand why you are implying that this comment is a disagreement? The argument he is making is not that the meta narrative and narrative of Undertale were not good for each other, in fact he praises them.
The argument is just that it's really easy to screw up your story when making the player a literal part of the narrative, which is arguable, but the point is that a lot of people are treating it as a fact that the Red Soul is LITERALLY the player and there's no real reason to be so sure of that given that it was not like that in Undertale either
talking a whole lot of "we" and "our" while stating what is clearly your opinion
Exactly
@@niqothefox the ones who didn’t are dumb anyway so L bozos
@@niqothefox DDLC was intentionally a super generic dating sim for its first half though, so I think the side content being boring is less because it wasn't part of the meta-narrative but more because the meta-narrative was the only interesting part of the game
@@niqothefox I don't know for certain, but it definitely felt to me like it was intentional, maybe it wasn't and Dan is just a kinda bad writer though.
Either way though I think if it had more interesting characters then people would be more interested in seeing them
yeah I really tried, but it really feels like you made up a rule, and then said "see look it has to follow that rule" when I don't thin ktaht was itnented. the game is meta, in it's very core, both undertale and delatrune.
Yes, he believes that if Deltarune were to use meta-narrative, it could only be "poorly thought-out" because they cannot go together. But even if it continues to be meta, third-entity theories are still possible anyway, so attacking other notions just to protect his theories feels like he is mimicking those who attacked him first.
3:50 *laughs in “thank you so much for-a-to playing-a my game!”*
everybody gangsta till mario stares directly at the screen
I also thought of this, this is a remark which truly is scathing
@@tomaszpawlik5091 and steals your milk
Heck, in the original Mario Vs. Donkey Kong (I haven't played the remake so I can't comment on that version), Mario talks over the credits thanking "all the artists, the music people...everyone!" and directly calls out "Mister Miyamoto" and "that Charles Martinet, nice Italian boy" _by name._ Mario's role as a video game character who participates in a game with the player has been repeatedly emphasized over time, so using Mario as the opening argument for Jaru's theory is a flawed example.
I think what you present in this video is a reasonable opinion, but acting like it is in any way more than a simple preference seems weird to me. None of your arguments felt objective to me. I don't need a suspension of disbelief to be engaged with a story. I don't feel like a narrative matters less just because I'm directly inserted into it as a participant. So, I disagree, but I don't think that just makes me "wrong", does it?
This reminds me of the ending of a game I played a couple years ago. Naming the game would be a spoiler for that game so I won't. The ending was a reveal that basically everything that happened in the game was part of an in-universe show with the characters being told they never mattered cause they aren't real. They fight against the hosts and end the series by convincing the viewers that just because something isn't real, that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.
I liked this ending, but a lot of people felt like this is a "how dare you play the game, player???" moment and hated it. I strongly disagreed since the literal message of the story is that fictional narratives can matter even if you know they're not real. And it's because I agreed with that is why I hold the opinion I stated at the start. I know games are fictional when I play them. Making me aware of this fact in the narrative doesn't make it more fictional than it already was, so doing this is completely fine in my book.
"doesn't make it more fictional," I love this observation. It's also why I don't mind non-canon spin-off material, it's all fictional, so why should its canonicity matter. At the end of the day fiction is fiction, and if the story is engaging by itself regardless of its status within a narrative, that should be good enough.
I understood the game you were talking about and I also love that ending.
But even in THAT ending there is still a distinction between the world of the narrative and the metanarrative. The hosts of the show are still characters within their own story that is exploring meta themes.
And I think while it's personal the way we react to the 4th wall being broken or if we even care at all, in Deltarune there just isn't any reason to quietly assume that there will be a 4th wall break just because there are a lot of meta themes, which is something a lot of players are doing. Undertale never fully broke the 4th wall so why would Deltarune?
@@godoatthegoat2884 In fairness, I think what you said about 4th wall breaks is because Deltarune sort of already has. From the very beginning of the game, and before.
To make up some character that the application and therefore "Gaster" or whoever it is is speaking to OTHER than the player just needlessly complicates things and muddies the story. Whatever character that would be doesn't really matter to the story anyway. The whole aspect of Kris not agreeing with the players' decisions just is so much more moot if there's some character players can deflect onto. The impact of the consequences for a players actions would be lessened.
@@godoatthegoat2884"Undertale never fully break the 4th wall so why would Deltarune?"
Maybe because Deltarune and Undertale are different games with different stories that have different objectives?
The 4th wall is literally broken at the the start of Deltarune in the vessel creation, is very clear that Deltarune does not hesitate in break the 4th wall at all.
@@N1ck_Souza the vessel creation is not really a 4th wall break. Nothing that happens there implies we are in a videogame world and Gaster knows about it or something like that.
At the start of Undertale Flowey will talk to you about saving and loading after the Toriel battle and you think that it is a 4th wall break because that’s what it would be in any other game. By the end of Undertale though, you have learnt about Determination and its rules and you understand that the 4th wall was not in fact broken by Flowey in that scene. Why can’t Deltarune be the same in that regard? I am not saying it’s 100% the case but I also don’t see why people are so sure the red soul has to be the player when there’s dialogue that implies Kris has removed the soul and put it in the birdcage days before chapter 1 even begins, which is when we start playing.
So you're saying that a game cannot mix narrative with meta narrative as a narrative requires a suspension of disbelief which a meta narrative destroys. This being your reasoning on why the player is not truly present in Deltarune's narrative.
My major issue with this is that a suspension of disbelief is only required in media that includes the reader/viewer/player in an unbelievable way.
That is where Deltarune's very clever writing comes into the picture. As crazy as it may sound; there is nothing logically false about the player's presence in Deltarune, as it only utilizes the fundamental presence any player has in a video game, that being their input into a computer. It does this by making the player's presence simply their disembodied inputs into their keyboard (the soul, which could either have preexisted in the game with the player's inputs imposed on it or simply the form that the player's inputs take in the game's world) that are "connected" to Deltarune's world.
Therefore, Deltarune is capable of having both a narrative and meta narrative as the narrative of Deltarune remains logically valid without requiring a suspension of disbelief. Through this incredible innovation in story telling it can recognize the player's presence while also maintaining a valid narrative.
I may be misunderstanding, but I think you're arguing that DELTARUNE has invented a new way of integrating narrative and meta-narrative in a way that doesn't violate suspension of disbelief? If so, kudos to Mr. Fox! I'm not really convinced that is the case, but maybe you're right. To be honest you kinda lost me in the later paragraphs. Regardless, thank you for watching and commenting. x)
The player's presence in Deltarune is nothing more than their disembodied inputs into their computer which are diegetically connected to Deltarune's world. This is not inherently unbelievable and therefore does not require a suspension of disbelief. This allows for Deltarune to maintain a valid story whilst including the player in it.@@JaruJaruJ
This is one of the things that confuse me the most out of all the theory themes, while I do feel like there will be some sort of narrative explanation, I disagree with most theories that try to uncover who is exactly possesing Kris if it's not the player. I understand where both sides come from but I really don't think we can define Deltarune's ending and overall plot right now while not being completely and utterly wrong.
I agree so much with this! Whether you think it's the player, or Asriel, or some other third thing, I don't think a conclusive choice can be determined 2/7 of the way into the story (the equivalent of getting past Snowdin in Undertale)
@@ScradeCottontail getting past snowdin in undertale except each area is 3 hours long lmao
I definitely agree with what you're saying. Making the Player canon to the story of a game can and most likely will ruin the narrative. However, based on what we have now, we have no way of knowing whether that's the case in Deltarune.
While there is a chance that the meta-narrative and regular narrative might be merged to create a story based on how the Player controlling Kris affects their life and relationships, I do hope that there is an in-universe explanation as to what is happening.
But because of the fandom's firm belief in the meta-narrative, it created an echo chamber which cemented the idea of the Player being canon in everyone's minds, making it difficult to consider other possibilities.
So basically, you're not able to hold empathy for fictional characters that you KNOW are fictional characters? I don't like that tbh I feel like it's not very hard to hold space for characters even if you know they "don't matter" like every story "doesn't matter" if you think about it like that.
yeah, you see his way to see this things really "hardcore"
like, he doesn't like Susie just because "it's your typical bully that change to good and it's dumb"
or when he does the tierlist of OST of Deltarune, kinda more focused on "oh yeah! this song it's played for this moment that implied cool lore, so it is S tier"
he don't enjoy the game like a game, it needs to find it like the breaking all literature in humanity since today
Did you like, actually cry when Sans died?
@@niqothefox Why would i? i spent hours trying to clock him in the face with a blade!
@@rascal3554 exactly.
@@niqothefox I DID feel bad upon ending all of life as we know it, though.
Dude, I understand what you're talking about, but I think you're straw-manning some of the criticism. I agree that there should be a narrative explanation when a moment is also something meta, but it's not like every solitary aspect of a story like this needs to be an even split. The soul possessing Kris being the player doesn't have to be the only explanation for it to be very evident that the soul represents the player in a very direct way. Hollow Knight flirted with this concept when referring to the crowdfunding donors as "higher beings from another world" in game. Something similar can be happening in deltarune.
Kris could be possessed by some nebulous higher being summoned from another dimension in the story while we as the player see the commentary about how people interact with fiction. There are a few parallels between the narrative of what the characters are going through and the meta narrative of what the players are going through. Both narratives deal with a loss of control, corrupted purpose, and how one interacts with things that they create.
I disagree that DDLC was trying to toe the line between a narrative and a meta-narrative. It was all meta. The normal part was there to lull the player into a false sense of security to better catch them off guard later. That can only work once, and that's why it's so easy to skip things in DDLC. As for the extras in DDLC+, it was narrative in nature but also strong in its themes, more about how the story can provide different perspectives. The extras were cutscenes, there was no gameplay at all.
I think the disconnect comes when you read theories about a character representing the player and talking about them like they're silly and irrelevant. I know that because that's how you talked about my theory in your theory ranking.
Two things can be true at the same time. There can be a pronounced meta commentary while still having characters and a plot the audience is able to be invested in. I think Toby Fox is ambitious enough to make a meta-narrative worth caring about.
claiming that the meta narrative focus on the player control "throws the non-meta narrative in the trash" is imo an extremely poor and limited point of view for understanding a story
Would help if you elaborated
That's certainly an opinion you can have! It has no arguments or logic to back it up, so I hope you'll understand if I don't really take this to heart, but I certainly respect your right to disagree with me. Thank you for watching and commenting. x)
@@JaruJaruJ Sorry for not elaborating, not trying to be inflammatory or anything.
I just think that the narrative can still function with the meta element of acknowledging the player as an entity without killing suspension of disbelief. The world of Deltarune can coexist with it. I think treating it as black and white, meta or non-meta is kind of limiting.
I think the themes chapter 2 brings up of control and free will have a lot of interesting implications that could be explored while keeping the narrative perfectly functional and it's kind of lame to imply it's impossible. Also I'm not even an avid defender of the "player is an entity" theory, but I wouldn't throw it under the rug cause of that.
Take so hot it makes the core look like Snowdin
Nice video, I've also seen the negative comments of the community when someone says stuff that, I hope this video makes things better
I've always been on the same page as you on this, I've always tought the way undertale did meta-narrative was the coolest thing about it, so I hope deltarune does it again
One thing you didn't mention for undertale is how you would think the game is meta if you are playing blind. Saving and flowey refering to you by name make it look meta, it is only in the end, be it in the true lab or the talk with flowey in genocide, that you understand it was encapsulated by the narrative, I think deltarune is doing the same, what we are seeing is people falling for it and thinking it must be meta, when the encapsulating narrative has not been revealed yet
I also don't think it would be that bad if it turns out that Gaster is actually being meta, as long as there is a meta-independet narrative for most of deltarune, but that might be because I reject the concept of suspension of disbelief, wich I know is uncommon. For instance, I think DDLC is really good, the story points out the characters aren't real, but I still enjoy it.
There is a potential thematic upside to deltarune being meta, I'm sure there will be a point where Susie finds out darkners aren't "real" and has to deal with it, it would parallel the player if meta elements are confirmed.
TL;DR I hope it does meta the same way as undertale, but I might like it regardless
You make a great point! I hadn't considered that luring people into misidentifying meta-narrative elements is a part of Toby's writing style! Damn. He's a genius, cuz he's 100% done that with DELTARUNE. xD
Thank you for watching and commenting! :D
@@JaruJaruJ yep!! i feel like this comment section in itself is a great example of this. people are so convinced that it HAS to be meta just because.... it's the first thing that comes to mind? i don't blame them for believing it but all this vitriol stemming from it makes no sense.
Jaru, before i even watch this, you fundamentally changed how to approach meta narrative, and how to theorize and talk efficiently about medias i love in general. Thank you💛
Wow, thank you! That's very kind of you to say. x)
This is sad because his definition is just incorrect.
Hmmm
Seeing everything you said in this video, I wonder: How do you interpret the opening scene of the game? Geoff, as you like to call him, explicitly asks for your name, separately to the name of the vessel. Not cheeky "name the fallen child" here, this is straight up 2nd person talk. And your name is the one that's later used for the name of the town.
So if Deltarune's player isn't, in some capacity, an in universe character... who's name is that? Because whoever it is, they are definitely suppose to represent the player in the meta nerrative, and whoever it is, they are not named Asriel.
Look...here's the problem. In Undertale, we encounter a meta-narrative very early in the game. If you kill Toriel, load up and then spare her. Flowey will point this out to us...that we have “super powers”.
The meta-narrative is established very early (literally the end of the tutorial) and at the same time there is a clear barrier separating the narrative and the meta-narrative. Flowey is a real character in the game and he understands what is happening and explains the Meta-narrative to us...in the context of a regular narrative. Undertale works well from the very beginning.
Deltarune doesn't behave the same way. Firstly, we encounter a meta-narrative right away. When creating a vessel. A mystical voice that communicates with us...directly addresses the player. He asks us to name the vessel (much the same as we do in Undertale when choosing a name for Chara)... but then... he asks us to say OUR name. Thus, we establish the player as a separate entity in the game world. We are not the vessel...and we are not Kris. We are us. This is the very first thing that Deltarune clearly defines for us. At the same time, without creating ANY barrier between the narrative and the meta-narrative, as was the case in the Undertale.
And this lack of a barrier has been going on for 2 chapters already. At the same time, the meta-narrative in the Undertale is much more...quiet...it appears actively towards the end of the game...or during conversations with Sans or Genocide.
In Deltarune, the meta-narrative is presented...very aggressively. The scene at the end of the first chapter is the first conflict between narrative and meta-narrative. The game aggressively reminds us...We are NOT Kris.
The same thing happens in the second chapter. Kris shows even more autonomy. But not only that. In the Snowgrave route, even other characters (Noelle) recognize that "the voice" is not Kris's voice. Not only does Kris actively antagonize us, but other characters also begin to recognize us as a separate entity.
Of course, Kris's body could be taken over by some third entity. I believe that such a scenario is quite possible.
However, the way game appears to us now. There is no barrier separating narrative and meta-narrative. There is no character who would explain to us what is happening... in game world logic.
At the same time, the conflict between narrative and meta-narrative is much more obvious and aggressive than it ever was in Undertale. Our absolute power as a player is being challenged. And this challenge is not thrown by some behind-the-scenes entity or the narrator... no... it's Kris who does it. Behind-the-scenes narrator - allows us to save and load (Doesn't resist our will)...communicates with us when creating a vessel and in general...behaves friendly...creepy...but not hostile.
Kris on the other hand is actively hostile and aggressive. Kris doesn’t even try to communicate with us, unlike the narrator. This, by the way, would be an ideal opportunity to establish a barrier between narrative and meta-narrative. Kris could play the role of Flowey and ask for our help in achieving a certain goal. But this doesn't happen.
Therefore, I think that the narrative of the game, ultimately, is just a façade/decoration for a meta-narrative conflict. And that the meta-narrative will most likely have several layers. In order for the perfect balance of narrative and meta-narrative to work well, as it was in the Undertale. The barrier between them must be established very early. Since Toby didn't do this, I think he'll try to do the same thing as in DDLC. At the same time, Toby will try to give the player a choice... between what we want to pursue more - a narrative or... a meta-narrative.
Therefore, we will have 2 paths: narrative - pacifist... or meta-narrative - genocide.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons why I think Genocide will be mandatory in Deltarune in order to get the one and only “true” ending. We need to regain full control of the game, Kris must obey us, we must make saves ourselves and not some narrator. if we don’t get our “sweet sweet freedom sauce”... the pacifist route simply won’t work... then either Kris will kick us out of the game... or the narrator will say something like “thanks for the experiment, goodbye you’re no longer needed.”
The only thing required for the metanarrative and narrative to be connected to each other would be for a link from the real world and game world to be connected. Like by a survey program. Once you agree in canon that the 2 worlds are connected then you could easily be a character in the game without upsetting the narrative. So the player being the only character controlling kris does make sense. And given the setup it would honestly require some suspension of disbelief for the soul to be controlled by another who isn’t us but does move the soul in the exact way as us in a game that acknowledges our existence in the first 5 minutes.
I think another miscommunication that happens around this topic is the term "Third entity theories". When I use that term I'm specifically refering to theories that suggest that something other than the player is possessing kris *in addition* to the player (or a meta stand-in for the player); e.g. saying that when kris rips out their soul, that's not actually kris doing that, but something else.
Those kinds of theories tend to make both kris's characterization and the apparent metanarrative less clear so I don't think are very likely to be what's being set up.
However the idea that there is an entity posessing kris which isn't necassarily the literal player (though sometimes it's said that "the player" is controlling *that* entity) is distinct from that (and sometimes refered to as "indirect diegesis") but sometimes also lumped in with "third entity theories" and criticised as though it were the same, when the same criticisms don't actually apply.
Additionally, I think there are theories involving the player (probably most, in fact) that can definitely be interpreted under the indirect player diageses lens (e.g. "kris summoned a demon" or "the angel is the player") but often still refer to the entity posessing kris as "the player", without actually requiring the literal player to be diegetic. But without considering that lens they may be prematurely dismissed.
The only thing the post-chapter-1 cutscene shows us is:
A. We are either playing as the red soul or as something that controls the red soul.
B. The red soul controls Kris when it is inside of them.
It seems silly to assert theories as fact when this is really the only stuff we can take at face value. The story isn't even close to done yet, why do we have to get so heated about our theories? Discussing them is so fun, and it really helps me build excitement for future chapters, but it makes me upset when people get angry at one another over it.
Ok, I think the way you described the suspension of disbelief was rather odd. It kinda feels like you're saying that narratives are meant to gaslight the viewer into preserving them as real. But obviously, nobody playing thought that anything going on in the story actually happened. The thing is, if something makes it explicit, that it's not real, but people engage with it anyway. That feels like that should be perfect. This also got me thinking of the abstract basic different of the real as opposed to the not real. The reason why Sans isn't real isn't because he's a skeleton that can telaport or because he pixels in a metal box. It's that he doesn't actually have a conciseness. There's no way for him to desingwish pleasure from pain or red from blue or so on. The difference between consuming fiction and consuming(?) real life is in fiction you're the only one actually feeling anything because the characters aren't real. So I say that the importance of a video game and everything for that matter is to affect conciseness. So essentially, because the players of the games are the only ones experiencing it, I don't really think it matters if you're reminded it's not real anyway. Also, I can't wait for the long-awaited sequel to Undertale, called Jaru's definition. Coming fall of 8025.
distinguish*
What's so wrong about the definition, avoiding critical though seems pretty accurate to me. Sort of like, not actively about the reality of the video game I guess
Respectfully Jaru, I don't think you really did the evidence for the player having a role in the narrative enough justice to adequately debunk it. There are mountain piles of evidence but the only one you really acknowledged was the cutscene at the end of chapter 1, and while that scene is a good piece of evidence it's far from the only evidence or reason we believe the player has a role in this.
This video felt more like you're rejecting the idea on the basis that you don't want it to be true because you think it would ruin the game's narrative rather than actually getting into the evidence for it.
I don't feel it's right to use Undertale as justification in this instance considering deltarune seems to be deliberately bleeding the lines a little more. I remember back when it first came out and the Undertale tale twitter account became "hijacked" and then we got to download something called survey_program. To me that feels like we the player are being directly spoken to and directly tied into this narrative as a character.
I don't know if I conveyed my thoughts here very well but, what I'm trying to say is that this game seems to be incorporating us into it in some form. From the name, to the intro. It feels like we are being experimented on.
just because a story incorporates the viewer into it and forces you to engage with it in that way doesn't necessarily mean it will break your suspension of disbelief. Much like you can create fake versions of real people if they show up in a story, you can very much create a fake version of yourself, the player who is a part of this story. By suspending your disbelief you can interact with this story as if its a game that has a mind of its own, or is its own world that exists within either your computer or is just interacting with your through the survey program.
Weird comparison but this way of suspending your disbelief reminds me of the movie inland empire. Inland empire is so complex and surrealist it requires you as the viewer to analyze it and try to understand whats going on and more importantly what it as a film is trying to tell you during its run time. Despite you as the viewer breaking the expected role your supposed to take, being a silent observer, and turning more into an analyst doesn't mean your suspension of disbelief is broken and you stop caring about what's going on. From the meta perspective or the literal narrative perspective. Maybe that's just David Lynch being the goat but either way, this kind of thing has been done successfully before. Your able to bleed the lines while still keeping suspension of disbelief intact.
What do you mean the barrier should be in place? We destroyed it at the end of the last game.
BRO DID I START THIS VIDEO IDEA? I was wondering if you would ever make a video about it thank you
Weirdly enjoyable to watch your road to understanding the need for a proper explanation of "narrative" and "meta-narrative". I think many people, when asked if they know what these concepts mean, would probably answer it somewhat correctly, but taking the time to thoroughly explain it was a great approach on your part! Also appreciate how you decided not to include much more speculation on the video itself, as that could probably sidetrack many people from what I think was the most important part, both the explanation AND your justifications for WHAT you theorize and HOW you theorize. A necessary video, and a really good one too, it was cool to follow the trajectory you went through to actually do it, a proper motivation!
Glad you enjoyed!
There's a certain murder mystery game(I won't actually say which one since it's a massive spoiler) that I think makes a good job arguing that the events of said game being (kind of)fictional doesn't make them less worth caring about or even less "real". All the surrounding context makes it quite different from the situation in Deltarune so it doesn't really go against anything said in the video, but it reminded me of it so I wanted to mention it.
Though now that I think about it that game actually manages to do that without ever actually making the player part of the story or making the meta-narrative part of the narrative. It's a whole thing, if you know you know but if you don't this probably reads like gibberish
Yeah I think that game is a perfect example
The metanarrative does a great job of delivering its message while still making you feel for the characters
The player was not needed to have great meta themes
FINALLY, someone who actually understands that game's ending!!
@@verity_amo honestly I get why many people don't understand it. Because sure, the message is basically spelled out. But before you get to that message you have to go through the shock of the revelation itself and it's really like nothing else you've seen up to that point. It's a pretty fucked up thing to put at the end of your game, even though it does end up fitting really well after you give it some thought.
I do like the idea that narrative and meta-narrative are two separate lines that can run parallel to each other or be replaced by each other based on how the story writes and emphasizes one or the other. It’s a nicely calculated way to put together the two elements and say both can be true even if neither is true to the other. Almost like a quantum plot structure or something.
I JUST thought "hey, i haven't watched a jaru video in a while, and i have a lot of cleaning to do, lets check his channel... " and you uploaded.
Nice! Please enjoy! xD
new jaru video?? and it's NOT 1 billion hours long????? awesome.
Why wouldn't you want it to be 1 billion hours tho?
@@GoncaloDCa it's called a joke
@@echos.ofsilence yes, and?
@@GoncaloDCaand you didn't get it
@@alexislopez6027 I did tho, I never dismissed that it was a joke I just read the joke snorted real quick and said "Why wouldn't you want it to be 1 billion hours tho?" as a throwaway comment, but if y'all want to jump on me for that go on
I feel like the whole thing about Undertale's narrative on things like SAVING (Flowey talking about SAVING as a power) are things that are supposed to be something like a meta-narrative that is actually a narrative in disguise. Things that the game expects the people to see as 4th wall breaks, but actually are not. The 4th wall wasn't broken once in UNDERTALE (Except for Chara's naming).
The control of the player in UNDERTALE is very much possible, BUT it doesn't play a "changing" to the story role, yet.
Gaster breaks the 4th wall for the first time, when we connect with him, when he asks for our name. It's like, what Chara is to Flowey, we as the player are to Gaster.
I think along the same lines. As far as I can see, our protagonist is the SOUL, but the SOUL is a character in Undertale and in Deltarune, rather than an abstract representation of an impossible outside influence like we real-world players. The SOUL's identity is something I hope we'll see more discussion of in the future, because explaining how they came to be and what their nature is could provide some big context. Then again, it remaining an acknowledged mystery would be enough, too. We love mysteries!
Yeah, the way Deltarune *starts* very strongly implies that the meta-narrative will be important. It MAY not even be important to the central story of Deltarune, and only be involved with the "under"-story I guess I'd call it. All the extra stuff. Secret bosses and all that.
I expect Deltarune will have a perfectly serviceable conclusion for players who don't find many or ANY of the secrets the game has. But the secret bosses and easter eggs and Gaster stuff are clearly still important enough to pay attention to.
Like the main story might not even really end up caring that the "player" is interacting with it, but the program "outside" the story-- where "Gaster" speaks to us and stuff-- very much will. To make that aspect of Deltarune NOT the player, but some other kind of entity, would just needlessly overcomplicate things. It's like the "Kris has 3 souls and one of them is chara" thing and whatever. Silly, needlessly complicated, and to be frank unnecessary. Honestly, it is my opinion that perhaps Jaru holds rules in too high a regard to see how breaking them would be effective. As it has been in one or two other titles in the past.
I understand your point entirely, however I feel like you don't understand that most fans of undertale simply don't see it that way, it's the same reason DDLC is very popular, most people just don't care if the line between meta narrative and normal narrative is broken
this is they only video i’m glad isn’t over an hour, because this video NEEDS to be seen by the majority of this fandom.
Ok I experienced this thing you sort of said in the video where I was like “oh I guess it didn’t matter that much” in a game recently and I’m unsure how to articulate it. I might come back to this later cause I really wanna talk about it but I’m at work and I have to do stuff so yeah I’m writing a rushed comment here.
Fair! Thank you for watching and commenting! x)
@@JaruJaruJ Ok so i originally had a comment that i was writing on and off but my computer reset and i lost all my progress.
i'm not going to attempt to rewrite it, but at the end i had some gripes with fan works that i'll explain.
It's mainly artwork and stuff but i just cringe when i see "YOU VS KRIS" That's RIGHT. YOU. THE PLAYER. ARE IN THE VIDEO GAME.
ugg i feel no motivation to continue writing just watch "Undertale poop post" and Imagine it in the context of deltarune i guess. that video could describe a lot of what i feel with the player being in the game.
again i'm sorry, i had a whole plot synopsis of Spark the Electric Jester 3 here and i just don't want to try and explain that and what i was feeling again.
I wanted to mention the game at least because the dev (LakeFeperd) made all three games in the spark series by himself (aside from the music).
Shoutouts this mans ingenuity and improvement, in many departments, between each game, cause what he accomplished is very commendable.
But i also feel like these games got no buzz outside of certain circles cause i knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about these games when i bought the 3 game bundle on steam i was like "WHERE'S THE FANDOM FOR THESE GAMES???" after i finished the second one.
so yeah if anyone sees this go at least check out the steam page if you're interested cause if i could get one person to experience what i played then writing this comment would have been worth it.
Let's see how absolutely cooked you'll get for this on Twitter.
I accept the consequences for my actions. xD
@@JaruJaruJ well, r/deltarune certainly doesn''t seem to like you for this
@@ihaetschool3361 Reddit is filled with no-lifers anyway.
@@OdysseyCoder especially r/deltarune. i have seen someone earnestly make a skibidi toilet joke. not to mention the whole arkhamsanity thing. really tells you the average age of the sub
twitter and reddit are really not worth engaging with
One thing to note is that the generally understood third entity theory has a very different purpose than the third entity theory you are suggesting. The third entity theory puts the third entity under control of Kris only at the time of opening the dark fountain as an explanation for why Kris would open a dark fountain even after a weird route run. This is pretty much opposite of the third entity theory you seem to be presenting, which puts the third entity under control at the same time we control Kris. I'd love if you could confirm or deny this, since it seems like a very big potential point of misunderstanding for most people.
How do you know the angel is not talking to gaster?
Jaru I feel bad for you because you just provoked the DDLC Fanbase lol 😂.
I actually love DDLC the metanarrative that they force upon me, actually helps my enjoyment of the game and a side story.
Like I don’t know if you know the lore behind the side story but it’s pretty much another metanarrative that’s explained via emails of the game developers.
But despite that I enjoyed it a lot so personally, I have no issue with having a metanarrative being integrals of the story and I care about the characters all the same.
Like with one shot
Dang right he did he didn’t understand the game at all
You brought up a good point with how chara and the player are entwined. The thing is, a lot of the fandom definitely sees them as separate.
When chara appears at the end of genocide, it's taken less as a representation of what you've become, and more a reveal of the real puppetmaster.
Because of this, most interpretations of that route use chara as a sort of scapegoat, not recognizing that it was the player (you) who did it.
Basically i believe that toby fox intends to correct this in deltarune. To make sure its clear that these are the consequences of 'your' actions.
This is more of a lecture than a theory to me. Absolutely loved that.
Fair! Glad you enjoyed! x)
when deltarune fully releases I can't wait for your video titled "Where Deltarune fell off" because god this video did not change my views about your theories in the slightest, your ability to enjoy this game when it comes out is gonna come down to your ability to hallucinate non-existant plot threads which I gotta be honest, you are pretty fucking good at having watched all of your videos
A very interesting perspective.
To clarify if i understand correctly, you are saying that when we ask “what is possessing Kris,”
We can’t just stop at “me the player”,
Because we still don’t know what “the player” is from an in-universe perspective?
Or, in other words, it’s not so much about there being a “third entity” trying to explore what the “player” as an entity is to begin with?
Regardless, I do agree that there is a link missing in explaining how characters the meta elements, the way Determination and “Soul Science” did in Undertale.
I have 3 major points that came up while watching
1 I think this is a really simple idea over-explained to the point where it leaves so much more room to be misinterpreted.
2 DDLC is not a good comparison to Deltarune's risk factor
3 You never really provided a strong enough reason that there HAS to be a barrier between the two narratives.
1- Ultimately your point is that there CAN be a meta-narrative, but you'd rather there also be a narrative reason to preserve the balance and separation between meta and non-meta. I think the problem is just people not wanting to be open to other interpretations and less a lack of understanding. I think the entire explanation of Undertale and the barrier up until that point is mostly unnecessary and might lead to people further not understanding.
2- DDLC isnt a great example because like you said, the game discards its own narrative. its a bait and switch, not a mixing of both meta and narrative. The game discards its other self for the horror and intrigue of the new meta. Deltarune doesn't do this. DDLC is more similar to Undertale because it hits you with the meta stuff at the end. It differs because UT then asks you to play again with this meta knowledge for true pacifist (you aren't Frisk) and if YOU discard the narrative, you get Genocide (You are chara). its not a barrier, but a progression of Narrative> Hybrid > Meta. Deltarune has opened up the idea earlier because it's what we expect. now we get to see which way things swing.
3- I agree that there is currently room for speculation either way, but if favoring one side were to mess things up, the Narrative favoritism would hurt more than the meta.
Lets just say chapter 5 confirms without a doubt that YOU are controlling Kris. The game has shown us that Kris IS a character with agency before the events of the story (like Frisk) with characters commenting on what Kris would normally do. How does this info change the narrative?
-It reveals whats happening to Kris. The narrative is in tact whether this entity is Us or a 3rd party.
What does it do to the meta-narrative?
-It means we have been forcing Kris to act out of character and they Physically don't like it. that could change how we feel about past or future chapters but it doesn't destroy the world even if we question how the game rationalizes this fact. it also makes us question who speaks in the intro because we still had to make a character. I will say though, Deltarune hasn't put Meta elements into mechanics like UT yet, so narratively the player controlling Kris to them just means some unseen force is doing it. We dont have the separation problem of "saving, the power" and "saving, the mechanic".
Now lets say the opposite is true. chapter 5 reveals Gaster/Ralsei/Asriel etc is controlling Kris via the soul. the narrative result is the same, but now the intro is weird because we had to make a character only to be refused. That's weird if that human soul represented a monster like Gaster or Asriel. I understand it could be another person hijacking the soul but then it's weird that Kris is removing their OWN soul rather than a foreign one. We also are going into this UT-like game EXPECTING Meta elements.
I think the strict idea of a barrier is silly because Deltarune muddied the waters early. It's not trying to trick us like Undertale. It's showing us something isnt right and I think the fact we are debating if its you or someone else DURING the game (and not in hindsight like UT) shows us that Deltarune has faded the barrier and allowed the Meta and the narrative to tangle.
Thats not even to mention that So far Deltarune's meta bits have been pockets of meta rather than a large focus.
-character creation
-end of chapter 1 +2
-post spamton neo
-snowgrave
-minor npc dialogue
It's at the point where its still something you can ignore/ explain away. But i still stand by it not ruining the Narrative side if it leans harder in this direction because at the end of the day we still care about Susie and some other characters
I respectfully disagree with the DDLC argument. I personally still loved the characters from the game and seeing a version of them without meta narrative involved was a very sweet and got me invested in them a bit more. The meta narrative may also lead to an in-universe explanation as show in DDLC+, so Dan may have seen the back lash and is retconing the story a bit. Either way, I myself have enjoyed the story. As for Deltarune... I kind of agree. I believe Kris is being controlled by a device of some kind, and the player is in control of said device. Either the soul is the device or the device is inside the soul. So I'm kind of in-between.
I think that the fact that you can tell sans that its good to see him again confirms that the player is important because how else would kris know who he is.
Okay, so I think a meta-narrative breaking our suspension of disbelief is a little black and white.
Best example I can use is Oneshot. It's a game where the player is referred to as God, and the character you're playing as is the messiah.
The first half of the game is a semi-normal narrative, except for occasionally Niko (the player character) will talk to you and ask you for advice. You are treated as a character within the game while being acknowleged as someone in control.
However, there are a few puzzles that require you to access files on your actual computer. Without getting into spoilers, the ending of the game does become way more meta, but it leads you to believe that the characters that you've met throughout the game are sentient. It's able to have a meta narrative while also still asking you to keep your suspension of disbelief. It really felt like I was working WITH Niko and the other characters, rather than just being a player to a game.
I still don't think the player will have any major role in DELTARUNE if any at all, but to say that you can't have both a suspension of disbelief and a meta-narrative is just wrong.
You kept mentioning Stanley Parable, well that requires you to believe that you're really interacting with the narrator. If you went into the game without that suspension of disbelief, you wouldn't get that same satisfaction of annoying the narrator or finding some way to break the game just to see how he would react.
In a horror game like I'mscared you have to have some level of belief in order to fear what the game throws at you. I know several people who can go through horror games without getting scared because "its just a game".
Basically, no matter what you are required to have some level of susepnsion of disbelief. In fact, I'd argue that games that directly speak to me require the most suspension of disbelief because I now have to believe that this game can not only interact with me, but that the characters inside have some level of sentience and intelligence.
I could go on and on about other instances where the meta-narrative is a part of the main narrative and still requires suspension of disbelief, like deadpool constantly interacting with the readers. I think I've made my point though.
TLDR: Suspension of Disbelief and Meta-narratives are not mutually exclusive and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.
Extra TLDR: If you're incapable of believing that the game world is both real AND can interact with you, just say so. Just because *your* suspension of disbelief is shattered when Flowey asks you to not reset doesn't mean *I'm* not going to cry as I hit the reset button because I feel like I'm actually tearing these characters away from their lives on the surface.
Maybe you just need a stronger since of wonder and imagination 🤷♀️
And I'm glad so many of the comments on this video are under the same mindset.
It's not even really a matter of opinion, it's just factually incorrect to say, as a blanket statement, that meta-narratives shatter suspension of disbelief. That's clearly not the case. Maybe some people do find it harder to believe that the world they're interacting with is real and can interact with them back, but I would wager that a majority of people wouldn't have any issues believing that possibility. Obviously, at the end of the day we know it's just a game, but that applies to all games meta or otherwise. But games like Oneshot are the only ones that will have me thinking after I beat the game "I wonder how Niko is doing" and try to create a narrative in my own mind about what could have happened to the characters after I beat the game. I feel more connected to the world because I was a part of it.
That's something special.
Anyways, sorry for the Essay.
I guess it's an appropriately long rebuttal to an equally long video essay.
Spoilers ahead.
I don't know if it's just me, but I though the world in which one shot is set was a whole lot more interesting than Niko, the character. So much so that, I felt nothing in the final moments of the game and chose to save the "fictional" world.
Full disclosure though, I played the game on Linux just before it got a Linux port, so maybe a lot of the meta elements didn't impact me that much as I had to lookup how to access the necessary folders on steam's proton. This all means that I wasn't really invested in that games meta narrative and treated it more like role playing.
I feel like we should've been able to explore the world more as that was very interesting
@@evandrofilipe1526 I think it's fine to get more invested in the world than in Niko, but the game got a story update, sort of like a DLC a few years back. I would definitely suggest playing the game again so you can get the true ending if you find the world more interesting than Niko, it lets you explore a bit more and also gives you so much more info on how the world was created and what it actually even is. It's so cool.
In the pacifist ending you could interpret Flowey addressing the player as Flowey talking to ‘Chara’ in-universe. Thus still maintaining the barrier between meta and non-meta narrative
He made a note regarding both endings in the video.
To really deconstruct your argument here, I am going to argue that you fundementally misunderstand the metanarrative stucture of Delatrune.
Probably the biggest counterargument to this entire video is the point that, as a writing device, Toby uses the metanarrative specifically to pull the player to be MORE invested into the regular narrative then less invested.
You might argue that this violates the rules of suspension of disbelief, but your actually wrong about that too. While you are right that suspension of disbeleif *sometimes* works that way, you are wrong about this being a universal truth that cannot be violated.
To put it simply, Toby doesn't break your suspension about the disbelief of his world. He breaks your suspension of disbelief of the real world.
Plainly, drawing attention to the player, as toby does it, is done to break your assumptions about where the fourth wall lies.
Broadly, I think something you are missing about your mental model is that players assume that there is some kind of intermediary between them and their actions, a homunculus if you will. The reason why people feel comfortable doing horrible and reprehensible things even when immersed in a videogame, is that they mentally try to distance themselves from their homunculus. You tell yourself that the person you are playing isn't *you*, and that any horrible things you do in the game are not morally reproachable to you, because "you" are not your homunculus. You are simply "playing" a character, and nobody can hold you, the real, human you, accountable for your actions.
Toby's entire body of work can be argued to entirely be interested in destroying the homunculus dynamic between the player and the game to make them accountable for their actions. The entire point of undertale is, in a sense, to destroy this idea that the player can exist as removed from the consequences of their actions. In undertale, every effort is made so that "you", not the avatar you are acting as, have to face retribution and consequences for their horrible deeds.
In this way, when the proverbial fourth wall is broken, it does not remind you that the game is not real, but it makes you forget that reality is real. Your control over this piece of media you thought you had mastery over asserts that you are, in fact, powerless. It takes you from a nigh omniscient God of the world, with more knowledge and capability then any mortal should have, to completely at its mercy. You are not reminded that the game is, in fact, a game, you are made to truly forget that it is a game.
In essence, its not the disbelief that breaks, its the suspension. Of course, we can still intellectually state that the media is fiction- I'm not saying the intent is to actually change what you think reality is. But I am essentially arguing that- the metanarrative isint here to remind you that the game is fiction, its to make you forget that its fiction.
When Undertale first came out, there were players preserving their hard drives to ensure the characters in the game keep their happily ever after. It's absolutely absurd to say that players won't be invested in a story if it breaks the 4th wall.
There’s no reason to believe there is necessarily a barrier between the narrative and meta-narrative; in both games, the two are blended together. Saving and loading is simultaneously a game mechanic and an in-universe ability; there’s no reason why it can’t be viewed as both. In Deltarune, it seems clear that the Dark Worlds are fictional worlds that exist within another fictional world - fiction itself is made a theme of the narrative. So there’s no need to insist upon separating narrative and meta-narrative, both can work together and even build on each other on a thematic level.
Your argument boils down to "I disagree," so I can't really say much in reply. I've presented my evidence and logic, take it as you will. Thank you for watching and commenting. x)
@@JaruJaruJ I agree that that a lot of stories with a metafiction element have that barrier baked-in; that the writer consciously made it so the story can be interpreted in two distinct lights.
But that’s only one way to write (or interpret) metafiction; in a lot of David Lynch films, for example, the barrier between fiction and metafiction is much more permeable. It’s certainly an unconventional choice and there is a risk of losing emotional investment in the characters, but that doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be done. There’s all kinds of crazy ways to structure stories and fictional worlds, it just depends on the writer’s ambition.
I feel like a lot of these comments and Jaru are secretley talking about the same thing and just not realising it.
That being said, I'm only here to say that I deeply enjoy the characters of the girls from DDLC despite the fact the "point" of the game couldn't care less about them, I aren't stopped from doing that and stuff like DDLC+ is made for people like me.
No it actually does care it’s just that people don’t understand the meta narrative at all
I think I'm gonna need a drink for this
your videos are perfect for me because even if i sometimes disagree i love the points made and the videos, and they can lead me to new conclusions. plus, crack theories are right up my alley, and sometimes these videos border on that. great video once again :D
Man, your theories are so fun, and I'm glad you made this video! I will admit, I didn't fully understand your perspective, but I did enjoy it! And now I can enjoy these theories even more now that I have a better understanding of how you think! Keep up the amazing work Jaru, can't wait to see what's next!
I somewhat sped through the video so maybe I missed something, but I am not convinced by your point about suspension of disbelief,
I'll start by saying that the red soul being controlled by an in universe entity is a reasonable stance, but I cannot see anyone we already know of being a good pick, not only do we need a believable explanation for the possessing, (which, for example, I think your asriel theory fails to provide for reasons you likely have heard too many times) but, whoever the red soul is, they need as much or less characterization than frisk, because if they have too much personality you HAVE to explain EVERY potential player action, both in the normal and weird route, and the story gets bogged down in a way that I personally think would be extremely bad for deltarune as a whole (it's fine for kris because they're possessed, their agency is being stripped so you don't have to rationalize actions they wouldn't do, because they were made to do it)
as for the suspension of disbelief thing, you picked DDLC as an example, but DDLC's narrative is voluntarely a pretty generic anime plot in a bland world, so that it's more shocking when the meta aspects appear, if DDLC was played straight with no horror or meta elements, none of us would remember it even exists, cause it's unremarkable on its own merits. You could say that's the price it paid. But that's not a rule
Oneshot is a game that directly addresses you the player constantly, the "regular narrative" is that you play the role of quote on quote "god" that guides the "messiah" Niko, a "definitely not a cat" child who woke up in a dying world that lost its sun, holding a lightbulb that could replace it, if he can get to the tower in the center of the world.
However at the start of the game you meet a character that is referred to for most of the game as "The Entity", they tell you that the only thing worth saving here is Niko and that your role is to get him home, you encounter the Entity a few times and they make it impossible to ignore the metanarrative, they speak to you through real windows text pop-ups, give you clues to puzzles by putting things in your files, changing your desktop background or telling you to mess with the game window, through subtler wording of course, (unless you ask for hints, eventually they just tell you)
In the more recent steam release, Niko reacts to when you close the game, telling you that everything went dark for a moment, in the original version manually closing the game even once kills Niko permanently, hence the name "Oneshot"
I won't spoil too much cause it's a great game and everyone should play it, but my point is, you can't forget that oneshot is a game, but that doesn't make its characters uninteresting, all the main characters are genuinely enjoyed by fans, even the entity themselves
Oneshot isn't perfect, maybe even in the aspects I praised, but it proves that you can make an unignorable metanarrative AND have engaging characters, and I believe Toby fox has the skill to do that
You had time to write this but no time to watch this not sped up?
@@ruedetectiveagency writing the comment didn't take that much time, also jaru tends to have a lot of build up to his points that, while not necessarely useless, can be sped through without worrying too much
A 40 minutes theory? Jari is e everything alright? Not feeling sick or anything?
Why is it so short? 😂
I have never been able to put into words why the "kris is posessed by the player" theory rubbed me the wrong way, despite it seeming like the only logical conclusion. Thank you for this video
My pleasure! Glad I could help. x)
I can only imagine the comments on this vid. This is gonna be a WAR. I will say, I disagree with the DDLC stuff. Maybe I’m weird, but I was able to get invested in both narratives for that game. Agree with this vid overall though, and think this is where Deltarune is heading.
i personally don't agree though i do understand the point's made. my reason for not agreeing is mostly because i have seen the idea of a meta narrative and normal narrative bleed into each other without ruining the integrity of the normal narrative, (Oneshot and Outcore are my two best examples) therefore i have faith that Toby Fox of all people can also accomplish that type of balance.
Yea oneshot basically flips Jaru's argument upside down
*me waiting the entire video for him to bring up ddlc*
Jaru: Doki Doki
Me: *Excited poem noises*
I only engage in a couple undertale/deltarune content creators, you among them, and I largely consider myself seperate from the community despite my long love for the story because of my lack of engagement.
But I never had a hard time understanding what it was you've meant by this. I don't mean to be rude to others in your community space, but I think somebody has to be very..... Not bright, let's put it mildly, to not understand the delineation of diagetic and nondiagetic player involvement. I think the fact people started calling this third entity theory when in reality you're being conflated with the second entity is a pretty good demonstration of this critical lack of understanding. There's only one entity involving itself with Kris. It's you, but it's also a diagetic character. I don't really see why so many didn't seem to get that because I thought you've done a very good job explaining it before this upload.
Agree, i dont get why its so hard for this fandom to understand it. The whole thing about Kris not being able to play piano (when other times they can just act without our input perfectly), and how there's even "terrifying voice" in weird route (despite player not having any input and not knowing what the hell this voice said) suggest that this other entity has their own individuality and separate from player.
Also, the concept of a GONER (akin to video game character creation thing) isn't limited to the player. Undertale has 'Goner' characters like Goner Kid, Clam Girl, and Ficus Licker, who exist within the game's world. It's possible that there's an in-universe explanation why Gaster can reach out to certain character to make them a "vessel". (It is implied all these characters are dead in certain timelines. Could this be the same case for our Red Soul?)
I think they disagree because they fundamentally have a different understanding of how the plot relates to eachother in the regular and meta narratives in Undertale, which Jaru uses as a crutch to base off the ideas of how Deltarune will use these ideas in a new way.
@@ZodiaXmasteR794Noelee refers to the horrifying voice as the same voice as whenever we try to continue to snowgrave route though, which confirms that it’s us & not another entity.
Great video btw. Actually learned stuff from it, like seeing the title and going "uhh yeah? obvsly the player is part of the narrative" but then after finishing it it's like oooh that's what you meant. Good job
Hoo boy, been looking forward to this one!
Saw this pop up in my feed, went to channel, saw nothing checked playlist, it was there.
thank you so much for keeping up the content!!
watching you explain the difference between narrative and meta-narrative after immediately realizing what you meant after you bought them up as two separate things was painful
YESSS thank you for giving this it's own video
Yeah, this makes perfect sense.
*Stil gonna enjoy the angsty kris "vs" player stories tho-* ( /j )
Valid! xD
With each Video of yours, I understand what makes a story work more and more.
Please don't use these videos as your guideline to literary analysis. You will have some frustrated literature teachers.
I already saw a comment say this, but oh my god dude you should play Oneshot. I can't explain too much without spoiling it, but it keeps you invested in the characters despite mixing the narrative with the meta narrative. The meta narrative literally holds the hand of the narrative, and the narrative itself is impossible without it. However, it does not detract from you being invested in the world and the characters; you the player and the regular narrative co-exist without it being a problem. It blew my freaking mind and I highly reccommend it.