tldw Ralsei's in his mid-life crisis and will buy a Mercedes Benz in chapter 6 to fill the void in his heart that was created by him realizing that he's not satisfied with the life he was pressured into living and also he'll smoke weed
What's hard to figure out is just _how_ he's the opposite of Flowey, though. Ralsei barely seems to exist at the best of times, with characters routinely ignoring his presence, Queen and Noelle especially. The most reaction anyone has to his tea is Susie, who guzzles down all the teas regardless yet can only describe his tea as "like marshmallows" - which if you've ever tried to just eat one on its own you'll know really don't taste of a whole lot except maybe vaguely sweet. Given the other teas are described as having strong, distinct flavors (fruits and spices, mainly)... it's an interesting choice.
@@PhysicsGamer Wait, I think you're onto something. Just about everything in undertale influences or is influenced by Flowery in some way, and he's 2/3 final bosses. He is a reflection of a no mercy player, he is the prince of the underground, he is incredibly important. Ralsei, to your point, is constantly ignored and cast aside. He is, at least in-universe, unimportant. He is also a reflection of a player who engages with the story the way we're supposed to, the light path of deltarune. He is a prince of an empty kingdom at the start of his game that gains subjects over time. Flowey's the prince of a kingdom that starts full, but at the end of the game his kingdom is empty. Definitely food for thought.
@@sambish3961 An interesting further point of contrast between the two games is how they handle the legend/prophecy of the Delta Rune. The Deltarune version is a pretty long cutscene by Toby Fox's standards, with sweeping music, words CAPITALIZED for emphasis, and some rather odd grammatical choices ("the world", singular, but then "worlds' edge", plural?). It packs in a ton of random keywords and concepts, like "banish the ANGEL'S HEAVEN", but elaborates on none of them. In Undertale, the entirety of the prophecy is as follows: The Angel... The One Who Has Seen The Surface... They will return. And the underground will go empty. The Undertale version is laser-focused in comparison, identifying a single actor, describing them twice, saying they'll return, and then what will happen when they do. Even in-universe just what "will go empty" meant was ambiguous, but it really had only two meanings to pick from. Meanwhile the Deltarune prophecy, despite saying a lot more, doesn't actually _tell_ us anything. Ralsei uses it to hurry everyone along and seal the fountains, but what does that have to do with the prophecy, which only claims to be relevant after the Roaring has already happened?
There is one aspect of Ralsei that I still don't know what to make of, and that's his... lack of investment, for lack of a better term, in Lightners outside of Kris and Susie, and his uncanny knack for keeping off of their radar. In all of Chapter 2, Ralsei directly addresses Berdly only twice, and Noelle *zero times,* despite sharing a not insignificant amount of screen time with Noelle in particular. Compare how Ralsei treats Susie bonding with Lancer to Susie wanting to help Noelle. Ralsei very quickly starts encouraging Susie and Lancer "for friendship", but when Susie brings up saving Noelle, Ralsei deflects to "all we have to do is seal the fountain" at the start, and then ceases to comment on her presence at all afterwards. This second part isn't so much active characterization of Ralsei, but it *is* the reason that the story can get away with him not acknowledging Noelle at all, so it's relevant to bring up here. In Chapter 2, Ralsei has a tendency to... fade into the background whenever Noelle is present. To the point that it almost feels like most characters forget he is there. The only time Noelle ever comments on his presence is when she and Kris are spying on him and Susie from afar, when he doesn't know they're there. She wonders who he is, and says he looks kinda like... someone (presumably Asriel). However, this question seems to vanish from her mind the moment she begins tagging along with the full group. The closest she comes to acknowledging his presence is asking to stand behind Susie in line, because otherwise she'd be behind Ralsei. Most pointedly, when Noelle devises a plan to expedite the mouse-balloon puzzle, she only assigns roles to Kris and Susie, as if Ralsei wasn't even there. He just doubles up on Susie's role to participate, and nobody comments on any part of this. Berdly is weird in this equation because Ralsei *does* speak to Berdly a couple of times, and Berdly in return acknowledges his presence as part of Kris's "C+ Squad" and as Kris's "lackey." But he likewise doesn't question his presence or appearance. In the end I have no idea what to make of this, other than the fact that Ralsei seems mostly uninterested in Lightners outside those outlined in The Legend, which ties back to his utilitarian view of himself and his role in this story. Kris and Susie's relationships with characters from outside the Dark Worlds are irrelevant. To use the Game Within A Game metaphor, it would be like if party member in an RPG concerned themselves with who was on your Steam friend list. It'd break immersion, and immersion is part of why Ralsei is here, it seems.
The game actually directly adresses this as part of a joke, when Queen captures all the Lightners and then the camera pans to Ralsei just standing there awkwardly
@@josequiles7430 This is rather easily passed off as Queen just being oblivious in general, since her not noticing people just out of view or behind flimsy disguises is a running joke of the chapter. However, it *is* notable that Ralsei only draws attention to himself once Noelle and Berdly are gone, since speaking up earlier in the scene would have drawn their attention to him.
Very interesting point. It's like he avoids speaking to other lightners unless strictly necessary. I think it's worth pointing out he does _acknowledge_ Noelle when talking to Kris (or rather, to us), asking if they're wondering what the two girls are doing in Noelle's room. So it's like he doesn't exactly pretend she doesn't exist, moreso just avoids her?
@@nataliaborys1554 Ah, right. The version of that dialog where he mentions Noelle by name only happens on the Weird route, so I forgot about it. In a normal playthrough, he just asks if we're wondering how Susie is doing. And yeah, it's not like Ralsei pretends Noelle isn't around. He just seems entirely uninterested in her. Again, the easiest point of comparison is Lancer in Chapter 1. Ralsei had no shortage of comments and exchanges with him when he briefly joined the party. When Noelle does under similar circumstances, he just silently steps aside to make room and doesn't talk to her or comment on anything she says.
Small correction but the exact dialogue Noelle has when spying on Ralsei and Susie is: "Who's that person she is with anyways?" "It kinda looks like..." Since I doubt Noelle is referring to Ralsei as an "it", she isn't even acknowledging his similarities with Asriel which is kind of what led me to believe Ralsei doesn't actually look like this universe's Asriel. Noelle would have definitely reacted at least once to their similarities if those existed in the first place.
On the note of Ralsei knowing "meta-stuff", it's important to know that Lancer also has a bit of knowledge, like pressing Z on the tree with the dark candy and being inside Kris' item-pocket. This makes me come up with two theories. 1) EVERY Darkner knows something about the rules of the game. It's like the light world characters are "real-like", while the dark world acts like an actual "RPG". Basically you're playing a game where characters play their own "real-life" RPG (think The Amazing World of Gumball's RPG episode). It's only when the characters think too much of the implications of this (like Spamton or Jevil) that they go insane. 2) It's really only used for gags or explaining jokes and nothing much else.
@@Vivat_Veritas and the tutorial masters are pretty suspect as well, knowing much about what are characters can do,how they do it, as well as kris susie and ralsei's names as well and other mechanics of the game.
@@velvetphi yeah but i feel like in that case it is routinely enough where nobody really thinks about them too much besides maybe sans with how he cheats those mechanics, chara being all about stats and gerson with how he's so aware of them that he knows that you can't really start a combat in a shop
I think Ralsei was literally spawned into existence to fullfill one specific purpose (serve the heroes in their quest and make sure the prophecy plays out as intended) but his interactions with Kris and (especially) Susie are causing him to develop into his own person. He has no bad intentions, as far as the prophecy is concerned Ralsei is supposed to help them save the world. But Ralsei didn't write the prophecy and probably doesn't know the implications of it.
To the contrary, I'm pretty sure Ralsei is attempting to usurp the "Prince of the Dark" role from the prophecy from Lancer. There's a few reasons for that, but the big one is that the Dark Fountain we closed in the first chapter was clearly not the "new" one that was destabilizing things, but rather the old one that already existed. Even aside from the dialog in the chapter that points that direction, there's no way that Ralsei's dark world had existed all that long (since anyone trying to use the supply closet would have found it) while the old dark world may well have been there for years for all we know. Plus the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei. That's of... dubious in-universe meaning, admittedly, but the difference is striking enough to mention. EDIT: swapped around the dark fountains in the first paragraph.
@@PhysicsGamer Wait, you said the Card Kingdom fountain was the new one, but then that the Castle Town world couldn't have existed that long, but the Card Kingdom could have existed for years?
@@psuedonym9999 No, I'm saying that Ralsei's fountain is the new one and the one in the abandoned classroom could have existed for years. Or in other words, I completely mistyped in the comment you responded to. EDIT: Fixed now
@@PhysicsGamer Yeah, that makes more sense. And I agree with you, I just don't see how that supply closet could go unopened for more than a day or two, especially if it's used by the janitor.
@@psuedonym9999 Do we ever hear of a school janitor? Might just be the teachers. I think Sans might be the only monster described as a janitor in Deltarune. That does raise the interesting question of what is in the supply closet besides the chalk Kris and Susie were sent for. Not a lot to work from in Ralsei's dark world like there has been in the other dark worlds. ...Actually, that's remarkably strange, isn't it?
I think there might be a hidden double meaning in the statement "your choices (don't) matter". It could easily be that sometimes it is referring to the player and sometimes to Kris. Imagine that there is a hidden conflict over whether Kris' choices matter or the player's choices matter, and only one of those can matter. If this were true, Ralsei could potentially be meaning that _Kris_ should believe their own will matters even though they're constantly being controlled, and not even talking to the player at that moment. That creates a really grim scenario because we know Kris is going to be stuck with us for at least a week still; the point of Ralsei may be to comfort _Kris_ in this difficult time. Of course, we have the added complication Kris and Ralsei are always being watched. If the two have some great plan to free Kris from the player, you would realistically expect they would do everything they can to hide it in plain sight and make it look ordinary. This might be why Ralsei gives the tutorial and such, while shortly telling Kris they do matter. But the scenes where Kris seems not to like Ralsei might be because they are afraid the plan backfired. If the player is all over Ralsei treating him like some kind of fluffy son, Kris and Ralsei are effectively being watched and controlled more than before and will find it harder to scheme against the player without being noticed. The one thing this definitely does not explain is.... why is the Ralsei tea empty? I have no idea.
The tea being empty along with Ralsei disappearing completely when he runs out of HP does beg the question of if it's just because he's a darkner or if it's because of his unique existence separate from the other darkners. On one hand, the snowgrave bug does show that darkners do just straight up vanish in a red mist if you manage to get their HP to zero. However, you do buy the tea from the dark world, so that doesn't explain why his tea would be empty. Much to think about.
@@NRobbi42 Ralsei tea is only empty when Noelle drinks it, not when Susie or seemingly Kris drinks it (they have no reaction but there is still *something* for them to drink), so I don't think that connects to him disappearing when running out of HP. Rather, the reason Ralsei tea is only empty with Noelle implies to me that she's unsure about him and doesn't know what to make of him. For Susie, Ralsei tea tastes like marshmallows, probably because he's so sweet. And Kris either has no reaction because they have little opinion on Ralsei, or don't like him that much, or some other unknown reason. Something to keep in mind.
Or because there's no actual point in ch.2 where Noelle is in our party after meeting Ralsei, and the only opportunity she has to understand him beyond "dream kid that looks like Asriel" is literally the roaring cutscene after fighting queen. She just doesn't know he exists in any concrete way, and even needs hacking to drink his (or susie's lol) tea.
@@esoij I dont see how that claim has any more legitimacy than a possible hidden meaning existing. We dont know yet, there "might" be no meaning, but I wouldn't say there "is" no meaning.
This is a great little summary of what we currently know about Ralsei, but 25:02 immediately derailed my brain into theoretically playing "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" but with Gaster Degrees instead, so thank you for putting that idea in my brain
@@zixvirzjghamn737 Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is basically a joke game where one chooses a random actor, associate them with another actor through a film they appeared in together, and repeats this to try and find the shortest path via said associations to actor Kevin Bacon. What OP was talking about was the idea of ranking the characters of Undertale and/or Deltarune based on how many associations between characters (experiencing the same events or interacting with eachother) one has to do to get to Gaster.
I pretty much agree with all of the points mentioned here. However, I would argue that Ralsei’s connection with the Secret Bosses is stronger than what is suggested here as note that, just like Jevil and Seam, Ralsei was aware of the Roaring before he revealed it in ch.2 and he also seems to be aware of generally how the plot should progress considering his whole “Wait we were supposed to-“ line on Side B/the Weird Route. What this honestly potentially suggests to me is that, in some way, Ralsei is the “end result” Gaster was trying to achieve with the SBs. Gaster may have been trying to trial-and-error (or…*experiment*) on how his approach and interactions with Darkners affect them. He may have been trying to seek a way to get a Darkner to go along with the Prophecy without having them go insane and potentially he achieved this via “whispers across time and space”.
To pile on to that, I'm pretty sure Ralsei is attempting to usurp the "Prince of the Dark" role from the prophecy from Lancer. For a number of reasons, ranging from it being the original Dark Fountain that we closed in the first chapter to the fact that the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei. That probably means that the prophesy wasn't made up by Ralsei or anyone that Ralsei is acting on behalf of... unless that person made it up to fool Ralsei into doing what they want. Which we don't have any evidence either way of, thanks to how closely Ralsei has been holding his cards to his chest. At a minimum, we know that Ralsei's dark world probably hadn't been existing for very long at the start of the game (since otherwise someone would have found it when they went to use the closet), while the "original" dark world that Lancer was from could have been around for quite a while longer.
@@PhysicsGamer my bad, i should have specified. not only was the card kingdom's fountain not the original, but the prince from the dark mentioned in the legend more closely resembles ralsei's disguise than lancer. plus, the fire looking magic effects around the prince aren't something we've seen lancer do, while it IS something we've seen ralsei do (the glowy flame looking effect when he uses a spell). lancer doesn't even *do* spells. as for the fountain, ralsei's is refered to as the "grand fountain," and the part at the end of ralsei's monologue is him describing how another fountain appeared recently. on top of this, seam states that the knight appeared recently and placed the spade king in power. given that making fountains is the knight's m.o., it only makes sense that it created the card kingdom fountain.
@@FirstnameLastname-sb3hj The bit with the image's resemblance is pretty clear-cut, I think - the hooded figure has a single large point on their head and isn't wearing a brimmed hat, so it really can't be Ralsei. I don't think you can call Ralsei's healing a "glowy flame looking effect"... it certainly glows, but I can't think of a time it actually looks flame-like. The sequencing of the fountains I've been having some interesting conversations in this comment section about, but I'm still pretty sure that if either of them has existed for more than a couple of days it has to be the one in the abandoned classroom. After all, if the school's apparently only supply closet was a dark world for more than a day or two there's no way someone wouldn't have run into it already. And even a single day is being generous - I bet whoever hid the chalk in Alphys's classroom also made the dark fountain in the closet either that morning or the previous night. Of course, the specifics of the timeline are incredibly hard to pin down. Which leads me to looking forward to chapters 3+ where we'll hopefully get more answers...
Every once and a while I enounter a Deltarune video that I know will shape the way I look at the game moving forwards and I think this is one of them. Excellent video I love it
16:45 - Maybe this was just easier to implement? Like, the soul already has a mechanism to detect collision to other stuff, like enemies/bullets when you're not in a battle.
Checking collisions for bounding boxes is very easy, if Toby wanted to check collision with Kris rather than the soul, he absolutely could have with very little effort.
@@CyborusYTToby is also infamous for his spaghetti code and simply retooling old assets, so it’s not unlikely that reusing the soul collision was just a natural decision and not a conscious one
reusing the heart from battles as the thing that takes damage in the overworld would be a natural course of action, since that's its function in battles as well. toby can then just make the damage dealing objects bullets and reuse all the code. what could have been avoided however is making the soul actually visible as the thing taking damage. it's a single line of code to set an object's sprite, i believe likewise with the object mask. could've just set the heart object to invisible and set its mask to coincide with kris when entering the designated battle areas and that's it or he could have even just left it invisible and with its original hitbox. games often have very wonky collision hitboxes just to make things easier on the player, since your character stubbing their toe on an enemy and immediately dying sucks
great video as always veritas! personally i really like the idea of ralsei struggling with 'freedom' in the context of what he was 'made to do' and what he 'wants to do'. i think it goes together really well with the themes we've seen so far in kris and the secret bosses and your theory makes it make a lot of sense.
To put the idea of prophecy adherence simply: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, to achieve the “Weird” route, the first thing you have to do is get away from Ralsei.
Great video! You articulated a lot of vague ideas I’ve had about Ralsei’s character better than I ever could. I’ve really grown on the idea that Ralsei is effectively aligned with The Player and how the game is “supposed” to go, and this’ll probably be a source of juicy drama in later chapters. This is totally baseless speculation, but I kinda feel like there will be conflict between what The Player and the plot demand vs what Kris and Susie want and Ralsei will be caught between the two, having to choose between his “purpose” and his new friends. I think his big moment will come when he chooses, perhaps against his better judgment, to stand by his friends. Or who knows, maybe my hiatus brain is just causing me to generate extensive fan fictions under the guise of “predictions”
The section in your synthesis (starting around 27:40) discussing the different "levels of existence" / nature of people or characters with regard to the world or fiction they exist in made me realize another interesting parallel you could possibly make between W.D. Gaster and Ralsei. Ralsei, unlike the other darkners (as far as we can tell) is aware of the sort-of-fictional nature of the Dark World. So while Ralsei may be to the lightners as the lightners are to us, he's also almost as to the lightners as Gaster is to us, someone who may be "fictional" but is still very aware of his own role in the story, and almost controlled by or completely inhabiting it out of habit. Fantastic video as always! I love your analyses of Deltarune a lot.
the thing that worries me about ralsei is that he seems to prioritize the player's feelings over Kris'. This can be seen in a few places if you know where to look, but the clearest example is in the post-spamton dialogue. If you choose to have Kris say that they're ok, Ralsei will attempt to take it at face value even though it's obvious that Kris is _not_ ok. Ralsei seems to consistently ignore it when Kris indicates that they don't agree with the dialogue choice the player picked, even when other characters notice it easily. This is likely why Kris doesn't seem to like Ralsei very much (they only regain 60 HP from Ralsei tea, which is the lowest amount possible for the teas outside of having a character drink their own tea or the tea of someone they don't really even know)
@@chongwillson972 It's possible to like someone for reasons unrelated to who they are as a person. Kris is the Player's conduit to the world of Deltarune, after all.
18:25 wait that's actually a super interesting point to bring up. Some time ago I had watched a video that talks about the psychology of Noelle and how she's actually the protagonist of chapter 2. I bring this up cuz the essayist in that video theorizes how queen could very well be a mirror of Noelle's own mother, or the way she sees her mother, if that makes sense (think of like the palaces of Persona. I'm not gonna go into it right now you can go watch the video I'm talking about). If Ralsei really is meant to mirror Kris in some way, we could very well think of it as a pattern, that every being born from darkness is a form of someone's struggles. This also implies that king is a mirror of Susie's dad, which we don't have any evidence whatsoever of aside from, idk, how we can infer Susie has a bad home life. Even so, it's kind of a reach, but when the next few chapters do drop we can tackle them already knowing what to look for, if that makes sense. (To be clear I did not watch the rest of the video yet I just wanted to bring this idea up)
This is interesting. So then is castle town Kris's fountain, i.e. Ralsei being Asriel? And the smaller room Susies fountain I.e. King? So then what is lancer, is lancer a reflection of susie? Does the world of the dark fountain reflect the first lightner that comes into contact with it? Is it a combination? Because Berdly was with noelle when the fountain formed, so why doesnt Berdly have that same representation? Unless Noelle created the dark fountain herself somehow.
@@commenteroftruth9790 theres a pretty common theory of ralsei being the red horn headband kris had as a kid, and therefore a manifestation of kris's ideal self that they wanted to be as a kid due to their feelings of loneliness, as for why berdly doesn't get a parental representation, there's a really good video called The Universal Mother by Kooki Autumn that goes into depth on queen and how she's actually a combined representation of the party's mothers
I'm more of a fanwork creator than a theorist really, but I always had that hunch that Ralsei actually confronting Jevil and Spamton in a conversation would be very very interesting. I mean, it seems that what drove the secret bosses insane was at least related to knowing their reality is nested within a higher one. And here Ralsei is, with that same knowledge, yet seemingly dealing better with it. Well, for now at least.
13:46 this gave me bonzi buddy vibes, and I wasn’t prepared for how terrifying that sounds 😭 I know this might not ultimately be a part of the story of Deltarune, but just thinking that Ralsei could be some sort of malware stuck inside Servey Program and the idea that he just wants to *help us* while ultimately hurting our computer is fascinating to mull over. (‘heaven’ could even be our desktop, like the old windows background)
Ralsei is probably the most fascinating character in Deltarune to me, apart form maybe Kris. He just knows a lot of stuff a Darkner really shouldn't. I've never seen Ralsei as being some secret antagonist or anything like that, but he's really freaking suspicious. I've tended to avoid the options where you/Kris sort of cozy up to Ralsei, due to the fact that, as you mentioned, Kris doesn't seem to like him especially. Why would they? He's the epitome of like-Asriel-but-not. There's also the theory that Ralsei is everything that Kris wishes they were: a friendly (he's basically a walking ad for the kindness trait), helpful, and optimistic goat monster. That only further complicates things.
At a minimum, I'm pretty sure he's trying to usurp the role of "Prince of the Dark" from the prophecy from Lancer. For a number of reasons, ranging from it being the *original* Dark Fountain that we closed in the first chapter to the fact that the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei.
@@PhysicsGamerBut his fountain IS either the original or the "real" one. He's the only Darkner that can freely exist in a Dark World that's not his own. Lancer and Rouxls turn to stone like any other would outside their respective Dark World... but the exception is the world of Ralsei's fountain. There, inhabitants of ANY Dark World can exist freely without turning to stone. If Lancer is the real "Prince", then the prophecy has already failed unless The Roaring happens in Castle Town or Kris's pocket, because those are the only two places he can exist now.
@@mr.personalspace7831 "Today, the FOUNTAIN OF DARKNESS - the geyser that gives this land form - stands tall at the center of the kingdom. But recently, another fountain has appeared on the horizon...". Only Lancer's fountain is at the center of an actual kingdom - even Ralsei never refers to his town as one. But on top of that, Chapter 2 confirmed that the way the fountains work is they make an area into a Dark World, which any lightners who enter the area find themselves in. The abandoned classroom may well have been totally empty for years, while Ralsei's dark world could at the absolute maximum have only existed since the last time someone went into the supply closet.
@@PhysicsGamer When it's discussing the main fountain of darkness, it's focusing on the one in Castle Town- when it mentions "another on the horizon", it pans to King's- not Ralsei's. King and his people were born from someone opening a fountain in the empty classroom- the one in the supply closet is the main one.
@@mr.personalspace7831 I don't think that's necessarily the case - it's hard to tell from the images we see, admittedly, but it could just as easily be from the perspective of the other castle. I'm curious if you have a solution to the timeline problem. The abandoned classroom's dark world could easily have existed for years and years before the game, while Ralsei's could _maybe_ have been made the previous day, at most. It's in what looks like the main supply closet for the whole school, after all. Oh, and to follow up on something from your previous comment - the titans depicted for the Roaring have the eye symbol that as far as I recall we only ever otherwise see in Ralsei's dark world. So that slightly implies the Roaring somehow originates from or is connected to that particular dark world. It's a pretty tenuous link, admittedly, but it's certainly interesting.
I really liked your essay! I'm glad you have a more balanced view of Ralsei than other videos ive seen, lol. Something I'm 99% certain will affect Ralsei's view of themselves will be the TRUE prince of the dark: because as far as we know, Ralsei is the one to give himself that title, and it would be so easy if he was that character in the prophecy, but there's another who'd fit the bill better: Lancer. He's a prince in the narrative rather than something we're told (or what Ralsei assumed his role would be), and if Ralsei wasn't here, Lancer would still be as important to how Kris and Susie progress (chapter 1 giving motivation to Susie, freeing Kris in chapter 2). Ralsei can just feel like...the tutorial? And the idea that he would lose his purpose as the prince of the dark in the prophecy, losing the need of him providing tutorials, and even losing the ability to heal if Noelle joins us more, all of this would absolutely reflect what you discussed in the video about where he's going from here, and I'm excited to see where things go.
There's also the way the picture we're given of the "three heroes" has a very good likeness of Susie and Kris, but the third one looks a lot more like a hooded Lancer than Ralsei. The single point under the hood could be the top of Lancer's head, yet it's only present on Ralsei when he's wearing that hat - which the character in the image obviously isn't wearing, judging by the lack of a brim.
19:11 everyone's reaction to ralsei telling us about the roaring was "omg is ralsei secretly evil!?" i think that was very deliberate. toby wants us to suspect him. but think back to undertale. was anyone really ever truly evil? the most evil character i can think of is asriel, but even then, he was a very complicated situation when it came to morality. before we came into the picture, he was just playing the game, like us. getting every secret; every ending. after we showed up, he just wanted to be with his best friend - his sibling - again. he wanted to feel love again, regardless of how distorted that love took its form (i.e. making us keep playing the game with him forever). i dont think there'll be any truly evil character in deltarune. its just not how toby writes. but maybe im wrong. maybe this was only the case in undertale because mercy and redemption was a big theme in the game, which hasnt shown to be the case in deltarune. at least not to the same degree so far
i love your deltarune video essays so much like yessss i never clicked on a video so ffast in your latest upload you just have so much interesting thoughts
I'd like to say that I think your conclusions were really spot on and interesting, and also makes a lot of justice for Ralsei as a character, or even as a person, since you've been able to analyze him in such a complexity that he strikes me as real person in levels of complexity and plausability. I'd also say thank you feom the bottom of my heart because I sort of kin on Ralsei a little, so understanding him led me to understand myself better! You're incredibly skilled, and it's wonderful to find your videos ❤.
I was so excited to see this in my notif inbox !!! ralsei is such a fascinating and mysterious character, and I really love hearing your opinions on things like that. Thank you!! And have a lovely break!
Overall, very interesting analysis video! Thanks for uploading! 4:53 This brings to mind an interesting avenue. He says he doesn't have any subjects. But royalty's family are not their subjects. If he is The Prince From The Dark, could there be a King, Queen or Princess from The Dark? A Duke or Duchess, perhaps? Also, I do wonder about his actions, abilities, & motives. Making things for guests you may never get suggests loneliness. Other than the doorway that remains inaccessible to Kris & company, though.... Scenes like the 1 near the end of Queen's Mansion makes me wonder if Ralsei knows when the SOUL is watching. & if he blushes when in contact with the SOUL, does that mean he can sense it? Awareness of what it's doing? Being alone, to rule a kingdom that was either abandoned or wiped out & memorize a legend you may not even be certain will occur in your lifetime.... It's a heavy burden. Does he not carry bitterness or resentment for these burdens? Why does Ralsei know these things, & why did he choose to do these things? Did someone else teach them to him?
16:00 I want to say I'm a big believer in the idea the chocie the heart drifts towards is what kris is leaning towards in a decision, and all of these choices are fairly close to the Ralsei positive one. Don't forget ralsei looks like his brother. So it makes sense he'd be confused at anything remotely romantic with him
By the heart drifting do you mean the initial option the heart-cursor is on whenever a choice pops up? Also, hugging is not necessarily romantic. There is never an option to kiss Ralsei or anything like that. But if you had a brother who looked kind of like Ralsei, but Ralsei was actually real, wouldn't you still wanna squish him, though? People have GFs that look kind of like their mom or sister, but we all understand that this is just due to familiarity with an aesthetic rather than some kind of perversion, so I don't really buy the argument that Kris would be turned off of Ralsei due to him looking somewhat like Asriel
@@TheOnlyGeggles That does make sense, but Kris seems to be someone who doesn't like hugging, at least with their father, (See the first Asgore scene in Chapter 1). On the other hand, perhaps they are fine with it when interacting with some people, even one who looks like their brother...?
@@TheOnlyGeggles My comment was more so about the line with susie at the end of the game, about who you'd want to talk tk the festival, of you say ralsei the words come out confused, tho if you say susie* ( Well susie doesn't comment on how you spoke rather she's awkward about and says *um as firends riggghhtt*)
@@TheOnlyGeggles i also want to say, in the option to hug ralsie, the heart is actually stationed away from that option, it's a 4 option Choice, in theory it's closest to the heart is the peace sign (when framing for a picture at the acid boat ride)
You really outdid yourself with this one!!! I had multiple moments in this video where I had to pause and basically reconsider my preconceptions about Ralsei Despite my intense deltarune brainrot I still hadn’t thought about him hard enough it seems. Thank you for opening up my mind about it! Bravo 🎉
This video was really helpful for me as someone who has had no idea what to make of Ralsei or where to even start analyzing him. Really great job!! Also I love ur editing lol.
This was another great video. You always seem to have some way with articulating things the way I would like to, but cannot. Don't feel pressured to creating content. Like Ralsei, you're not just a Content Creator whose soul purpose is to keep making content. Take your time & upload as you wish to Also, I'd love a Deltarune (even Undertale) playthrough by you :D
Watching a playthrough from you would be so nice. Please do it. And nice video. Like the editing. And analysis of ralsie. As someone who is a little bored of his happy to serve attitude. I been really interested in the things he been hiding. And how the narrative with test his outlook on things.
I really like your videos!! This deconstruction of Ralsei was super insightful and makes me super pumped for the next chapter (when it finally comes out LOL). Keep up the good work!! :D
Ralsei reminds me of a young Sans in a sense. Hes Aware of the truth of thier world's reality but since he's young he can't really grasp it or understand how to react to all the outcomes. He tries extremely hard to make sure he gets the best ending but doesn't try to fight for it against the player.
5:40 okay okay wait idk if this is a fan theory but seeing how he looks in a cloak reminds me of riverperson..... what if he's the riverperson? or at least related to them in some way idk
I have so many thoughts about this little guy that may or may not have reduced my brain to jello, so here are those thoughts! (I recognize that I’m probably just insane from the brainrot or maybe looking way too into things, so take this with a grain of salt 😅) So, in the prophecy, it talks about how “if this harmony were to shatter, a terrible calamity would occur” And then it talks about the roaring. *But*, immediately after that, it says this: “*Only then*, Shining with hope, Three HEROES appear at WORLDS edge.” “*Only they* can seal the fountains, and banish the ANGEL’S HEAVEN.” “*Only then* can balance be restored, and the world saved from destruction.” So, my observation is, it sounds like (to me) that the “*Only then*” part could imply that the roaring is *the ONLY time* that we (the three heroes) are supposed to show up and do everything (close the remaining fountains and banish the angel’s heaven) but also it sounds like the Roaring is *supposed* to happen, since the balance is already shifting from the other dark fountains (kinda like a domino effect that can’t be stopped once it starts) plus, the prophecy never really says that our job is to *prevent* the roaring, just to stop it from destroying the world *once it happens* (if we take the “only then” part literally) plus, I know that Toby said that the prophecy is supposed to sound like it’s poorly translated, but even then (in my opinion) that still doesn’t take away the *very specific* “Only” statements that show up *three times in a row*, that has to account for something, right? So, from that, my question is: *Why does Ralsei NOT want the roaring to happen?* If we’re the heroes like he says we are, and he says that this is “a journey foretold *exactly* by the prophecy” and we (but mainly us and Kris) are the only ones who can fix it once it starts, then what’s the problem? We’re the heroes, and we have the ability to stop it, and the prophecy dictates a hopeful outcome that the world will be saved and balance will be restored, so why be so afraid of it? Seam even says: “*One day soon… You too, will begin to realize the futility of your actions. At that time, feel free to come back here. I’ll make you tea… and we can toast… to the end of the world!*” Like, I get that he doesn’t want the world to end, I don’t think anyone really does (like when queen found out), but he’s acting like we won’t be able to save the world from it once it does happen, when that’s *basically our job?* It’s all three of us against the end of the world, and yet he never seems to include himself in any of it, like for example not showing up with Kris and Susie to close the fountains, and the *only* time we’ve seen him in front of a fountain with us, was in the background of the chapter one save slots, *and* he’s in his chapter one outfit. The prophecy states that the heroes are supposed close the fountains (and any lightner can open one, according to queen) which makes me think that *all* of the fountains would need to be closed in order for balance to be restored, which includes Ralsei’s fountain, the second dark fountain that we usually end up going to (card kingdom, cyber world, etc.) and the third fountain that we always stop from happening. So *why* is Ralsei wanting us to help make *his* dark world essentially a *heaven* (👀) for us, even down to naming the town after us, if we’re supposed to end up closing it at the end anyway? He wants us to be happy, he believes that is his purpose to assist us and make us happy. “Queen! Think of the Lightners! Aren’t we supposed to make them happy?” “Our purpose- Darkners’ purpose- is to assist them. It’s the only way we can feel truly fulfilled.” So how far is he willing to go to be able to do that? Like, what if us stopping the roaring *for good* means that we would have to sacrifice ourselves in order to do it? And, if gaster *did* end up talking to him at some point, I think he gave him the information or the power to help prevent us from dying, while also making sure the player has as much fun as possible by skirting the line of making sure the roaring never happens. Like, what with Kris having us in their body and how were the only ones who can close it, if he can get us to keep closing fountains perpetually while making sure we’re satisfied, why *would* you want the roaring to happen when you’ve got everything you need right *here* in your *very own* castle town? Idk, I’m getting vibes of in the end of the Undertale pacifist route, where Toriel lays in to Asgore by saying that he could’ve free’d everyone from the underground from the jump by using the one soul to leave the underground, getting the other six, then open the barrier from there, instead of making everyone suffer underground needlessly. One last soup brain point: When Ralsei says- “But Kris, I believe YOUR choices are important, too.” No??? Literally, at *BEST*, Kris only gets about a 50% chance of having their *preferred* dialogue option *chosen by us*, and EVEN *THEN!!* THATS TECHNICALLY A 0% CHANCE, BECAUSE THEY CAN’T ACTUALLY CHOOSE *SHIT* WHEN WE’RE THE ONES CHOOSING *FOR* THEM. Anywho, batshit insane ramblings aside, i love your video.😭
I think perhaps the simplest answer is the way we have to examine ralsei. He too just seems like one facet of the general theme of how characters deal with the knowledge they have of their worlds metaphysics. How or why he came into contact with gaster perhaps doesnt really matter at all why he has the knowledge. All we know is that he does and his character becomes a lot clearer (to me at least) of course if you knew about the nature of the world plus the prophecy goud try to get the core actor to do things that prevent destruction while Jevil finds freedom and Psamtom desperately trues to claim it perhaps ralsei has come to a point of being content with having none and isntead tries to influence the core acting person (not Kris, the player) through acting out his "role" perfectly and being lovable
thoroughly enjoyable essay and i really like the conclusion you came to. it's very interesting to think about what ralsei being a character who is a character who sort of knows that he's a character (to either one or two degrees) could mean for the larger themes of the game. i personally have this belief that toby fox attempts to speak to the player through his game and the fact that the player is engaging with his game, i'd love to see what he'd do with a character in such a unique narrative position. hope you enjoy your break!
Ralsei wants to be our (the player) friend. Kinda like a certain other game where a self-aware character wanted to have a relationship with the player. (Ahem 😅 Doki Doki Lit Club)
I still think connection wise, Suzie it the Undyne and Ralsie the Sans in the overall plan for this story. To break free of the 'paradise' of the game they are the big bosses
hey massive nerd here, at 16:49 the heart is likely using its property from overworld bullets to make the ralsei animation happen because it was already programmed, i feel its more likely that ralsei is blushing because they are basically touching kris. good video btw
Kris's sprite already needs collision in order to not walk through walls, though - I don't see any reason why it would be easier to code Ralsei as a bullet for this purpose versus just having a bit of collision that doesn't block the player. Especially because all the bullets we've seen so far are 2D, not 3D like the Ralsei collision is.
After the ending of Chapter 2, the question of who or what Ralsei is kind of became a little bit clearer to me. Go with me on this, what if Kris made Ralsei in the absence of Asriel? Think about it, most of the time Ralsei mainly interacts with Kris in the dark world plus there is no physical item that could represent him in the Light World (ie Lancer and Roulx being playing cards in your inventory). That could be how Ralsei followed Kris and Susie to the other Dark World and how he knows that Kris and Susie are the heroes of the story.
I think one reason Ralsei is contentious is because his arc hasn't started yet, so all we know about him are the assumptions that are going to be challenged (but haven't yet). Everything in this video aligns with my own interpretations, but my big takeaway is that his self image is _extremely_ precarious and it won't take much for it to come crashing down. If nothing else, Asriel is coming home from college, and there's no way the two of them aren't going to come into contact. I can't even imagine what that's going to look like, except that it's almost certainly going to be very upsetting. (One prediction I'm etching in stone is that the fluffy boy is going to completely get his ass kicked. It could be by the big bad, or by the Fun Gang, or by himself (or maybe even all of them!), and the ass kicking could be physical or it could be emotional (or both!), but fate absolutely has it out for this kid. Like, Noelle obviously has some major hardship coming, but I don't think anyone in this story is going to get trashed as hard as Ralsei will.)
Soul overlapping blush part could be a result of programming, where the game always uses the soul hitbox for kris's detection. It saves them from having 2 hitboxes they turn on/off(with troubles that might entail if you want to have detection with both bullets and events)(though you can get around that by masking depending on your engine, its still unnecessary work here)
this video mimics a lot of my own views about ralsei! one thing i want to comment on specifically is ralsei's belief that darkners are bound to assist lightners and only obtain fulfillment from doing so. this is just. not true! darkners of all shapes and sizes find fulfillment from all sorts of things. they make genuine connections with each other, have real interests, hopes, dreams, personal struggles. all of them except ralsei. ralsei has nothing else in his life but his purpose as a tool of the narrative and a servant to lightners, and he believes (at least initially) that this is all he needs. and it is SUPER not working. if the nature of darkners was as ralsei claimed it was, he would see no need for the introspection he displays in the acid tunnel. his lack of identity is caused by the fact that he sees himself as a non-person, a lesser being bound to be used by others. the fact he questions his personhood at all is proof that he isn't just a servant creature, he's a person. further proof is found in the unused guide, where it's implied ralsei talks to himself. if he weren't a person, he wouldn't desire that level of connection, and he wouldnt feel compelled to have conversations with himself. he also wouldn't feel such a strong desire for affection, either. the need to be loved and appreciated is something very people-like to feel, and its something ralsei is so desperate for that he's willing to accept it from anyone for any reason in any form. furthermore, i imagine that this belief that he has no identity beyond his "purpose" is the cause of, and "solution" to, many other problems he displays. ralsei has lived (presumably) his entire life alone in an empty castle. being a person, this would of course be horrible. so, ralsei leans into the prophecy and darkner inferiority and his "purpose" as the "cure" for this. he's only unhappy because the lightners aren't here, and he'll be fine when they do. this is likely part of his toxic positivity. his purpose is to be good and nice and helpful, feeling despair or resentment or fear would hinder that, so he suppresses it. what's more, acknowledging these feelings makes them real. ralsei ignores and moves on quickly from bad things because by pretending everything is fine, maybe they will be. and ralsei DOES have a lot of pent up emotion. clicking on vaguely "bad" ads by accident has him freaking out saying he's sorry and he "repents." any form of failure fills him with immense guilt, which he then immediately pushes back down again. his darkner inferiority also causes him to not pursue any personal growth. he believes it wouldnt do him any good, since only assisting lightners and being a narrative slave will fulfill him, so he continues to not do anything to better his life, which leads to him continuing to not feel fulfilled. its a vicious cycle. he doesn't know who he is because he never attempts to find who he is, because he believes he's no one, and wouldn't find anything, and he copes with the emptiness this brings by pretending he's fine. he continues to believe in this darkner inferiority despite evidence to the contrary because acknowledging that something is wrong would make all the pain he's gone through real, being alone, hating himself, feeling empty and lacking in meaning, and that would be too much for him. a side note, ralsei can both believe in predestiny, and believe that kris's choices are important. think about that scene from homestuck where aranea tells terezi about how not having free will is fine and good actually. he believes that the choice kris ends up making is the choice they were "supposed to make" to create a good outcome. this is something many people believe, that every choice being part of a grand plan is why life has meaning. his stance is basically "your choices matter because of the grand design, so you should only make the 'correct' choices" choices matter, no free will.
These are all extremely good observations. How quickly Ralsei just sorta... gives up and goes with whatever Kris and Susie say is a bit concerning, taken as a whole. In Snowgrave while Susie is in Noelle's room without Kris or Ralsei, Kris's refusal to answer Ralsei clearly causes him to start freaking out a bit. Especially after the timeskip where he... fell asleep somehow? Despite Kris still standing exactly the same as he was. What's also interesting is that we have evidence of Asriel engaging in at least some of the same behaviors as you describe Ralsei having. The thing with Yoshi and Asriel's insistence on "confessing" to Alvin despite that not being a thing in their religion, for instance. I am really, really looking forward to when we finally get to see and interact with Asriel. Because there is a _lot_ of baggage there waiting to be unpacked. Just from the surface we've scratched so far, he was clearly very close with December - she used the sleeves of his jacket to dry Noelle's tears at one point, which rather implies December was wearing Asriel's jacket. I think the more we learn about Asriel the more interesting a character Ralsei will wind up becoming.
What do you think about the theory that Ralsei is aware of "YOU" (the player Heart) and is approaching YOU in a roundabout way playing dumb because they're trying to protect Kris from YOU?
16:22 after countless playthroughs I just cant bring myself to pick all the affectionate options since it genuinely really disturbs me a little bit that Kris is being forced to lmaoooooooo
A personal headcanon of mine is that Ralsei is kinda like Kris’ OC, Ralsei is what Kris always wanted to be just a sweet, adorable, and fluffy little buddy for everyone to love and care for. If the theory of Ralsei being Kris’ old headband is true then it could be that Kris influenced Ralsei as a person to be who he wanted to be. I also see this being the reason Ralsei doesn’t really know how to be ‘himself’ because he never really had a ‘himself’ to begin with since Kris never really elaborated on this persona he had and just crafted them in his mind
I prefer to like to think that Ralsei doesn't know who Gaster is because Gaster is kind of like a Shrodinger's Cat situation. He randomly, every single time your screen transitions, every single time the fun value is changed, he randomly either doesn't exist or does exist. But if this is the case, how does that explain the phone and Gaster's relationship with the secret bosses? I think that Gaster is forced to play the longest game of Telephone in order to contact Jevil, who is the last person in the line, with Spamton being the next one, and Mike being the next one. He can randomly talk to Spamton himself, but it is never for certain that the same Gaster can call Spamton. Sometimes, it is the good Gaster that calls him. Sometimes, it's the evil Gaster that calls him. Other times, it's a bit in between, or a different Gaster, a more feminine or gender-neutral Gaster calls Spamton. Random Gasters call every one of them, telling them all sorts of things but usually boiling down to begging for help to get out of the existence that they've put themselves into. So, where does this Ralsei? Maybe Ralsei does sometimes know Gaster in some gameplays. Maybe he doesn't. I think that Asriel and/or Kris affected Ralsei the most out of everyone else, though I don't know which or if both did. Anyway, I just think that Ralsei is like Del Torro's Pinocchio or like... whatever that Girl's name was from Amphibia, that isn't Anne or the blond one. I just think Ralsei genuinely doesn't understand the world around him.
At the absolute worst Ralsai might be MISGUIDED…. for example someone else who IS evil could see how naïve & pull the wool over his (Ralsai’s) eyes and trick him…. If you want another example of another character in a similar situation, look at Bianca in Spyro 3 : Year of the Dragon, though the PS1 version shows that more clearly than the Reignited Trilogy version in a few key points so study BOTH and pay close attention to how things are said AND word choice
Given how much Ralsei clearly cares about the Player more than nearly anything else, and us the player being canonically the equivalent of a outer god/eldritch abomination, it makes Ralsei officially a cultist.
I fully and wholeheartedly agree that at the end of the day Ralsei is not evil! And on the topic of him being a character "within a game within a game" its funny because i never saw him like that until a few days ago when i was pondering deltarune stuff as one does, and i realized how "video gamey" he is, and now whenever i think about what he does it feels VERY video gamey and i dont know how i missed it 😭😭 Also 11:58 Evo/trafficlifesmp reference?????
My best bet for gaster as a puppet master is that he is supposed to be our direct opponent in his “experiment” called deltarune. Not “our” as in the characters, but rather us the players. If deltarune really is a game of chess, then we’re on one side of the board with our pawn Kris (given to us by gaster) and he’s on the other end playing the game with us
As such this kind of explains the ethereal position of gaster. We’re on one “side” of the game controlling it from the outside world. We’re connected to it, but not in it. Gaster is also connected to the world of deltarune, but he isn’t “in” it. He’s in the program, in the computer, but he’s not actually in deltarune. Which may explain why his presence (specifically verbal presence) doesn’t really exist within the game itself
Maybe the reason why grand fountain is made of pure darkness, and also why ralsei is made from it, is because unlike other fountains it wasn't made by a lightener but something more powerful, or maybe by an extraordinary powerful darkener, or is even what happens if a darkener absorbs a lightener's soul they become a fountain of pure darkness, and possibly it was ralsei who did, it could have turn him into the best version of himself, and possibly the same for other darkener's, so maybe some asriel and chara stuff happened since he looks kinda like asriel.
i totally agree with all the points you made, but the last one especially makes a little too much sense. i can’t tell if i hope you’re right or if i want ralsei to be happy /j
My only real guess for Ralsei with our limited info at the moment is that he’s going to reflect Ariel in some way in undertale. His thing was that he wanted the player to never leave. To prevent us from winning at all costs. Furthermore the pre-flowery ralsei was selfless in that he allowed himself to die in order to spare the humans who were killing him. So Ralseis themes seem very likely to reflect this somehow
This is going to be such an outlandish claim but I don't like Ralsei. I never have. I don't dislike him, but I don't like him either. He makes me uncomfortable. Love watching these videos, they can be so insightful! Interesting analysis, thank you
I mostly liked this video, but you started saying that Ralsei is fictional to the lightners - but they clearly don't think of him that way. Maybe Noelle and Berdly do, but Susie clearly rejects the twisted dichotomy between lightners and darkners where darkners are supposedly made to serve, and I find it hard to believe Kris doesn't feel the same. On a structural level, the dark worlds are fiction, but from the perspective of our main characters (except noelle) they're not. That'd be messed up.
tldw Ralsei's in his mid-life crisis and will buy a Mercedes Benz in chapter 6 to fill the void in his heart that was created by him realizing that he's not satisfied with the life he was pressured into living
and also he'll smoke weed
Sombrasderoserade
and he's a baa
Bro gonna chuff a fat dart chapter 7
Doobie
doobie
Ralsei is the anti-flowey, and it is surprising almost no one reflects on the thematic connections he has with the flower
bro you just unlocked something in me w that. he literally is, he's a narrative foil to flowey and i bet it'll intersect more than we imagine
What's hard to figure out is just _how_ he's the opposite of Flowey, though. Ralsei barely seems to exist at the best of times, with characters routinely ignoring his presence, Queen and Noelle especially. The most reaction anyone has to his tea is Susie, who guzzles down all the teas regardless yet can only describe his tea as "like marshmallows" - which if you've ever tried to just eat one on its own you'll know really don't taste of a whole lot except maybe vaguely sweet. Given the other teas are described as having strong, distinct flavors (fruits and spices, mainly)... it's an interesting choice.
@@PhysicsGamer Wait, I think you're onto something. Just about everything in undertale influences or is influenced by Flowery in some way, and he's 2/3 final bosses. He is a reflection of a no mercy player, he is the prince of the underground, he is incredibly important.
Ralsei, to your point, is constantly ignored and cast aside. He is, at least in-universe, unimportant. He is also a reflection of a player who engages with the story the way we're supposed to, the light path of deltarune. He is a prince of an empty kingdom at the start of his game that gains subjects over time. Flowey's the prince of a kingdom that starts full, but at the end of the game his kingdom is empty. Definitely food for thought.
@@sambish3961 An interesting further point of contrast between the two games is how they handle the legend/prophecy of the Delta Rune.
The Deltarune version is a pretty long cutscene by Toby Fox's standards, with sweeping music, words CAPITALIZED for emphasis, and some rather odd grammatical choices ("the world", singular, but then "worlds' edge", plural?). It packs in a ton of random keywords and concepts, like "banish the ANGEL'S HEAVEN", but elaborates on none of them.
In Undertale, the entirety of the prophecy is as follows:
The Angel...
The One Who Has Seen The Surface...
They will return.
And the underground will go empty.
The Undertale version is laser-focused in comparison, identifying a single actor, describing them twice, saying they'll return, and then what will happen when they do.
Even in-universe just what "will go empty" meant was ambiguous, but it really had only two meanings to pick from.
Meanwhile the Deltarune prophecy, despite saying a lot more, doesn't actually _tell_ us anything. Ralsei uses it to hurry everyone along and seal the fountains, but what does that have to do with the prophecy, which only claims to be relevant after the Roaring has already happened?
@@sambish3961 Bingo! you just got my comment
There is one aspect of Ralsei that I still don't know what to make of, and that's his... lack of investment, for lack of a better term, in Lightners outside of Kris and Susie, and his uncanny knack for keeping off of their radar. In all of Chapter 2, Ralsei directly addresses Berdly only twice, and Noelle *zero times,* despite sharing a not insignificant amount of screen time with Noelle in particular.
Compare how Ralsei treats Susie bonding with Lancer to Susie wanting to help Noelle. Ralsei very quickly starts encouraging Susie and Lancer "for friendship", but when Susie brings up saving Noelle, Ralsei deflects to "all we have to do is seal the fountain" at the start, and then ceases to comment on her presence at all afterwards.
This second part isn't so much active characterization of Ralsei, but it *is* the reason that the story can get away with him not acknowledging Noelle at all, so it's relevant to bring up here. In Chapter 2, Ralsei has a tendency to... fade into the background whenever Noelle is present. To the point that it almost feels like most characters forget he is there. The only time Noelle ever comments on his presence is when she and Kris are spying on him and Susie from afar, when he doesn't know they're there. She wonders who he is, and says he looks kinda like... someone (presumably Asriel). However, this question seems to vanish from her mind the moment she begins tagging along with the full group. The closest she comes to acknowledging his presence is asking to stand behind Susie in line, because otherwise she'd be behind Ralsei. Most pointedly, when Noelle devises a plan to expedite the mouse-balloon puzzle, she only assigns roles to Kris and Susie, as if Ralsei wasn't even there. He just doubles up on Susie's role to participate, and nobody comments on any part of this.
Berdly is weird in this equation because Ralsei *does* speak to Berdly a couple of times, and Berdly in return acknowledges his presence as part of Kris's "C+ Squad" and as Kris's "lackey." But he likewise doesn't question his presence or appearance.
In the end I have no idea what to make of this, other than the fact that Ralsei seems mostly uninterested in Lightners outside those outlined in The Legend, which ties back to his utilitarian view of himself and his role in this story. Kris and Susie's relationships with characters from outside the Dark Worlds are irrelevant. To use the Game Within A Game metaphor, it would be like if party member in an RPG concerned themselves with who was on your Steam friend list. It'd break immersion, and immersion is part of why Ralsei is here, it seems.
The game actually directly adresses this as part of a joke, when Queen captures all the Lightners and then the camera pans to Ralsei just standing there awkwardly
@@josequiles7430 This is rather easily passed off as Queen just being oblivious in general, since her not noticing people just out of view or behind flimsy disguises is a running joke of the chapter. However, it *is* notable that Ralsei only draws attention to himself once Noelle and Berdly are gone, since speaking up earlier in the scene would have drawn their attention to him.
Very interesting point. It's like he avoids speaking to other lightners unless strictly necessary.
I think it's worth pointing out he does _acknowledge_ Noelle when talking to Kris (or rather, to us), asking if they're wondering what the two girls are doing in Noelle's room. So it's like he doesn't exactly pretend she doesn't exist, moreso just avoids her?
@@nataliaborys1554 Ah, right. The version of that dialog where he mentions Noelle by name only happens on the Weird route, so I forgot about it. In a normal playthrough, he just asks if we're wondering how Susie is doing.
And yeah, it's not like Ralsei pretends Noelle isn't around. He just seems entirely uninterested in her. Again, the easiest point of comparison is Lancer in Chapter 1. Ralsei had no shortage of comments and exchanges with him when he briefly joined the party. When Noelle does under similar circumstances, he just silently steps aside to make room and doesn't talk to her or comment on anything she says.
Small correction but the exact dialogue Noelle has when spying on Ralsei and Susie is: "Who's that person she is with anyways?" "It kinda looks like..."
Since I doubt Noelle is referring to Ralsei as an "it", she isn't even acknowledging his similarities with Asriel which is kind of what led me to believe Ralsei doesn't actually look like this universe's Asriel. Noelle would have definitely reacted at least once to their similarities if those existed in the first place.
THIS GOAT has NO EMOTIONAL KNOWLEDGE and wants YOU to JOIN HIM!!!
i like your funny words video essayist
"How many re-deconstructions you want?"
@@Jessie_Warren11618 "Two please."
i read this in the JFK voice
@@ashiiu12same
@@ashiiu12good
On the note of Ralsei knowing "meta-stuff", it's important to know that Lancer also has a bit of knowledge, like pressing Z on the tree with the dark candy and being inside Kris' item-pocket. This makes me come up with two theories.
1) EVERY Darkner knows something about the rules of the game. It's like the light world characters are "real-like", while the dark world acts like an actual "RPG". Basically you're playing a game where characters play their own "real-life" RPG (think The Amazing World of Gumball's RPG episode). It's only when the characters think too much of the implications of this (like Spamton or Jevil) that they go insane.
2) It's really only used for gags or explaining jokes and nothing much else.
Indeed, I'm more in the camp of the second point as it doesn't seem to have a larger importance.
@@Vivat_Veritas
and the tutorial masters are pretty suspect as well, knowing much about what are characters can do,how they do it, as well as kris susie and ralsei's names as well and other mechanics of the game.
There's a number of times in Undertale where NPCs seem vaguely aware of game mechanics, too.
@@velvetphi yeah but i feel like in that case it is routinely enough where nobody really thinks about them too much besides maybe sans with how he cheats those mechanics, chara being all about stats and gerson with how he's so aware of them that he knows that you can't really start a combat in a shop
i think ralsei blushing only when he touches our soul is because that's just our hitbox, might be accidental but it could still imply something
I genuinely think that toby wrote the code as a gameplay thing, but realized how well it worked after. It's probably a very happy coincidence
I think Ralsei was literally spawned into existence to fullfill one specific purpose (serve the heroes in their quest and make sure the prophecy plays out as intended) but his interactions with Kris and (especially) Susie are causing him to develop into his own person.
He has no bad intentions, as far as the prophecy is concerned Ralsei is supposed to help them save the world. But Ralsei didn't write the prophecy and probably doesn't know the implications of it.
To the contrary, I'm pretty sure Ralsei is attempting to usurp the "Prince of the Dark" role from the prophecy from Lancer. There's a few reasons for that, but the big one is that the Dark Fountain we closed in the first chapter was clearly not the "new" one that was destabilizing things, but rather the old one that already existed. Even aside from the dialog in the chapter that points that direction, there's no way that Ralsei's dark world had existed all that long (since anyone trying to use the supply closet would have found it) while the old dark world may well have been there for years for all we know.
Plus the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei. That's of... dubious in-universe meaning, admittedly, but the difference is striking enough to mention.
EDIT: swapped around the dark fountains in the first paragraph.
@@PhysicsGamer Wait, you said the Card Kingdom fountain was the new one, but then that the Castle Town world couldn't have existed that long, but the Card Kingdom could have existed for years?
@@psuedonym9999 No, I'm saying that Ralsei's fountain is the new one and the one in the abandoned classroom could have existed for years.
Or in other words, I completely mistyped in the comment you responded to.
EDIT: Fixed now
@@PhysicsGamer Yeah, that makes more sense. And I agree with you, I just don't see how that supply closet could go unopened for more than a day or two, especially if it's used by the janitor.
@@psuedonym9999 Do we ever hear of a school janitor? Might just be the teachers. I think Sans might be the only monster described as a janitor in Deltarune.
That does raise the interesting question of what is in the supply closet besides the chalk Kris and Susie were sent for. Not a lot to work from in Ralsei's dark world like there has been in the other dark worlds.
...Actually, that's remarkably strange, isn't it?
I think there might be a hidden double meaning in the statement "your choices (don't) matter". It could easily be that sometimes it is referring to the player and sometimes to Kris. Imagine that there is a hidden conflict over whether Kris' choices matter or the player's choices matter, and only one of those can matter. If this were true, Ralsei could potentially be meaning that _Kris_ should believe their own will matters even though they're constantly being controlled, and not even talking to the player at that moment. That creates a really grim scenario because we know Kris is going to be stuck with us for at least a week still; the point of Ralsei may be to comfort _Kris_ in this difficult time.
Of course, we have the added complication Kris and Ralsei are always being watched. If the two have some great plan to free Kris from the player, you would realistically expect they would do everything they can to hide it in plain sight and make it look ordinary. This might be why Ralsei gives the tutorial and such, while shortly telling Kris they do matter. But the scenes where Kris seems not to like Ralsei might be because they are afraid the plan backfired. If the player is all over Ralsei treating him like some kind of fluffy son, Kris and Ralsei are effectively being watched and controlled more than before and will find it harder to scheme against the player without being noticed.
The one thing this definitely does not explain is.... why is the Ralsei tea empty? I have no idea.
The tea being empty along with Ralsei disappearing completely when he runs out of HP does beg the question of if it's just because he's a darkner or if it's because of his unique existence separate from the other darkners.
On one hand, the snowgrave bug does show that darkners do just straight up vanish in a red mist if you manage to get their HP to zero. However, you do buy the tea from the dark world, so that doesn't explain why his tea would be empty. Much to think about.
@@NRobbi42 Ralsei tea is only empty when Noelle drinks it, not when Susie or seemingly Kris drinks it (they have no reaction but there is still *something* for them to drink), so I don't think that connects to him disappearing when running out of HP.
Rather, the reason Ralsei tea is only empty with Noelle implies to me that she's unsure about him and doesn't know what to make of him. For Susie, Ralsei tea tastes like marshmallows, probably because he's so sweet. And Kris either has no reaction because they have little opinion on Ralsei, or don't like him that much, or some other unknown reason.
Something to keep in mind.
Or because there's no actual point in ch.2 where Noelle is in our party after meeting Ralsei, and the only opportunity she has to understand him beyond "dream kid that looks like Asriel" is literally the roaring cutscene after fighting queen.
She just doesn't know he exists in any concrete way, and even needs hacking to drink his (or susie's lol) tea.
"your choices don't matter" is the deltarune version of "it's kill or be killed"; there's no hidden meaning to it.
@@esoij I dont see how that claim has any more legitimacy than a possible hidden meaning existing. We dont know yet, there "might" be no meaning, but I wouldn't say there "is" no meaning.
"Of course, Gaster is, hopefully, not real, and is a funny guy toby made up to make me insane" - Favorite quote, 23:16
This is a great little summary of what we currently know about Ralsei, but 25:02 immediately derailed my brain into theoretically playing "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" but with Gaster Degrees instead, so thank you for putting that idea in my brain
It was inspired by the "Ryu number" tumblr account! Glad you liked it
six degrees of gaster bacon
what is that game?
@@zixvirzjghamn737 Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is basically a joke game where one chooses a random actor, associate them with another actor through a film they appeared in together, and repeats this to try and find the shortest path via said associations to actor Kevin Bacon. What OP was talking about was the idea of ranking the characters of Undertale and/or Deltarune based on how many associations between characters (experiencing the same events or interacting with eachother) one has to do to get to Gaster.
I pretty much agree with all of the points mentioned here. However, I would argue that Ralsei’s connection with the Secret Bosses is stronger than what is suggested here as note that, just like Jevil and Seam, Ralsei was aware of the Roaring before he revealed it in ch.2 and he also seems to be aware of generally how the plot should progress considering his whole “Wait we were supposed to-“ line on Side B/the Weird Route.
What this honestly potentially suggests to me is that, in some way, Ralsei is the “end result” Gaster was trying to achieve with the SBs. Gaster may have been trying to trial-and-error (or…*experiment*) on how his approach and interactions with Darkners affect them. He may have been trying to seek a way to get a Darkner to go along with the Prophecy without having them go insane and potentially he achieved this via “whispers across time and space”.
To pile on to that, I'm pretty sure Ralsei is attempting to usurp the "Prince of the Dark" role from the prophecy from Lancer. For a number of reasons, ranging from it being the original Dark Fountain that we closed in the first chapter to the fact that the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei.
That probably means that the prophesy wasn't made up by Ralsei or anyone that Ralsei is acting on behalf of... unless that person made it up to fool Ralsei into doing what they want. Which we don't have any evidence either way of, thanks to how closely Ralsei has been holding his cards to his chest.
At a minimum, we know that Ralsei's dark world probably hadn't been existing for very long at the start of the game (since otherwise someone would have found it when they went to use the closet), while the "original" dark world that Lancer was from could have been around for quite a while longer.
@@PhysicsGamerthat's just wrong!
@@FirstnameLastname-sb3hj Any particular part or...?
@@PhysicsGamer my bad, i should have specified. not only was the card kingdom's fountain not the original, but the prince from the dark mentioned in the legend more closely resembles ralsei's disguise than lancer. plus, the fire looking magic effects around the prince aren't something we've seen lancer do, while it IS something we've seen ralsei do (the glowy flame looking effect when he uses a spell). lancer doesn't even *do* spells. as for the fountain, ralsei's is refered to as the "grand fountain," and the part at the end of ralsei's monologue is him describing how another fountain appeared recently. on top of this, seam states that the knight appeared recently and placed the spade king in power. given that making fountains is the knight's m.o., it only makes sense that it created the card kingdom fountain.
@@FirstnameLastname-sb3hj The bit with the image's resemblance is pretty clear-cut, I think - the hooded figure has a single large point on their head and isn't wearing a brimmed hat, so it really can't be Ralsei.
I don't think you can call Ralsei's healing a "glowy flame looking effect"... it certainly glows, but I can't think of a time it actually looks flame-like.
The sequencing of the fountains I've been having some interesting conversations in this comment section about, but I'm still pretty sure that if either of them has existed for more than a couple of days it has to be the one in the abandoned classroom. After all, if the school's apparently only supply closet was a dark world for more than a day or two there's no way someone wouldn't have run into it already. And even a single day is being generous - I bet whoever hid the chalk in Alphys's classroom also made the dark fountain in the closet either that morning or the previous night.
Of course, the specifics of the timeline are incredibly hard to pin down. Which leads me to looking forward to chapters 3+ where we'll hopefully get more answers...
Every once and a while I enounter a Deltarune video that I know will shape the way I look at the game moving forwards and I think this is one of them. Excellent video I love it
16:45 - Maybe this was just easier to implement? Like, the soul already has a mechanism to detect collision to other stuff, like enemies/bullets when you're not in a battle.
Checking collisions for bounding boxes is very easy, if Toby wanted to check collision with Kris rather than the soul, he absolutely could have with very little effort.
@@CyborusYTToby is also infamous for his spaghetti code and simply retooling old assets, so it’s not unlikely that reusing the soul collision was just a natural decision and not a conscious one
kris' body is used for interactions with literally everything else in the overworld. It would be nearly impossible that it wasn't deliberate.
Minor code decision among the sea of Toby Fox’s spaghetti code
Deltarune fans: “INTENTIONAL HIDDEN CLUE!”
reusing the heart from battles as the thing that takes damage in the overworld would be a natural course of action, since that's its function in battles as well. toby can then just make the damage dealing objects bullets and reuse all the code.
what could have been avoided however is making the soul actually visible as the thing taking damage. it's a single line of code to set an object's sprite, i believe likewise with the object mask. could've just set the heart object to invisible and set its mask to coincide with kris when entering the designated battle areas and that's it
or he could have even just left it invisible and with its original hitbox. games often have very wonky collision hitboxes just to make things easier on the player, since your character stubbing their toe on an enemy and immediately dying sucks
great video as always veritas! personally i really like the idea of ralsei struggling with 'freedom' in the context of what he was 'made to do' and what he 'wants to do'. i think it goes together really well with the themes we've seen so far in kris and the secret bosses and your theory makes it make a lot of sense.
To put the idea of prophecy adherence simply: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, to achieve the “Weird” route, the first thing you have to do is get away from Ralsei.
Great video! You articulated a lot of vague ideas I’ve had about Ralsei’s character better than I ever could. I’ve really grown on the idea that Ralsei is effectively aligned with The Player and how the game is “supposed” to go, and this’ll probably be a source of juicy drama in later chapters. This is totally baseless speculation, but I kinda feel like there will be conflict between what The Player and the plot demand vs what Kris and Susie want and Ralsei will be caught between the two, having to choose between his “purpose” and his new friends. I think his big moment will come when he chooses, perhaps against his better judgment, to stand by his friends. Or who knows, maybe my hiatus brain is just causing me to generate extensive fan fictions under the guise of “predictions”
The section in your synthesis (starting around 27:40) discussing the different "levels of existence" / nature of people or characters with regard to the world or fiction they exist in made me realize another interesting parallel you could possibly make between W.D. Gaster and Ralsei. Ralsei, unlike the other darkners (as far as we can tell) is aware of the sort-of-fictional nature of the Dark World. So while Ralsei may be to the lightners as the lightners are to us, he's also almost as to the lightners as Gaster is to us, someone who may be "fictional" but is still very aware of his own role in the story, and almost controlled by or completely inhabiting it out of habit.
Fantastic video as always! I love your analyses of Deltarune a lot.
the thing that worries me about ralsei is that he seems to prioritize the player's feelings over Kris'. This can be seen in a few places if you know where to look, but the clearest example is in the post-spamton dialogue. If you choose to have Kris say that they're ok, Ralsei will attempt to take it at face value even though it's obvious that Kris is _not_ ok.
Ralsei seems to consistently ignore it when Kris indicates that they don't agree with the dialogue choice the player picked, even when other characters notice it easily.
This is likely why Kris doesn't seem to like Ralsei very much (they only regain 60 HP from Ralsei tea, which is the lowest amount possible for the teas outside of having a character drink their own tea or the tea of someone they don't really even know)
@ultra824
kind of shooting yourself in the foot mentioning the tea theory, since ralsei heals form the kris tea for 120 HP.
@@chongwillson972 It's possible to like someone for reasons unrelated to who they are as a person. Kris is the Player's conduit to the world of Deltarune, after all.
18:25 wait that's actually a super interesting point to bring up. Some time ago I had watched a video that talks about the psychology of Noelle and how she's actually the protagonist of chapter 2. I bring this up cuz the essayist in that video theorizes how queen could very well be a mirror of Noelle's own mother, or the way she sees her mother, if that makes sense (think of like the palaces of Persona. I'm not gonna go into it right now you can go watch the video I'm talking about). If Ralsei really is meant to mirror Kris in some way, we could very well think of it as a pattern, that every being born from darkness is a form of someone's struggles.
This also implies that king is a mirror of Susie's dad, which we don't have any evidence whatsoever of aside from, idk, how we can infer Susie has a bad home life. Even so, it's kind of a reach, but when the next few chapters do drop we can tackle them already knowing what to look for, if that makes sense.
(To be clear I did not watch the rest of the video yet I just wanted to bring this idea up)
Wow interesting, do you remember the name of the essay?
@@N_the_N its "Noelle's actions in Deltarune explained" by Daryl Talks games iirc. Something along those lines.
@@banewwhastur9487 Thanks!
This is interesting. So then is castle town Kris's fountain, i.e. Ralsei being Asriel? And the smaller room Susies fountain I.e. King? So then what is lancer, is lancer a reflection of susie? Does the world of the dark fountain reflect the first lightner that comes into contact with it? Is it a combination? Because Berdly was with noelle when the fountain formed, so why doesnt Berdly have that same representation? Unless Noelle created the dark fountain herself somehow.
@@commenteroftruth9790 theres a pretty common theory of ralsei being the red horn headband kris had as a kid, and therefore a manifestation of kris's ideal self that they wanted to be as a kid due to their feelings of loneliness, as for why berdly doesn't get a parental representation, there's a really good video called The Universal Mother by Kooki Autumn that goes into depth on queen and how she's actually a combined representation of the party's mothers
i love that moment when you’re watching a theory and you’re like “hold on this guy might actually be onto something!”
Ralsei is my skrunkly
I'm more of a fanwork creator than a theorist really, but I always had that hunch that Ralsei actually confronting Jevil and Spamton in a conversation would be very very interesting. I mean, it seems that what drove the secret bosses insane was at least related to knowing their reality is nested within a higher one. And here Ralsei is, with that same knowledge, yet seemingly dealing better with it. Well, for now at least.
13:46 this gave me bonzi buddy vibes, and I wasn’t prepared for how terrifying that sounds 😭
I know this might not ultimately be a part of the story of Deltarune, but just thinking that Ralsei could be some sort of malware stuck inside Servey Program and the idea that he just wants to *help us* while ultimately hurting our computer is fascinating to mull over.
(‘heaven’ could even be our desktop, like the old windows background)
Ralsei is probably the most fascinating character in Deltarune to me, apart form maybe Kris. He just knows a lot of stuff a Darkner really shouldn't. I've never seen Ralsei as being some secret antagonist or anything like that, but he's really freaking suspicious. I've tended to avoid the options where you/Kris sort of cozy up to Ralsei, due to the fact that, as you mentioned, Kris doesn't seem to like him especially. Why would they? He's the epitome of like-Asriel-but-not. There's also the theory that Ralsei is everything that Kris wishes they were: a friendly (he's basically a walking ad for the kindness trait), helpful, and optimistic goat monster. That only further complicates things.
At a minimum, I'm pretty sure he's trying to usurp the role of "Prince of the Dark" from the prophecy from Lancer. For a number of reasons, ranging from it being the *original* Dark Fountain that we closed in the first chapter to the fact that the picture that we saw of the three heroes gives a pretty good likeness of Suzie and Kris but the Prince looks more like Lancer than Ralsei.
@@PhysicsGamerBut his fountain IS either the original or the "real" one. He's the only Darkner that can freely exist in a Dark World that's not his own. Lancer and Rouxls turn to stone like any other would outside their respective Dark World... but the exception is the world of Ralsei's fountain. There, inhabitants of ANY Dark World can exist freely without turning to stone.
If Lancer is the real "Prince", then the prophecy has already failed unless The Roaring happens in Castle Town or Kris's pocket, because those are the only two places he can exist now.
@@mr.personalspace7831 "Today, the FOUNTAIN OF DARKNESS - the geyser that gives this land form - stands tall at the center of the kingdom. But recently, another fountain has appeared on the horizon...".
Only Lancer's fountain is at the center of an actual kingdom - even Ralsei never refers to his town as one.
But on top of that, Chapter 2 confirmed that the way the fountains work is they make an area into a Dark World, which any lightners who enter the area find themselves in. The abandoned classroom may well have been totally empty for years, while Ralsei's dark world could at the absolute maximum have only existed since the last time someone went into the supply closet.
@@PhysicsGamer When it's discussing the main fountain of darkness, it's focusing on the one in Castle Town- when it mentions "another on the horizon", it pans to King's- not Ralsei's. King and his people were born from someone opening a fountain in the empty classroom- the one in the supply closet is the main one.
@@mr.personalspace7831 I don't think that's necessarily the case - it's hard to tell from the images we see, admittedly, but it could just as easily be from the perspective of the other castle.
I'm curious if you have a solution to the timeline problem. The abandoned classroom's dark world could easily have existed for years and years before the game, while Ralsei's could _maybe_ have been made the previous day, at most. It's in what looks like the main supply closet for the whole school, after all.
Oh, and to follow up on something from your previous comment - the titans depicted for the Roaring have the eye symbol that as far as I recall we only ever otherwise see in Ralsei's dark world. So that slightly implies the Roaring somehow originates from or is connected to that particular dark world. It's a pretty tenuous link, admittedly, but it's certainly interesting.
That's a good point! Ralsei probably feels like a video game character to the lighteners.
I really liked your essay! I'm glad you have a more balanced view of Ralsei than other videos ive seen, lol. Something I'm 99% certain will affect Ralsei's view of themselves will be the TRUE prince of the dark: because as far as we know, Ralsei is the one to give himself that title, and it would be so easy if he was that character in the prophecy, but there's another who'd fit the bill better: Lancer. He's a prince in the narrative rather than something we're told (or what Ralsei assumed his role would be), and if Ralsei wasn't here, Lancer would still be as important to how Kris and Susie progress (chapter 1 giving motivation to Susie, freeing Kris in chapter 2). Ralsei can just feel like...the tutorial? And the idea that he would lose his purpose as the prince of the dark in the prophecy, losing the need of him providing tutorials, and even losing the ability to heal if Noelle joins us more, all of this would absolutely reflect what you discussed in the video about where he's going from here, and I'm excited to see where things go.
There's also the way the picture we're given of the "three heroes" has a very good likeness of Susie and Kris, but the third one looks a lot more like a hooded Lancer than Ralsei. The single point under the hood could be the top of Lancer's head, yet it's only present on Ralsei when he's wearing that hat - which the character in the image obviously isn't wearing, judging by the lack of a brim.
Besides, the son of a regent is a prince. Who are Ralsei's parents?
@@PhirePhlame Technically, there have been more than a few "principalities" throughout history where the reigning monarch is called "prince".
19:11 everyone's reaction to ralsei telling us about the roaring was "omg is ralsei secretly evil!?" i think that was very deliberate. toby wants us to suspect him. but think back to undertale. was anyone really ever truly evil? the most evil character i can think of is asriel, but even then, he was a very complicated situation when it came to morality. before we came into the picture, he was just playing the game, like us. getting every secret; every ending. after we showed up, he just wanted to be with his best friend - his sibling - again. he wanted to feel love again, regardless of how distorted that love took its form (i.e. making us keep playing the game with him forever). i dont think there'll be any truly evil character in deltarune. its just not how toby writes. but maybe im wrong. maybe this was only the case in undertale because mercy and redemption was a big theme in the game, which hasnt shown to be the case in deltarune. at least not to the same degree so far
i love your deltarune video essays so much like yessss i never clicked on a video so ffast in your latest upload you just have so much interesting thoughts
I'd like to say that I think your conclusions were really spot on and interesting, and also makes a lot of justice for Ralsei as a character, or even as a person, since you've been able to analyze him in such a complexity that he strikes me as real person in levels of complexity and plausability. I'd also say thank you feom the bottom of my heart because I sort of kin on Ralsei a little, so understanding him led me to understand myself better! You're incredibly skilled, and it's wonderful to find your videos ❤.
Nice EVO reference at 12:00
I was so excited to see this in my notif inbox !!! ralsei is such a fascinating and mysterious character, and I really love hearing your opinions on things like that. Thank you!! And have a lovely break!
5:31 gasters just casually shattering around time and space nbd
Overall, very interesting analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
4:53 This brings to mind an interesting avenue. He says he doesn't have any subjects. But royalty's family are not their subjects. If he is The Prince From The Dark, could there be a King, Queen or Princess from The Dark? A Duke or Duchess, perhaps?
Also, I do wonder about his actions, abilities, & motives. Making things for guests you may never get suggests loneliness. Other than the doorway that remains inaccessible to Kris & company, though....
Scenes like the 1 near the end of Queen's Mansion makes me wonder if Ralsei knows when the SOUL is watching. & if he blushes when in contact with the SOUL, does that mean he can sense it? Awareness of what it's doing?
Being alone, to rule a kingdom that was either abandoned or wiped out & memorize a legend you may not even be certain will occur in your lifetime.... It's a heavy burden. Does he not carry bitterness or resentment for these burdens? Why does Ralsei know these things, & why did he choose to do these things? Did someone else teach them to him?
16:00
I want to say I'm a big believer in the idea the chocie the heart drifts towards is what kris is leaning towards in a decision, and all of these choices are fairly close to the Ralsei positive one.
Don't forget ralsei looks like his brother. So it makes sense he'd be confused at anything remotely romantic with him
By the heart drifting do you mean the initial option the heart-cursor is on whenever a choice pops up?
Also, hugging is not necessarily romantic. There is never an option to kiss Ralsei or anything like that. But if you had a brother who looked kind of like Ralsei, but Ralsei was actually real, wouldn't you still wanna squish him, though? People have GFs that look kind of like their mom or sister, but we all understand that this is just due to familiarity with an aesthetic rather than some kind of perversion, so I don't really buy the argument that Kris would be turned off of Ralsei due to him looking somewhat like Asriel
@@TheOnlyGeggles That does make sense, but Kris seems to be someone who doesn't like hugging, at least with their father, (See the first Asgore scene in Chapter 1). On the other hand, perhaps they are fine with it when interacting with some people, even one who looks like their brother...?
@@TheOnlyGeggles My comment was more so about the line with susie at the end of the game, about who you'd want to talk tk the festival, of you say ralsei the words come out confused, tho if you say susie* ( Well susie doesn't comment on how you spoke rather she's awkward about and says *um as firends riggghhtt*)
@@TheOnlyGeggles i also want to say, in the option to hug ralsie, the heart is actually stationed away from that option, it's a 4 option Choice, in theory it's closest to the heart is the peace sign (when framing for a picture at the acid boat ride)
this really does remind me of The NeverEnding Story, with the layers of fiction n' all that
So excited for a video on the best boy!
You really outdid yourself with this one!!! I had multiple moments in this video where I had to pause and basically reconsider my preconceptions about Ralsei
Despite my intense deltarune brainrot I still hadn’t thought about him hard enough it seems. Thank you for opening up my mind about it!
Bravo 🎉
This video was really helpful for me as someone who has had no idea what to make of Ralsei or where to even start analyzing him. Really great job!! Also I love ur editing lol.
17:08 i had to do a double take because i heard "... kinda into sex" instead of intersects
Same😭
This was another great video. You always seem to have some way with articulating things the way I would like to, but cannot.
Don't feel pressured to creating content. Like Ralsei, you're not just a Content Creator whose soul purpose is to keep making content. Take your time & upload as you wish to
Also, I'd love a Deltarune (even Undertale) playthrough by you :D
17:54 haha i loved how you used the petscop tool! i wasn't expecting to see anything petscop related in a deltarune video
This was a great video! 35 minutes passed like it was 10!
The video was amazing! Thank you for it!
Watching a playthrough from you would be so nice. Please do it. And nice video. Like the editing. And analysis of ralsie. As someone who is a little bored of his happy to serve attitude. I been really interested in the things he been hiding. And how the narrative with test his outlook on things.
17:08 I had to replay this like 5 times it really sounded like you were saying "is kind of intersex"
The great ace attorney music??? In a Deltarune theory video??? Instant 10/10 :)
I really like your videos!! This deconstruction of Ralsei was super insightful and makes me super pumped for the next chapter (when it finally comes out LOL). Keep up the good work!! :D
Always amazing to see another video of yours!
Ralsei reminds me of a young Sans in a sense. Hes Aware of the truth of thier world's reality but since he's young he can't really grasp it or understand how to react to all the outcomes. He tries extremely hard to make sure he gets the best ending but doesn't try to fight for it against the player.
5:40 okay okay wait idk if this is a fan theory but seeing how he looks in a cloak reminds me of riverperson..... what if he's the riverperson? or at least related to them in some way idk
I have so many thoughts about this little guy that may or may not have reduced my brain to jello, so here are those thoughts!
(I recognize that I’m probably just insane from the brainrot or maybe looking way too into things, so take this with a grain of salt 😅)
So, in the prophecy, it talks about how “if this harmony were to shatter, a terrible calamity would occur” And then it talks about the roaring.
*But*, immediately after that, it says this: “*Only then*, Shining with hope, Three HEROES appear at WORLDS edge.” “*Only they* can seal the fountains, and banish the ANGEL’S HEAVEN.” “*Only then* can balance be restored, and the world saved from destruction.”
So, my observation is, it sounds like (to me) that the “*Only then*” part could imply that the roaring is *the ONLY time* that we (the three heroes) are supposed to show up and do everything (close the remaining fountains and banish the angel’s heaven) but also it sounds like the Roaring is *supposed* to happen, since the balance is already shifting from the other dark fountains (kinda like a domino effect that can’t be stopped once it starts) plus, the prophecy never really says that our job is to *prevent* the roaring, just to stop it from destroying the world *once it happens* (if we take the “only then” part literally) plus, I know that Toby said that the prophecy is supposed to sound like it’s poorly translated, but even then (in my opinion) that still doesn’t take away the *very specific* “Only” statements that show up *three times in a row*, that has to account for something, right?
So, from that, my question is: *Why does Ralsei NOT want the roaring to happen?*
If we’re the heroes like he says we are, and he says that this is “a journey foretold *exactly* by the prophecy” and we (but mainly us and Kris) are the only ones who can fix it once it starts, then what’s the problem? We’re the heroes, and we have the ability to stop it, and the prophecy dictates a hopeful outcome that the world will be saved and balance will be restored, so why be so afraid of it?
Seam even says: “*One day soon… You too, will begin to realize the futility of your actions. At that time, feel free to come back here. I’ll make you tea… and we can toast… to the end of the world!*”
Like, I get that he doesn’t want the world to end, I don’t think anyone really does (like when queen found out), but he’s acting like we won’t be able to save the world from it once it does happen, when that’s *basically our job?* It’s all three of us against the end of the world, and yet he never seems to include himself in any of it, like for example not showing up with Kris and Susie to close the fountains, and the *only* time we’ve seen him in front of a fountain with us, was in the background of the chapter one save slots, *and* he’s in his chapter one outfit.
The prophecy states that the heroes are supposed close the fountains (and any lightner can open one, according to queen) which makes me think that *all* of the fountains would need to be closed in order for balance to be restored, which includes Ralsei’s fountain, the second dark fountain that we usually end up going to (card kingdom, cyber world, etc.) and the third fountain that we always stop from happening. So *why* is Ralsei wanting us to help make *his* dark world essentially a *heaven* (👀) for us, even down to naming the town after us, if we’re supposed to end up closing it at the end anyway?
He wants us to be happy, he believes that is his purpose to assist us and make us happy. “Queen! Think of the Lightners! Aren’t we supposed to make them happy?” “Our purpose- Darkners’ purpose- is to assist them. It’s the only way we can feel truly fulfilled.”
So how far is he willing to go to be able to do that? Like, what if us stopping the roaring *for good* means that we would have to sacrifice ourselves in order to do it? And, if gaster *did* end up talking to him at some point, I think he gave him the information or the power to help prevent us from dying, while also making sure the player has as much fun as possible by skirting the line of making sure the roaring never happens. Like, what with Kris having us in their body and how were the only ones who can close it, if he can get us to keep closing fountains perpetually while making sure we’re satisfied, why *would* you want the roaring to happen when you’ve got everything you need right *here* in your *very own* castle town?
Idk, I’m getting vibes of in the end of the Undertale pacifist route, where Toriel lays in to Asgore by saying that he could’ve free’d everyone from the underground from the jump by using the one soul to leave the underground, getting the other six, then open the barrier from there, instead of making everyone suffer underground needlessly.
One last soup brain point:
When Ralsei says- “But Kris, I believe YOUR choices are important, too.”
No??? Literally, at *BEST*, Kris only gets about a 50% chance of having their *preferred* dialogue option *chosen by us*, and EVEN *THEN!!* THATS TECHNICALLY A 0% CHANCE, BECAUSE THEY CAN’T ACTUALLY CHOOSE *SHIT* WHEN WE’RE THE ONES CHOOSING *FOR* THEM.
Anywho, batshit insane ramblings aside, i love your video.😭
19:00 My God, it was so obvious. RALSEI'S TRYING TO ACHIEVE HEAVEN
I never thought id see an Evo SMP reference here of all places but here we are
Im really enjoying the videos, btw!
I think perhaps the simplest answer is the way we have to examine ralsei. He too just seems like one facet of the general theme of how characters deal with the knowledge they have of their worlds metaphysics. How or why he came into contact with gaster perhaps doesnt really matter at all why he has the knowledge. All we know is that he does and his character becomes a lot clearer (to me at least) of course if you knew about the nature of the world plus the prophecy goud try to get the core actor to do things that prevent destruction while Jevil finds freedom and Psamtom desperately trues to claim it perhaps ralsei has come to a point of being content with having none and isntead tries to influence the core acting person (not Kris, the player) through acting out his "role" perfectly and being lovable
thoroughly enjoyable essay and i really like the conclusion you came to. it's very interesting to think about what ralsei being a character who is a character who sort of knows that he's a character (to either one or two degrees) could mean for the larger themes of the game. i personally have this belief that toby fox attempts to speak to the player through his game and the fact that the player is engaging with his game, i'd love to see what he'd do with a character in such a unique narrative position.
hope you enjoy your break!
Ralsei wants to be our (the player) friend.
Kinda like a certain other game where a self-aware character wanted to have a relationship with the player.
(Ahem 😅 Doki Doki Lit Club)
I still think connection wise, Suzie it the Undyne and Ralsie the Sans in the overall plan for this story. To break free of the 'paradise' of the game they are the big bosses
I haven't been here a while but that just means I can binge now
hey massive nerd here, at 16:49 the heart is likely using its property from overworld bullets to make the ralsei animation happen because it was already programmed, i feel its more likely that ralsei is blushing because they are basically touching kris. good video btw
Kris's sprite already needs collision in order to not walk through walls, though - I don't see any reason why it would be easier to code Ralsei as a bullet for this purpose versus just having a bit of collision that doesn't block the player. Especially because all the bullets we've seen so far are 2D, not 3D like the Ralsei collision is.
@@PhysicsGamer I was just speculating, it could be easier but toby does things in a unique way when it comes to coding so I wouldnt rule it out
11:59 EVO REFERENCE OMG 🙀🙀🙀
This was a very interesting video! Thank you for making it, gave me a lot of food for thought
After the ending of Chapter 2, the question of who or what Ralsei is kind of became a little bit clearer to me. Go with me on this, what if Kris made Ralsei in the absence of Asriel? Think about it, most of the time Ralsei mainly interacts with Kris in the dark world plus there is no physical item that could represent him in the Light World (ie Lancer and Roulx being playing cards in your inventory). That could be how Ralsei followed Kris and Susie to the other Dark World and how he knows that Kris and Susie are the heroes of the story.
I think ralsei is just Atatürk in the light world
Oh man today's a good day when I saw the notification for your video+
What if Ralsei it’s a darkner that absorbed an lightner soul
11:56 no. NO WAY. NO WAY DID YOU JUST REFERENCE MY LATEST FANDOM WHAT HOW. AND HOMESTUCK??? have you been SYPING ON ME???/pos
I think one reason Ralsei is contentious is because his arc hasn't started yet, so all we know about him are the assumptions that are going to be challenged (but haven't yet). Everything in this video aligns with my own interpretations, but my big takeaway is that his self image is _extremely_ precarious and it won't take much for it to come crashing down.
If nothing else, Asriel is coming home from college, and there's no way the two of them aren't going to come into contact. I can't even imagine what that's going to look like, except that it's almost certainly going to be very upsetting.
(One prediction I'm etching in stone is that the fluffy boy is going to completely get his ass kicked. It could be by the big bad, or by the Fun Gang, or by himself (or maybe even all of them!), and the ass kicking could be physical or it could be emotional (or both!), but fate absolutely has it out for this kid. Like, Noelle obviously has some major hardship coming, but I don't think anyone in this story is going to get trashed as hard as Ralsei will.)
Great vid. Could you turn up the volume for later vids? It's a little quiet and hard to hear, even on max volume :)
Annoyingly if I turned it up much more in my program there was feedback from my microphone I couldn't figure out how to get rid of :((
@@Vivat_Veritas You may want to look into mixing/EQ after the recording is done.
Im a simple man
I hear PMD2, i like and comment for engagement
Soul overlapping blush part could be a result of programming, where the game always uses the soul hitbox for kris's detection. It saves them from having 2 hitboxes they turn on/off(with troubles that might entail if you want to have detection with both bullets and events)(though you can get around that by masking depending on your engine, its still unnecessary work here)
I lovw how u used the tool from petscop as an example
Thanks! One day I'll make a Petscop video... hopefully...
this video mimics a lot of my own views about ralsei! one thing i want to comment on specifically is ralsei's belief that darkners are bound to assist lightners and only obtain fulfillment from doing so.
this is just. not true! darkners of all shapes and sizes find fulfillment from all sorts of things. they make genuine connections with each other, have real interests, hopes, dreams, personal struggles. all of them except ralsei. ralsei has nothing else in his life but his purpose as a tool of the narrative and a servant to lightners, and he believes (at least initially) that this is all he needs. and it is SUPER not working. if the nature of darkners was as ralsei claimed it was, he would see no need for the introspection he displays in the acid tunnel. his lack of identity is caused by the fact that he sees himself as a non-person, a lesser being bound to be used by others. the fact he questions his personhood at all is proof that he isn't just a servant creature, he's a person. further proof is found in the unused guide, where it's implied ralsei talks to himself. if he weren't a person, he wouldn't desire that level of connection, and he wouldnt feel compelled to have conversations with himself. he also wouldn't feel such a strong desire for affection, either. the need to be loved and appreciated is something very people-like to feel, and its something ralsei is so desperate for that he's willing to accept it from anyone for any reason in any form.
furthermore, i imagine that this belief that he has no identity beyond his "purpose" is the cause of, and "solution" to, many other problems he displays. ralsei has lived (presumably) his entire life alone in an empty castle. being a person, this would of course be horrible. so, ralsei leans into the prophecy and darkner inferiority and his "purpose" as the "cure" for this. he's only unhappy because the lightners aren't here, and he'll be fine when they do. this is likely part of his toxic positivity. his purpose is to be good and nice and helpful, feeling despair or resentment or fear would hinder that, so he suppresses it. what's more, acknowledging these feelings makes them real. ralsei ignores and moves on quickly from bad things because by pretending everything is fine, maybe they will be. and ralsei DOES have a lot of pent up emotion. clicking on vaguely "bad" ads by accident has him freaking out saying he's sorry and he "repents." any form of failure fills him with immense guilt, which he then immediately pushes back down again. his darkner inferiority also causes him to not pursue any personal growth. he believes it wouldnt do him any good, since only assisting lightners and being a narrative slave will fulfill him, so he continues to not do anything to better his life, which leads to him continuing to not feel fulfilled. its a vicious cycle. he doesn't know who he is because he never attempts to find who he is, because he believes he's no one, and wouldn't find anything, and he copes with the emptiness this brings by pretending he's fine. he continues to believe in this darkner inferiority despite evidence to the contrary because acknowledging that something is wrong would make all the pain he's gone through real, being alone, hating himself, feeling empty and lacking in meaning, and that would be too much for him.
a side note, ralsei can both believe in predestiny, and believe that kris's choices are important. think about that scene from homestuck where aranea tells terezi about how not having free will is fine and good actually. he believes that the choice kris ends up making is the choice they were "supposed to make" to create a good outcome. this is something many people believe, that every choice being part of a grand plan is why life has meaning. his stance is basically "your choices matter because of the grand design, so you should only make the 'correct' choices" choices matter, no free will.
These are all extremely good observations. How quickly Ralsei just sorta... gives up and goes with whatever Kris and Susie say is a bit concerning, taken as a whole. In Snowgrave while Susie is in Noelle's room without Kris or Ralsei, Kris's refusal to answer Ralsei clearly causes him to start freaking out a bit. Especially after the timeskip where he... fell asleep somehow? Despite Kris still standing exactly the same as he was.
What's also interesting is that we have evidence of Asriel engaging in at least some of the same behaviors as you describe Ralsei having. The thing with Yoshi and Asriel's insistence on "confessing" to Alvin despite that not being a thing in their religion, for instance.
I am really, really looking forward to when we finally get to see and interact with Asriel. Because there is a _lot_ of baggage there waiting to be unpacked. Just from the surface we've scratched so far, he was clearly very close with December - she used the sleeves of his jacket to dry Noelle's tears at one point, which rather implies December was wearing Asriel's jacket. I think the more we learn about Asriel the more interesting a character Ralsei will wind up becoming.
What do you think about the theory that Ralsei is aware of "YOU" (the player Heart) and is approaching YOU in a roundabout way playing dumb because they're trying to protect Kris from YOU?
using this research study onto the natural of Ralsei, can you deduce which chapter he'll say "doobie"?
16:22 after countless playthroughs I just cant bring myself to pick all the affectionate options since it genuinely really disturbs me a little bit that Kris is being forced to lmaoooooooo
A personal headcanon of mine is that Ralsei is kinda like Kris’ OC, Ralsei is what Kris always wanted to be just a sweet, adorable, and fluffy little buddy for everyone to love and care for. If the theory of Ralsei being Kris’ old headband is true then it could be that Kris influenced Ralsei as a person to be who he wanted to be. I also see this being the reason Ralsei doesn’t really know how to be ‘himself’ because he never really had a ‘himself’ to begin with since Kris never really elaborated on this persona he had and just crafted them in his mind
@hyperdreamer9483
that makes people shipping ralsei with kris really weird, though not as bad making ralsei x kris both incest and necrophilia.
Holy shit, it was about time someone re-examined Ralsei with fresh eyes instead of cementing a load of fanon.
16:46
Ralsie is basically becoming Monika from Ddlc, dude...
I prefer to like to think that Ralsei doesn't know who Gaster is because Gaster is kind of like a Shrodinger's Cat situation. He randomly, every single time your screen transitions, every single time the fun value is changed, he randomly either doesn't exist or does exist. But if this is the case, how does that explain the phone and Gaster's relationship with the secret bosses? I think that Gaster is forced to play the longest game of Telephone in order to contact Jevil, who is the last person in the line, with Spamton being the next one, and Mike being the next one. He can randomly talk to Spamton himself, but it is never for certain that the same Gaster can call Spamton. Sometimes, it is the good Gaster that calls him. Sometimes, it's the evil Gaster that calls him. Other times, it's a bit in between, or a different Gaster, a more feminine or gender-neutral Gaster calls Spamton. Random Gasters call every one of them, telling them all sorts of things but usually boiling down to begging for help to get out of the existence that they've put themselves into.
So, where does this Ralsei? Maybe Ralsei does sometimes know Gaster in some gameplays. Maybe he doesn't. I think that Asriel and/or Kris affected Ralsei the most out of everyone else, though I don't know which or if both did. Anyway, I just think that Ralsei is like Del Torro's Pinocchio or like... whatever that Girl's name was from Amphibia, that isn't Anne or the blond one. I just think Ralsei genuinely doesn't understand the world around him.
22:36
If anyone is curious the wingdings here says "HAHA FUNNY PUPPET GO BRRRR"
At the absolute worst Ralsai might be MISGUIDED…. for example someone else who IS evil could see how naïve & pull the wool over his (Ralsai’s) eyes and trick him…. If you want another example of another character in a similar situation, look at Bianca in Spyro 3 : Year of the Dragon, though the PS1 version shows that more clearly than the Reignited Trilogy version in a few key points so study BOTH and pay close attention to how things are said AND word choice
Given how much Ralsei clearly cares about the Player more than nearly anything else, and us the player being canonically the equivalent of a outer god/eldritch abomination, it makes Ralsei officially a cultist.
lol i literally JUST subscribed, and a video comes out a day after!
I fully and wholeheartedly agree that at the end of the day Ralsei is not evil! And on the topic of him being a character "within a game within a game" its funny because i never saw him like that until a few days ago when i was pondering deltarune stuff as one does, and i realized how "video gamey" he is, and now whenever i think about what he does it feels VERY video gamey and i dont know how i missed it 😭😭
Also 11:58 Evo/trafficlifesmp reference?????
Beautiful character analysis!
My best bet for gaster as a puppet master is that he is supposed to be our direct opponent in his “experiment” called deltarune. Not “our” as in the characters, but rather us the players.
If deltarune really is a game of chess, then we’re on one side of the board with our pawn Kris (given to us by gaster) and he’s on the other end playing the game with us
As such this kind of explains the ethereal position of gaster. We’re on one “side” of the game controlling it from the outside world. We’re connected to it, but not in it. Gaster is also connected to the world of deltarune, but he isn’t “in” it. He’s in the program, in the computer, but he’s not actually in deltarune. Which may explain why his presence (specifically verbal presence) doesn’t really exist within the game itself
wait in 12:07 is that a reference to evolution smp/ life series or am I hallucinating???
Hell yeah!
@@Vivat_Veritas that´s so cool I didn´t know you were in that fandom
32:55 Ralsei secret boss confirmed
Is that the great ace attorney music im hearing? (Peak)
this is what the refrance
so the player is to kris as kris is to ralsei? this video is awesome my brain hurts
Maybe the reason why grand fountain is made of pure darkness, and also why ralsei is made from it, is because unlike other fountains it wasn't made by a lightener but something more powerful, or maybe by an extraordinary powerful darkener, or is even what happens if a darkener absorbs a lightener's soul they become a fountain of pure darkness, and possibly it was ralsei who did, it could have turn him into the best version of himself, and possibly the same for other darkener's, so maybe some asriel and chara stuff happened since he looks kinda like asriel.
That bottom-right eye at 12:02 though
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
i was so focused on the Watcher symbol i didn't even notice where that eye was positioned 😭
th
the watcher logo
👁
i totally agree with all the points you made, but the last one especially makes a little too much sense. i can’t tell if i hope you’re right or if i want ralsei to be happy /j
I hope you do that birdly analysis at some point
My only real guess for Ralsei with our limited info at the moment is that he’s going to reflect Ariel in some way in undertale.
His thing was that he wanted the player to never leave. To prevent us from winning at all costs. Furthermore the pre-flowery ralsei was selfless in that he allowed himself to die in order to spare the humans who were killing him. So Ralseis themes seem very likely to reflect this somehow
Susie: Your choices don't matter.
Kris: aww, you're sweet.
Ralsei: your choices matter, Kris.
Kris: Hello, human resources??
This is going to be such an outlandish claim but I don't like Ralsei. I never have. I don't dislike him, but I don't like him either. He makes me uncomfortable.
Love watching these videos, they can be so insightful! Interesting analysis, thank you
I mostly liked this video, but you started saying that Ralsei is fictional to the lightners - but they clearly don't think of him that way. Maybe Noelle and Berdly do, but Susie clearly rejects the twisted dichotomy between lightners and darkners where darkners are supposedly made to serve, and I find it hard to believe Kris doesn't feel the same. On a structural level, the dark worlds are fiction, but from the perspective of our main characters (except noelle) they're not. That'd be messed up.