Everything About the NARRATOR in Deltarune Chapters 1-2
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- In which I consolidate and analyze approximately one (1) thousand lines of Deltarune's narration in a Sisyphean quest to determine whether it's all secretly coming from Gaster, or something, and (in a strictly ideal scenario) construct the canonical sequel to Narrachara theory.
Patreon: / andrewcunningham
Discord: / discord
Credit to Novaphyer's uncommentated playthrough for most Undertale footage in the video:
• Undertale (Pacifist Ru...
The Determinators' CHARActer Analysis (my beloved): determinators.tumblr.com/post...
My rough annotated transcription of Deltarune's narration:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
FULL SOURCES LIST:
docs.google.com/document/d/1H...
SOUNDTRACK:
Crushing existential silence - 0:00
Final Duel (Inscryption OST) - 0:06
Onett (Earthbound OST) - 0:56
Megalith Agnus Dei (Ace Combat 4 OST) - 1:46
The Heart of the Desert (OMORI OST) - 4:19
sans (Undertale OST) - 5:46
Smart Race (Deltarune OST) - 6:14
First Steps (Celeste OST) - 7:12
Jazzy Boys (Everhood OST) - 7:21
Checker Dance (Deltarune OST) - 8:06
Lancer (Deltarune OST) - 9:21
Deal Gone Wrong (Deltarune OST) - 10:03
Joker's Wild (Homestuck Vol. 1-4) - 10:46
At The Race Tracks (Everhood OST) - 11:25
Subterranean Homesick Malign (BoI: Antibirth OST) - 12:15
Marble Forest (BoI: Antirbirth OST) - 13:22
Your Best Nightmare (Undertale OST) - 15:54
Snowy (Undertale OST) - 16:02
Another Him (Deltarune OST) - 16:42
NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A (Deltarune OST) - 17:21
It's Raining Somewhere Else (Undertale OST) - 17:46
Feisty Flowers (Everhood OST) - 18:21
UNDERTALE THE MUSICAL (LHUGUENY) - 19:36
(Feisty Flowers again) - 19:37
Flower Shop (Everhood OST) - 19:50
Dancing Mad Symphonic Arrangement (FFVI OST / Sangnoksu) 21:46
The Prophecy (OneShot OST) - 22:21
The River (Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye OST) - 23:45
Undertale (Undertale OST) - 25:55
Euthanasia Rollercoaster (Everhood OST) - 27:52 - Hry
"What he lacks in concrete lore, he makes up for with his lack of concrete lore"
Never before have I heard such an effective and concise description of Gaster
unrelated but in the section of the video with the sans song they hid “hornet is void” between the brackets and that is UNACCEPTABLE.
A character that is hinted at so much in so many ways and with so many connections, yet we still don't have a clear-cut image of the guy. All we can tell is that he is VERY important. He was the Royal Scientist who made the CORE, who did some kind of experiment that shattered him across time and space. That's all we know CONCRETELY, but there's faaaar more to him than just that, even if we don't know how exactly it all fits, yet.
He's somehow connected to the Goners and Sans. ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN and Sans's bedroom more than heavily suggest Dark World shenanigans far before Deltarune's release. The archived images/pages of the official Deltarune site predating the game by years directly call back to both the ENTRY (with a direct quote) and part of the plot of Deltarune, all in Wingdings. The garbage noise on the phone and the Shelter, which was also on Spamton's phone. 'Darker yet darker' getting multiple references, particularly with Jevil. The typer value of both E#17 and the GONER Maker voice being the same, 666. 6 seems to be Gaster's numeric motif, as it's also in his unused stats, his index number, the percentage of speed decrease for Snd_Smile within the Shelter, Snd_Smile itself being 6 seconds long, there are 6 Goners, 6 letters in Gaster's name, etc. However, the most interesting is that the Mystery Man room only appears with a fun value of 66. Coupled with Mystery Man looking like a distorted skeleton with white pupils like Sans, using Snd_MysteryGo when disappearing like the Goners do, as well as the whole thing being very much like the Man Rooms in Deltarune, he is most likely Gaster.
I can go on even longer, but I feel like I've already worn out my welcome.
@@ivythay4259 I don’t remember how gaster is connected to entry 17 actually…
@@TheYeetedMeat the music in it is a sort of messed up gaster theme i forgor what you do with it
@@TheYeetedMeat The room in the files for ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN is literally titled 'Room_Gaster'. Furthermore, the typer value (the value that dictates how text is displayed, with the font, speed, movement, sound, etc) is 666, with '6' being Gaster's numeric motif.
wait a second did I just watch a half an hour video explaining that toby fox wrote the narrations for deltarune
Consider it a Hero's Journey.
@@andrew_cunningham I love you.
It's about the journey, not the destination.
Nnnnnoooooo. You just watched a half-an-hour video explaining that Toby Fox *is the narrator* for Deltarune.
Worth it
Toby Fox being the narrator is just as meta as Muffet literally being paid to be in the game.
174 likes and 0 comments? I can fix that!
@@axi9368this is more worthless than 0 replies
wait holy shit
@@DoodleZoo your life is more worthless than the comment
Omfg
Narrator: “there’s a man here, that’s all your getting”
Also the narrator: “heres random villager number 569s inner thoughts and motivations, unprompted with no context”
The narrator is clearly gatekeeping what they want us to know, it’s extremely intriguing on its own without anything else!
Yeah that's just good narration. However, that completely justifies your point.
@@gregoryford2532Yeah but a lot of times the details are irrelevant and not pertinent at all to the story lmao
Narrator: ooooooh what is that? (Knows)
Gatekeep, girlboss, gaslight. Ah classic
@@vascosanchezonce again, that's just good narration hahaha
The initial position of knights on a chess board are on the "B" and "G" files. Can you think of someone whose initials are B and G?
That's right, it's BurGerpants. He's the narrator.
Berson Goom
@@indorfan wait a fucking second
@@aaronking2020 it’s kinda obvious
BGSans
Barack G. Obama
The narrator is clearly Professor Oak from the Pokemon Franchise as he would be the only person qualified/likely to know all the check dialouge for the different pokedarkners.
He can also definitely overrule the player’s actions, have you ever tried to ride a bike indoors.
Ik this is a joke but you could actually make a case for the narrator being a character in the Mystery Dungeon games.
Like Gardevoir for the first game for example
This implies Professor Oak played Undertale
So thats why we never use a bike indors!
@@CoolPlayersVic oh no i hear the theories now
this is like when you’re scrutinising an alibi in ace attorney except the alibi is thousands of lines long and you don’t even know if anything is suspicious in it or if you’re just wasting your time
So essentially, practicing law irl
As an ace attorney fan, this is true
This is legit
We need someone who speaks Japanese to check for equivalent dialogue in that release. The Japanese localization was very deliberate, supervised by Toby himself, so if there's any actual patterns they would translate over.
Halfbreadchaos makes a lot of videos comparing the Japanese release. I’m not sure that they’ve covered the narrorator theory, but they have studied charas speach patters against the deltarune narrorators.
ive been learning japanese for several years now but im not really at the point where im confident in looking over the whole game accurately. maybe one day ill try to play the games in japanese and make like a google doc or something to document any comparisons i can find between the dialog. would make for good japanese practice too now that im thinking about it... 🤔 definitely gonna take me a long time to get through if i ever get around to it tho
in a charanarrator post i saw in tumblr, jp chara refers to you as "omae", and coughGastercough in jp deltarune refers to you as "anata". interestingly enough, the person who supposedly interrupted this speech uses "omae" in the jp version. hmmmmmm
@@alt7837 anata is a polite way to say "you" in japanese while omae is more informal. its used between friends and people you're familiar with or as an insult if you're not close with someone. honestly imo there's too many ways to interpret it to base any solid theories on and i seriously doubt we're gonna see chara in deltarune
but i have been wondering recently if the person that speaks to us at that moment is actually kris? wouldnt be surprising if kris and chara had similar speaking mannerisms considering their other similarities. this might be an example of kris fighting back against being just a mindless vessel
@@gristen well, we dont know how kris refers to themselves in the jp version at least, so it really is up to interpretation. i also doubt chara is in deltarune, since they already got a LOT of characterization as a hidden narrator character, if you believe in that theory. its still fun though!!
The fact that the narrator has "not much to say" about the cactus initially made me think Deltarune's narrator would be blander and more matter-of-factly than Undertale's. But "Throne of the Gods" clearly debunks that.
i do think it might have been intentionally trying to contradict with the narra chara theory tho, as the theory is well known enough now that toby has certainly heard of it and should know that line is considered part of it. i think considering the lack of evidance to the contrary its reasonable to take that line as a sign that no the narrator is actually just toby this time, theres nothing to read into.
@@gristen charator
@@jackwastakenx2 Charator sounds like an obscure dinosaur.
And the moss in ch2
that line was just deliberately contradicting undertale's one. everybody knows what undertale has to say about the cactus, so *not* saying it is honestly a funnier reference
I think Chara should be included in the "capable of having their narration overridden" part of the chart. It's labeled as "Becomes Spamton" but there's a part during Undertale where Chara allows Papyrus to give battle narration. It's a small case but shows that Chara is capable of being overridden in their narration, or at least allow themselves to be
When does Chara allow Paps to narrate?
@@Thechaosmaster1997 On one of the sentry stations, and in the house before the "date".
@@vogonp4287 Oh, I always saw it as Chara imitating Paps at this moment.
It’s tiring to be a narrator, I don’t blame Chara.
I thought that was the note...
This is gonna look so stupid when Toby introduces "John Narrator" in chapter 7 who's been narrating both games the entire time
I feel like analysis of the completely randomly placed brackets is exactly the reason Toby made them so inconsistent
All four examples at 18:00 jump out as important to me, not as examples of Kris secretly always being the narrator or something, but as Kris using some amount of their own free will in spite of the player’s actions. All of these forced changes are doing what Kris wants: keeping Toriel from seeing them being weird, refusing to enter the room they just presumably hid their annoying nerd friend’s body in, avoiding being reminded of any possible bad things their dad has done, and washing their hands in the bathroom in order to remove the soul. You could even lump in things like Kris choosing to close their eyes when entering Asriel’s room in Queen’s palace even though the player chose to look inside as an example of this. The one that’s a bit more difficult to reconcile for me with this is refusing to reenter the computer lab after cleaning up during a non-snowgrave run, which could be explained away but this is just speculation and doesn’t need every line in agreement to work. (and honestly the real reason is probably partially toby not making a separate room with everything in it cleaned up)
The reason I find these interesting is that they, to me, show Kris beginning to take back some amount of control of themself from the player, and my pet theory/hope for future chapters is that this trend will continue and Kris will begin to actively fight the player for control because that would be, frankly, sick as hell.
It's much more reasonable to interpret those interactions as a non-diegetic narrator reporting on Kris's diegetic influence, yes.
That idea of Kris slowly gaining back control of themself and fighting you, the player, who forced him to do some really messed up stuff, is a really [BIG SHOT] idea. I love it! (Now what would Kris' boss theme be?)
@@ARandomSpace in all honesty? In something like the Weird Route? Either complete silence or some sound like the ocean, wind or just a beat like the Weird Berdly fight
Was thinking this too during that part, just as much as Kris can just enact silly stuff like licking stuff for no reason, he can also twist his actions to maybe have some influence
@@ARandomSpace Kris’ boss theme is the Gaster theme played quietly at 666% speed while all the voice text in the full game (“CHAOS, CHAOS”, “Now’s your chance to be a bigshot”, etc) are jumbled into threatening messages from Kris, a la bumblebee from transformers
Yep. As much as this video essay was needed, I can't say I didn't expect that conclusion. Anything we assume to be a real plot point must be consistent at the very least most of the time - it must show real intent on behalf of the writer.
If it's messy and inconsistent, then making it a real plot point would create gigantic plot holes and blur the plot as a whole, or even outright render it meaningless, depending on the importance of the assumed plot point.
It all just felt very familiar to me - I've done some research of my own into the meaning of the soul icon during the battle menus, including how the characters see it, the famous moment where Kris's (our?) soul makes its way into the box for Susie's fight, and several more quirks like that.
My conclusion was pretty much the same as the one you presented here - it is a godforsaken, terrifyingly inconsistent mess with no rhyme or reason to it whatsoever, and trying to explain it in any way other than pure game mechanics was met with walls of counterpoints heavily outsizing the tiny bits of evidence in favour of it.
I feel like some of us are just too sold on the idea that Toby is some sort of a demigod walking among mere mortal fools, writing a story that deconstructs anything and everything perfectly.
The truth is that Toby is still a human, he just happens to have good ideas and a legendary sense of humour. Not every single thing in his stories has to be a mile-deep rabbit hole - sometimes the simplest explanation may indeed be the right one. Sometimes...
Wow, it isn’t until this vid and this comment that I realized how inconsistent it all is. I kinda do hope there is something cuz the narration remains weird as hell generally with its use of a 2nd person perspective. But whatever it would end up being would have to explain the inconsistencies, which might be interesting, but could easily fall flat.
I def gotta temper my expectations a bit
This is long comment
@@Galaxy-dw8lg read it then
yeah ive been trying to make sense of the narrator in deltarune for ages and also came to the same conclusions. theres absolutely no discernable pattern with the only real things of note being the mirror in kris's house and that last bit of snowgrave, both of which are made explicitly obvious but say nothing conclusive about any hypothetical narrator.
i guess one last question i have to ask here before abandoning this theory all together is if the branching dialog options we're given actually mean anything. do they reflect kris's actual thoughts in anyway? or are the options given solely to us the player? im honestly not sure either way except that its unlikely that *all* the options are what kris actually feels because kris makes it clear a number of times when we choose something they dont like. the fact there are options that they *do* like tho make we wonder if kris has some influence over those options, but i could just be reading way too far into game mechanics that are-in fact-just game mechanics.
@@gristen well, if the narrator in undertale can perfectly be chara, then this game can have its own narrator too
19:27 "What he lacks in concrete lore he make up for with his lack of concrete lore"
Gaster theories in a nutshell.
“Have you ever seen the protagonist and the narrator NOT in the same room?”
Me:
Oh, you mean in the Susie and Noelle Ferris wheel scene, Susie fighting Lancer scene, or the Noelle choking Berdly scene?
Him: “I think NOT”
We saw it, but was there actually any narration in those scenes?
@@MB-hc9we oh yea
@@MB-hc9we during the Lancer fight, yes, unless you count the soul being present as Kris being Present
@@TheDuckyDino the susie vs. lancer fight? I rewatched it and didn't see any narration
@@MB-hc9we could’ve sworn there was text saying something like “Lancer shivers weakly” but I guess not
My second biggest takeaway is that the brackets are still weird as fuck, Toby being a great writer but using brackets with no rhyme nor reason is very strange. Not saying this in defense of some narrator theory, after watching the video I do actually agree with Toby being the narrator due to the contradictions with other theories and the way the narrator acts with chosen omnipotence to maximize our interest in the game.
It could be like how Araki uses quotes in his manga a lot.
@@syanidal2890 That's just a thing where apparently in Japan, quotation marks are used for emphasis in the same way as bold is used in comic books over here.
I think the reason is that there's supposed to always be brackets for narration but Toby just forgets to put them in sometimes.
@@misirtere9836 ah yeah I heard that, but then I also heard that it’s just an Araki thing lol. Thanks for the info though.
tbh, I usdd to think that the brackets were used to present an action or event that doesn't have any speech.
@22:37-.-I think you hit on a really important point about theorizing in general. Most people tend to develop theories by noticing odd detail(s) that could have interesting applications (optional), come up with explanations for said detail(s), and then seeing if anything else supports that theory. People rarely think of what could possibly disprove a theory, and tend to only look for proof. This is why coma/dream theories are so prevalent, because in a right till proven wrong mindset the unfalsifiable are the most powerful. And unless the coma/dream theory is very specific, it’s pretty hard to come up with things that could disprove it.
I think disproving every option is easy. Constructing something that has no contradictions is hard.
I'd say it's a matter of tone/reasoning. Some theories are trying to make accurate predictions or assessments about a world and its characters, and some are just supposed to be an interesting perspective to think about, more for fun than accuracy. While Andrew Cunningham is a good example of the first type, I'd say a good example of the second type would be HalfBreadChaos, who, at the beginning of *every* video, makes it clear that they're not aiming for accuracy, but speculation. While I think the first way is more important, I think both are necessary for open discussion.
At the end of the genocide run, Chara specifically talks about ‘leaving this world and moving onto the next’ so them jumping from Undertale to deltarune isn’t really a point against them. That being said, I’m not convinced it’s Chara.
I always thought "move onto the next" was more like... telling the player to move on to a different game or something.
@Stagelight Yes buy I believe the implication is that Chara would follow you to whatever ‘world’ (game) you play next. The player has become a carrier that spreads Chara from universe to universe through the games they play. After all, Chara does say “let US erase this pointless world, AND move onto the next” why phrase it that way if they aren’t coming with you? At the very least they intend to meet up with you in the next world and if the next world isn’t Deltrune, where would it be?
@@LunaDeaminac nice argument, unfortunately i stopped playing after achieving true pacifist for my first playthrough :^)
@@Smorble yeah I’ve never done the geno run either, I only know that from let’s plays and reading the wiki. I’ve never been able to bring myself to kill Papyrus.
@@LunaDeaminac same, he's just My Man, ykno
I'd probably quit if I got to Sans tbh lol
I think the “Kris vs you” is a game design thing. Since it seems like “Kris” is only brought up during stuff like battles and party equipping, it clears confusion and allows the player to know that Kris specifically preformed, and not you preformed while controlling another character.
And it's definitely being subverted like in the snowgrave spamton neo battle, which is the most explicit and story relevant separation of "kris" and "you"
@realbubbles129 The thing with that one instance is... why is that part so special? Like... why would it suddenly change with no warning?
Also, like... I didn't whisper Noelle's name. My mouth was shut that whole fight lmao. If the "you" there really is meant to refer to someone other than Kris, I don't think it's meant to be us, the Player. Same with Noelle "still hearing [our] voice" when Kris goes down in the Berdly fight.
@@whomdunit2457 i think you're thinking too much about it. essentially it's you who makes the choice. it's been you all along, obviously. but this time, the game's saying "you can't blame this on kris, YOU did this"
@retriwa5640 idk, the game clearly WANTS you to think about this sort of stuff, so "thinking too much" isn't solely the player's fault here. This sort of wordplay should've been more consistent, if that's what Toby was going for.
@@whomdunit2457 It wants you to think about this stuff. It doesn't want you to analyse every single line with the same context. It's perfectly reasonable for it to only draw explicit attention to it in one scene
Eyyy! Great stuff as always man! The shoutout was very kind. I really gotta praise your editing! As a slide-show enthusiast masquerading as a video editor, I couldn't even begin to imagine editing together something like this! Great work! Also completely agree on your conclusion. Can't wait for the next video!
you are a fucking legend sir
I love your theory's, nice to see you in the comments section! /Lh
Clearly the narrator is Nubert. This is not a joke, at all. The color red is owned by Nubert, and every single instance that is used in something non-nubert related is just him being merciful. But he wouldn't just let another character use his color on texts, therefore must be him. End of my theory
Jokes aside, I'm really interested in this R.A.M project. Best of luck on it. And as a side note, would love a video about "How Undertale vs. OneShot Trap You in Fiction", but that is just me
I would kill for any OneShot content from this guy so im on board
This is a really minor detail, but I think the narrator being able to stop the player from doing certain things is not necessarily counter evidence for Kris being the narrator. We already know that Kris has the ability to take the player out of their body, so clearly they have some control over the situation. Also when Kris is guided by the player to invade their brother’s privacy in the Cyber World, they actively resist by covering their eyes. This shows they have some measure of ability to act against the player. We also know from the TV plugging thing you mentioned and simply how Kris acts when they remove the player that Kris seems to have some kind of deliberate plan (I can elaborate on this more if needed). Therefore, it makes sense that they’d prevent you from doing things like not using the bathroom sink, since we then see Kris using this to their advantage. All of this is kind of pointless, because I largely believe your case that the narrator is Toby, but I still felt it was an interesting minor oversight to bring up.
oh hello, didn't know someone i watched watched someone else i watched
.
I think in both games enemies are simply able to provide their own check stats. Glyde in UT hides theirs, and several enemies are able to comment on or respond to their own check dialogue as though it was actually heard.
With all the craziness going on in Deltarune about freedom and all, I wouldn't be surprised if the narrator is the rope in a tug of war between all 3 potential candidates.
With how meta deltarune and undertale get, you can even take Chara out of the equation (for Deltarune) and have a separate traditional Narrator character that’s occasionally taken over, persuaded, and blocked by the game’s existing characters.
@@bpsara That sounds funny as shit
Narrator's just trying to do his job and becomes increasingly more and more done between having to narrate lver weird shit or having his narration hijacked by the current secret boss wanting to be quirky
@@bpsara
Now i can't stop imagining the poor narrator being interrupted by Gaster, Krises thoughts, Spamton and perhaps even Toby Himself.
@@davisdf3064 "Okay now back to doing my jo- WHERE THE HECK DID THE DOG COME FROM?! WHO'S DOG IS THIS?!"
First of all - makes me think of Stanley's Parable. However the only conflict narrator has is with us, the player.
Second of all - what if in deltarune there is a narrator conga line? Kris, Chara, Gaster, and others!
Hyped for this. You are probably the most reasonable deltarune theorist I’ve seen on CZcams, though I may be biased by the fact that I happened to already agree with all your ideas on deltarune.
I have not given more than a few minutes of thought on who the narrator could be, so this is going to be new territory for me.
Cannot wait to absorb your conclusion without question and parrot it to others as a fact.
In hindsight my comment seems really sarcastic so to clarify it was all genuine except that last part when it wasn’t.
I gotchu fam
I second the most reasonable Deltarune theorist claim. This guy is a huge breath of fresh air!
Nah, jaru is more reasonable
@@ThiniffExtra I am honestly offended by that.
25:36
I think just recently Toby said he sometimes talks like Spamton didn't he?
It was foreshadowing all along
Rewatching this, I disagree about the “You” distinction not being important. I really believe that the constant use of “You” to refer to actions Kris takes is meant to retroactively make you question their agency after Snowgrave so clearly distinguishes between the two. Every choice and action is one You made, not Kris; even the gross stuff.
It still doesn't really explain the cases where the game just uses Kris's name without contextual significance.
@@felipe_drawmania1604 Just imagine that the narrator is nobody, he just describes the game. So if he's using "You" instead of "Kris" is maybe cause theres specific reason
actually its you who make decisions. yes kris is doing thus, but at least for the choices it is you who makes that decision. sensory feelings are more problematic though
as for usage of kris, during battle, you tell kris what to do. you dont truly do those actions, your role is to avoid attacks, the join party message have similar reasoning
@@sollumi3014What this video doesn't mention for some reason is that Kris in only refered to by name in battle specifically when you're fighting Jevil, everywhere else the narration refers to Kris as "you".
Average pokemon fetishist
Strangely with the spamton cases it feels like spamton is actually stopping the narrator and replacing what they were going to say (similar to spamtons dialogue in brackets)
Example:
When you check spamton NEO (May not be exactly as in game)
*Check
Spamton NEO
YOU WONT FIND HIGHER ATTACK AND DEFENSE ANYWHERE ELSE.
THE SMOOTH TASTE OF NEO, WAKE UP AND TASTE THE PAIN!
But if you check a second time: (couldn't remember his stats so I'll just put (?) ok)
*Check
Spamton NEO
(?) Atk (?) Def
He is his own worst creation.
It really feels like spamton is actively stopping the narrator, he even stops you from finding out his stats.
But the second time we get the actual truth, along with an undertale reference.
(In case you don't remember)
*Check
Mettaton NEO
90 Atk 7 Def
Dr alphys greatest creation!
A similar thing happens during his first fight, with the first price of battle text being spamton speaking, however in that case the narrator only speaks in one or two lines, with spamton taking the rest.
In general while the narrator may not have any importance I think Spamton (and maybe jevil) having the ability to overtake the narrator may be important
Checking Jevil also doesn't tell you his stats, and the way the narrator tells you how "there's no strategy to beat enemy" is pretty out of character as well, so I'd include Jevil in that category.
@@Deltakryzz i love the "there's no strategy to beat this enemy" because it pretty much is: git gud
but yeah it don't sound like something the narrator would say
@@Deltakryzz
Good observation!
"he even stops you from finding out his stats." The narrator does not give stats except for a few exceptions in Chapter 1 (Lancer for example).
@@sheogorath6834
Always get confused on that one because Undertale did, still interesting.
"It is not yet time to wash your hands."
Yeah it's uh... the narrator knows what happens next, which is scary... it's almost as if everything in deltarune has happened before?
YOOOO HALFBREAD GREAT TO SEE YOU I LOVE YOUR STUFF :D
If this is said by a standard omnipotent narrator, then why would Kris trust them with making sure they wash their hands in the bathroom?
There’s enough weird dialogue that makes it so I’m not 100% sure the narrator is just Toby, but not enough concrete evidence for any particular character.
@@satelliteimagerymusic
This was exactly the kinda video on the narrator I wanted to see, as someone who finds the NarraChara thing very compelling and then felt like I got hit with a rake by Deltarune's being all over the place in comparison. Plus it was way funnier than I was expecting so good job.
I think it makes sense to interpret the narrator as something like the inner monologue of the Player (as in, the actual in-universe entity tethered to / manipulating Kris, separate from the human being playing a video game).
Admittedly, part of this is for meta reasons; I find the narra-chara theory too convincing to have been unintentional by Toby; and after pulling off something like that, it’s hard to believe narrator-as-character wouldn’t be on his mind. Also, the Player is, by necessity, a diagetic entity (even if the ultimate in-universe explanation is as lazy and meta as “it is a person playing a video game”), because it can choose to do things we irl meatmen don't want it to, like fall asleep during class or turn yellow. The narration, *literally* diegetic or not, is the closest thing we have to the Player’s perspective.
Anyway, if we assume this is true, and then interpret your Narrator Axioms and their seeming contradictions as intended to inform us about the Player’s nature, I think we learn some interesting things.
• The Player is definitely a mind reader. To a degree, we already knew this; the Snowgrave scene where Noelle thinks about zapping Kris points it out explicitly, by having the Player make Kris respond to Noelle’s thoughts. The narration just tells us this mind-reading ability extends to basically anyone near it.
IMO, this isn't that strange when we consider that the Player can also switch who it commands on a dime (see: any battle with party members, or the scenes where we follow Susie). If the "connection" that allows the Player to issue psychic commands to Kris et al also allows it to read minds, then it can swap whose mind it's reading as easily as it can swap which party member it's telling to Act, ie effortlessly.
This explains all the check info (it's learning about Darkners by searching their minds) and also Spamton (cognitohazard lol).
• The Player is LARPing as Kris.
ie it thinks of Kris the same way a typical video game player thinks about their in-game avatar. The Player knows Kris is technically a separate entity, but ignores this distinction most of the time out of convenience. (Probably obvious, but worth pointing out as a literal trait of the in-universe character, separate from the story's meta commentary.)
This is my best explanation for the "You" vs "Kris" inconsistency. It'll refer to Kris by name when being hosted by someone else (eg when Kris and Ralsei are out of the party and "you" would refer to Susie, or when using items where "you" could be any of the party members), or when Kris acts noticeably separate from it, like in Snowgrave NEO.
• The Player is in general kind of casual and lazy and not trying that hard.
It is not writing intricate lore videos, it's just along for the ride. It isn't reading everyone's minds all the time, because it hasn't thought about it all that hard. It doesn't even think to check if Kris knows who the reindeer-looking monster is.
This might be an advantage Kris knows they have over the Player. If they don't push too hard or too often, they can occasionally muscle the Player into doing what they want, and the Player'll just go along with it without much fuss.
• I would speculate more but this post is getting long and I'm getting bored of writing it.
So freaking happy to see someone else point out the TV being plugged in overnight! That plus the fact that Kris bothers to turn the TV back on before making the fountain at the end of Chapter 2, and the smile that appears in the static, has always felt significant to me.
Aside from that, though, this is just a great and thorough exploration of this topic. And your editing and music choices are top tier as always.
EDIT: for fun, my half-serious theory for who the narrator is: trapped-in-the-"void" dess holiday. she would know the basic stuff about kris's past and their family, and if she's hanging out with gaster or something similar, that could fill in other gaps. plus, it creates a parallel to narrachara - letting a character who's functionally exited the world/narrative still have a say through this role. very little actual evidence for it, but idk, i like it. very up to having it be proven wrong though.
That is a fun theory but similarly to how it doesn't make sense for Kris to call Rudy Holiday a "reindeer-looking monster" (shown in this video at 6:28), it wouldn't make sense for Dess to say that about her own father (unless it's something like her trying to distance herself on purpose).
@@LemonadeCellar True point! My only real counter is that maybe Dess is not giving it away to us on purpose? Like, if she knows we're familiar with UT stuff (hence the bakesale and juxebox references) then she knows that we'll find most of the people in town familiar, but not her family. And she doesn't want to give us that information before we meet him, for the sake of distancing herself from any particular character in hometown, or because she's so committed to the bit as narrator that she doesn't want to ruin the storytelling. But it's still def a stretch.
but why couldn't toriel have plugged the TV in? i don't get that
@@froggie8662 I mean, she could have. But why would she? In both UT and DR, she seems more interested in reading than TV. The TV has been unplugged long enough to go dusty. What would have changed in Toriel’s mind to inspire her to plug it in overnight? And if it *was* just Toriel, why is that a detail Toby would feel was relevant enough to include at all?
It’s not impossible. But if we’re here to theorize, it doesn’t offer much.
Please make sure the preview video is uploaded separately, it's too much of a treasure to lose.
It is, but it's unlisted: czcams.com/video/sWttdKD4_7k/video.html
M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶p̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶ ̶(̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶A̶n̶d̶r̶e̶w̶)̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶/̶u̶p̶v̶o̶t̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶l̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶(̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶A̶n̶d̶r̶e̶w̶)̶.̶
Edit: Ah disregard that then.
it's in the video
You might enjoy Cain's Jawbone. It's a mystery novel in which all the pages are in the wrong order and the task is to first put them in the correct order and then solve the murders. A lot of figuring out the order of the story is figuring who is narrating what and when.
the pacing and comedy of this essay is absolutely top notch (for a terminally online undertale fan). i lost my shit at “what he lacks in concrete lore, he makes up for with his lack of concrete lore” and the dramatic zoom out to toby fox. superb editing 10/10 i will watch this video multiple times in my life.
also bless you for using the everhood soundtrack 🙏🙏🙏
"And yes... If you really wanted to, Toby could LARP as Spamton." Easily the single best line in this video. 10/10
One point: it seems to me as though there actually is a noticeable pattern to when Kris is referred to as Kris, rather than "you," which is displayed perfectly by the first example you used. The narration tends to only use Kris' name when there's something meta going on. It doesn't *always* use Kris' name during meta events, but if Kris' name *is* being used, something weird is usually going on at the time with the Red Soul or the meta narrative. It's "Kris and Ralsei joined the party" because that sequence with Susie is the first real indication we get in the game that there's something weird about the Red Soul and the battle system. It's "Kris" using items because the Red Soul is currently outside of their body, on the battlefield. It's "Kris" who uses the KeyGen to get to the basement. While most of the ACTs in the game use "You," it's "Kris" who ACTs in battle with Jevil, the first meta boss. And, of course, it's "Kris" who ACTs (including with X-Slash!) and calls for help in the Snowgrave Route.
Admittedly, there are a couple holes in this pattern. I believe that it is actually "You" who ACTs in battle with regular-route Spamton, and from a glance over the textdump website I think there may or may not be a regular enemy or two in Chapter 1 that "Kris" ACTs against? But I think it's enough of a visible pattern that we can assume that this is the intention. (The fact that Toby cared enough to patch out the Hot Chocolate dialogue seems like an indicator that there is actually meant to be a pattern at work, even if it hasn't been executed perfectly.) I believe that we'll get a clearer perspective on this divide as the game progresses and the meta narrative becomes more and more explicit.
When there are only five or six examples total, a "couple holes" is way too many holes for the pattern to be anything but wishful thinking, especially when there are plenty of cases where you would expect that pattern to be continued, but it isn't. You brought up Spamton's fight yourself. The only thing that sets the hot chocolate example apart is that it's light world narration, but other than that I'm as baffled as you are. If Toby was deliberately patching it out to solidify an intentional pattern, I don't see how Kris using a revive mint is more 'meta' than Kris receiving a hot chocolate. Toby is either reinforcing a different pattern that we can't possibly comprehend, or just happened to notice that one particular example was inconsistent and decided to patch it (ie. they're all just mistakes waiting to be corrected).
@@andrew_cunningham I think this “pattern” is just a result of toby subconsciously distinguishing kris and [[YOU]] during these meta scenes, not anything intentional
Really well put together video. Despite the unsurprising conclusions that in reality we should all know is true, you didn't cut any corners collecting, analyzing, and explaining the evidence and theories.
The reason I believe NarraChara works so well in Undertale is two main reasons. One, like you said, it's handed to us on a silver platter that Chara already replaces the narrator at certain points in Geno. But two, Undertale is inherently a non-meta game that plays with meta. What I mean by this, is that is already had a reputation for explaining pretty much any meta commentary in-game. We see an introduction showing us Chara's fall into the Underground? You're just seeing their or Asriel's memories. Mettaton refers to a game that features him partway through? That's just the game that the almighty Annoying Dog has been working with bark-to-speech that just happens to be the same as Undertale. Flowey literally refers to the world as a game and speaks to the player? He's just calling it that because he can treat it as and only sees it as such due to his inability to feel and his determination powers, and when speaking to the player he actually reveals in a True Pacifist ending reset that he believes he is (and may actually be) speaking to Chara. This theme is kept to an almost detrimental amount, as you only have one save in Undertale not only because of all the reset changes Toby implements, but because the controller of the resets only has a save file per equivalent power of a human soul (Photoshop Flowey makes use of 6 save files in his fight).
This extends to nearly all of the UI too. As in, the UI (especially the battle UI) might actually be physical in Undertale. The enemies can literally get rid of their spare colors and replace the yellow names with pink if you talk to a Froggit in the ruins, saying they threw them out. Toriel's fighting tu-toriel is very natural and speaks about the options like they're part of the world. Napstablook lowers their HP to be "polite" if you fight them. Asgore breaks the MERCY button and Frisk fixes it. Sans sends bones into the menu and you literally push the battle box out of the way at the end of the fight, with Sans even directly mentioning how it's his "turn" in a casual manner. Mettaton's words even fall out of his textbox and explode during his news show minigame, and Photoshop Flowey breaks through the save file textbox before his fight. The metaphoric meanings for these events still remain, but they largely are the characters doing these actions literally as well.
So if all of these normally exclusively meta features are treated as in-game elements in Undertale, why can't the narrator be one too? Top that with the story having a literal ghost being connected to and possibly even possessing Frisk, one which it confirms can at least replace the narration at points, you have a solid and thematically fitting narrator.
But Deltarune just... doesn't have that.
Don't get me wrong, Deltarune still has its fair share of meta jokes and commentary... but that's the problem. It's a lot more video-gamey than Undertale ever was. Ralsei refers to specific buttons and actions in the tutorial like a normal tutorial should. The menu is never directly mentioned, and anything in your inventory (like your phone or Lancer) is referred to as Kris's pocket. When equipping items, the party members react as if Kris was just giving the equipment to them or taking it away, and healing everyone is just giving them the food to eat. The meta is much more disconnected from the story and canon world. Hell, the big plot twist in Chapter 1 is that that PLAYER is possessing Kris. The player yourself is a direct part of this world that you've connected to. It doesn't get more meta than that.
So it wouldn't fit thematically, at least with what we know from the first two chapters, for the narrator to be anything but a narrator. Sure, this game features at least two, maybe three outside entities connecting to Kris, but the player definitely isn't narrating, and we've already seen that Gaster speaks in a VERY. VERY. INTERESTING WAY. There's also that person that discards the vessel at the end of the goner character creator intro but, frankly we don't know enough about them to draw conclusions. The closest we have to an in-world idea that would make sense is if that character or someone working with/against Gaster, was the narrator, but at that point they have the same meta level as Gaster, and essentially the same exact powers as any normal narrator would have. They'd already be at a heightened level of existence of the video game and it's just as likely the narration is part of the connection Gaster has created to Deltarune, and that it's just Toby's writing in the end.
In conclusion, Undertale set up its entire game to fit with the idea of the narrator being an in-universe character. Deltarune simply does not.
Some details to mention: Undertale checks are possibly given by the monsters themselves. Not only with the fake stats that Genocide bosses have (Mettaton NEO supposedly has 99 defense????), but even regular enemies, as seen with Glyde and Temmie. Temmie you can argue is Temmie and therefore exempt but Glyde explicitly says it won't tell you its stats.
Edit: the check dialogue actually says NEO has 7 defense. But internally he has -40000, so my point still stands.
Actually Mettaton NEO has 99 attack and only 7 defense, which would make sense
@@thesuppleone4944 internally he has negative 40000. But yeah that's a good point, thanks for elaborating.
Maybe Chara just doesn't know glide and hence cannot tell his stats? That's my only guess. As for for Mettaton, why would he ever say he has low defense such as 7 and not just say 99 to intimidate you. And for the data stats, they're not technically cannon in the lore or the story of the game, they're data stats after all.
Superb editing as always; this one had me laughing out loud plenty of times!
This video kind of highlights a fun thing about narration and third-person writing in general; It's really fun!
I hadn't thought about it much, but after mentioning Itoi and Earthbound, video game narration really is a chance for the writer to make "themselves" present in their own work when normally they wouldn't be able to without pulling Andrew Hussie-levels of self-insertion. The Earthbound Narrator is omniscient, but it warps and changes depending on the mood. It can be playful, serious, 4th-wall breaking...it's whatever the writer thinks the player needs in order to enjoy themselves and move the story forward.
In that way, I think Toby Fox is an especially fun case because his writing becomes a character in of itself. The narrator doesn't have to be diagetic, but they certainly *are* a character; one that is meant to act as a guide in the story. It's kind of like playing with someone who already knows the game inside out, and they're giving you slight hints without trying to give enough away to spoil anything; they want you to have the best possible experience with the game, and they're using their knowledge (and as the writer, you have ALL knowledge) to point you where you need to go to have the most engaging experience.
In that way, narrators are almost...infantilizing? Like _oooh,_ you don't know this enemy! But revealing immediately after that they _do_ is the kind of fun use of omniscience; it helps put you in the shoes of the characters while still allowing for the benefits of multiple character perspectives, like Spamton's wacky intervention in the battle dialog.
Overall, good vid! I'm an RPG Developer myself, and videos like these help me engage with certain already-codified elements of the genre like narration in a way that's more purposeful and thought-through. Good stuff! :>
I’m the 69th upvote lesgo
This idea has come up a few times in the Discord, thought I'd take a shot at boiling it down:
What if all the instances of the narrator switching perspectives and that one time it literally becomes Spamton imply the existence of a kind of "narrator booth"? It is usually occupied by an omnipotent non-diegetic Toby Fox, but when it suits his purpose, it CAN be occupied by a diegetic character. For example, perhaps some of the narration in Kris's home, particularly the stuff about washing your hands, comes directly from Kris.
If you don't buy Maximum NarraChara, this is exactly what was happening in Undertale. It also makes sense if you're Toby and you want a character to do some narration, but don't want to restrict yourself to thinking from a particular character's perspective for every single line of narration you write for the entire game.
Is that overcomplicating it? This is probably basically the same as what you were thinking but stated in different terms and with more mental gymnastics.
Like the narration terminal in Homestuck act 6?
22:05 it was at this moment, I knew I had to like the video
This was my first intro to the channel, that’s why it took me so long
22:07 the zoom out to the annoying dog, I have not laughed this hard at a CZcams video in years, omgggg
Ah-ha! Clearly You're overlooking that since Spamton proves that the role of narrator can be passed around to different entities, there is a very real, very cursed possibility that the so called "Narrator" is actually just Kris, Chara and the Gast-man in a trenchcoat, each taking the wheel on the NarraCar(a) at different times for their own reasons, which clearly explains the seeming discrepancies in the Narrator's knowledge and is not at all a convoluted way to make the narration diegetic.
You want some evidence for this wild interpretation? Well, have I got some irrefutable proof to offer! Just feast Your eyes on this:
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With all that said, I believe there's no room for doubt that the NarraCharister theory is the superior hypothesis and it's only a matter of time before Tobias Fawkes descends from his canine realm to confirm it personally.
Consider my case rested.
Well, I'm convinced
I’m loosing my shit over fucking Tobias Fawkes
In all seriousness I do think the narrator shiftinng styles and perspectives could be a non-diagetic way of showing the shifting influence of various entities over Kris.
*NarraKhraraster
About the TV being plugged in overnight, I feel like it makes the most sense for Kris to have done it, but people seem to overlook the fact that Toriel easily could have. Maybe she did it preparing for Asriel coming over? I don't have a solid explanation right now, but we have to acknowledge Toriel was up way before Kris in chapter 2 and is a valid candidate.
What's also strange is why Kris would bother turning on the TV in the first place. If it's been disused for so long, clearly Kris must not have cared enough about it for a really long time, so why plug it in in a fit of madness overnight if it isn't going to be used most likely? Why specifically at the one moment when he overpowers the soul?
Kris clearly really wanted to watch late night Disney Channel shows let them be and stop shaming them.
@@guywhoateallthepizza1031 nah kris was boutta watch that nick @ nite past their bedtime
for anyone trying to read the original narachara analysis post and not being able to (due to the user deleting their blog and then someone else claiming the old username), the tumblr user redeterminators has remade the whole post with all of the images and text from the original for archival purposes! so i recommend checking that blog out instead! unlike the backups on the wayback machine, it loads much faster and actually has all of the images in the post
This may be the most objective critique/analization of Toby's writing I've found, like, ever. Increadible.
This video is great, and actually reopens Undertale and Deltarune to a lot of potential storytelling depth and subversion, as, following this logic, the narrator doesn’t _have_ to be one definitive character.
Rather, the narrator is just almost always The Dog himself, (a Dog that appears in the text canonically mind, 3 times in Undertale and once in Deltarune). But that doesn’t mean the narrator can’t also be hijaked sometimes by characters like Chara or Spamton.
Like, as Chara becomes stronger the more you kill, they start to appear in the story through things like the check function. As if you were awaking them, rather than they being the narrator the whole time.
One thing you haven’t mentioned here tho, that I definitely think is interesting, is how Noelle reacts to you “reading their thoughts.” Which very much emphasises the omnipresent power we possess. Very creepy.
Also, I truly believe Ralsei is up to something. And if anyone is “whispering” into Kris’ ear, it’s him.
And just: what happened to Kris in that bunker system?
Okay, off topic, but one thing that somehow jumped to my mind while watching this, was the fact that Kris is almost definitely adopted, but we don’t know anything about how long they’ve been here and what scars they may have left over from whatever led the Dreemurrs to adopting them. I think we’ve all become so used to seeing Kris/Chara/Frisk with the family that we forgot to question it. Because though definitely a broken family, the Dreemurrs, especially Toriel, seem like they’d be a good caring family whom Kris loves, but then Kris also still seems to have deep trauma in their past. How much of this is related to the bunker or their time before adoption is hard to say. Also, Kris’ side of the room being barren is odd too, as I’d expect more from Toriel at least.
On the topic of Kris’ relation to Frisk and Chara. . . I think it’s odd that Kris’ colours are Chara’s on the surface, though it definitely sticks: they are the troubled, adopted child of the Dreemurr’s, have an odd but _definite_ personality and love chocolate. Meanwhile, in the dark world they are in Frisk’s colours: and are essential a blank puppet for us to control. Not to mention Kris’ name containing almost all of Frisk’s letters (F in the chat for Kris), but start with the same “ch” sound as Chara (which? Oh man! Kris is a name usually spelt like Chris! I’ve connected them! I connected the dots!!).
. . . This went on for too long with too many theories, I apologise. This video just got the wheels turning.
Do you think there’s enough counter evidence to rule out (to a degree of certainty) the three diegetic characters based on only the first two chapters? Obviously the pattern is unlikely to change, but can we be sure there won’t be another “Where are the knives” situation.
I’ll be damned if I know. Perhaps it could be the same case as pre-CHARActer analysis undertale thinking, aka characters overruling the non-diegetic narration on occasion.
It could also just be Gaster.
Because no Gaster theory is provably false
*gaster gifs over the corpses of the evidence-backed theories*
Seriously though this stuff is amazing. Quite possibly the most creatively edited video essays on the site. Looking forward to the next one!
Call it a “ Gaster of the gaps”
This video isn't attempting to say anything about the upcoming chapters- all the evidence if from ch. 1 and 2, and so the conclusion only applies to ch. 1 and 2. What it does mean for the rest of the story is that if future chapters suddenly start pushing for a diegetic narrator, they'll have to overcome the awkward, inconsistent counterweight that is the first two.
the thing about this video that makes me really sad now is that the determinators chara post has been lost to time now along with the rest of the blog, it was really such a good post and made chara my favorite undertale character unironically
and it unfortunately seems that the post was never archived through the Wayback Machine, so it's truly gone unless the original Tumblr user decides to put it back up on the internet in some way. I completely respect determinators decision to deactivate, whatever the reason may be is none of my business, but it still sucks to have lost their contributions to internet history possibly forever. At least I've reread that Narrator Chara theory post enough times before to still have most of it stored in my memory, but I would have preferred to have been able to actually read the post itself every now and then
July 7th 2023 edit: turns out I was wrong, thank goodness. I decided on a whim just now to check the wayback machine again and I found that the post has been archived after all, it has not been lost to time. I guess I did something wrong the last time I tried searching for it that caused me to receive a null result in return. In this case, I'm glad to have been wrong about something.
this is insane and i"m in love
E
17:39 jerma spotted
I like how the fake "Kris is a darkner with Papyrus's soul" thumbnail includes Prunsel. Nice touch.
Even if the narrator isn’t a diegetic character, that doesn’t make your analysis of them any less interesting to think about. Certain narrative theorists would say a narrator is a character of their own, existing somewhere between the fictional story and real world, and through that lens Deltarune has a fairly standard omniscient narrator - being able to dip into character’s minds, telling us more than the perspective character would know, withholding information the perspective character has access to, being aware of the audience, etc. But the choices the narrator makes and who they seem to side with in any given moment is still fascinating to wonder about, especially some moments you pointed out like the narrator avoiding giving detail about the man behind the tree or preventing us from using the kitchen sink or exclusively giving spamton some sort of free indirect dialogue. We’d probably need more of the game to theorise on that instead of just rotating it in our minds like a rotisserie chicken, but anyway - you make some really interesting points
All of the Deltarune is a let’s play series, narrated by “Game Grumps” stand-ins Gaster and Dess. Dess calls Kris by name and knows some things about them, Gaster “played” Undertale and knows a lot about the universe. They’re also just spamming Spamton’s catchphrases as a meme.
They are obscuring some of the things from the viewers because Annoying Dog made them both sign an NDA
One interesting point is how we can view noelles thoughts during snowgrave after the laser button and after the hospital visit, this suggests a link between whatever force or will behind snowgrave and the narrator.
Obviously, all the points made in the video still stand in light in this however as seen in undertale the narrator can shift point of view from any other in game narrator type to someone like chara.
This makes it more likely that characters like chara and potentially gaster use the narration as a means of communication with the player, rather than having to be the narrator the entire game.
Similar to how saving is a game function used as part of the story, narration could be similar in a way with important characters being able to "hijack" the narration to get their way: gaster using it to somewhat communicate with the player in the tree scenes (although if anything it's more like he is hiding from us)(assuming it's even gaster) and whatever it is from snowgrave to scare gay deer.
Anyway good video thanks👍👍
This was amazing!!! Thanks for devoting so much of your time to this project. I know that in the end, you came to a conclusion most would’ve assumed to be the case anyway, but I still think this was worth while. By going through all that evidence, you had a foundation to prove and disprove beyond those initial assumptions. And more then that, the foundation you provided can be used by others to prove and disprove their own assumptions. Using this evidence, we can now draw evidence based conclusions without relying solely on speculation, and that’s only possible because you decided to walk the long road to gather and present that evidence to us. There are very few people who would take the time to fight that tedious battle, and I want you to know we really appreciate it!
Also, your part 5 section has cleared up many of my own conflicting feelings on a deltarune narrator. Because I believe in Chara narrator, I really wanted the deltarune narrator to be an entity as well. However, like you pointed out, there has yet to be any actual text in game to support Toby wanting to make the narrator a part of the plot, unlike in Undertale. This video has helped me reconcile that fact. I wish you luck for your game, and don’t forget to sleep well!
I'm not sure why "becomes spamton" is on this board at all, but if it is, I *definitely* don't know why it would be evidence "against" Gaster, as all available lore seems to point to Gaster being the force that drove Jevil and Spamton insane.
Same for "uses Kris' POV." If Gaster is the being speaking to us in the opening (Are we connected? Excellent.) then it stands to reason he* can access Kris in some form, be it via the SOUL, bodily possession, or some other shenaniganery.
That depends on why and how Gaster drove Spamton insane.
i'm glad you made it so easy to see what music was playing and when, there were three separate occasions where i was like "hang on is that...?" and in all cases the answer was yes. (the homestuck song, the oneshot song and the outer wilds song) exquisite taste in indie games by the way (especially with how obscure oneshot is, it doesn't get NEARLY the attention it deserves imo)
also, i feel like narrachara doesn't necessarily mean that ALL of the narration is chara, just that it's more than the obvious cases (and most notably stuff like chara"s bed in pacifist/neutral, dropping the joke inventory names when fighting one of the dreemurs or on the no mercy route, and a handful of others)
oneshot isn't obscure lmao
also only undyne and sans have serious mode enabled on the genocide route, regular monsters still get the joke item names
That segment with the Dog pretty much prove the point that ultimately, the narrator is whoever wrote the story to begin with. Sure there are several instance where Chara does narrate the plot, but only in those instances; in actuality, like you said with Spamton, it could be just Toby Larping as the first human child. It means that you were being punished by the Game Master himself.
i feel like just deciding that the narration blatantly from chara doesnt mean anything is kind of stupid because it actually shows more about them as a character and gives people more to work with than "suicidal child who hates humanity and likes monsters" (and also thats not.. the point of the video?? its not that ALL narrators HAVE to just be the author, its that DR's, *unlike* UT's actually is)
@@Im_A_Nerd No, the video is fairly explicit that actually there are a lot of holes in narrachara.
@@lbsc1201 10 isn't a lot when it comes to an entire Undertale's worth of narration. The reason why it's demolished in DR is because no matter which character you pick, DR's narration doesn't comfortably fit any of them for anywhere near most of the time.
Narrachara is ironclad in a few areas, causes some others to make more sense, and isn't explicitly incorrect for the majority of things. A few small cuts in an otherwise solid theory that spans the entirety of a video game's narration points to one thing: Toby probably just made a few mistakes.
Sure, it *could* be wrong. But it's not even in the same ballpark of wrong as any Deltarune narrator theory.
@@lbsc1201 yeah but having holes isnt the same as being wrong!
@@misirtere9836 I think its mostly the case that toby isnt gonna let a meta thing like the sevret narrator character get in the way of, well, actually having game nevessary or funny narration in his game.
My idea about the narrator, is that the narrator changes throughout the story:
-In places like battle checks, the narrator is the game as a type of DM, giving details that you/kris might not know but should be in the game.
-in most of the game, the narrator is the player, controlling Kris (like how people say Kris is acting different, not knowing personal stuff, etc.)
-other times however, Kris forces themself to do things, like not be seen with the garbage ball, using the bathroom sink so they can escape, etc.)
I know that when you said the narrator is Toby, you wrote it off as that meaning nothing important. However, it's actually been my belief for a while now that the annoying dog and Temmie will become more important characters later on. I mean, if Deltarune has elements of the creator side of the story (with the dark fountains), why not have the creators? Temmie also very clearly seems to have something going on with the eggs, and actually can get dead serious when angered (like when refusing to sell an item in the Tem shop that Temmie really wants).
Or maybe I'm just crazy reading into things too much.
21:57 I know this is a year off but I would of put kris's segment of "overrules player" as questionable because the do take over at a few points.
What he lacks in concrete lore he makes up for with his lack of concrete lore is the best way i have ever heard someone describe gaster's goofy ass lore
This might be the single best 1 minute intro to a video I've ever seen
One intersting about the narrator in Undertale is that if you check Glyde he it says "Refuses to give more details about its statistics" which implies that Frist actually asks the monsters and not that chara knows it already
1:44 I’ve watched this video a dozen times already but I still get chills here from the amazing combination of song and editing
13:03 - To me it seems like narrator knows everything but won't give you knowledge if it would venefit you in some way
*Benefit
The best narrator is the narrator from the stanley parable ultra deluxe. No questions asked.
4:54 this made me laugh so hard for some reason, LMAO WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO NOELLE SPECIFICALLY AKFHKSUFOC
Probably a reference to that one meme post of the fake noelle eye height fun value thing 😭
8:27 1. “You” often means Kris 10:04
10:46 2. Narrator knows Kris’ thoughts & feelings 💭
11:00 3. Narrator knows other characters thoughts 💭
11:27 4. Narrator knows what characters do not
12:16 Narrator learns with Kris, or plays dumb
13:23 Narrator vagues info sometimes
15:54 Narrator knows Undertale to provide inside jokes
16:42 Narrator breaks 4th wall
17:22 Spamton,
17:46 Narrator speech Veto
18:16 NAME THE NARRATOR
18:45 Chara Dreemur
18:57 Kris
19:15 W.D. Gaster
19:50 axis diagram test
21:27 counter evidence
22:07 The Creator is The Narrator?
23:44 Evidence can build and destroy thesis
24:47 Inconsistent Narrator
25:55 Chara?
26:59 Undertale had Chara Narrator
Huh, even the chaos of the bracket supports the idea that the narrator is Toby. It would totally be like him to use such a clearly inconsistent element to make it clear that this time, the narrator is not diegetic.
It is also worth mentioning that trying to figure out who the narrator is right know, would be like doing so in Undertale while you are still in snowdin. There is so much about this game and it's universe yet to be revealed, who knows if in the future we discover a completely new candidate
6:11 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I left a comment musing to myself about possible patterns in the narration 24 hours ago but then promptly got sucked down a rabbit hole of ALL your video essays and comment livestreams. Now, seeing what sorts of comments you get and your commitment to reading them, I don't want to burden you with reading me musing to myself lol. I really enjoy and appreciate your essays, and that's all I _really_ have to say! The rest has been mercifully redacted now.
The first time I saw this video, it was around when we were learning about the epic of Gilgamesh in class. I thought I had the wrong video and clicked off. So glad I came back to this, it’s so much better than history class
Watched this video like 10 times since then, because I am mentally okay, and I have a life
This video was once again a treat to watch, I honestly am in another situation where you are so thorough, that I can’t really provide a counter theory. What I will ask however though, is this: when chapters 3-5 come out, Do you intend on making a video that updates all of the previous theories with the new information? Essentially, around two of more or less the same theories, as I am sure there will be an astounding amount of new evidence to possibly nail down a concrete answer, as you have mentioned in pretty much every video, there is not one as of right now for many theories.
What videos I make after new chapters drop will depend entirely on the content of those chapters.
@@andrew_cunningham makes sense, of course there will be a ton of new questions to ask and answer in videos I’m sure. I suppose I just assume that SOME questions asked in these videos will be answered from them
Thank you for quite literally putting into words my exact experience with that damn dialog with flowey, like for me i was over at a friends house and he wanted to see what was so special about undertale, so i booted up the game on my laptop, which i had bought over cus we were playing (i think minecraft on a lan world (neither of us had figured out how to do servers for a survival world)) and suddenly flowey appears gives his monolog and suddenly i start feeling terrible, i didnt want to disappoint my friend by not showing him but i also didnt want to ruin the fictional lives of these fictional characters that id grown so attached to, fortunately for me at that exact moments my mum arrived to pick me up, I shut down the game and have never opened it since
I absolutely adore that you have a methodology/justification etc etc. These are among the highest quality videos on UTDR CZcams
So it is a very similar outcome, but with the focus on tabletop games and their tropes, the narrator is perhaps a Game Master.
Having run a few myself, I can tell you that I will interchangeably refer to a player and their character interchangeably on occasion. I will deliberately be vague about perspective, omit information and yes, even railroad sometimes. A GM is also all of their NPCs really, and can decide which ones are more aware of this.
If we assume the narrator is a pre existing then Toby is probably the best fit (assuming we consider him to be an existing character) but it perhaps shouldn’t be discounted that “The Narrator” is their own distinct entity.
The Annoying Dog pullback was probably the greatest and most creative moment I’ve seen in a video.
Always get so excited to see a new video from you show up in my subscriptions. Can't wait to watch the full thing!
19:51 "GOOD ARTISTS BORROW, GREAT ARTISTS STEAL"
there is a part where Susie talks with the narrator in the chapter 1 castle if you have a fight route an enemy you fought with when you interact,narrator says" -------will never forget what you have done" and susie says "in a good way?" narrator "in a bad way"
This means that perhaps the Narrator is a Traditional narrator, and that other characters can hear it.
This is a good video on the futility of trying to characterize what is, at it's core, a narrative tool to add life to pixelated images.
I mean, I disagree with the notion that the narrator isn't worth analyzing as an element in-universe, and I think concluding the narrator is just Toby's tool to add flavor text to the world is a cop-out, but the point as 'Trying to argue a videogame narration is an in-game character with its own thoughts, goals, and feelings' is extremely hard when said videogame narration just describes its surroundings' is well placed. The video is also fun to watch and well-edited, so good on that too.
But while trying to argue that the narrator is a diegetic character may be futile, the narrator as a diegetic element, a force to which characters hear and react to, is not.
+Most obviously Spamton, whose initial appearance completely brakes the narration into becoming an advertisement for him. Spamton also has a brief thing where he pretends to be the narrator at the start of his Weird Route NEO fight, copying the "(It was as if your very SOUL was glowing...)" - "NOT!!!"
+Characters react to the narration. Most obviously with the "____ joined the party!" gag, which has Susie cringe and interrupt it, but also when you check Jigsaw Joe in the Party Dojo Challenge. It says "Beat him up to earn his life savings!", a weirdly hostile comment towards a guy with a total of $1 in his money hole, in a tutorial for sparing enemies. Jigsaw Joe reacts to this with "Boss! Don't listen to that! That's the wrong ACT!! The wrong ACT!!".
+Characters are aware of the narration format. CH1 Ralsei, after the 3 Hathy fight: "Great job, Kris! We earned 0 EXP and _D$!". CH1 Susie, after her fight with Lancer, when using the Rival ACT on a Bloxer: "The enemies became TIRED...". In CH2, after being captured by Queen, wait long enough before releasing Lancer, and Susie comments: "Isn't it with your KEYs or whatever?", an aid to the player, but also an awareness of what the menu tabs are named.
+There is a voice Noelle hears in the Weird Route, a terrifying voice, which acts independent of Kris, and is at us players' command. A terrifying voice that orders Noelle around is absolutely a diegetic element, as Noelle reacts to it like she heard it. What said voice even IS may be to personal interpretation, but the voice is associated with our options to 'Proceed' or do anything else, and the choices presented in the UI.
This is the current list of in-universe interactions between characters and the narration, with exception given to times the narration blocks a move that would derail the story, like dropping a key item or blocking unnecessary movement. It has a wide variety of moods and tones, from character-specific associations, to humorous jokes, to useful advice, to description, to an added element of horror.
Deltarune, much like its predecessor Undertale, thrives in highlighting game mechanics, and combining said mechanics with the world. Noelle's confusion at being told to ACT right after she joins the party comes to mind. Of course a newbie just entering magic land wouldn't know how to battle system works, it's not exactly intuitive. It's not a law of the land that when you encounter a stranger, you engage in a fight. Likewise, Susie questions the idea of 'letters' as a method to interact with the world, because to interact with the world all she has to do is move around the world with her body.
A point of the story is to question game mechanics that seem natural to us players, especially those that ask us to view the world like a game. These characters, especially the Lightners, don't think of their lives as NPCs. (Okay, maybe Ralsei, but he's of questionable life decisions. He also wants to romance Kris, despite looking like their brother.)
The narrator is an extension of that, by its nature revealing the limits of our game POV. It can add life, presenting itself as: a partner nostalgic for undertale, a stranger to Deltarune's hometown, a real-time movie reel of Kris's escapades, an enabler to the horror of the Weird Route. But every so often it has to go back and help us move around the game, by telling us the stats of enemies in the Check Option, giving us status conditions when an enemy is tired, or by telling us how to move around at the press of a keyboard.
...But sometimes the narration becomes weirdly hostile to basic player actions, like when we try to check the books at the beginning of chapter 2, especially when it was willing to describe them the previous day. Or most distinctly, when we try to wash our hands in any sink other than the bathroom's at the end of CH2.
At these times, the narration has changed to reflect the POV of someone aware of us and hostile to us, who is using the narration to describe an ideal path the player should take. (It could be Kris. They usually rebel against us by just not committing an action, or doing it badly, but Kris can absolutely hijack the narration to redirect us. But by describing a better path instead of just not using the sink means Kris is aware that the narration has some control over us, and reshaping the narration to something convenient.)
At the very least, I believe the narration is a tool accessible and visible to the in-universe characters, if still fundamentally at Toby's command. It would not be that different from how Determination works, a necessity of the 4th wall made accessible to the characters inside.
I don't believe we should dismiss the narration when talking about Deltarune, even if we don't have anything conclusive to it like a name yet.
Agreed, it might be weirdly inconsistent, but it has a big impact in the world of Deltarune.
Whenever the narrator will be revealed to be someone, we don't know -but we can hope...! It's Gaster isn't it...?-
3:31 Aha, Christopher Moon! I'm surprised I haven't seen him in this comment section yet. He's everywhere!
yeah I've just spent 10 minutes browsing through the comments to try to find her but to no avail
@@Timeflow_X "Her"?
@@oktayyildirim2911 it's in her about page
@@Timeflow_X Oh.
I guess Chris is trans.
I feel like the term "The narrator" makes it easy to assume that it should be only one person.
But if you consider the narrator as merely the person who's "saying" the current dialogue. Then it's not excluded that you could have different narrators for different dialogues.
In deltarun, the possibility seems even less crazy because literally there's a distinction between the will of kris(or at the very least their apparent body) and the will of the seen soul within it.
I know this is a year late but I'm pretty sure the bracketed text is just the difference between describing the look of a thing and describing an action or potential action.
“Elaborate rip offs of a Joseph Anderson bit.” I knew I recognized part of your video style!
Though holy shit the level of effort in the video editing alone is wild. Not to mention how solid the actual info, research, and ideas presented are.
00:28 INSCRYPTION MUSIC LETS GOOOOOOO
The final duel...
9:58 the game uses "Kris" in battles, probably because its program in such a way to use it.
So the text box code should be something like this:
*Character. name + "used the" + Item. name*
Though, dunno about the other cases, if they even exist.
It's totally possible that the narrator is someone that we haven't met yet too - like we couldn't have known that Undertale's narrator was Chara before we'd finished the game cuz we'd only seen them briefly at the start, not even knowing it was them. Deltarune only has 2 chapters out yet so for all we know the narrator could be revealed to use within the next 5 chapters.
Well lets hope that we don't have to fall back onto the Japanese translation of Deltarune to gather clues on how the narrator (or maybe narrators?) speaks in the Japanese language.
I don't speak the language or understand it at all but the complicated nature of translating it into the English language has helped in the past with giving theorist more information to digest with...
But honestly the time and effort required to get a translator to examine and point out which type of Japanese writing is being used by the narrator will probably not be worth it.
Also isn't there over 1000 lines of dialogue from the narrator already? If you had already gone through that suffering with the English, now going through that again with the Japanese translation will require more suffering and pain, only this time with help of a translator.
So yeah maybe its best to be done and finished with the Narrator theory until Chapters 3-4 and 5 is released at some point in 2023 and not invest more hours into presumably the same conclusion that Toby Fox is the true narrator of the story.
@@johnmurphy5689 this goes for most deltarune theories. while it’s fun to speculate, our dreams could easily be crushed once 3, 4 and 5 drop. (looking at you, “kris is the knight” theorists. i’m so certain it’s incorrect that i bet my internet access on it.)
I want to point out that in Undertale, every single one of the few "mind reading" segments there are can be explained one way or another within the context of narrachara. They might look like arguments against it at first glance but the theory still definitly holds up. I had already made some research about this exact subject a few months ago.
Great video though !
Can you explain why they can still be explained by narrachara?
@@dattos140 well, time to throw some bandages.
Narrachara can't be broken, it's just a question of *how much* narration, right?
So, if the pretext protect it, them the subtext which is, well, subjective, can be bend to your liking.
Examples: mind reading? Well, it's just Chara opinions on the person current actions, then trying to decide what they are thinking(this can be backed up by the genocide ending where Chara says "perverse sentimentality" whitout anyway of knowing ifs true, and, most importantly, the narrator does that whit frisk during the true lab).
System info? Well, Chara is just a *commentator* other info come from the system, since it's known that the the system indeed is canon thanks to mad dummy(but again, how much?)
CONCLUSION: the moment you start going into *subjective* subtext, and even worse, looking into specific text, anything is possible.
My opinion: looking into how the narration changes over time
www.reddit.com/r/Charadefensesquad/comments/srlufe/an_analysis_of_the_way_chara_perceives_frisk_in/?
And the fact that frisk KNOWS things about Chara that even the player does not, is that there is some form of info passing, be it communication or being able to see each other thoughts, as such, I do not put my hand on the fire to say that Chara is the narrator all the time, but well, in my subjective interpretation, having little soulless knife-holding dead kid following you giving ocasional commentary is just to cool to not be true.
@@firstbits650 incredibly enough, that reddit post you just linked was made by non other than myself, this is my reddit account. Small world isn't it ?
@UCoSaFmREBJTDceNMLY0Kq0w As for the narrachara thing itself , it varies for each of them but each one of the 'counterexamples' given by the seemingly mind reading narration can actually be explained otherwise. For a few examples :
The narrator knowing that stuff feels "so familiar" to the lost souls in pacifist ending seems like it shouldn't be normal, until you consider that "You feel your friends' souls resonating within Asriel." If our perfectly non mind reader human Frisk can feel it in this particular situation via some type of connection with the souls, then so can our narrator, who is canonically able to feel what Frisk feels. There is no contradiction here.
For the Papyrus clothing one, considering that he is notoriously very expressive throughout the game (its easy to know what he thinks just by looking at him in general) which we get a direct demonstration of as he also says : "HMM.. I WONDER WHAT I SHOULD WEAR." as well as "WHAT ? IM NOT THINKING ABOUT THAT DATE THING !" (which btw also implies that his behavior made it so obvious he was thinking about that even Frisk could tell, which papyrus then reacts to) It really doesn't take a mind reader for the narrator to say "Papyrus is thinking about what to wear for his date."
Ice cap literally only talks about its hat non stop, the narrator just makes comments and jokes based on that fact. They already know a large amount of the monsters including them.
As for Shyren or for Whimsalot, that 'mind reading' is no more than just observation and listening to the monsters + already knowing things about them, which the narrator does. Those things alone suffice to know what the narrator knows. There is no mind reading here either.
There are more cases of apparent mind reading than just this ofc throughout the game, about a dozen in total, im not gonna talk about them all in detail but i think you see my point. Every single instance of what seems like "mind reading" in UT can be explained diagetically without contradicting narrachara in any way. Unlike with Deltarune.
Not to mention that when it comes to what Chara can feel on their own or not, it must not be forgotten that this line from Chara exists anyways :
*Strongly felt X left, shouldn't proceed yet.
@@dattos140 It seems the ping did not work so im posting this comment to suggest you to look at my response to @FirstBits for more detail on the matter.
@@user-no8xj1hu8f Ah, i saw it, great stuff really, i just like undertale/deltarune lore, yeah i agree its all explainable.
oh man, your humour lands perfectly for me. love your down-to-earth approach to deltarune! while wacky theories are fun, coming to a simple conclusion can be just as fun if you do it right (which i think you did)
Your videos are so refreshingly high quality, I really hope you keep going, I can definitely see you blowing up even further once the next 3 chapters come out.
I'd like to think Toby is the one as it could lead to an interesting fourth wall break in a later chapter. (Maybe even with The Vessel coming back to give Toby a less silly form??) Hammering back the "your choices don't matter" It's TOBY's story not the player and using The Vessel to show how Toby can actively take away any real choice the player wants to make. Total shot in the dark and really doubt it but would be sorta cool
love how the trailer cuts off just in time
I’ve got to tell you - I spend way too much of my time watching Undertale and Deltrarune analysis and theory videos, but by far yours is the most entertaining one I’ve seen in a while! I laughed so much because your narration (aha) and editing were spot on. You’ve earned a new subscriber, my good friend!
your essays are some of my favorite on youtube, i'm really glad i checked them out!